Electrochemistry GEOMOD GOLD CELL!!

[lazersteve]

Mod,

Do you have a video of you using the cell setup processing say 1- 5 pounds of fingers (or even a pound of pins) and the video of your harvesting the gold to demonstrate the yields from your process? If your cell doesn't improve upon the existing methods for time required or yields, it's a waste of time in my opinion. You are simply making a huge mess and a lot of hazardous wastes. When you 'rejuvenate' the bleach what color is it?

I agree whole heartily with the others: Get some safety gear and read about the byproducts you are creating. Electrolysis of bleach at elevated temperatures can produce explosive compounds. It also produces sodium hydroxide, hazardous chlorine gas, and explosive hydrogen gas. Dissolving steels, nickel, cobalt, and other materials is producing a toxic soup that is very dangerous to you and others, especially with the open wounds on your hands and fingers. You should get your blood tested for heavy metals at the local hospital if you have been doing this long. I get my blood tested once a year to be sure I have not exposed myself to any poisons and I use all the safety gear I can.

Hard drive platters are a waste of time in batch sizes of less than one ton and even then, you'll make more money off of the aluminum than the platinum.

Be safe,

Steve

 

[etack]

You should get your blood tested for heavy metals at the local hospital if you have been doing this long. I get my blood tested once a year to be sure I have not exposed myself to any poisons and I use all the safety gear I can.

Hey Steve this is something I've been thinking about too. What do you ask for in asking for a blood test. I know that my kids get lead test because of the house we live in. As for me do I just ask for the "Heavy Metal Test" :lol: . All kidding aside I believe this could benefit a lot of people to know what to ask for.

Eric

 

[lazersteve]

I went to my family doctor and explained to him what I do for a living. I requested him to send me over to the hospital for a blood test for various heavy metals. He had to specify each metal to be tested for on the blood test order. I got tested for cobalt, lead, beryllium, nickel, and copper. My blood test came back clean! That was six months ago, I'll get another in six months. Next time I may change the metals on the list due to the types of scrap I've been running. My insurance covers one of these types of extraneous diagnostic blood test each year for no charge at the time of the test.

As a side note, I also had him prescribe me the new antidote for Cyanide Poisoning so I would have it on hand. Makes me feel better knowing I have the stuff on hand that would save my life in case of a real emergency. He wrote the script without hesitation. It's amazing what the doctor can do for you if you simply ask him. I also have taken the online cyanide safety refresher course via power point. It never hurts to review the basics to keep you on your toes and aware of new developments. It's when you get too comfortable that you get careless. All it takes is one mistake and it's lights out for good. Working with chemicals is no joke and should be treated just like you are handling a loaded firearm, with the utmost respect. Long term exposure to even trace amounts of some chemicals can have far reaching long term health effects. Some of these poisons even affect those you come in close contact with. If I had tested positive, my wife would have been the next one getting tested.

I currently know a guy in Canada that spent the first ten years or so of his adult life dabbling in ores, fluxes, smelting, crushing, and doing random furnace work with his 'alchemist' friend. Just this past year he was diagnosed with a laundry list of neurological and blood problems including mercury poisoning. He never used any safety equipment while he was working on the ores. He ended up broke and very ill today.

The responsible handling and disposal of your waste from the recovery and refining operations is also a must, not only for your own health, but for the health of those around you, and the environment as a whole. I spend at least 20% of my refining time on waste management every week. I think it's one of the most rewarding aspects of refining to know that I am properly handling my wastes. Anyone average Joe can refine a few precious metals to make bars and buttons, but it takes a devoted and responsible refiner to take the time to properly handle and dispose of his or her wastes.

Steve

 

[butcher]

Thanks Steve for that valueable information.


modtheworld44,
I hope you keep working to improve your skills, safely of coarse, I feel you have a lot to add to the forum, I just hope you re-think how.

 

[jimdoc]

I hope we don't see any spam added to your posts, because I can see that coming already, and I will be watching you. If that is your goal you are at the wrong forum. If not, well then keep learning.

Jim

 

[butcher]

Jim, Thank you for keeping an eye on this guy for the forum, the spammer is gone, his five post had nothing related to the topics he was posting under, and when he began asking members for addresses and other information, that lost him his membership.

