Gold recovery for a fire assay.

[Amol Gupta]

Attached is a photograph of our sample assay sheet.
Our assay process is as follows.

1. Inquart the gold sample with silver and copper and wrap in a lead sheet and form a ball of lead containing the sample inside.
2. Cuppelling the ball to remove lead and base metals from the sample.
3. Roll the bead of the remaining gold and silver into thin sheet.
4. Parting the sheet using nitric acid.
5. Melt the parted gold sheet to recover the fine(24 kt) gold beed.

Now coming back to the assay sheet column 1 and 4 are the columns indicating the check gold we used during the assay.

Right at the bottom we have the calculation with respect to the check gold we lost during the process.
We had two samples for the check gold weighing 153.429mg and 153.286mg.
The weight of the check gold we recovered is 153.194mg and 153.039mg.

Our recovery for the check gold is

(153.194 + 153.039)/(153.429+153.286) * 100 = 99.842%.

Now my question is, is there a way to recover my lost gold(0.158% in this case) or such losses are expected and nothing can be done about it.

Where is it am I loosing my gold.

I'd be happy to clarify our process further in case of any questions.

Thanks Regards.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Attached is a photograph of our sample assay sheet.
Our assay process is as follows.

1. Inquart the gold sample with silver and copper and wrap in a lead sheet and form a ball of lead containing the sample inside.
2. Cuppelling the ball to remove lead and base metals from the sample.
3. Roll the bead of the remaining gold and silver into thin sheet.
4. Parting the sheet using nitric acid.
5. Melt the parted gold sheet to recover the fine(24 kt) gold beed.

Now coming back to the assay sheet column 1 and 4 are the columns indicating the check gold we used during the assay.

Right at the bottom we have the calculation with respect to the check gold we lost during the process.
We had two samples for the check gold weighing 153.429mg and 153.286mg.
The weight of the check gold we recovered is 153.194mg and 153.039mg.

Our recovery for the check gold is

(153.194 + 153.039)/(153.429+153.286) * 100 = 99.842%.

Now my question is, is there a way to recover my lost gold(0.158% in this case) or such losses are expected and nothing can be done about it.

Where is it am I loosing my gold.

I'd be happy to clarify our process further in case of any questions.

Thanks Regards.

I'm not sure where you have found this information.
Inquarting and cupelling are two distinctly different processes with different uses.
Inquarting is used for karat Gold to dilute the Gold so it can be parted with Nitric.
Cupelling is a process used in assaying often called fire assaying.
Depending on the starting material one first scorify and then cupel.

What is your material?
Karat Gold?

 

[Amol Gupta]

I'm not sure where you have found this information.
Inquarting and cupelling are two distinctly different processes with different uses.
Inquarting is used for karat Gold to dilute the Gold so it can be parted with Nitric.
Cupelling is a process used in assaying often called fire assaying.
Depending on the starting material one first scorify and then cupel.

What is your material?
Karat Gold?

So the assay sheet has 4 columns column 1 and 4 are check gold(this is 24kt gold) column 2 and 3 are karat gold.

The check gold is used in assaying to check for the losses along the process and the karat gold is the stuff we are assaying for which in this case is 22kt gold as is indicated by the fineness row(indicated by the 8th row in the sheet).

 

[Yggdrasil]

So the assay sheet has 4 columns column 1 and 4 are check gold(this is 24kt gold) column 2 and 3 are karat gold.

The check gold is used in assaying to check for the losses along the process and the karat gold is the stuff we are assaying for which in this case is 22kt gold as is indicated by the fineness row(indicated by the 8th row in the sheet).

Yes, but it don't explain why you are mixing processes.
Either you inquart or you cupel.

Anyway for testing metallic Gold XRF or testing acids would be better.
Fire assays are used to determine the amount of precious metal in ores or similar.

Another thing is that losses are comparatively much larger on small samples than large samples.
As if you loose x amount of milligrams with one sample that will be similar of you have a sample 10-100 times in size.
It still will be approximat the same x amount of milligrams.

 

[Amol Gupta]

but it don't explain why you are mixing processes

The silver and copper is added to the pure gold to mimic it as closely as possible to the the karat gold.
The cupelation will remove the base metals but not silver, inquartation is then carried out to remove silver and get back close to 99.9 gold back.
Cupelation will not remove silver.

 

[Yggdrasil]

The silver and copper is added to the pure gold to mimic it as closely as possible to the the karat gold.
The cupelation will remove the base metals but not silver, inquartation is then carried out to remove silver and get back close to 99.9 gold back.
Cupelation will not remove silver.

I know.
But it puzzled me why you were mixing processes.
So you alloy the Gold then you cupel it.
Next you inquart and part it.
So how do you know how much Silver to add?

Each of these steps will cause some losses.
So the more steps you have the more loss you will have.

 

[Amol Gupta]

Next you inquart and part it.

No the inquartation process is taking place before cupelation.

how do you know how much Silver to add

This is based on the sample we want to mimic.

 

[Yggdrasil]

No the inquartation process is taking place before cupelation.




This is based on the sample we want to mimic.

I really do not understand why you do this.
Karat scrap are never cupelled.
It is inquarted and parted.

If it is to test a sample, it has to be done on the actual unknown sample as any alloy you make are known.

 

[Amol Gupta]

I really do not understand why you do this.

With all due respect I am in no position to question the procedure, in the country I live this is the procedure laid down by law and we are in no position to question or abstain from the procedures.

If we could just ignore the procedures involved and assess where I am losing gold and if any of it is recoverable.

I'd like to start off by having a reference.
What is the gold recovery I can expect if I refine 100gm(approx 3 ounce) of karat scrap if it is inquarted and parted.
My current recovery is 99.8%~, can I do any better....?

 

[4metals]

A proof of a fire assay is to measure and correct the quantity of silver retained in a fire assay. Try as you will, you can never remove 100% of the silver by parting. This is why your results puzzle me. First off the coronet weight of the proof is always greater than the weight of gold you started with because you can never remove all of the Silver with nitric parting. This is not the case on your data sheet.

Second you did not inquart the gold with Silver at a 3:1 ratio but the rolling out of the bead before parting allows slightly less Silver.

When adding Silver to proof gold the goal is to have the Silver content approximately equal to the Silver content in the sample before assay. So in your case you should have added more Silver in the proofs to have it as close as possible to the same Silver content in the samples and in the proofs.

The slight additions of copper is an often duplicated technique to mimic the effect the Copper has on the cupellation and should all be removed by cupellation.

When the proof sample is weighed, the start weight of the proof gold is divided by the finished coronet weight. You will notice the weight of the gold has increased, this is normal due to silver retention. By dividing the finished weight into the start weight you will come up with a number usually similar to .9985. (Once you are proficient at this.) That number is your correction factor, which is multiplied by your normal assay result to obtain a corrected fire assay result.

Your results are different than what is widely practiced in the world of fire assay. We can walk you through a few test proofs to be sure you get the process correct, but as you described it something is off.

With all due respect I am in no position to question the procedure, in the country I live this is the procedure laid down by law and we are in no position to question or abstain from the procedures.

This is something we can do little about but we can be sure you are interpreting it properly to try to identify the problem.