First timer, big problems.

[Toadstool]

Hi all, this is my first time trying to recover gold. I've run into an issue and am starting to panic. Basically, I have about three of the fiancee's butterknives worth of black powder in the bottom a jar, and I have dissolved gold in there as well. How do I separate gold from this huge mess?

 

[Geo]

Why butter knives? Are they silver? How did gold wind up in the solution with the butter knives?

 

[Toadstool]

My nitric acid/ hydrocholric acid mixture had a lot of green color in it. I saw something that said stainless steel would cement out copper. Apparently I had way to much HCl and it dissolved the stainless steel butterknives. At this point I'm just trying to break even.

 

[Geo]

I would recommend you put everything away safely and do some reading. I don't know where the stainless steel thing came from but it keeps popping up. I can't imagine it's coming from a forum member. Stainless steel does not like to react very well. Plain, unpainted steel would have worked better. Search the forum for sulfamic acid.

 

[bswartzwelder]

You need to put everything aside. You will not lose anything that way. Then start reading. Read Hoke. It's a free download. Once you feel you understand it, read it again. Start reading the forum. Don't skip over things or you will miss important steps. Read the safety section because you will be working with very dangerous chemicals. Chemicals which can blind you or kill you and everyone around you. Chemicals that once they are mixed, they can make explosive mixtures or give off gasses like cyanide or chlorine. Read how to deal with the wastes you will be creating. You simply cannot flush them down the toilet or dump them in the back yard. Along the way, you will get an understanding of why your post is ridiculous. You really haven't described what you have done in any way which would allow members to help you. I doubt you will get much help until you understand the basics and understand how to properly describe what you've done.

ALL the information you need is right here on this forum and it's free. You just have to exert a little effort on your own to try to dig it out. If you think the members here are going to spoon feed you the answers, you are all wrong. It doesn't work that way. Until you show you understand the basics, you will be your own worst enemy. When your neighbors call the police because of the terrible smell coming from your yard, you will begin to understand how important it is for your safety and the safety of everyone around you. There are members on this forum who have lost gold (or other values). They are the lucky ones. The ones who have permanent physical handicaps because they weren't safe, or just made a mistake will step up and tell you how expensive it can really be.

 

[butcher]

iron will cement copper, steels although contain iron are not the best to use, stainless steel with its high chromium content would not be a good choice, chromium salts in the waste can make a toxic solution more toxic, soft pure iron would be best for cementing copper, a good source is laminates from motor or transformers, transformers are easy to disassemble with a few hand tools and the copper wire can be used or sold...

Sounds like you used way to much of both acids. also sounds like you tried using aqua regia for a recovery procedure, (not a refining procedure) where we try not to have base metals in solution with our gold).
First aqua regia here sounds like a bad idea.
Then even if trying to recover the gold from that mess even using iron would have been a bad idea, stainless steel even more of a bad idea.
If you had to recover the gold from this mess, copper would have been a better choice.


The best idea would have been to study first so you understood how to best recover and refine your gold, gaining an understanding before jumping in to making messes, and then scratching your head trying to figure out where your losing all of that gold.

How much gold was in solution with how much acid, what was the source of base metals, are you even sure gold was in this mess to begin with??? The questions can go on and on, do you see any black powders after settling, do you still have free acids in solution, will it still dissolve more iron???

I suggest you putting your lab work and acids on hold. and gain an understanding by educating yourself first, so when you do begin the lab work you will understand how and why things work, and if perhaps something does not work you can figure out why and figure out how to fix the problem, at this point it sounds like your working in the dark trying to dump acids and reagent into a pot with gold scrap and get something out of it you can melt for gold, but at the point you just have a good way to just loose your gold in many failed attempts to learn the hard way (trying to recover from one big mess after another).
Study and education is the fastest way to get that pure gold in your melting dish.

Toadstool, I am trying to help you, study, education,and an understanding are the best tools in this business, or in the lab, the education is more valuable than gold, with that education is where you get that gold.

 

[kurtak]

I don't know where the stainless steel thing came from but it keeps popping up. .