 

[Traveller11]

I want to point out that I believe there is some misconception about what is actually going on in this cell. In order for this cell to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine gas, would there not need to be a membrane between the anode and cathode, as in a chlor-alkali generator?

On the other hand, a cell can be made from a vessel full of salt water, with an anode and cathode immersed in it, that will produce sodium hypochlorite, if the cell tempeature is kept below 50° C. Think of it this way, a jug of 6% Clorox bleach also contains 1% sodium chloride. Is it not possible that he is making additional sodium hypochlorite from the salt in the bleach?

If he added any water to his hypochlorite, when he was adding it to the cell, he would lower the overall pH and convert some of the hypochlorite to hypochlorous acid. The hypochlorous acid would put the gold into solution as a chloride and, just as fast, it may be depositing at the cathode. The freed clorine gas would instantly go back into solution as hypochlorous acid and proceed to dissolve more gold.

Modtheworld44, just for the heck of it, could you try your cell out with straight saturated salt water?

 

[modtheworld44]

I want to point out that I believe there is some misconception about what is actually going on in this cell. In order for this cell to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine gas, would there not need to be a membrane between the anode and cathode, as in a chlor-alkali generator?

On the other hand, a cell can be made from a vessel full of salt water, with an anode and cathode immersed in it, that will produce sodium hypochlorite, if the cell tempeature is kept below 50° C. Think of it this way, a jug of 6% Clorox bleach also contains 1% sodium chloride. Is it not possible that he is making additional sodium hypochlorite from the salt in the bleach?

If he added any water to his hypochlorite, when he was adding it to the cell, he would lower the overall pH and convert some of the hypochlorite to hypochlorous acid. The hypochlorous acid would put the gold into solution as a chloride and, just as fast, it may be depositing at the cathode. The freed clorine gas would instantly go back into solution as hypochlorous acid and proceed to dissolve more gold.

Modtheworld44, just for the heck of it, could you try your cell out with straight saturated salt water?

Traveller11

Yes I will try the salt water for you. I my self have been thinking about a couple of variations for the cell.I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here in my thread, but I've been very busy with other new projects and haven't had time to come back to this one as soon as I've planned.I'll try my best to run it with the salt water this week.Thanks for taking the time to post this information to me(it means allot that you might see some potential in this project).



modtheworld44

 

[Traveller11]

I want to point out that I believe there is some misconception about what is actually going on in this cell. In order for this cell to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine gas, would there not need to be a membrane between the anode and cathode, as in a chlor-alkali generator?

On the other hand, a cell can be made from a vessel full of salt water, with an anode and cathode immersed in it, that will produce sodium hypochlorite, if the cell tempeature is kept below 50° C. Think of it this way, a jug of 6% Clorox bleach also contains 1% sodium chloride. Is it not possible that he is making additional sodium hypochlorite from the salt in the bleach?

If he added any water to his hypochlorite, when he was adding it to the cell, he would lower the overall pH and convert some of the hypochlorite to hypochlorous acid. The hypochlorous acid would put the gold into solution as a chloride and, just as fast, it may be depositing at the cathode. The freed clorine gas would instantly go back into solution as hypochlorous acid and proceed to dissolve more gold.

Modtheworld44, just for the heck of it, could you try your cell out with straight saturated salt water?

Traveller11

Yes I will try the salt water for you. I my self have been thinking about a couple of variations for the cell.I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here in my thread, but I've been very busy with other new projects and haven't had time to come back to this one as soon as I've planned.I'll try my best to run it with the salt water this week.Thanks for taking the time to post this information to me(it means allot that you might see some potential in this project).



modtheworld44

As long as we all keep an open mind, there is potential in everything, my friend. I see enormous opportunities in the rising of the sun each morning. :lol:

 

[Wyndham]

It seems that what is been tried is a acid/base balance that shifts just enough to make the to deplate the gold at the source and drop before moving to replate
What if the dc voltage in the electrochemical cell were variable?
Just trying to learn
Wyndham

 

[modtheworld44]

It seems that what is been tried is a acid/base balance that shifts just enough to make the to deplate the gold at the source and drop before moving to replate
What if the dc voltage in the electrochemical cell were variable?
Just trying to learn
Wyndham

