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dear nikvc
as i was reading your answer, I couldn't understand one sentence and it's because of not knowing some phrases in English.
in the sentence: If you have enough "hands" to pick through the boards and remove only valuable parts, often you can go with AP or AR, as the material is richer.
i couldn't understand what "hands" means.

and that was my mistake about toxiticy of pyrometallurgy process and I understood what you said.
I'll check about electrolysis process too and thanks for your advice.
i appreciate your help.
that was good if I could correct the names,
sorry orvi about that. I'm a little sick and my focus is a little low right now.
 
dear nikvc
as i was reading your answer, I couldn't understand one sentence and it's because of not knowing some phrases in English.
in the sentence: If you have enough "hands" to pick through the boards and remove only valuable parts, often you can go with AP or AR, as the material is richer.
i couldn't understand what "hands" means.

and that was my mistake about toxiticy of pyrometallurgy process and I understood what you said.
I'll check about electrolysis process too and thanks for your advice.
i appreciate your help.
that was good if I could correct the names,
sorry orvi about that. I'm a little sick and my focus is a little low right now
In stead of incineration you can also depopulate the board of their components in a burner trommel, shred and hammer mill the pcb's to a fine powder and separate the (gold plated) copper traces and solder on a shaker table. Then melt into copper anode bars for the sulfuric cell, a HCL bath for the solder wont hurt. If you dont cut the contact fingers off for Ebay goodie bags and sell the boards as low grade.
The IC's will need pyrolizing and incinerating.
Plastic sockets with pins inside can go in the shredder or in AP.
Less toxic fumes in the air if you don't burn the pcb's with components and plastic sockets.

But i think the OP is operating on a small scale. And burning pcb's will not give him much good vibes in his neighborhood.
Neither will a hammer mill:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
I have a small space i industrial zone that is for one of my friends, I think its not a big deal with the sound and burning. I'll check it out too
 
Using nitric on e scrap as a first process is not usually the best choice due to the amount of tin that can be present which will impact on your yield unless you incinerate your recovered material and then use HCl to remove it before going on to dissolve the values. As the material you recover is in small fractions I’d use either bleach or peroxide with HCl to dissolve your gold and then heat the solution to drive off any excess oxidizer before precipitating your gold.
I can’t tell you what processes you need to use for your recoveries as I don’t know what you process or what you have to aid the recoveries as in equipment or chemicals, I can advise you you to read here on the forum about the materials you have to process and what other members advise to use on them, there are many methods available for many products but you have to find the ones that suit your circumstances and only you can do that.
If you research and find a process that you feel will work for you and what you have the resources to follow post that idea with full details and any faults will be pointed out fairly quickly.
thank you so much Nikvc, I'm so happy that I found this forum and I can learn and find my mistakes. I'll check out acid peroxide process and study about it.
thanks for your time.
 
Orvi --- I NEED to make a correction here !!!

eco-goldex is IN FACT a cyanide process !!!

the foundation of eco-goldex uses potassium ferri or ferro cyanide (can't remember if it's ferri or ferro)

So it's a potassium/iron/cyanide complex

The iron complexed with the cyanide in it's self makes it a safe product (the cyanide is not "free" to act as cyanide) so the potassium/iron/cyanide complex is actually use in the food industry

In order for the cyanide to work as cyanide - the iron needs to be disassociated from the cyanide thereby freeing the cyanide to work as cyanide

What eco-goldex has done is complexed the potassium ferri/ferro cyanide with something like 6 or 7 other chemicals

It is something in (&/or combination) of their own complex that disassociates the iron from the cyanide allowing the cyanide to be cyanide

In other words - once the iron is disassociated from the potassium ferri/ferro cyanide what you in fact have is potassium cyanide

In other words - eco-goldex - is in fact - nothing more then potassium cyanide & therefor MUST be treated/handled exactly the same as if you started with potassium cyanide in the first place

The problem with eco-goldex is that because of the other chems in their complex - used to disassociate the iron from the cyanide - it also makes it very difficult to recover the gold from solution after the cyanide has dissolved the gold

You can use straight up potassium ferri/ferro cyanide (instead of the eco-goldex) with less problems to recover your gold

With straight up potassium ferri/ferro cyanide you (again) just need to disassociate the iron from the cyanide

You can effect this disassociation by exposing the dissolved potassium ferri/ferro cyanide to UV

The bottom line is that once you disassociate the iron from potassium ferri/ferro cyanide complex - you in fact have potassium cyanide & therefor MUST be treated/handled as potassium cyanide --- regardless of whether your potassium ferri/ferro cyanide comes from the eco-goldex product or you start out with straight up potassium ferri/ferro cyanide

I have in fact worked with all three (eco-goldex - straight up potassium ferri/ferro cyanide & potassium cyanide) --- all three result in a flat out potassium cyanide process & MUST be handled as a potassium cyanide process

As a matter of personal experience - & due to the difficulty getting your gold back from the eco-goldex product - I will never ever again use their product - & the only reason I would consider using straight up potassium ferri/ferro cyanide (exposed to UV) is if I couldn't get actual potassium cyanide (or sodium cyanide)

The important thing to understand is that they are all a potassium cyanide process - having ALL the same dangers & therefore MUST be treated as such

Eco-goldex makes the claim that it is a safe product - that just is not true - it is only safe up to the point you dissolve it - once it is dissolved - it is in fact potassium cyanide (which is why it dissolves gold) & must be handled as such

Edit to add; - if you are afraid of (&/or do not understand) the cyanide process then be just as afraid of eco-goldex - AND have a FULL understanding of working with cyanide - at which time you are best served to go get actual potassium or sodium cyanide instead of working with "work arounds" that complicate the cyanide process

Kurt
I was always told that eco-goldex do not work with cyanide. Locally, guys working in mining tested this in lab, just to measure no free cyanide in the solution in their facility.
Thanks for clarification. I did not consider it this will be the case.

View attachment 48343

This is from their official website. Now I can see it :)
dear Kurt and Orvi
thank you so much for the information and I have to study a lot about this process for feeling safe about it. I'll do study as soon as possible. :)
 
dear nikvc
as i was reading your answer, I couldn't understand one sentence and it's because of not knowing some phrases in English.
in the sentence: If you have enough "hands" to pick through the boards and remove only valuable parts, often you can go with AP or AR, as the material is richer.
i couldn't understand what "hands" means.

and that was my mistake about toxiticy of pyrometallurgy process and I understood what you said.
I'll check about electrolysis process too and thanks for your advice.
i appreciate your help.
By saying "if you have enough hands to pick through" i meant that "if you can hire enough labor force to manually depopulate the boards and pick just most valuable components off them". Sorry for unclear formulation.

No worries
 
By saying "if you have enough hands to pick through" i meant that "if you can hire enough labor force to manually depopulate the boards and pick just most valuable components off them". Sorry for unclear formulation.

No worries
thanks for your explanation.
 
To be successful you need to concentrate on your recovery methods and processes , that really is the most important part to master, if you are just dissolving all metallics in AR you are wasting chemicals and time , producing huge amounts of toxic waste and probably losing some of the values.
If you are working on e scrap in most cases you do not need to use AR as the gold is either in flakes from recovery or very thinly plated where cyanide can be king but comes with its own problems, learning to use it successfully and safely is a whole new process and it rarely recovers all the gold but if used properly you get 90%+.
What would the difference be from the remaining waste from AP and AR, I have seen some refiners put the remaining waste in stockpot for further recovery via cementation. Could you elaborate a bit on this aspect? I have asked a refiner if he puts all the AR toghether with other filtrates and he said yes.
 
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