I "think" this may be because steel (as in mild carbon steel) is often considered &/or referred to (scrap yards etc.) as iron - that then people new to refining "assume" that because SS is also made with iron - it should work to

In other words - they read "cement with iron" - "think" SS is made with iron - "assume" it will work

At least that's the best I can figure

Kurt

 

[Grelko]

I don't know where the stainless steel thing came from but it keeps popping up. .

At least that's the best I can figure

Kurt

Things like this, is the reason I made a post asking about SS in AP to cement copper a couple months ago also.

There's a few Youtube videos where different people are using SS to cement copper, to clean their AP. "not AR as far as I've seen". Like this 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVcOkZSoIhY "he says it around the 3 minute mark" It does however, seem to work well in the video.

If you see this Moose Scrapper, sorry for randomly picking your video. You have some really good ones for scrapping many different items, but sometimes your chemistry is a little off. (He did say he's not a chemist in the video though)

 

[MarcoP]

I don't know where the stainless steel thing came from but it keeps popping up. .

At least that's the best I can figure

Kurt

Things like this, is the reason I made a post asking about SS in AP to cement copper a couple months ago also.

There's a few Youtube videos where different people are using SS to cement copper, to clean their AP. "not AR as far as I've seen". Like this 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVcOkZSoIhY "he says it around the 3 minute mark" It does however, seem to work well in the video.

If you see this Moose Scrapper, sorry for randomly picking your video. You have some really good ones for scrapping many different items, but sometimes your chemistry is a little off. (He did say he's not a chemist in the video though)

It is healthy for a channel to be spoke of in good or in bad, more video views, so I don't think he will be that sad about it ... and if read this topic he might learn something new, no harm being done, all in his favor actually.

Marco

 

[lanfear]

That actually looked really effective. Is it possible that the slow reaction of the SS allows copper to cement out faster then the SS dissolves? Any experiences?

Jon

 

[g_axelsson]

That actually looked really effective. Is it possible that the slow reaction of the SS allows copper to cement out faster then the SS dissolves? Any experiences?

Jon

Cementing is a replacement reaction, for every atom of copper that is cemented another atom of the spoon is dissolved and goes into the solution. Or at least with a factor depending on the ionization of the atoms in the reaction, for example one Cu always cements two silver, three copper always cements two gold and so on. The reaction can go faster or slower but the proportion is always the same. Anything else would break the laws of nature.

And how could replacing copper with iron and other metal ions make the copper chloride leach cleaner? It goes against everything I know about copper chloride leach. Don't put a lot of scrap into it, try to keep it as pure as possible.

Göran

 

[Toadstool]

The video by Moose Scrapper referred to above is the exact video that gave me the idea. I didn't know about this forum (as I've said, first time trying this) and was doing my "research" by watching how-tos on YouTube. I now know my biggest mistake was not allowing the nitric acid to completely dissolve all the base metals before placing them in AR. My background is in mechanical engineering, not chemistry, and I've quickly learned I need to slow way down. That being said, I still have gold in stainless steel mush that I don't know what to do with, and a large container of dissolved gold in what is mostly copper chloride solution. I swear I'm not an idiot, I just need some help. I'm also not looking to be spoonfed, I just thought that somewhere in the huge collective of experience here someone would have some experience with my situation and would know how to proceed. I get the feeling I've insulted some of you just by posting about my predicament; that wasn't my intention, I just need help. Thank you.

 

[Grelko]

It is healthy for a channel to be spoke of in good or in bad, more video views, so I don't think he will be that sad about it ... and if read this topic he might learn something new, no harm being done, all in his favor actually.

Marco

I do actually think that watching his videos could be one of the reasons, that I'm in this forum in the first place. I had just gotten back into scrap metal and he had alot of videos about taking apart different items. I wasn't even considering "silver switches etc" until I saw his video about them, which in turn may have gotten me partially looking for gold and silver in things like dryers also. I was searching coin rolls for silver dimes or 50 cent pieces at the time.

And how could replacing copper with iron and other metal ions make the copper chloride leach cleaner? It goes against everything I know about copper chloride leach. Don't put a lot of scrap into it, try to keep it as pure as possible.

Göran

I believe he was actually trying to reclaim the copper before disposing of the solution. When I first started learning about this and saw his video, I thought that the SS would cement copper but not put much iron into solution, which simply isn't the case.

