Electrolitic recovery and refining from book Nicholas Nickerson

[offtrailhiker]

Not cooking (i read boiling) H2SO4, just heating to 80C, you would need 300+ degrees C to "cook" H2SO4.
Ok, so besides the mandatory fume hood, warm sulfuric and standard waste treatment, no extra risks.

Semantics. Cooking isn't the same as boiling to me. And I don't want to be anywhere near an 80 deg C open pot of HCl + H2SO4 whatever we may call it.

 

[Walter Kurz]

Unless it was written many decades ago, it is protected by copyright and must not be posted here.

Dave

This wonderful book was published 10 years ago, and it is still for sale on Amazon:

«gold refining for the amateur chemist
by Nicholas Nickerson | Sep 3, 2014
3.4 out of 5 - stars
Kindle
$7.65»

If you are so worried about the copyright of the person writing such things..., then you are probably right, the appearance and the title of this book (at the beginning of the topic) will be enough for no one to buy it anymore!

 

[WaStateTreasures]

CLS is Action Mining's proprietary leachant formula for Ore. It leaches ore, and you electrowinn the metals, then you refiner the metals from there.....as ky first hand experience with them since 2005, the leach formulas work well, however the old man is not running the biz anymore, and the family doesn't know the chem like he does, so if you don't already know hard rock leachant methods, I will urge you to seriously go to the school of mines, pay your dues learn it properly because if you unknowingly dissove osmium, and it gasses off, it can make you blind really fast, and worse, if you dissolve platinum, and get it on your skin, you can get platinosis, ect...better not mess around with the chems till you know what's in your ore! An all element test should be done, with a reputable lab, i urge people to use the university geology dept services. So with properly analyzed and properly gathered sample, you can move forward with the chemistry work, knowing what can kill you. Happy vetrans day yall, have a good night!

 

[Yggdrasil]

CLS is Action Mining's proprietary leachant formula for Ore. It leaches ore, and you electrowinn the metals, then you refiner the metals from there.....as ky first hand experience with them since 2005, the leach formulas work well, however the old man is not running the biz anymore, and the family doesn't know the chem like he does, so if you don't already know hard rock leachant methods, I will urge you to seriously go to the school of mines, pay your dues learn it properly because if you unknowingly dissove osmium, and it gasses off, it can make you blind really fast, and worse, if you dissolve platinum, and get it on your skin, you can get platinosis, ect...better not mess around with the chems till you know what's in your ore! An all element test should be done, with a reputable lab, i urge people to use the university geology dept services. So with properly analyzed and properly gathered sample, you can move forward with the chemistry work, knowing what can kill you. Happy vetrans day yall, have a good night!

Welcome to us.

 

[Martijn]

It leaches ore, and you electrowinn the metals, then you refiner the metals from there

Do you have any more info for new members who buy this product? did you have succes with it and how did you do it?

the leach formulas work well, however the old man is not running the biz anymore, and the family doesn't know the chem like he does, so if you don't already know hard rock leachant methods, I will urge you to seriously go to the school of mines,

Does the old man/family still sell the product? Without clear instructions, disclaimers or warnings?

 

[WaStateTreasures]

Do you have any more info for new members who buy this product? did you have succes with it and how did you do it?

Does the old man/family still sell the product? Without clear instructions, disclaimers or warnings?

Sure, I do have plenty of info, actionmining.com is the website, the cost leachant comes in a few formulas, each for their respective ore type/concentrate type, and they sell a CLS manual token for around $30-$35 (prices over 10yrs ago) If you call, usually Jessica Pullen, the daughter answers, and she knows a lot, yes they have warnings, instructions, ect, however Jessica's experience isn't as much with the actual chemistry, however her dad knows it, but he is retired. They moved to MT from Oregon yrs ago when the steal happened hard-core in OR. It leaches all metals, except in my ore I have iridium. I also had to add chlorine on top of it all to attack the iridium enough ot dissolve it's impurities. The CLS is not perfect, but it's damn effective, still needs heat, and agitation, as with any chlorination method.

As far as my use, my ore is "unicorn" ore..as I call it! I crush it to -80 mesh, take one lbs of ore to one gallon of solution, leach in hcl in a large crock on high for a day, with a cheep drill press set up as a stirrer, decant and rinse the solids 3 times, then I use 30% nitric in same method, except it works faster, so a few hours, decant and rinse once, then add a premixed cls formula (according to copyrighted instructions), then I am lest with a leach that is only leaching rre's and noble metals. After the leach is complete, you adjust the ph, then precipitate, electrowinn, or trap with various other methods like cip, resin beads ect. Refining afterwards is best done by following Hoke's amazing book, or smelt. Actionmining.com has all the hardrock stuff, geochemical testing equipment, fire assy supplies, and a huge wealth of super rich literature. Other methods out there are just a few, but I'm keen to changing to Ammonium Thiosulphate leach because of the environmental stuff, and it being basic, vs acidic. Dave Turin did an episode of Backyard gold show, where one fella was using a different lechant, from another company that worked very similar. Cls25 from action mining works awesome for heavy concentrate, or electro scrap too. If you have a good reflux setup, I've found it cist me less to make my own nitric from chili salt Peter, and sulfuric, then all the other chemicals are cheep enough otc, I actually beat proprietary solutions. Hindsight, over 20yrs ago, it would've been a cheaper move to go to the school of mines, as no other method works as efficient as floatation!

