Copper ions presend in Poor Man's AR soultion

shop deals on amazon
xelexo
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
S

samuldacamul

Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2010
Messages
22
I have another question for the forum, and I haven't found any answers yet.

I just made a boiling solution of HCl and the NaN03. I proceeded to process a pound of gold fingers through this solution. When I was finished, the solution faded from yellow to blue. This most likely occurred because of the copper traced underneath the gold in the fingers. Well, I don't know if this is a problem of not. All of the gold is dissolved into the solution, but so is the copper. From what I know, Copper Chloride isn't soluble, so it shouldn't be staying in solution. I also can't get the gold to drop when using the SMB. Was there some sort of complex ion formed? Is there a way to drop the gold?

Also, there is a strong scent of chlorine present.
 
How much of each chemical did you use and how many grams of fingers did you process?

Steve
 
It was about 450 grams of fingers, about a pound. I used a small pyrex pan and a skillet to heat the solution. I put all the fingers in the pan and used just enough acid to cover them. I added about a table spoon of the sodium nitrate and waited until the reaction stopped. I added more nitrates and a little more acid and the reaction progressed a bit more. Through the course of the reaction, the solution faded from yellow to a very dark color. I put the fingers and the solution through a strainer and caught it in a bucket. 100% of the gold had been dissolved from the fingers, but the solution appeared a very dark green. I diluted it to see if it would return to yellow, but it got a very pure blue and it smelled like chlorine. There is no doubt that the gold is in the solution, but from what I know about copper ion solutions, this looked very similar to those. I took a small sample of the solution and added a saturated solution of SMB just to see if anything would happened and nothing did. I heated another sample of the solution and it faded to green. I added the SMB and it fizzed but still no precipitation.
 
samuldacamul said:
There is no doubt that the gold is in the solution, but from what I know about copper ion solutions, this looked very similar to those.
Click to expand...
How are you sure of this? You can't just go by color and appearance. Please read my signature. Also, did the pan and or skillet you used have a cover? The fizzing sounds like the gold may have precipitated and dissolved right away. Sounds like you have to denox or add urea.
 
I didn't even think of that!!!! Thank you. Also, according to the poor man's ar steps that I was following, it says that adding hcl will expel the nitric?
 
samuldacamul said:
I didn't even think of that!!!! Thank you. Also, according to the poor man's ar steps that I was following, it says that adding hcl will expel the nitric?
Click to expand...
Read his signature again. Surely you've tested your solution to ascertain that there is, indeed, gold present?

My thoughts are you're wrong, and there isn't gold in solution (I may be wrong). If there is, there's no guarantee that all of it is. Wise people don't process without removing base metals, which you clearly have not done. Now you understand why.

Yes---adding HCl will expel nitric----assuming you have evaporated to a thick syrup. I see no mention of any evaporation.

There are no shortcuts. Read Hoke and pay attention to all the details.

Harold
 
If all your processing is clean cut fingers then the easiest process for you would probaly be using ap followed by acid clorox for the foils. Have you seen the ap/foils video Steve has posted on his site?
 
Yes, I just have seen the video. So let me get this straight. He first puts the fingers in a solution of Hydrogen peroxide and HCl to dissolved the base metals, and the foils float free. Then he filters the solution to capture the foils, and then he dissolves the foils in clorox and HCl, then drops. correct?

My problem is I didn't dissolve te base metals. But I can do this with the acid peroxide right?
 
Yes you can dissolve your base metals if you use HCL/peroxide. If you add too much peroxide at one time you can dissolve your foild also or if you add heat you can also dissolve your foils so be careful.
 
samuldacamul said:
Yes, I just have seen the video. So let me get this straight. He first puts the fingers in a solution of Hydrogen peroxide and HCl to dissolved the base metals, and the foils float free. Then he filters the solution to capture the foils, and then he dissolves the foils in clorox and HCl, then drops. correct?

My problem is I didn't dissolve te base metals. But I can do this with the acid peroxide right?
Click to expand...

Talking strictly about fingers here. Yes you have it right. Clean fingers like you have is one of the simplest forms of refining you can start out with to learn gold refining. It's all about keeping things clean. In each process of refining we are trying to remove unwanted metals from the equation until we reach our end result, pure and clean material. So the less we start with the less we have to remove in the equation. Fingers are gold plating over copper usually with coat in between of something like a thin layer of nickel. You use ap to dissolve the layer of copper underneath the foils so they are released from the fingers. At that point you have 100% gold foils with some contaminated copper still clinging to the backside of the foils, but less than we started with. You do your acid washes to help remove these contaminates as much as possible then dissolve the foils in acid Clorox and drop. Then wash that gold powder and at this point you should have a good quality gold. To really get there you can do a second refining. One note though: Put an air bubblier in your ap solution for maximum effect.
 
ok. I am having another problem though

I am following the poor man's method again.
When I add the HCl to the evaporated solution, I don't notice any fumes. I added a generous amount.
After this I add the SMB to precipitate, and the solution turns red, but no precipitation. There aren't any suspended particles. I left the solution a good amount of time, and it is just a clear red color. Has anyone experienced in this method had this problem? I am following the steps exactly.
 
Are you still talking about the same solution here or a new one? Is it fingers also? To recover you values at this point and to start over would be your best bet. If you put in a piece of copper bar at this point it will help eat up the nitric and all of your values will drop out of solution onto the copper bar. You can then filter the solution to removed any solids and test the solution with stannous chloride to make sure you have no values left. Then process the solids which is where your values will be at. The values will also be attached to the copper bar which will probably look like some black residue attached to the copper bar. This is your gold, palladium, or platinum as copper will drop all metals listed above it in the E.M. series. Then start over with acid clorox to digest the solids.
 
ok i will try that. I do have some copper too.

but as for the other questions, yes i did start over on some cpu's. does anyone know what could be going on with the red solution?
 
I do not have time to order any, and I have been busily looking for tin something in the store so I can. On monday I will probably ask my chemistry teacher for tin shavings so I can make my own finally. I was just wondering if what I am experiencing is normal.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top