Gold Recovery with aqua regia from gold rocks.

[desperate]

Hi there , desperately need help.I am relatively new to this and hope to get some answers.
I have pulverised some gold bearing rocks , then used aqua regia to extract gold and up to then everything was great . I had a lovely yellow - brown liquid and after reducing it to syrup and burning off the nitric acid numerous times , cooled the liquid , added 3-4 times the amount of water ......THEN THE PROBLEM STARTED.
I tried using copperas, copper wire, sodium nitrite ....NO SUCCESS. I know there was gold in these rocks - I just don't know what else to do to recover my gold ?
Is ther a simple foolproof way ?
Many Thanks .
desperate

 

[martyn111]

I know there was gold in these rocks

HOW do you KNOW there was gold in these rocks?
Did you test the solution with stannous chloride?

 

[desperate]

HI Martyn111,
thanks for your reply.
I have not tested the liquid with stannous chloride but went through a rather tidious task of concentrating a small amount and melting that successfully into a small button. So yes there was gold in these rocks.

 

[nickvc]

As Martyn stated how do you know there was gold in your ore..assay?
Was the gold in metallic form or sulphides, what other elements were in the mix?
Martyn was spot on again to ask if you tested your solution but in fairness the gold, if in the ore, could be so small an amount as to be almost invisible or even possibly not in a form that AR will dissolve.
More details will be needed for any offer of help to be forthcoming even our ores and mining experts can't give you much help without telling us exactly what you have.

 

[desperate]

Hi nickvc,
The gold is in metallic form as I managed to concentrate a small amount and melt that into a button.
I did extract silver chloride, and orange powder but no gold.
Thanks.

 

[nickvc]

Hi nickvc,
The gold is in metallic form as I managed to concentrate a small amount and melt that into a button.
I did extract silver chloride, and orange powder but no gold.
Thanks.

Mystery possibly solved..... Orange / brown powder ?

Have you tried melting the powder?

 

[desperate]

Yes tried that.. all I got was opaque flakey goo. Defenitely not any metal by the looks of it.I believe orange powder is platinum.

 

[butcher]

If the gold is in elemental form I would first get the gold separated from the rock with mechanical means, concentrate it to almost pure gold before putting this gold into solutions to dissolve it.

Leaching the ore you could just dissolve the gold, then as the leach proceeds it dissolves up a base metal from your ore (like iron), and then this iron in solution can precipitate out the dissolved gold from your leach solution as very fine powders mixed with the remaining rock powders, and your leach solution then may not contain values, the gold would then be discarded with the rest of the leached rock.

 

[desperate]

Hi there Butcher,
Finally an answer that explains my stuffup in more detail. I really appreciate your help.
Thank you very much.