First attempt at AR refining failed - please help

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Have you had difficulty finding good information on Precious Metal Recovery Techniques?

  • No

    Votes: 20 87.0%

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
S

Scrappy's eScrap

Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
Messages
5
I recently tried to use the Aqua Regia method to remove the gold from some CPU pins and some PCB fingers (5.2 grams), but I did something wrong. I thought I did enough research on this method but it's obvious now that I dident (so many variations). If someone could tell me what I did wrong and how I can fix this problem I would greatly appreciate it, thanks!

Heres what I did:

Put pins and fingers in a beaker, covered with Aqua Regia, stirred a few times for about an hour and everything seemed fine. I was getting some fumes (no colored fumes but I could smell something) and there was a definite chemical reaction happening, so i let it sit overnight.

Next morning I slowly added some Urea to neutralize the Nitric Acid and poured off the liquid only to another beaker and rinsed the pins 3 times with tap water, pouring the rinsed liquid into the 2nd beaker.
I then added a small amount of Sodium Bisulfite to percipitate the gold and I think this is where I made the mistake. During my research I couldent figure out whether I should use Sodium Bisulfite or Sodium (Meta)bisulfite or what the difference was between the two, so i went with the Sodium Bisulfite ... anyway

I did a Stannous Chloride test and the liquid was clear (no gold in the solution) but I had alot of white powder on the bottom of the beaker which I am assuming was the Urea because I dident use that much Sodium Bisulfite.

I tried to filter off the liquid, but it was taking forever to go through the filter (maybe 1 drop every 3 seconds or so) and this was just the liquid not the powder at the bottom of the beaker.

So, now I have a beaker with the trash pins/fingers and some other gunk in it, and a beaker with liquid on top and some white powder and gold at the bottom. Since I couldent filter the liquid I just stopped there and decided to get some help. I can see some gold particles on the bottom of the beaker with the liquid in it under the powder, but I dont know what to do next.

Can someone instruct me in how I can finish this process?
Did I use too much Urea?
Do I use Sodium Bisulfite or Sodium Metabisulfite?
What can I do about the filtering issue? I even tried 2 moistened coffee filters but it always seemed to take forever to go through it. The holes in the funnel seem to adaqate enough to let the liquid through, so I'm pretty sure it's the filter that is causing the problem.
Is there a chemical that will remove or disolve the Sodium Bisulfite? because I am sure thats not going to go through the filter and the gold is under that.

Thanks in advance for any help
If you dont mind you can send any responses to my email, which is [email protected] (the o is a letter not a number).

Jim
 
Jim,

Please check out the Guided Tour and the post links therein. Using AR directly on most types of scrap is not advisable.

5.2 grams of any escrap will not make enough gold to weigh, let alone see with the naked eye.

Urea has no place in refining. You should be using only the required amount of nitric acid (Guided Tour--Reaction List for details) in your reactions and if you want are a little heavy handed, it is easy to remove excess nitric acid with sulfamic acid or a gold button (search Harold's Post). Search the forum for sulfamic acid for more details on it's use.

Filtering gold solutions after they have been precipitated is not advisable, unless you are using a vacuum setup.

Excess water soluble reagents like urea and sulfite salts are easily removed with a little warm water.

If you are going to use coffee filters with gravity filtration for clarifying your solutions before precipitation, use three to five filters and a colander, not a traditional conical funnel.

Recovery and refining of gold from scrap is not a cake recipe. You do not simply add all of the ingredients over a given period of time. Each step must be completed before proceeding to the next. Steps are not time dependent.

Set your solutions to the side and do some reading to learn what to look for in each stage of the reaction and how to test for the presence of precious metals. While you are reading collect high grade scrap and sort it by type. You'll need several pounds of one type of sorted e-scrap to make a BB that is worth the chemicals and effort to recover. This helps eliminate problems due to cross contamination from different scrap types. It's easier to solve low order problems (eg: ones with fewer variables) than higher order ones in most cases. Learn how each type of scrap behaves to the various acid reagents on small samples and combine like types. Learn how to make reliable stannous chloride tests.

