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dmgoddard83

New member
Joined
Aug 20, 2014
Messages
2
I've done my best with following hokes book to recover the gold out of old computers and cell phones and used poor mans AR and sodium metabisulfite as my precipitant. I have dried out the mud, and have 44 grams of it. I am pretty sure that what I have is gold, but I was hoping somebody could tell me if it looks right or not.
 

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if it looks right or not.
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Not.

With no mention of acid/peroxide to remove base metals first, my guess from the colour and lumpiness is that you probably dissolved everything in Poor Man's AR then dropped it all out with SMB. That will leave you with a little precious in a whole lot of unwanted. What colour was your solution, emerald green?

To recover from here, I'd crush the lumps until it's fine powder.
Then Incinerate the lot until it's glowing a dull red. This is to remove all traces of nitrates which will dissolve your gold in the next step.
Once it's cooled, wash the powder in near-boiling HCl. Decant and then wash again in boiling water. Repeat HCl / water rinses until the wash comes off clean.
Then dissolve and drop again. Go easy on the nitrate and also on SMB. You can add more but you can't add less.
 
What exactly was your starting material? That may contain some Gold, but if you did what I think you did, it probably contains very little. :|
Be more specific about what your material was and how you separated the metals.
 
To be very discriptive..
Most of the gold was off the keypads of old cell phones, but I also included most of the boards off the phones, broke the fingers off ram sticks, some old cpu processors, and the gold from ink cartridges. For the poor mans AR i used hydrochloric acid and mixed in ammonium nitrates out of the instant cold ice packs.

This was my process....

step 1: did my best to remove as much of the base metals off of everything that I could by hand before applying to acids. Step 2: soaked the boards in hydrochloric and sulfuric acids for a day or 2, and then drained off that acid. Step 3: applied the poor mans aqua regia. step 4: filtered off the acid. step 5: evaporated off most of the acid in a crock pot outside in the sunlight (i read the sunlight kills off the nitrates). step 6: added hydrochloric acid and some tap water to the acid in the crock pot. step 7: filtered off the acid. step 8: stirred in the smb into a pitcher of hot water until it was dissolved and added it into the acid. step 9: after letting the sediment settle I poured off and siphoned off as much of the liquid as possible. after the first time of this I added water to the sediment and then poured it off again. I repeated this 3-4 times. step 10: let it dry

My first attempt at dissolving the gold with the AR left a good amount of mud in the acid which threw me for a loop. So I separated the mud from acid and set the mud aside so i could see if I could get anything to drop from the acid which wasn't happening. What I think may have happened was that I didn't add enough ammonium nitrate to the acid for the gold to fully disolve. So I then did the process (stated above) to the sediment that was left from the first AR application. Before adding the SMB the acid solution was a merky green, and when I added the SMB I could see a glittery sediment seperate and settle that was the color of a gold crayon (not yellow gold jewelry) which left the solution a clear diluted green color. The sediment went from being the color of a gold crayon to the grayish color that you see in the picture once it was dry. And what you see in the picture is only a small sample of the 44 grams

Thanks for your help and time guys and gals!!!
 
I'm recently new here too, and this is my first time saying this, but you need to study more.

Step 2: With no oxidiser, I believe your HCl acid will not start eating much base metal in a day or two. Read up on the Acid Peroxide (AP) method. I'm not even sure whether sulphuric will do much good, but you usually don't need it.
Step 5: Sunlight, heat and time will evaporate off chlorine. But not nitrate. Hoke discusses excess nitrate evaporation in detail. (Page ~45 I think, from memory)
Step 8: Remember this chant: "Do as you oughta and add acid to water." and its reverse (which I just made up): "I'm gonna be a hazard, adding water to acid."

The green in your solution was largely copper as you've pretty much dissolved everything in your Poor Man's Aqua Regia.
The mud left behind while dissolving in PMAR probably contains gold cemented out by more reactive base metals. I would gather up all your solids and your liquids, not throw anything away, do a fair bit more studying and process them again when you're ready.

Also, be sure to check into responsible waste treatment and disposal.
 
