Extracting gold FROM borax

[Oxo beppo]

Ok my problem is a friend asked who is a gold leaf sign artist asked me to purify to solid gold a whole lot ,like years of 23 and 24 kt gold leaf scrap,,thinking I was smart I just built a crude furnace and burned it all covered in borax to keep it from volatilizing, well maybe that was not such a smart move I should have gone with wet chemical, anyway now I've got a ton of borax crushed up with a ton of gold flecks in it and cannot get it to form a solid melted in a crucible using 4 propane torches to heat crucible and two to heat the slag on top,,this is where I may start using foul and poorly spelled words ,,any ideas ?? I'm thinking i should just put it all in a dilute nitric bath then melt it , and melting pure gold is also a task I'm finding out , heh heh silly rabbit

 

[jimdoc]

Why did he ask you to do the job?
How do you know the purity of the gold leaf, did you see the wrapper the sheets come in?

 

[butcher]

Oxo beppo,

I can barely read what you wrote (I had the same trouble when I joined the forum). try to take your time and improve in your writing.
Use spell check, or Grammar programs if you need to.

Cussing will not get your point across, but it will get you banned in a heartbeat.

So you melted what might be gold in a ton of glass, with most likely was not enough heat, you were sucking up all of your heat with the wrong king of melting dish, crucible or what ever, or the whole thing was on or in the wrong kind of environment.

And now you wish to dissolve all of that glass in nitric acid?

Jimdoc, always asks important questions. Answering him will get help from him of what he sees wrong.

If you have gold (most gold foil is not gold), I say you need more heat or a better dish, or learn how to use them.
If all fails and you truly have gold and proper heating, equipment, and technique you could use a collector metal in the melt and then refine the gold.

Melting a bunch of foils for a friend, without testing it first to see if it was really gold was foolish, not only would it not work (could just oxidize to salts), but it would be a good way to owe your friend real gold for some worthless foils or lose your friend.

At this point my friend you have absolutely no clue as to what you are doing, that is dangerous and foolish, I do not say this to be mean or be degrading it is just the truth.

We can help you here on the forum, but you need to learn much before you are ready to "Play" around with acids and chemistry. too many dangers you have no clue of are just around your next move.

Put away the acids, we may be able to help you out of this mess, and if you wish to continue and study We can help you learn to recognize what gold is, learn to test for it, learn to recover and refine it and leran to do it safely without killing yourself or others around you.

The forum is the best place to learn the chemistry, science, art, and the mechanics of gold and learn to do it safely, while still living and breathing to be able to enjoy the fruits of beautiful gold in your melting dish.

 

[4metals]

Since you have already melted it and have a glassy borax mess have you considered remelting it with a thinning flux so the values drop out of the thinner slag?

All you need is borax, soda ash and fluorspar. And a cone mold to pour it into so the gold drops to the lowest point.

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

What color is the melted borax?
..just curious

 

[oohMeltit]

I've been processing my borax bits that I collect when cleaning my crucible. I do it without chemicals by re-melting the borax, and then pouring it off into a metal container filled with water as you would with metal when making shot. The borax expands like popcorn and becomes so brittle that it can be crushed to dust in the water, leaving any values behind to either pan or filter off and collect for chemical processing. The latter of course if the values you're after are known to be impure. As the crushed borax dust darkens the water, just pour off and replace with clear and repeat. Works pretty good and saves on chemicals as long as you've got the time to carry the process out. And it's good panning practice, I usually do it out in the sun so that I can really see what's swirling around.

 

[goldsilverpro]

I've been processing my borax bits that I collect when cleaning my crucible. I do it without chemicals by re-melting the borax, and then pouring it off into a metal container filled with water as you would with metal when making shot. The borax expands like popcorn and becomes so brittle that it can be crushed to dust in the water, leaving any values behind to either pan or filter off and collect for chemical processing. The latter of course if the values you're after are known to be impure. As the crushed borax dust darkens the water, just pour off and replace with clear and repeat. Works pretty good and saves on chemicals as long as you've got the time to carry the process out. And it's good panning practice, I usually do it out in the sun so that I can really see what's swirling around.

Good idea!

 

[nickvc]

Be warned your process will almost certainly leave values still in the flux unless you use something to thin it down, it may not matter if you do not have large quantities.
If you want to try and recover more values try adding small pieces of silver flake or shot with your crushed flux and melting it and leave it in the furnace for around an hour molten with regular stirring.

 

[oohMeltit]

Good idea!

Thanks! I'm new to Recovery/Refining, been at it for about 6 months. 3 of which I spent fighting Borax in the crucible over possession of the gold :lol: I guess a propane torch will only get you so far! Long story short, I'm glad I kept all of those stubborn little bits of borax because after I invited oxygen to the party, I found out "where all the gold went."

Be warned your process will almost certainly leave values still in the flux unless you use something to thin it down, it may not matter if you do not have large quantities.
If you want to try and recover more values try adding small pieces of silver flake or shot with your crushed flux and melting it and leave it in the furnace for around an hour molten with regular stirring.

I'm going to try this tonight.

I'll have to try my hand at making some Nitric acid (which I've been meaning to try anyways), since acquiring Nitric has proven to be difficult where I am here in Salt Lake. Unless I buy a 55 gallon drum, for only $165. Ironic, since 1L would run almost $90 shipped from out of state. Lol

When you add silver like this, do you use straight Nitric afterwards to separate Silver/Gold, or do you dissolve both together and then selectively precipitate the gold?

 

[nickvc]

With a high silver low gold alloy it's a nitric dissolution which will leave the gold as a fine powder and the silver in solution which can be cemented out or converted to chloride using Hcl or salt.