Wyndham

That is the most simplified and accurate analysis of this cell. I see you know how to think outside of the box too. Unfortunately I can't answer your last question,because the power supply I use is regulated. There doesn't seem to be anyone else on the forum that has tried this cell out besides Geo and if there is someone they haven't stated so to my knowledge.Well thank you for the shared view of the cell (once you try it for your self thats exactly what you should see happening). Thanks.



modtheworld44

 

[Marcel]

You can use electric enegery on ANY of the recovery processes we know here: AP, AR and so on.
To keep it simple the effect is just that the speed of a given reaction will be enhanced on the cost of electrical energy.
You can also use almost ANY liquid as electrolyte as long as it is conductive. Normal tablesalt NACl is one example.
But looking deeper into it, you will find that even table salt will form a very dangerous salt (NaClO4=Sodium perchlorate) which was used as rocket propellant and is still used to kill weed.
So using bleach as an electrolyte is not surprising to me. It is just the normal bleach process but in this case here very ineffective because of the continous cementation.
Why would one use a dangerous chemical like bleach as electrolyte when even simple table salt does create such safety problems?
Bleach is not selective to gold, so it makes no difference if you put your material in that cell or in a beaker without electrical power and let it sit there for some time longer. It will be the same outcome. But putting mixed material in bleach makes no sense because the gold will cement right back.
I can only advise anyone not to experiment too much with the electric cell. It is really dangerous and you are moving on unknown grounds. Toxic and explosive byproducts is what you create here in exchange for a minimal yield. Leave the science to the scientists with their propper equipment and experience. These are just my though on these tryouts.

 

[Traveller11]

You can use electric enegery on ANY of the recovery processes we know here: AP, AR and so on.
To keep it simple the effect is just that the speed of a given reaction will be enhanced on the cost of electrical energy.
You can also use almost ANY liquid as electrolyte as long as it is conductive. Normal tablesalt NACl is one example.
But looking deeper into it, you will find that even table salt will form a very dangerous salt (NaClO4=Sodium perchlorate) which was used as rocket propellant and is still used to kill weed.
So using bleach as an electrolyte is not surprising to me. It is just the normal bleach process but in this case here very ineffective because of the continous cementation.
Why would one use a dangerous chemical like bleach as electrolyte when even simple table salt does create such safety problems?
Bleach is not selective to gold, so it makes no difference if you put your material in that cell or in a beaker without electrical power and let it sit there for some time longer. It will be the same outcome. But putting mixed material in bleach makes no sense because the gold will cement right back.
I can only advise anyone not to experiment too much with the electric cell. It is really dangerous and you are moving on unknown grounds. Toxic and explosive byproducts is what you create here in exchange for a minimal yield. Leave the science to the scientists with their propper equipment and experience. These are just my though on these tryouts.

I think you are confusing sodium chlorate (NaClO3) with sodium perchlorate (NaClO4). While both have been used as oxidizers in rocket fuel (not the actual propellant) only sodium chlorate is sold as a weed killer.

While sodium chlorate can be made from sodium hypochlorite bleach by simply heating it (3 NaClO = 2 NaCl + NaClO3), to convert further to sodium perchlorate is a rather involved process and not something that will accidentally happen in the type of simple salt water (no membrane) cell we have been discussing.

One way of manufacturing sodium hypochlorite bleach is the electrolysis of salt water in a cell. However, the temperature must be kept below 40° Celsius, often by regulating the electric current. Between 50° and 70° Celsius, the same salt water cell will produce sodium chlorate.

Over 100 years ago, before the introduction of cyanide leaching in mining, "chlorine solutions" were prepared from the electrolysis of salt water. These solutions, likely a mixture of sodium hypochlorite/hypochlorous acid and sodium chlorate/chloric acid, were then piped to airtight revolving cylinders filled with ground ore, where they leached gold from the ores as a chloride. After filtering, this chloride liquid was piped back to the electrolysis cell. Here, the auric chloride was separated through electrolysis and the gold would fall to the bottom of the cell at the cathode. The liberated chlorine would make more "chlorine solution" and be sent back to the leaching cylinder.

As far as being dangerous, I really fail to see what you are talking about. There are cells being discussed on here that use sulphuric acid, and refiners regularly discussing aqua regia. Are you going to issue warnings to them to cease and desist, as well?

