Gold yields in mixed chips (complete process)

[Tzoax]

After washing there was left 0.1 gram of powder. When I pour it in jar to the rest of my powder, I noticed that this sample of 0.1g was much lighter colored then the rest. Is this different colors means something in quality of powders?

 

[g_axelsson]

Yes, usually lighter color means purer gold.

Göran

 

[Tzoax]

Yes, usually lighter color means purer gold.

Göran

Thank You very much Goran. When I collect about 50 grams of powder I will process it with AR one more time before melting.

 

[g_axelsson]

Just as I did... http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=19840

I have to re-refine that button this summer, I should have cleaned those firebricks, something dropped into my melt. It just shows that every step is important to get the perfect button, make one mistake and you have an inferior product in the end.

Göran

 

[Anonymous]

Tzoaz it's entirely possible that all you need to do is clean your gold powder properly rather than re-refine it.

 

[Tzoax]

Tzoaz it's entirely possible that all you need to do is clean your gold powder properly rather than re-refine it.

Thanks, I always clean the same way -3 times boiled in destilled H2O/HCl/H2O. But i think I know why the color is lighter. I always dry out the powder in electric hotplate on a minimum heat until dried. This time I left it little longer on a heat and I am sure that the dust was a darker before it dried out. I guess that adding heat on powder couldn't affect on the gold quality, and I see now that adding heat to powder will make it's color lighter. Also I noticed a small black particles in gold powder. Any idea what that could be?

 

[Tzoax]

I decided to process the rest of my remaining ashes (the bigger particles that didn't went through my sieve. I started to concentrate the golden wires by panning, and the golden wires was settled at the bottom. Then I took the microscope and I looked at upper layer of ashes (I assumed that there will not be gold), BUT....what I saw...was even more golden wires, they were trapped inside of plastic particles. After that I was sure what I will do... I took the whole amount of these ashes (about 200 grams) and I washed it well, then I treated it twice with nitric for several hours, washed it well, than I added hot HCl and nitric, after several hours of occasional mixing, I filtered it, neutralized nitric acid with urea, added some SMB and the AR was getting a brown color, that made me happy because I know that there will be much more gold than the test before. Even now I am looking of forming a brown layer at the bottom of glass dish. Now, all that remains to me is a wires that i removed with magnet. Does anybody know what is a best way to process them? Thank You all, and a special thanks to Patnor, for Your researching and sharing.

 

[Tzoax]

I have 0.4 grams of cleaned gold powder plus 0.1 gram from the previous test, thats 0.5 grams so far, now all that remains is magnetic wires to process. I will try AR with that.