You need to separate the different kinds of scrap, you can't just throw it all together and expect to get good results. Different types of scrap contain different base metals and each metal needs to be dealt with in it's own way.

Mixing Hydrochloric acid & Sulfuric acid would probably result in the Sulfuric acid dehydrating the Hydrochloric acid releasing Hydrogen Chloride, I'm not sure what that would do to the material.

We usually don't use tap water for processes because it is contaminated with Chlorine and other chemicals.

For now, maybe you should put everything away, including the solutions you siphoned off if you still have them, as they may still contain some Gold. Do some reading on the forum, learn to use the search function for the different types of scrap you have and study, understand how everything works before you attempt anything else. I hope you are working with a fume hood or at least outside in the open air with this stuff, some of the fumes can be deadly.

Use this link to help you get started: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=6873#6873
 
dmgoddard83 said:
To be very discriptive..
Most of the gold was off the keypads of old cell phones, but I also included most of the boards off the phones, broke the fingers off ram sticks, some old cpu processors, and the gold from ink cartridges. For the poor mans AR i used hydrochloric acid and mixed in ammonium nitrates out of the instant cold ice packs.
Click to expand...
And how much of it?

44 grams is a lot and I would expect to need 100-200 kg of high yield scrap at least for that amount.

That's not gold in your hand, if it was the amount in your hand would be all your gold. Gold is heavy, gold powder is also heavy.

Göran
 
dmgoddard83 said:
To be very discriptive..
Most of the gold was off the keypads of old cell phones, but I also included most of the boards off the phones, broke the fingers off ram sticks, some old cpu processors, and the gold from ink cartridges. For the poor mans AR i used hydrochloric acid and mixed in ammonium nitrates out of the instant cold ice packs.

This was my process....

step 1: did my best to remove as much of the base metals off of everything that I could by hand before applying to acids. Step 2: soaked the boards in hydrochloric and sulfuric acids for a day or 2, and then drained off that acid. Step 3: applied the poor mans aqua regia. step 4: filtered off the acid. step 5: evaporated off most of the acid in a crock pot outside in the sunlight (i read the sunlight kills off the nitrates). step 6: added hydrochloric acid and some tap water to the acid in the crock pot. step 7: filtered off the acid. step 8: stirred in the smb into a pitcher of hot water until it was dissolved and added it into the acid. step 9: after letting the sediment settle I poured off and siphoned off as much of the liquid as possible. after the first time of this I added water to the sediment and then poured it off again. I repeated this 3-4 times. step 10: let it dry

My first attempt at dissolving the gold with the AR left a good amount of mud in the acid which threw me for a loop. So I separated the mud from acid and set the mud aside so i could see if I could get anything to drop from the acid which wasn't happening. What I think may have happened was that I didn't add enough ammonium nitrate to the acid for the gold to fully disolve. So I then did the process (stated above) to the sediment that was left from the first AR application. Before adding the SMB the acid solution was a merky green, and when I added the SMB I could see a glittery sediment seperate and settle that was the color of a gold crayon (not yellow gold jewelry) which left the solution a clear diluted green color. The sediment went from being the color of a gold crayon to the grayish color that you see in the picture once it was dry. And what you see in the picture is only a small sample of the 44 grams

Thanks for your help and time guys and gals!!!
Click to expand...




Jason is spot on, listen to his advice as well as all the others.
Where you screwed up is in step 2 IE: you should have soaked everything that you had prepped in HCL/Peroxide to strip all Gold plating from the components THEN, decant & remove the garbage left behind such as fiberglass & plastic. Then next boil the Gold you had left in HCL & distilled water only a few times. Then, and only then do you add your AR which will contain more distilled water and when you have the Gold dissolved in AR that is when you add sulfuric as it helps to drop tin/lead from the AR, you then must filter the AR once or more till its clear then you carefully add more distilled water & SMB mixed to match the total estimated amount of Gold suspended to drop the Gold.
As was stated better to use less SMB, test with stannis IF its still cloudy then add a bit more till it tests clear of Gold.
Gold powder will be a brown color always, lighter the better, but it needs further refinement if its dark brown period. Usually a double drop is necessary. Time consuming but if you want relativly pure end product using simple methods its necessary.
I agree its now a mess tho since no HCL/peroxide was used in the beginning & the chemistry was done out of proper order. You have work ahead & don't expect a lot of Gold from what you started with. But the education you will gain will save you grief now in the future.
Remember safety FIRST ahead of all else when breathing & handling this stuff. You should never ever touch your Gold powder with bare hands at min. it adds skin oils to the gold that will cause problems if you intend to re-drop it. Worst case you might be handling poisons & not realize it.
Dave
 
