Enquarting question

[Saminator]

This is some Karat Gold, I added some silver to to get below 25% gold. It is sitting in half Nitric Acid 70% and half distilled water. It grew these weird looking feather like crystals. Anybody wanna guess what they are?

Thanks,

Sam

 

[lazersteve]

Silver nitrate possibly? This would mean you don't have enough water in the mix or your nitric acid has something else in it. Where did you get your nitric acid and are you using distilled water?

The color of the gold looks too yellow to me, can you explain more about the experiment conditions?

Steve

 

[4metals]

Looks great, nice colors.

The blue is copper nitrate which is more soluble in cold water and cold acid than silver nitrate which is what is crystallizing out. Warm it up and if necessary add more distilled water and it will go back into solution.

 

[Saminator]

The Nitric is 70% reagent grade.

http://www.gfschemicals.com/search_prm_p.aspx?whichsearch=EntireSite&searchcontent=53005

The gold is not that bright IRL. I think the white of the crystals and camera probably needs white balanced is creating that color. The crystals redisolved quickly in distilled water.

Sam

 

[Saminator]

Here is what I did start to finish as detailed as I can be. I had 12 grams of 10K gold rings. I added 12 grams 900 silver (two 1963 US quarters) and melted it with my Oxy Accetylene torch. I poured the melt into a deep glass pan filled with cold water. I took the resulting shot and placed it into a tall form 400 ml beaker. I added 100 ml of 70% Nitric and 100 ml of distilled water. Then placed it on a hot plate on setting 3 of 10 for about 1 hour. After it cooled I noticed the crystals. I decanted off the blue nitric solution and added more distilled water about 150 ml which rapidly disolved the crystal flakes. I was just wondering what the crystals are. I have done 5 or 6 enquartations now and I have never seen these crystals form.

Thanks,
Sam

 

[jsargent]

That's funny... I've done lots of inquarts and the gold residue I get is ALWAYS black or chocolate brown with some hints of yellow metal here and there. Very odd. As to the crystals I would say silver nitrate.