After processing all those pins in my other thread, I even tried SS for a day, to see if I could reclaim some copper from it. I couldn't even get any copper to cement to the SS, let alone have it work like that video :lol: Maybe he forgot to tell about a certain step he used?

The video by Moose Scrapper referred to above is the exact video that gave me the idea.

I get the feeling I've insulted some of you just by posting about my predicament; that wasn't my intention, I just need help. Thank you.

Edit - That's the same place I got that idea from also. There are others like that, but his might have been the first one about it.

I think they would hopefully be more concerned with your health. Read as much as you can about doing this the proper way and definately take all of the safety measures. Alot of new people come here just "trying to get rich" but, you have to worry about your health, neighbors, the environment etc.

Just like anything, you need to learn the rules before you can play the game the right way :mrgreen:

 

[Toadstool]

How much gold was in solution with how much acid, what was the source of base metals, are you even sure gold was in this mess to begin with???

The source of the base metals was some gold-filled jewelry, watch crowns, and eyeglass rims and some ceramic Intel Pentium Pro processors. I don't see any large bits of gold that were there previously, so that's why I know there's gold in there. I should have stannous chloride in a day or two, can I check the potential gold content of the mush with that?

do you still have free acids in solution, will it still dissolve more iron???

I don't know yet. I was going to buy some sulfmaic acid as suggested by Geo to neutralize the nitric acid that may still be around first, but I haven't had the chance yet

at this point it sounds like your working in the dark trying to dump acids and reagent into a pot with gold scrap and get something out of it you can melt for gold, but at the point you just have a good way to just loose your gold in many failed attempts to learn the hard way (trying to recover from one big mess after another).

It sounds like you've been watching me, heh.

 

[solar_plasma]

I just need some help.

Since you are not an idiot, which is a great advantage, the first thing you have to understand, that it isn't done with "some help" or at least not the help, you probably thought of. Like the others already said, put it a safe place and start reading for some weeks. Fixing a mess is a lot more difficult, than to do any process correct from beginning to the end.

Only for giving you some ideas, what has to be done for recovering (well, don't! I am sure you aren't ready for this):

Filter and keep the solids a safe place.
DeNOx with sulfamic
Filter (might precipitate some lead sulfate)
Stannous test the solution for gold and PGMs. If negative, process it as waste or better give it to a facility that takes toxical waste.
If positive, drop gold with SMB. Filter gold. Cement the rest with copper. Filter PGMs.
Test, if negative, process as waste or better give it to a facility that takes toxical waste.

The solids are dissolved back by covering with HCl and slowly adding nitric (first half as many ml as you know, there is gold - then in small portions until everything is dissolved - always waiting maybe half an hour before adding more - then deNOx by sulfamic - filter - drop)

This gold will be dirty and has to be refined (Getting pure gold (shining)) before you try to melt it.

This description is only meant to give you an idea, what to search for. Each single step is full of traps and you could write half a book about almost each step.

 

[torscot]

Here's another thing to help you find out how much gold should be in your solution. Most gold filled items are 1/10th their weight in 10 or 14K gold. So in a perfect world where no manufacturer has cheated, and there's no wear on your GF items 100 grams of scrap GF should produce 4.16 grams of gold. Most of the time it produces 3 +/- grams. 14k GF at 1/10th GF should be 5.85 gr per 100 in a perfect world, it still comes out around the 3 gram mark (wear factor) The old 20 and 25 year warranted pocket watch cases are the best GF to work with. Then there's some of the newer GF that's 1/20th by weight gold, so cut your returns in half, then take some off of that for wear. It doesn't leave much. Gold electroplate is a whole different world, and process. I can't comment on the computer chips, out of my knowledge base. Sometimes also when dissolving GF. If you leave too much base metal when you go to the AR, or just start with AR, and you have solids not dissolved, that may be your gold. So much base metal has been dissolved in your AR that the gold won't go into solution, or just falls back out. There are some great formulas on this forum for processing Gold filled, After a while it almost becomes routine, easy.....Almost. Good luck, Keep reading. I found out here if you show that you want to learn, you'll get all the help you need.