 

[modtheworld44]

Marcel

I just want you to know that, I respect you as a person and a member of this forum.I have read many of your posts and seen many of your own videos.So with that said, it brings me back to your own words and one question.

" Leave the science to the scientists with their propper equipment and experience."

Are you a scientist?

I stand by my own words "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER AND POWER IS THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING".



Traveller11

Thanks for the defense.



modtheworld44

 

[solar_plasma]

modtheworld44, you asked me to have a look on this topic. So here is my opinion after reading the thread:

When NaOH and chlorine is in solution at elevated temperatures, both will be created ClO₃^- and ClO₄^-, the reaction is already described in the old Brönsted. But it is a blend of all chlorine compounds involved in the chain of reaction (chloride, hypochlorite, chlorate, perchlorate - number of possible compounds: 4 multiplied with the number of nearly all metals involved). Not much better or worse that the old, in former times well-known Unkraut-Ex (weed-ex?). Hydrogen and chlorine gas can cause problems. Blended they react violently when exposed to light.

Something that bothers me more in this experiment is, there are too many unecessary ions, that make things complicated, since it is only the very reactive nascending chlorine that is the turbo for the oxidation of the gold (and all other metals). Thinking of a compound that only will form hydrogen and chlorine, we are back in the discussion about HCl as the electrolyte, electrolytical rejuvenation of copper(II) and/or iron(III) chloride and all the problems that follows with those approaches, when attached to a coincident dissolution of gold and base metals. No doubt about they work. The question is, if they can offer advantages over other methods.

I read and thought a lot about that. Until now, neither I see any evidence for advantages that weigh heavier than the disadvantages, nor do I think it is wrong to discuss, - for me personally. Both sides might not be true for everyone.

I am pretty sure, I don't want to have sodium in this electrolyte.

 

[solar_plasma]

" Leave the science to the scientists with their propper equipment and experience."

Are you a scientist?

:mrgreen: True.

It is hard to determine, if we have enough knowledge, since we never can be sure of knowing, what we don't know. I think this applies to all levels of chemical education. I think it is best to ask the forum for other points of view when we are not sure. Without the forum as a safety belt I surely would have tried many processes, that I decided not to use or not to use anylonger.

 

[g_axelsson]

I still stand by my words :

What I see is a real mess, this is the electrolytical version of throwing all your scrap into AR and then trying to do something with the mess. You will have all kinds of base metals in your solution, mixed with some mud containing hydroxides and cemented base metals... probably some oxides too.

I'm sorry, but so far your process does not impress me.

Göran

I was hoping for this thread to die down silently, but since it's been reawakened I'm going to give this a shot. I did it once and then my computer crashed so I lost all my work and didn't have the time to do it all over again... but here I go again. As you wrote the text in one massive block it's almost impossible to read. You should learn to use paragraphs and points to describe a process. I have split your text up and added some comments in red.

I'm sorry if this is going to sound hard, but I'm going to tell you what I think about the videos you showed us.

I agree with Eric, you don't say anything at all. I think I heard "that is what I'm talking about" ten times but never once did you tell us what you process is or give any proof of having produced any gold. I didn't see any testing of pregnant liquids to show the presence of gold before trying to "SMB'd it to ****". I heard AR once or twice, nitric once and hydrochloric a couple of times, but never said what you had in solution in the beginning of the video. You never told us how much material you started with and type of materials.
What I see is a real mess, this is the electrolytical version of throwing all your scrap into AR and then trying to do something with the mess. You will have all kinds of base metals in your solution, mixed with some mud containing hydroxides and cemented base metals... probably some oxides too.

Why can't you just write down the procedure you use in easy to follow steps in text, then it is easy to follow what you are doing. To go back and looking through half an hour of video to try to find a missing step mentioned somewhere isn't practical. It would take me hours, going through your videos to check procedures if it was there but in writing I could do it in minutes, comparing it to known procedures.

I'm sorry, but so far your process does not impress me.