Hope this helps!
-Greg

 

[WaStateTreasures]

Sure, I do have plenty of info, actionmining.com is the website, the cost leachant comes in a few formulas, each for their respective ore type/concentrate type, and they sell a CLS manual token for around $30-$35 (prices over 10yrs ago) If you call, usually Jessica Pullen, the daughter answers, and she knows a lot, yes they have warnings, instructions, ect, however Jessica's experience isn't as much with the actual chemistry, however her dad knows it, but he is retired. They moved to MT from Oregon yrs ago when the steal happened hard-core in OR. It leaches all metals, except in my ore I have iridium. I also had to add chlorine on top of it all to attack the iridium enough ot dissolve it's impurities. The CLS is not perfect, but it's damn effective, still needs heat, and agitation, as with any chlorination method.

As far as my use, my ore is "unicorn" ore..as I call it! I crush it to -80 mesh, take one lbs of ore to one gallon of solution, leach in hcl in a large crock on high for a day, with a cheep drill press set up as a stirrer, decant and rinse the solids 3 times, then I use 30% nitric in same method, except it works faster, so a few hours, decant and rinse once, then add a premixed cls formula (according to copyrighted instructions), then I am lest with a leach that is only leaching rre's and noble metals. After the leach is complete, you adjust the ph, then precipitate, electrowinn, or trap with various other methods like cip, resin beads ect. Refining afterwards is best done by following Hoke's amazing book, or smelt. Actionmining.com has all the hardrock stuff, geochemical testing equipment, fire assy supplies, and a huge wealth of super rich literature. Other methods out there are just a few, but I'm keen to changing to Ammonium Thiosulphate leach because of the environmental stuff, and it being basic, vs acidic. Dave Turin did an episode of Backyard gold show, where one fella was using a different lechant, from another company that worked very similar. Cls25 from action mining works awesome for heavy concentrate, or electro scrap too. If you have a good reflux setup, I've found it cist me less to make my own nitric from chili salt Peter, and sulfuric, then all the other chemicals are cheep enough otc, I actually beat proprietary solutions. Hindsight, over 20yrs ago, it would've been a cheaper move to go to the school of mines, as no other method works as efficient as floatation!

Hope this helps!
-Greg

Sorry for thy typos folks, this darn phone i got doesn't work well with my fat fingers, and I'm still waking up!

 

[Martijn]

Sure, I do have plenty of info, actionmining.com is the website, the cost leachant comes in a few formulas, each for their respective ore type/concentrate type, and they sell a CLS manual token for around $30-$35 (prices over 10yrs ago) If you call, usually Jessica Pullen, the daughter answers, and she knows a lot, yes they have warnings, instructions, ect, however Jessica's experience isn't as much with the actual chemistry, however her dad knows it, but he is retired. They moved to MT from Oregon yrs ago when the steal happened hard-core in OR. It leaches all metals, except in my ore I have iridium. I also had to add chlorine on top of it all to attack the iridium enough ot dissolve it's impurities. The CLS is not perfect, but it's damn effective, still needs heat, and agitation, as with any chlorination method.

As far as my use, my ore is "unicorn" ore..as I call it! I crush it to -80 mesh, take one lbs of ore to one gallon of solution, leach in hcl in a large crock on high for a day, with a cheep drill press set up as a stirrer, decant and rinse the solids 3 times, then I use 30% nitric in same method, except it works faster, so a few hours, decant and rinse once, then add a premixed cls formula (according to copyrighted instructions), then I am lest with a leach that is only leaching rre's and noble metals. After the leach is complete, you adjust the ph, then precipitate, electrowinn, or trap with various other methods like cip, resin beads ect. Refining afterwards is best done by following Hoke's amazing book, or smelt. Actionmining.com has all the hardrock stuff, geochemical testing equipment, fire assy supplies, and a huge wealth of super rich literature. Other methods out there are just a few, but I'm keen to changing to Ammonium Thiosulphate leach because of the environmental stuff, and it being basic, vs acidic. Dave Turin did an episode of Backyard gold show, where one fella was using a different lechant, from another company that worked very similar. Cls25 from action mining works awesome for heavy concentrate, or electro scrap too. If you have a good reflux setup, I've found it cist me less to make my own nitric from chili salt Peter, and sulfuric, then all the other chemicals are cheep enough otc, I actually beat proprietary solutions. Hindsight, over 20yrs ago, it would've been a cheaper move to go to the school of mines, as no other method works as efficient as floatation!

Hope this helps!
-Greg

Good to hear there are instructions and you've had succes with it.
Leaching ores is a very different thing than most of us do. So your knowledge can help a lot on the forum. Dissolving values seems to go pretty well with some brands but it's the retrieving part most struggle with and can not get good help from the manufacturer of the leach solution.
Some things you need a school for indeed.
Thanks for the detailled reply.