Copper Recovery

[Anonymous]

Art, SMB is what most guys use to drop the gold. You have to get rid of the nitric first. If you have to do it ruff and tumble just keep adding copper and eventually it will displace your gold and leave most other metals other than silver in solution.

If you must use nitric use nitric alone that will dissolve the base metals and leave your gold, then you filter and wash the gold before using AR.

I am sure that others that have way more experience with help guide you soon, I would however read, read, read it is all here just waiting to be found.

 

[Art Corbit]

Hi James,

I'm not having a problem with the computer gold it's some ore I ran onto. It has some copper, iron, silver and God only knows what else. I tried the nitric on it but it would take too much of it. The metals in the ore eats the Nitric up real quick. I was going to do it like I do the computer gold and then use the SSN on it but that didn't work.

Art

 

[SilverNitrate]

What happens if you are doing computer scrap with AR and you already have a bunch of copper dissolved in with the gold? I have never been able to drop my gold without dropping all the other junk with it. Is there a way to drop the copper first without dropping the gold and then drop the gold later? Or drop the gold without dropping the copper?

Art

This the same as refining karat jewelry. simply throw in some nitrite and your gold will fall out instantly! or boil with ketone and it'll do the same. However dangerous fumes are evolved when doing this and you should verse yourself on the cautions of NO2 and acyl chlorides.

 

[Swamp Fox]

The only true value Gold or anything else has is determined by how well it will serve mankind. If you have a steel plow you can use it for years to plow the ground. If that same plow was made out of pure Gold it wouldn't last a week. In this situation the steel is worth a lot more to man than the gold. Steel will simply serve man a lot better to do the job he wishes to use it for. The beauty of Gold has nothing to do with it's true value to man.

Art

I would disagree. The value of gold is based on its scarcity and (historically anyway) it's chemical properties that made it relatively un-reactive and hence a viable option for a monetary base. The value of gold in this manner has held it's value and is why gold is considered a good investment since paper currencies fluctuate in their value.

I do agree that a gold plow would be essentially useless for plowing, but I'd take a gold plow over a steel one any day and just use the gold in the plow to buy a steel one. It is not that steel serves man any better than gold, it is more a matter of how the different metals serve mankind that you were looking at here.

And about the ore thing, from what I've gathered the forum here doesn't have many people (at least who are active in the forum) that are refining ores. Mainly this site is recovery based, so computers and jewelry, not ores and mining wastes.

Good luck finding what you need to refine your ores though! And I hope I helped with the value thing. If you want to talk more on it maybe start a thread in the general chat section and include a link in a post here.
:wink:

Chris

 

[Shecker]

Personally I keep the copper that I recover as a secondary product. When smelting pgms to Dore I use it as as collector to reduce the melting point of high temperature metals. Works for me and leasves no copper laying around or being discharged to the environment.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Swamp Fox]

And about ores, while I don't suggest it because it is so dangerous, cyanide has been used for refining ores for decades, but again, I don't recommend it because of it's hazards for your health and the environment.

Again, good luck