Non-Chemical Ever heard of the Amalgamite Process? - Updated

[Lou]

Looks like I'm good at guessing. I just saw the melting point and the crystalline structure and I made an educated guess on it being bismuth (puts feather in cap, woot!)


Ok, so let me clear a few things up here:

bismuth sucks to dissolve in nitric acid, been there done that. If you do dissolve it, make sure you use dilute nitric acid! Conc. nitric acid you just get a bunch of crappy bismuth oxides. Dilute nitric and you'll get that white powder (actually the oxynitrate Randy) and some equilibrium amount of bismuth.

Oh, keep perchlorates and perchloric acid away from bismuth--it forms strong and highly unstable percussion explosives.

The whole idea with using it instead of lead is a.) it's oxides won't kill you; in fact, they're really pretty looking! b.) it's on par with collecting gold, silver, Pt, and Pd, melts at lower temp. with lower vapour pressure.
For an assay, you want to make sure you buy pure bismuth!

Here's a good source:
http://www.lmine.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=bismuth


Treat it just like you would lead, except I think magnesia is the cupel of choice, not bone ash/phosphate.

 

[pilotdan]

That 1 pound of Bismuth sold for $108 plus shipping on eBay. :shock:

 

[Platdigger]

WOW! So there is gold in Bismuth!....

Now to find a bi deposit.......
Randy

 

[Anonymous]

I notice they are selling zinc powder also, maybe, it is a variation of the Parkes process and you never actually dissolve the Bismuth.

 

[NobleMetalsRecovery]

I'm jumping in here just to get in the loop. About 5 years ago I got to thinking that gold could safely be recovered using bismuth. I even purchased a few pounds of it (cheap) on eBay and did a couple of experiments. I didn't get too far with it. I remember speaking with someone that was using bismuth for his assays instead of lead. I still to this day purchase magnesia cupels as a carry over from that time. The magnesia cupel is needed for using bismuth when doing an assay. Some else has already mentioned that fact in this thread.

One time I separately melted some gold and melted some zinc and mixed them together. Then I dissolved the zinc in HCL to recover the gold. It worked fine. I thought the same might work with bismuth, but I never took it any further.

One other time I remember melting zinc and gold separately and the instant I put them together it all when up in a puff of smoke, it looked like you had just ignited some gun powder. POOF! It must make a difference which metal you add in a molten state to the other metal. I think it when POOF when I added the molten gold to the molten zinc.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is difficult to add zinc to high temp metals because its vapor temp/pressure is so low the white puff is zinc oxide.

 

[NobleMetalsRecovery]

ALL the gold went with it also.

 

[carasoph]

My fellow refiners,

After searching and researching this Bismuth issue, I found out that the element is NOT that safe as it appears - both on E-bay, and on other forums...
Though there are no KNOWN fatalities from Bismuth poisoning, it may cause sever effects on the human body such as:
*** Skin Rash
*** Massive loss of weight
*** Ingestion problems
*** Disorientation
*** Respiratory problems
*** Nassal problems

These effects can be caused by INHALING and INGESTING Bismuth.


If any of you is considering using Bismuth for his recovering methods, please make sure you use a protective breathing mask - an industial type...


As for the Zinc proccess;
It DOES matter which metal you add to the other....after cosoulting with a friend, who is a chemist, he did mention that Zinc has the tendency to ignit when mixed with a HOTTER substence, and therefor should be mixed under 2 conditions:
1. The temperatures of the 2 metals should NOT have more the 10% diference.
2. The Zinc should be added TO the other metal (the same as mixing acid with water...)


I hope this information helps you...


caramon

 

[skyline27]

Does anyone have any experience with this "amalgamite". I'm dieing to know. It seems to fall into the to good to be true category.

 

[rainmaker]

I found this information on his Ebay store and I quote it here:

UPDATE on Amalgamite... Today we ran some ore that is known to carry gold through the Amalgamite, and put the Amalgamite in 70% nitric acid... We now have gold in beaker... (gold in hand so to say). The process does work... We have a beaker on heat with 30% nitric acid, and one with 50% nitric acid, and the Amalgaite is slowly dissolving... With 70% nitric acid, we achieved this in a matter of 30 minutes, dropping gold at the natural purity of 22k. All you skeptics that say it can't be done take heed, the process works, and is trademarked, and we are going for patent It's pending. we cannot patent Bismuth, but we can patent the Amalgamite Process, and only those that buy our process will benefit the results, because we will not reveal all of the process in our descriptions.
There is a way to reteive the silver, and a way to get the Amalgamite back to reuse, and this you will have to figure out yourself unless you buy the process and materials from us.................................................

UPDATE!!!

The 30% nitric acid is working fine... A customer sent me some pins to test, and another some black sands, and yet another raw ore, and it is pulling the gold, as I have gold floating on top of the solution... You can make this yourself by putting 1 cup of water in an old coffee pot, add the sulfuric acid (found at ace in the professional plumbing cleaners), then add sodium nitrate (over heat) and keep adding until no more will dissolve, pour off into another container for use. It may freeze on the bottom, but you just use that for the next batch...If you don't add the water, it does not seem to work as well... It need the water to start the oxidation

Please note that in the first paragraph it is referred to as Bismuth(emphasis added)
Rainmaker :shock:

 

[pilotdan]

I think that this process, should it work, is still too much work compared to other methods. May cost more too.