Welcome to the forum,

Steve
 
I hate most polls. If you had difficulty finding good information on Precious Metal Recovery Techniques, its 100% your own fault. I know its overwhelming but its all here. All you have to do is search for it. Some people read for a year before trying to tackle it.
 
im not a expert by any means and i have never put any of this into practice yet but it sounds to me like your main mistake was not getting rid of your base metals out of your pins and fingers before you used the AR method. this should only be done with cleaned gold. check out lazersteves website (goldrecovery.us) and also check out sams website (goldnscrap.com) ive found both those sites very very informative on the processes used to recover escrap
 
goldsilverpro said:
I hate most polls. If you had difficulty finding good information on Precious Metal Recovery Techniques, its 100% your own fault. I know its overwhelming but its all here. All you have to do is search for it. Some people read for a year before trying to tackle it.
Click to expand...

I appoligize for insulting your intelligence with a poll and asking for more help but I thought that was why I was here in the first place. I am new to this and dont think that criticism is a good motivator, but anyway if it takes a year of reading to get the information I need from this board I'm not sure I want to waste my time here, just sayin'. I will take the advice that Steve offered but please dont treat me like an idiot when I am trying to learn something you are offering to teach me. Not very logical!
Thanks!
 
Scrappy's eScrap said:
goldsilverpro said:
I hate most polls. If you had difficulty finding good information on Precious Metal Recovery Techniques, its 100% your own fault. I know its overwhelming but its all here. All you have to do is search for it. Some people read for a year before trying to tackle it.
Click to expand...

I appoligize for insulting your intelligence with a poll and asking for more help but I thought that was why I was here in the first place. I am new to this and dont think that criticism is a good motivator, but anyway if it takes a year of reading to get the information I need from this board I'm not sure I want to waste my time here, just sayin'. I will take the advice that Steve offered but please dont treat me like an idiot when I am trying to learn something you are offering to teach me. Not very logical!
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I don't mind your questions but your dumb-ass poll is what pissed me off. To me, it was stupid and insulting. Please note that there are 6 no votes and zero yes votes, at this point. I know you're totally ignorant of this fact but, before this forum started, a little over 5 years ago, ALL of this knowledge was secret and non-published. You are privileged to participate in this wonderful forum. If you don't like it, leave.
 
The "Dumb-Ass Poll" pissed you off huh? I think your an ignorant bastard considering how you talk to complete strangers and I will report your violation of the forum rules because as I'm sure you know profanity is not allowed! Ya know this forum is NOT the only game in town and I would like to take advantage of it, but I WILL NOT be treated like that. I am offended by your posts and you ignorant attitude! Let's see what Noxx thinks about it. I came to you as a stranger asking for advice and you insulted me and treated me like an idiot. Real nice!
 
Scrappy's eScrap said:
The "Dumb-Ass Poll" pissed you off huh? I think your an ignorant bastard considering how you talk to complete strangers and I will report your violation of the forum rules because as I'm sure you know profanity is not allowed! Ya know this forum is NOT the only game in town and I would like to take advantage of it, but I WILL NOT be treated like that. I am offended by your posts and you ignorant attitude! Let's see what Noxx thinks about it. I came to you as a stranger asking for advice and you insulted me and treated me like an idiot. Real nice!
Click to expand...

Bye Scrappy. If one of the two of you must go, it will be you.

Jim
 
Scrappy's eScrap,

A year to learn this would be a very fast learner, I do not think you would ever finish learning as long as you stayed on the forum and kept your mind active, this is a science, like Steve said not a cake recipe.

Nobody here treats anyone like an idiot, but they do say things like they are, if you cannot stand up to a little constructive criticism you will not like it here, if someone does not know what they are doing we tell them so, if they can handle that then they can grow, as then they know they do not know and can then learn, the information is provided for anyone who wish's to learn, and when they study if they run into a problem assistance is offered, but no one can hold your hand step by step as there is too much involved, too much information to absorb, and even if they could you would have trouble understanding all of the information involved, you are lucky to find this place, where very valuable secrets of this science has been revealed, and where true science and not false information is revealed, many here have spent countless hours and time to learn what they have, and are willing to help, and also very willing to help someone who comes here without a clue about what they are trying to do, who read a page about aqua regia and think they are smart enough to refine metals (not knowing they really do not know anything about it, have no clue about the enormous amount of science behind this field of work), and if they get upset when a member who tries to help them understand they do not have a clue, they may never get the chance to learn, biting the hand that is trying to help them learn.


