gold enamel?

[Charles Connor]

Good night, a customer came today with this sticky material to help him melt it into a button, he told me that someone gave him this as the result of refining some srcap he gave. I think he was just robbed, it has an appearance of this flakes that they put on this fancy liquor or a kind of cosmetic thing. My qestion is, have you guys seen anything like this and know what could it be?

 

[Charles Connor]

another image

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Looks like possible gold flakes from copper chloride etching process.

 

[Charles Connor]

I tried melting some, but it just leaves a black paste in the melting dish, besides that, wich method could lead to a result like this other than crystal growing with electrochem...

 

[UncleBenBen]

It does look like gold foils left in filters from a copper (II) chloride leach.

Whatever it is or isn't, please put some gloves on while handling it.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Have you tested a sample to confirm there is any gold there?

Dave

 

[Geo]

Dissolve a small sample and test the solution with stannous chloride.

 

[g_axelsson]

I agree with previous guesses, gold foils with copper chloride mixed with possible lead chloride and metastannic acid. A bit of a mess. Both Copper I and II chloride melts around 500 °C and the mix would probably turn into a black paste.

I would wash it with hydrochloric acid first to remove copper chlorides (test the solution with stannous). Then if the rest is a grey sludge with gold foils mixed in I would treat it as metastannic acid. (Incineration + HCl wash or lye treatment followed by hydrochloric acid wash have been suggested on the forum.)

Some links among the references on http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Metastannic_acid

Göran

 

[Charles Connor]

Thanks for all your answers, as i get home I'll try dissolve it and test it with SnCl2, the thing here i that he gave almost 100 g of 10K scrap and he got this in return, and no matter the method the yield should look better than this. Since I have not tried this copper chloride method i didn't know how the yield looked like. Thanks again for your answers!

 

[solar_plasma]

Yes, use gloves!
Where copper salts are found, nickel salts aren't far away, since nickle is used as a barrier layer. Smallest amounts of nickel will sooner or later make you get a nickel allergy, with rising risk each time you have contact.

 

[Geo]

From just a picture, you really can't tell if it is a product of AP with copper(II) chloride or just nitric acid. If you add HCl to a small sample and it dissolves, it came from a nitric acid leech. If you add HCl and the solution takes on a color but the foils do not dissolve, it would be an AP solution. An easy fix is to roast the material to rid it of all acid residue.

 

[Charles Connor]

Yes i know i have to use gloves, but those salts are from the flux that a guy here added to a filter paper to try and melt this material, i was not at the shop by the time he tried to melt this. Geo i´ll try that as soon as i get more HCl :lol: , will do it on the weekend after my final exam, so i hope the customer does not get mad and ask for his material back, thanks for your answers gents.