Göran

g_axelsson

Heres the list of stuff that was put through the GEOMOD cell,in my second post from top.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=17046
79grams assorted pins (motherboard,cellphone,connector)
about 30 grams Ethernet pins (forgot to weigh)
1pair gold filled eye-frames (forgot to weight)
11.5grams gold filled jewelery
2 ram fingers
and half of a hard drive platter (top coat was stripped in about 2minutes leaving behind aluminum base)

A 110 grams of gold plated pins, an unknown amount of gold filled, generously maybe 20 grams and 2 gold fingers from ram memories. Most gold will come from the gold filled. Let's be generous here and say you probably have 1/2 gram of gold here.

Ok you make some good points so let me try and explain the best I can for everyone.After I filtered the cell I put the powder in AR(poorman because I was running low on regular nitric),because this was my first time using poorman AR I used to much potassium nitrate.I didn't realize it until I went back and reread the post where Butcher gave us the three or four different recipes for it.So because I didn't realize it at the time I went a head and diluted the AR to about 2-1/2 gallons.Yes I'm aware now that this was to much,but this is what I did.The start solution was originally at the ten cup mark on my coffee pot.

Before trying to improve on a method you should know how the method works.

So then I started adding in the SMB and noticed that when it hit the AR it was instantly turning the off brown color of gold powder.Well I then stirred it and let it set for about four hours,then came back and added a little pinch of smb to make sure it had all precipitated out.When the pinch hit the AR I got more brown powder and decided to see how much more it would produce so in went the hole bottle .45kg of SMB.

That bottle should have been enough to precipitate a pound of gold, you had around half a gram. That's about 1000 times more than needed.

After it had all dissolved,the color change in Ar never happened but there became this brown mercky cloud all through it.So I decided to finally let it settle over night and then siphon it of down to the powder.When I got up the next morning and checked it, there was a thin layer of brown particles floating on top and the 3 gallon clear tote bottom was covered with brown powders and it still had that brown merckyness to the AR.

At this point it's a 3 gallon mess.

So I went a head and siphoned it down after I sprayed the brown layer down and collected the powders.I boiled them in hot water then when I put in the ammonia to get rid of the silver that I suspected thats when I really thought I messed it up.

As I started adding the ammonia it started changing to a royal blue almost purplish color.So I started filtering it off my powders and as the fluid filled my catch coffee pot the surface started to form these little broken apart silver mirrors.So when the ammonia was all filtered off, I added to shots of hcl to finish rinsing the powders and allow the ammonia to be acidified(the color changed to clear cloudy almost instantly.

So since the AR was going to be waste anyways I dumped the ammonia in it.My original plan from this point was to dry the filter with the powders and then scrape powders off filter and melt.

Powders in a filter is hard to get off. When doing refining correctly you can do all the steps from precipitating via washing and then drying in the same beaker.

Well when the filter dried there was hardly any powder there so my first thought was must have went through filter when poured the hcl on powders.So I melted the little bit of powder that was left in the filter and got 0.4gr which was slightly contaminated from my dirty crucible.

Never melt pure gold in a contaminated crucible, it contaminates the gold again. At this point I'm actually impressed that you got some powder that you could melt.

So this turn of events took me back to the cloud mercky waste of AR,which by this time had settled some more brown powders.So since the cloudiness had not settled yet,I went and bought another 1lb bottle of bodine stump remover.When I got home I emptied the whole bottle in the AR waste and let it sit for another 24hrs.

As if the first pound wasn't enough. The mess is getting even bigger. HCl, nitrates, ammonia and a kilo of SMB.

This time though,when it became dark I went outside to my AR tote with a flashlight and shined it through the AR and gave it a good stir and low and behold I got tons of little reflections come back at me.So I went to bed and got back up 6hrs later to allot more powder.

This time I siphoned it off into 4-5 coffee pot loads each at 10 cup mark and hard boiled them for 2-4 hours until I could see lots of powder on the bottom.

I took the first pot and let it cool for about 15mins and then decanted as much solution as possible and then poured the rest into the next pot.I done all the pots this way until one pot held all the powders and then I boiled it again for 2hrs more.When the last pot was done I decanted as much as possible till there was probably 30-50ml of solution left with powders.Now when I was boiling these pots I kept hearing these loud popping noises like there was metal being bounced off the bottom and sides of the pot but just chalked it up to the hot plate since it does make noises some times.

That was steam explosions, probably under salts that were starting to dry up on the bottom. Why all the hard boiling?

