First Button - Thank You All

[Crank]

Here is my first! 4.75g button.

I have much to learn still, but it sure feels nice to see the results from all the time I've invested.

 

[eaglekeeper]

Awesome...... what was the starting material.

 

[Crank]

Gold plated EMI shields

 

[Golddigger76]

Good Job !!!
It's a good feeling to get your first batch of gold turned into something you can hold in your hand.
Did you refine it twice ?

 

[Crank]

Thanks!
It was a single process. Once I get all the foils done, I may refine the buttons a second time to see if I can get better purity.

 

[Shark]

Nice! It looks better than my first one.

 

[Crank]

And here is my second!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Nice size, how heavy was it?
It has some contamination as from the feathering on the surface.

 

[orvi]

Always nice to look on the gold button, altough likely not 999, but anyway... it´s gold How heavy it is ? 1 ozt ?

 

[Crank]

It's a shade over 1 oz --- 30.24 oz. to be exact.

I may run it through the process again to see if I can remove some of the impurities.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Nice, but in PM one use OZt which is 31.2. So it’s slightly below

 

[Shark]

Nice. That feathery look may be pgm of some sort. Still a very nice job.

 

[Crank]

Nice, but in PM one use OZt which is 31.2. So it’s slightly below

Yeah, that's definitely an error on my part. The original button was 4g, not oz

 

[kurtak]

VERY NICE !!!

Kurt

 

[Crank]

Would it be possible to remove the contaminants by melting the button and covering with borax? Or would some more involved process be needed?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Melting and trying to remove contaminants with a little borax and niter (sodium or potassium nitrate) works on base metals, but will probably not help in this case.

Melting with borax and niter works on base metals because the niter oxidizes the base metals and they are caught up in the borax slag. As others have mentioned, the fern-like pattern on your button often indicates the presence of PGMs (platinum group metals). They are not necessarily easily oxidized, so this approach probably won't help.

If it were mine, I would use it to eliminate excess nitric acid in future refining, as taught by Harold_V. He refined for a living, so he typically used an excess of nitric to drive the dissolution to completion more quickly. He would then add a weighed gold button like yours to consume the excess nitric. Once the nitric was consumed, he could remove what was left of the button, weigh it again, and know how much gold he had added to his client's batch for proper settlement.

Dave

 

[Ultrax]

Would it be possible to remove the contaminants by melting the button and covering with borax? Or would some more involved process be needed?

Approx. 99,0%-99,5% can be done chemically, but from 99,5%-99,9% electrochemically only.

Chemically you have two (long) ways only with this level of impurities.
Fully correct procedures will take 8-10 days.
1) AR dissolution (nitric by drops!)->remove lead and silver traces with standard procedures ->filtering ->correcting pH and temperature -> precipitation of gold with SO2 bubbling.
2) AR dissolution (nitric by drops!)->remove lead and silver traces with standard procedures +filtering ->correcting pH and temperature ->precipitation of gold with oxalic acid (all lead should be removed!).

The best way is electrowinning with golden cathode 99,99%

A small Swiss bullion 5g flattened in jewelry rollers(do not forget to remove steel traces by boiling in H2SO4) and hung on a gold wire is suitable