I AM NO EXPERT. I believe you have made quite a few mistakes. First and foremost, label everything and put it away. You joined the forum on August 20 and already you're trying to recover and refine. Stop before you hurt yourself or someone else. Start reading the forum and Hoke's book (it's a free download) until you understand what she says.

Did you at any time try and use stannous chloride to test for gold?

You do not make Poorman's AR with Hydrochloric acid and ammonium nitrate. Poorman's AR is made with hydrochloric acid and either potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. What is used in the ice packs MAY be pure ammonium nitrate or it might not. It may contain enough contaminants that it may never work.

It would take an experienced person on this forum hours to describe what you have done wrong. What was the strength of the Hydrochloric acid you used? What was the strength of the sulfuric acid you used? Where did they come from? Some of the products which contain Sulfuric acid have other ingredients in them as well. Even some of the products labeled as hydrochloric acid contain added ingredients.

CPU processors take an entirely different approach. They need to be pyrolyzed.

Sunlight helps kill off chlorine. I don't know that it does anything to nitrates. If it does, where do the nitrates go? Chlorine will come out of many chemicals and you know it by the smell it gives off. Take it easy there. A couple of good lungfuls of chlorine and your lungs fill up with water and you die.
 
dmgoddard83 said:
I've done my best with following hokes book to recover the gold out of old computers and cell phones and used poor mans AR and sodium metabisulfite as my precipitant.
Click to expand...
You might understand that I have a little trouble with your claim to have followed Hoke's book when she never discusses escrap or poor man's AR. What I really think you've done is read enough to be thoroughly confused, then jumped in water (over your head).

I get the distinct impression that you have no clue. If you don't get serious about doing some study on this subject, I am of the opinion that you're going to struggle endlessly, and you're not going to get much support on this board. Before you do, you have to display the fact that you understand what you're trying to accomplish, and that you really have studied, not just claimed you have (see my first paragraph for an explanation).

If I had that black material there'd be a particular sequence of things I'd do to determine if there was any value present. Right now you don't appear to be up to speed enough for me to comment, so I won't.

My advice to you is to do as others have recommended. Store things safely and get on with learning. Read Hoke's book, then read it again. Perform the familiarization tests she provides, and learn the reactions, all very important for you for the day when you are capable of refining.

Harold
 
bswartzwelder said:
CPU processors take an entirely different approach. They need to be pyrolyzed.
Click to expand...
If you pyrolyze some scrap you should also incinerate it to get rid of carbon.

Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
bswartzwelder said:
CPU processors take an entirely different approach. They need to be pyrolyzed.
Click to expand...
If you pyrolyze some scrap you should also incinerate it to get rid of carbon.

Göran
Click to expand...
I agree. Activated carbon is used to absorb gold in solution. I fully expect that activated carbon (charcoal) is created by the pyrolization process, so allowing the carbon to remain offers an opportunity for values to be absorbed and lost to the refining process. Any material with the ability to absorb should be removed, if possible.

Harold
 
Harold makes a good point regarding carbon. Goran and swartz what cpus do you suggest should be pyrolised?

Jon
 
spaceships said:
Harold makes a good point regarding carbon. Goran and swartz what cpus do you suggest should be pyrolised?

Jon
Click to expand...
None... but I would incinerate the black fiber pentium CPU:s and any other chip with bond wires embedded in epoxy.

Please, write incinerate when you mean it and pyrolyze only when discussing stages before incineration. Pyrolyzing without incinerating can make you loose values. See Harolds response above. Don't fool newbies into thinking pyrolyzing is the only stage needed.

Göran
 

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