Gold Foils dissolved in AR. Help Please, experts.

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DibaGold

New member
Joined
Feb 7, 2015
Messages
2
Dear Experts.
We are starting out in the gold refining game, with steady supply of cell phones. We hit a snag at our second phase of the process, which I hope you can help with.
-We stripped the phones very well
-We then "cooked" them in sand and removed the solder and cleaned them perfectly.
- We soaked in AP 2:1 as you suggested. ( our Peroxide is 34%) Maybe too strong for future???
- The gold foils came off nicely initially but after about 12 hours they stopped coming off and they seemed to be disappearing
- At the 12 hour point I added another amount of peroxide to spice things up a bit:) The remaining gold literally just bubbled off in minutes and the boards were clean with no gold let of them at all.
- The problem is …the gold foils disappeared. The liquid is a light green colour and clean and there is No gold to be seen. :(

I have read the forums for hours and separated the liquid into 3 jugs to try different methods to try precipitate the gold back.
- In Jug 1- I tried SMB it has not worked, can any one suggest the correct ratio grams / grams gold?
- In Jug 2 - I have some stainless steel spoons in the other jug trying to extract the copper. Seems to be working but will this bring the gold back :(?
- In Jug 3 I have the bulk of the AP untouched waiting another solution.

Can anyone offer some advice?

My particular questions are in 2 phases parts.
- What is the reason the gold disappeared to prevent it happening again (peroxide to strong at 34%) or???
- How do I get the gold out of this batch. Im no chemist so hopefully a dummies guide to my problem will be helpful:)

Many Thanks
 
Firstly, welcome to the forum.

I imagine you are here from having followed something on YouTube.

You've attempted the AP process, acid peroxide, not the Aqua Regia process. In a nutshell, AP works by letting copper(ii) chloride dissolve more copper. You only want a small splash of peroxide to start the process. And a splash of 3% is enough. The peroxide will cause gold to be dissolved in HCl and 2:1 with 34% is quite brutal. So you've dissolved your gold, when you really only wanted to dissolve the copper.

Jug #1. This will not work because you still have too much acid and peroxide, overpowering the SMB.

To recover your gold from here, you will most likely want to "cement" it out of solution by adding a solid copper bar. This will cause gold to slowly fall out of solution as a fine brown powder. It will take some time, especially as it sounds like you've also used way more acid than is required. This is what you are attempting to do with Jug #2, only you are using stainless, which is cementing out the copper as well as the gold. You only want the gold, right?

Jug #3: Waiting is your best bet. Otherwise you will just make a bigger mess. I suggest before you retry cementing, that you get a whole lot of reading under your belt until you understand what you expect to happen. Start here: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=6873#6873

Also, make sure you read up especially on personal safety, and responsible waste disposal. You're working with toxic chemicals you cannot tip down the sink, even diluted.
 
Hello DibaGold and welcome to the forum.

By hours of studying the forums...What forums and how many hours?

Did you search this forum for AP? and read through hours and hours there?.
If you had, you would know that adding lots of peroxide in with HCL will dissolve gold. That's what you have done.

Have you read Hoke's book yet? Is free and required reading for this forum.

First mistake everyone makes is doing before learning.
Running before walking.

Where does it say 2:1 ratio of HCL:peroxide? Seems way to much for anything. Maybe in that group of posts it said that but I'm sure further reading would say no go or why.

12 hours in AP is not usually long enough for AP to complete it's task, dissolve copper. The gold dissolved but is still there. In solution as well as black/brown powder.

" At the 12 hour point I added another amount of peroxide to spice things up a bit:)"
Major mistake...
Assuming by adding more of something will "spice things up" will only cause a hazzardous mess and loss of gold or other PMs.

"I have read the forums for hours and separated the liquid into 3 jugs to try different methods to try precipitate the gold back."

separate into 3 jugs to "try"...We never "try" anything without knowing the outcome.
Reading how to do something will illuminate the guess work.

Reading and learning here, in this forum, will teach you how much SMB will drop how much gold...and what must be done to get SMB to do it's thing.

