gold disolved in AP

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R

russmoss

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Mar 12, 2017
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I need help. Im new to this. My gold disolved in AP. I was told to saturate it with copper to push the gold out. It has a powder on the bottom of the jar . I did a stannous chloride test its clear. What is the next step I need to do ? Thanks
 
What was the type and quantity of the source material. How did you know that the gold was dissolved in the AP ? What color is the powder on the bottom ? It is quite difficult to get gold to dissolve in AP, did you add too much H2O2 ? How much gold are you expecting ?
 
Finger boards and pins . All of the gold disappeared while in the AP. I did put too much h2o2 and it was left in the sun . The color of solution is dark brown/ black the powder looks to be brown . Expecting 2g
 
Yep, as above, I would siphon off the liquid, then wash the powder a couple of times with clean water, then go through the normal sequence of refining with AR.
 
ive read hooks book . i could not understand very well because im not English speaker .
i took ram fingers and added hcl and then h202 reaction went very fast after about 8-10 minutes .600g ram finger were clear . when i filtered it there was very little gold on paper hard to see with naked eye. i refined it got 0.3 g of bead. after that it happend same with processor pins . tell me what am i doing wrong . i think i add h2o2 too much. reaction goes very fast. what should i do in next batch im gonna use 2kg ram fingers.
 
H2O2 is an oxidant--it's really only supplying oxygen. If you use a bubbler, you can provide O2 from the air, and you only need a small amount of hydrogen peroxide, enough to kickstart the reaction. The bubbler will provide the rest. Heck, you can even skip the peroxide and the reaction will eventually start with bubbled air.
 
Yep, as above, stop using H2O2. Just use an aquarium air pump and bubbler. It will take a few days to etch the copper away, but none of the gold will go into solution.

If you are starting with fresh HCl, then you can add a small amount (a splash) of H2O2 just to get the reaction started.

If you don't want to use any H2O2, you can also 'burn' some copper wire with a gas flame to get copper oxide and put that in your solution, that will kick-start the process.
 
Late to the conversation. Was there any metal left after the AP was finished. Any solid metal at all? Gold will not stay in solution while there is solid base metal present. Gold will be the last metal to dissolve in a mixed metal mass. If there is an excess of oxidizer in solution, some fine gold may go into solution but it will cement back out almost immediately. You would almost have to try to dissolve gold using AP (copper(II) chloride) and hydrogen peroxide. My reasoning is, you only use H2O2 once at the beginning of the batch and use an air bubbler to keep the solution oxygenated.
 
Geo said:
You would almost have to try to dissolve gold using AP (copper(II) chloride) and hydrogen peroxide. My reasoning is, you only use H2O2 once at the beginning of the batch and use an air bubbler to keep the solution oxygenated.
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I managed to do it, and I really didn't try. :oops:

The first time I started a tiny batch of AP, I was cautious. I started it with probably 8 oz. of HCl, less than a capful of H2O2, and a piece of copper wire. I let it react for a few days till it was a nice green color. I pulled out the remaining wire and put in one (yes, 1) card edge connector (finger) from an old ISA board. When I checked on it a day or two later, there were some foils that had come off and some that were still attached.

Then some life happened and I wasn't able to get back to it for several weeks. When I was finally able to check on it again, the only thing left was the green fiberglass board. All the foils were completely gone.

As you said,
Gold will not stay in solution while there is solid base metal present. Gold will be the last metal to dissolve in a mixed metal mass.
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Gold was probably the last thing to dissolve. And it probably wouldn't have stayed in solution if there had been any solid base metal remaining, but there wasn't. But there was more than enough HCl, and the container was loosely covered, but open to the air. That was when I learned that given enough time, oxygen from the air can act as enough of an oxidizer to put gold into solution, even without a bubbler.

I didn't lose anything. I just added more fingers and recovered the bit that had dissolved, but I did dissolve gold, it did stay in solution, and I didn't try. :cry:

Dave
 
Been running the same method with 40g of gold filled scrap. Started off as a pretty green color and now it's dark as coffee. Can see small gold bits floating around or settled on the bottom. The first small batch I did has 15g of gold filled scrap in it and I started it a month ago and there's almost nothing left in the mixture.
 
DylanDownright84 said:
Been running the same method with 40g of gold filled scrap. Started off as a pretty green color and now it's dark as coffee. Can see small gold bits floating around or settled on the bottom. The first small batch I did has 15g of gold filled scrap in it and I started it a month ago and there's almost nothing left in the mixture.
Click to expand...

Not a whole lot of gold in goldfilled, depending on if its 1/20, 1/10, or 1/5 -that is what weight of the article is karat gold, so if it is 1/10 12k, and you had 10 grams to start. 1 gram would be the karat weight, 12k is 50% Au, so .5 gram (theoretically) in the end.

The downside of gold filled, is it it has been worn heavily, the gold will wear off, leaving the base metal and very little precious metal.
 
Sadly I have no idea what type of filled it is. It wasn't worn though. It's just thin strips of scrap I picked up from a guy who's scrap silver I melted down for him. I'll post pics tomorrow when I have daylight for you guys. It's working for sure. Can see all the little flakes settling on the bottom. Wish I had some nitric! Must've called 15-18 places today looking for just a litre of the stuff and the places that do carry it won't sell it to me without a business license. Even called all the pool supply shops in my area too. I want to continue the process and am gonna research the 2nd half again tonight. The whole Hcl and bleach part makes me a bit nervous. I did pick up some more ppe this weekend for it.
 

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