After I decanted the final pot I done a panning swirl to check for possible chloride powders being mixed in.

How can you check for chloride powders by swirling the pot?

That's when I noticed the gold flakes for the first time and realized thats what I had heard bouncing around in the pots while boiling them.

You can't hear precipitated gold bouncing in the pot, the gold is a powder, not small nuggets.

So I got me a big glass anchor hockings pie pan dumped the 30-50mls in it and done another panning swirl to make sure that I wasn't seeing things,and sure enough I wasn't.I got my electric griddle (I use strictly for refining purposes out)and started evaporating the rest of the solution and because I was in a hurry to get to the gold that I was seeing I used rubbing alcohol to speed up evaporation(which worked by the way).

I think there is a possibility to create explosives when mixing alcohol and dissolved metal salts, especially as you had used ammonia in the solution.

The powder turned three colors when it dried(yellow with white film was gold,white was alcohol residue and probably some chlorides and brown?). Me and GEO have concluded that the brown must be some type of chloride/sulfate.So I scraped the powders from the dish and melted them.I used a dremmel and sanded out as much of the contamination as I could from my crucible(Yes I now Know thanks to Geo how to handle this problem next time),but it didn't get enough out so when I tried melting it all the metals got locked up and to try and free them I came up with the not so bright idea of adding the 0.4grs from the first melt and locked it up too.So I heated it red hot and then moved the glob around with a fork and sprayed it with my water bottle a couple times to make it break up some.Then I proceeded the grind the glob into a powder using a silverplated spoon and the crucible as a make shift pestle&mortar.From there I found several small pieces of metal plus the 0.4grs I had added to it,once the glob was powdered I made another small batch of AR and hence the small pot you see in the new videos and I did do three stannous tests,two of which you saw in the video not once but twice.

So now is the first time you test with stannous.

The white cap with the black purple stains.The third one was the first test done on a q-tip which I only showed those to Geo before he suggested I use something white to do the tests on,hence the white cap.Now after I done the first test and I let the AR cool,it started to form crystal so I filtered the crystals out twice and right before I did this I done the second test but first using the cap(bottom of cap in video)then after I filtered I done third test but second using cap(top of cap in video). So in-between the time it took me to make the 3 and 4 video,I took and SMB'd the small pot of AR to death and heated it to get the nice little bit I got and I siphoned off some more powders from the original AR batch and boiled them to get the gold flakes that you see in the videos.I'm still working on the final result so please be patient hoping to finish that up today or at least be able to show you some of the results in the form of a button.

I don't know if I want to know how much SMB you used this time, if two pounds of SMB wasn't bad enough, I wonder what you consider is "SMB'd the small pot of AR to death".

I'm going to post the two pictures that I sent GEO so you can see the first stannous test and see the crystals that formed in the second small pot of AR.If you have decided to read this far THANK YOU!!

modtheworld44

I could have added a lot more comments, but I don't have the energy to do it.

This is just a big mess, done by someone that hasn't learned to do the procedures the right way from the beginning and tries to show it off as a new and improved way of refining gold.

Göran

 

[solar_plasma]

I just want to add: All my comments were refering to the idea of using a chlorine generating cell to leach gold.

If no sodium compounds like NaClO or NaCl are used, but HCl on copper based material, it will principally be nothing else but electrolytically rejuvenating of CuCl2 leach, just that you additionally dissolve a gold plated copper anode. Been there, done this. But even this has no advantages to a simple stock pot as far as I can see.

It is fast (even on kovar), but some of the gold will flake off, some will dissolve and some of the dissolved gold reduces back in the solution when it comes near the anode, cement on basemetal particles, maybe even at the anode, - if not at the anode, this could be a reason to look at it further.

So, recovering the gold from the cell without losses makes that much more work, that I can't see an advantage. For me it is nothing else but a fast dissolving stock pot.

One good thing I see, it eats the metal quickly without the introduction of nitric, so there are no nitrates in the dirty solution.

 

[Palladium]

Having finally read this thread i want the last 20 minutes of my life back!

 

[goldsilverpro]

Having finally read this thread i want the last 20 minutes of my life back!

Man, do I agree with you. I spent more time than that and I still don't understand what the man is trying to say. Or the setup. Or the purpose. Or the results.