I use the things like H2O (water) when I write to help you learn them.
Just like when you used HCl (hydrochloric acid) and NaClO (sodium hypochlorite) (bleach) to dissolve your gold foils, to make AuCl3 (gold chloride solution), then you removed the Cl2 gas (chlorine gas) by using heat to drive off the chlorine gas, from the yellow gold chloride solution, settled to let insoluble material settle, decanted (carefully removed liquid from powder, by pouring off liquid or by a suction bulb or using a siphon hose), filtered the solution, and then used SMB (sodium metabisulfite) to precipitate your gold from solution as Au (gold metal) the brown powder.
I separated the foils and dissolved in hydrochloric acid and bleach. Did you remove excess chlorine from solution? But I didn't get much gold powder back. So i figured that some of the gold must have gone in solution.
If you dissolved the gold in HCl/NaClO and used enough, for your gold in proper proportions you would have dissolved all of your gold, all of it should have gone into solution, then you needed to remove the chlorine gas you made by mixing these chemicals, using heat, filtered and precipitated the gold back out of solution using SMB, or some other chemical reagent like ferrous sulfate, which would cause a brown powder to form in solution which would settle to the bottom of your vessel (jar), this brown powder would be your gold metal.
I read about cementation on Steve’s site. And I read Hokes book too. I could read it a hundred more times and I still won’t understand all of it. I'm more of a visual learner.
Either you did not explain the steps you did properly or you missed several important steps.
No reason to cement the gold on copper unless you had a problem with the steps above, or the solution was contaminated.
I think reading Hoke’s again and more practice will help you, (that is how I am learning even today, read Hokes over and practice what I learn)
So any way I put some copper into the solution to try to precipitate the rest of the gold.
Well it looks like you visually learned how to cement your gold out of solution, as you noticed the black powder, this is your gold contaminated with copper.
What precipitated was a black powder like substance. So I read some more and if I understand this right, this should be the gold. But then I read some more, and now I think this could also be black copper (II) oxide. So how do I know which one is precipitating from the solution?
Cementing your solution it is both gold and copper, if you would have removed the oxidizer (chlorine), you could have precipitated the Au (gold) from the solution more selectively (more gold less other metals) by using a reagent (chemical) like SMB (sodium metabisulfite).
I read about different metals dropping at different times but like I said reading it and actually seeing it are two different things for me.
I would not worry about different metals dropping at different times in this batch, your gold and copper was cemented together.
So any help here would be greatly appreciated. And please use words not na2h03 or whatever that is.
Well that would be Na2 (two sodium metal}, H (one hydrogen, making this slightly acidic), and O3 (three oxygen’s), not really anything I readily recognize, are you meaning Na2HSO4 (sodium bisulfate) or (sodium hydrogen sulfate), the salt we get when we make poor mans nitric acid, or the salt we can use to make our ferrous sulfate to precipitate gold from solution or test gold in solution with?
Speaking of testing for gold in solution, I did not see anything in your process doing this, you say your a visual learner, yet you do not use your eyes, the stannous chloride test is your eyes when you work with gold dissolved into solutions, so open your eyes (your bottle of stannous chloride) so you can see what is going on, then you truly will be a visual learner, learning from what you can see, not a blind man trying to guess what is happening.
It's hard enough to remember everything else let alone whet chemicals all those letters and numbers go to, Thanks
At this point you do not need to remember the chemical names, but keep reading them, use them when you do learn them, do not ask me to stop trying to teach you them, and then you will soon learn them also, a little at a time, and then you will also see how useful they can be for the things you wish to do or learn. When we learn an skill like electronics we also have to learn the language, the language we need to learn more in that skill, the more we study and read about what we are interested in the more will be able to speak that language, before long we do not even know we are speaking this new language, just like you (now) when you say the word precipitate, or cemented, these are words or the new language, you are beginning to speak, soon the words like NaCl (table salt) will also be familiar to you.
I hope this helps you.
P.S. put your black powdered gold back into solution, remove the oxidizer, filter and precipitate it with the chemical reagent of your choice. (And use your eyes this time).
SnCl2 (your eyes) other wise known as (the stannous chloride test).
mark6822, I am having a little fun here, I hope you take it in good humor, keep reading, you have not read enough yet, and keep practicing you have not practiced enough yet, be patient, soon this will get easier, and then you will be on your way to learn in the next problem or process. All the while learning what the letters HNO3 mean.
Maybe some one else can help you with this also, maybe one of our new members who has been getting the hang of it.