Stainless steel is dropping gold, copper, and anything else above it in the precipitation tables. But it will all look like black mud. Very finely divided metals.

Letting all of your solution sit with a light cover on it is the best thing you can do right now until you learn what to do with it.

This is a very fun/interesting field/hobby/income but it requires very strict scientific rules. Like learning the entire process from start to finish. Even the "dummies" version requires learning before doing.

It also appears you maybe from a different language then English. For this reason, THIS FORUM, has formal words to mean specific things.
For instance, Cooking anything is not used here unless it pertains to food...Now I'm hungry, thanks...

"-We then "cooked" them in sand and removed the solder and cleaned them perfectly."
How do you clean cell phone boards "perfectly"? We all would like to know this process as it means absolutely right and in such a way as everything unwanted is now gone...

We can only help you with the learning process but perfecting anything requires you to actually learn the process and then "DO" it until it becomes part of you.

Please begin with the welcome section of this forum and it will guide you with your learning.

Hope to see excellent results...maybe 6 months to a year from now. Maybe enough time to read enough to learn the entire process.

B.S.
 
Hi DibaGold!
Put your containers away safely! your gold isen't going anywhere and it will be there when you come back to it.
how many boards are we talking about? The gold plating is very thin and it takes alot of them to get a visible amount of gold.
Sounds like you may have enough peroxide there to strip 20-30 pounds of boards and if you continue using the solution, eventually the disolved gold will precipitate out as black powder as the solution saturates with copper and other base metals. Made a lot of extra work for yourself. But, you have a lot of educating yourself to do so that you understand what you are doing and why, how to do it safely and how to deal with the wastes.
Download Hoke's book. read it untill you understand what she is teaching you,
Follow the advise given above
The object was to recover the gold, not to disolve it along with a lot of other base metals to create a mess. Get reading and wecome to our forum!

Good luck! Looking foreward to seeing your first gold!

artart47
 
You should describe quantities
Volumes of both acids
Weight of cell phone boards
Size of jug

That is a right path to ask chemistry related help
I have faced such conditions 4 years back.
After knowing the quantities we would be able to help you out.

Thanks

Wicky
 
Your gold didn't disappear, it's in solution, or likely cemented back out onto the board components. Cover the pot and do some reading, the education will be worth the time spent.
 
Hi guys and gals I am a newbie to the chem world of refining gold from computer parts. I am stuck . A friend out of state recommended I use this guys instructions- https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_10285817&feature=iv&src_vid=8lXd85YfcvY&v=5c9Z5UYsUV4

That's the best way to explain I think. Anyway I stripped gold flake, added AR, then had on low heat, added Urea , waited for signs, then added SMB and let stand over night. Solution is at a dark yellow with a little bit of foam at top. This is where the Gold or brown mud is supposed to settle at bottom. Anyone help me from this point to repair or do I trash this solution?
 
Welcome to the forum dreamer. I would recommend you forget everything you saw in that video. The guy makes so many mistakes, it's no wonder you've ended up with problems.

Do not "trash" your solution. You won't lose your gold unless you throw it away.

The good news is that everything you need to know to recover your gold and process it correctly is available on this forum. The bad news is you're going to have to do a lot of studying if you want to recover and refine precious metals.

I'll give you a couple of links to get you started. So that you'll understand why no one can give you a quick, one paragraph explanation of what to do, start with Why Can't I Ask a Simple Question and get a Simple Answer?.

Then, for help in getting started on your studies, try Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum.

Best of luck,
Dave
 
Never once in the video did he test his solution with stannous chloride. I wonder how much gold he lost as a result?
 
Maybe this one should be the first thread on each side, then all the I-did-a-mess-because-I-trusted-in-youtube-threads would be one place in future....just beside
"Whole board dissolved - strange precipitate" and "where is my gold" :mrgreen:

Joke aside, it might be serving well, if all struggled newbs would have one place, they could post the biggest mistakes and the worst thousand of times asked questions without feeling bad and without fragmenting the board. In 20 years you will need a quantum pc with artificial intelligence to find anything useful on the board - and we can't be sure, it will be developed already then.

Welcome Dibagold!
 

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