Scrappy's eScrap, nobody thinks you are an idiot, but do not act like one (snapping at those here to help), accept the fact you do not know, say thank you when someone tells you your going the wrong way and you have no clue, but point you in the right direction, yes you will need to study and study a lot, and this science is not something you will learn overnight, but after several years of hard work, you will realize how much more you still need to learn, but you will also find all of that hard work learning is well worth the effort.

Drop the attitude and pick up Hoke's book, and welcome to the forum.

Attitudes, or people with them, do not last around here long.


P.S. I also found the poll very silly, as with the amount of information freely provided here on the forum, and with all of the help from these knowledgable and friendly members only an idiot would not learn here on this forum.
 
almost all new members have to go through a trial by fire here. if you are too thin skinned, its easy to let your emotions win over the better part of common sense. i remember having my trials and tribulations and i still stick my foot in my mouth sometimes. i welcome any remarks people make to my post, even the negative ones. thats where i do most of my learning. i guess what im trying to say is "if you cant stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen".
 
I think half the problem is that people with no real knowledge of refining or recovery of precious metals think it is easy, which if you know what your doing it usually is, and expect a quick easy to follow list to take them from e scrap to ounces of fine gold in hours. Well the list is here and only here but it's not short and without proper knowledge mishaps and problems become all consuming disasters which we all see far too often.
I too dislike polls and this particular one was laughable considering exactly what it was asking and where it was posted because all the information is openly and freely available, you just have to put in some effort and time to do the reading. Chris and the other moderators and many off the senior members have put in many years in the lab to reach the point they are now at where few if any processes are beyond their abilities but newbies expect that level of ability in hours, sorry it's never going to happen but the help to reach there is all here.
I particulary dislike any calling out or attitude especially to the moderators who in my opinion do an excellent job, the same applies to most members who bother to post, they all do it to help and I find it very irritating when their replies are ignored or disparaged because it doent fit in with the hopes or beliefs of the original poster.
Simple rule... Don't post questions if your not going to read or accept the answers given :twisted:
 
I joined the forum in December of 2008 and I have yet to put anything into acid. I'm still reading and collecting materials. I have learned a lot on this forum, but only by reading, no handouts. For anyone to come in to this wonderful place and expect to be walked hand in hand through the whole process of recovery and refining without spending numerous hours reading and searching the forum (whether they use the "Search" button or Lasersteve's custom search) it ain't going to happen. I still am tripping over a few things and probably will again once I start processing, but I expect that. It never ceases to amaze me that people watch things on youtube and try to follow it and do what they "think" is being done only to screw it up. Then they come into the forum and try to get help without doing their due diligence of searching the forum and reading Hoke's book. 9 times out of 10, if the read the book and searched the forum they would find out rather quickly where they committed their booboo. Mind you the "rather quickly" may take days or weeks to find, but they will find it.

Rusty
 
In general it seems like society has become so accustomed to having information immediately at their fingertips via YouTube and the internet that they forget the real fact that you must acquire the skills to perform what you are seeing as well as understand the reasons why the reactions occur, before you can do these reactions. They don't want to do all the run of the mill leg work, they simply want the final results, and they want them now.

I'm reminded of the scene in the movie 'The Matrix' where Trinity is walking up to the helicopter and calls in a request to Hank, the operator, for instructions on how to fly a military helicopter as she is walking towards the aircraft. By the time she is at the cockpit, Hank has transmitted the software to her brain making her an expert helicopter pilot in the space of a few seconds.

We have become a drive by society. Make a call, post a website, download a file, read an article, or watch a video, and you are now an instant expert. These things do not always translate to instant success as many people have very short attention spans, even shorter amounts of patience, and no tolerance for following through when something goes wrong. They watch a 5 minute video and think... it only takes five minutes... Great!

Steve
 
I watched a youtube video and saw the guy get to the AU powder then fail to get it to melt. He then begged for someone to tell him where he went wrong. I found this site by compete accident even after numerous Google searches. I know forum protocol about asking questions before using the search function. I would never display the attitude of the OP here or on any forum. I knew the info contained herein is not readily available so I feel privileged to even be able to read and learn from someone willing to share their secrets. I will buy the Hoke book and have been to lasersteves store and will pick up some DVDs, but for now the info here should keep me busy until I have enough material to make it worth my while. Maybe even make a friend or two.
 

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