HCl and Bleach, large scale refining

[Yggdrasil]

New member here. First I must share that I am impressed with the supportive scientific suggestions that so many give for her question. It's great to see intelligence and tips shared in such a kind manner. I'm glad I joined. I have some questions on gold ore. It's very rich and the "dark ugly" if you will. My question is would you break it down in the same manner as DJP shared in this thread? Or could you point me in the direction of a thread that may have some process suggestions? Thank you all in advance.

First of all Welcome here.
It is recommended to start your journey here by studying the following topics:
Safety, waste treatment and then read C.M Hokes book.

Next, are you sure you posted in the right thread?
DJP is not treating ore here, but foils from trimmed Ram fingers.
A totally different animal all together.
Reclaiming and refining from ore is in another section, and totally different processes.

 

[Jessy_Jaymes]

Thank you Yggdrasil. You are correct, I am in the wrong thread. And I appreciate your suggestion of the book. Having a good starting point is what I need. Honestly, I'm a "professional finder". I can find gold, herbs, stones, precious metals all day long. I was raised to read the land. But the refining beast is a different story. I know science well and comprehend all the process shared above, but have no clue or experience with separating different ores. Thank you all again for the suggestions. I will share pics of my "dirty bucket." I'd love to share pics if it's encouraged?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thank you Yggdrasil. You are correct, I am in the wrong thread. And I appreciate your suggestion of the book. Having a good starting point is what I need. Honestly, I'm a "professional finder". I can find gold, herbs, stones, precious metals all day long. I was raised to read the land. But the refining beast is a different story. I know science well and comprehend all the process shared above, but have no clue or experience with separating different ores. Thank you all again for the suggestions. I will share pics of my "dirty bucket." I'd love to share pics if it's encouraged?

Sorry, I didn't remember answering you here
Anyway my bad.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thank you Yggdrasil. You are correct, I am in the wrong thread. And I appreciate your suggestion of the book. Having a good starting point is what I need. Honestly, I'm a "professional finder". I can find gold, herbs, stones, precious metals all day long. I was raised to read the land. But the refining beast is a different story. I know science well and comprehend all the process shared above, but have no clue or experience with separating different ores. Thank you all again for the suggestions. I will share pics of my "dirty bucket." I'd love to share pics if it's encouraged?

We like pics very well, so we have a designated section for it called the Gallery, we also have a Bar and Grill for non refining topics

Edit for clarity

 

[DJPGold]

New member here. First I must share that I am impressed with the supportive scientific suggestions that so many give for her question. It's great to see intelligence and tips shared in such a kind manner. I'm glad I joined. I have some questions on gold ore. It's very rich and the "dark ugly" if you will. My question is would you break it down in the same manner as DJP shared in this thread? Or could you point me in the direction of a thread that may have some process suggestions? Thank you all in advance.

Welcome to the forum. I’m not a her though hahahaha. No hard feelings.

In regards to the ore, though it’s not something I’m very experienced in I know a good starting place is to identify the base minerals in the ore. If the gold contained in the ore is very large in particulate size, larger than say 60 mesh screening, then bleach and HCL isn’t an effective method, it only works well on finely divided gold powder or very thin foils

 

[DJPGold]

Hopefully Yggdrasil or Butcher or one or the other experienced members can guide me in the right direction here.

I collected all the foils in my 2L beaker, washed twice with warm/hot HCL and then water.
Once I’d dissolved all the foils using HCl and bleach I noticed a bunch of SMDs in the bottom of the beaker.
I added a few mL of sulfuric acid and filtered the solution leaving the SMDs and sludge in the Büchner funnel.
Poured my filtered solution back to the clean beaker and added an excess of SMB (50ish grams) and after leaving for a couple of days I have less than half a gram of sediment so somethings wrong.
The solution still LOOKS like it’s got dissolved in it so I quickly made stannous chloride and gave it a test, no result.
So either my stannous chloride is bad or my gold has cemented out in the sludge.

My question then, is how can I get my gold off the sludge. I don’t currently have nitric acid and I assume that it’s necessary to remove ALL the base metals from the sludge before trying to redissolve the gold. Attached is the foils, the sludge, the solution after the gold drop and the stannous test.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hopefully Yggdrasil or Butcher or one or the other experienced members can guide me in the right direction here.

I collected all the foils in my 2L beaker, washed twice with warm/hot HCL and then water.
Once I’d dissolved all the foils using HCl and bleach I noticed a bunch of SMDs in the bottom of the beaker.
I added a few mL of sulfuric acid and filtered the solution leaving the SMDs and sludge in the Büchner funnel.
Poured my filtered solution back to the clean beaker and added an excess of SMB (50ish grams) and after leaving for a couple of days I have less than half a gram of sediment so somethings wrong.
The solution still LOOKS like it’s got dissolved in it so I quickly made stannous chloride and gave it a test, no result.
So either my stannous chloride is bad or my gold has cemented out in the sludge.

My question then, is how can I get my gold off the sludge. I don’t currently have nitric acid and I assume that it’s necessary to remove ALL the base metals from the sludge before trying to redissolve the gold. Attached is the foils, the sludge, the solution after the gold drop and the stannous test.

No mention on boiling it to drive off the Chlorine?
What is the pH?

 

[DJPGold]

I

No mention on boiling it to drive off the Chlorine?
What is the pH?

boiled it off ton rid it or chlorine yes. And then added enough HCl back into it that it would be acidic enough

 

[Yggdrasil]

I

boiled it off ton rid it or chlorine yes. And then added enough HCl back into it that it would be acidic enough

How does the residue that was left in the filter look like?

 

[Martijn]

How does the residue that was left in the filter look like?

From what i can see from the video snapshot, looks like tin paste with gold foils. Which makes no sense with HCL and bleech, right? Have not seen the video yet.

 

[Yggdrasil]

From what i can see from the video snapshot, looks like tin paste with gold foils. Which makes no sense with HCL and bleech, right? Have not seen the video yet.

He said he found SMDs after dissolving the foils, which led me to think there might be more things including cemented Gold.

 

[DJPGold]

How does the residue that was left in the filter look like?

I’m sorry what do you mean? It looks how it looks in the video I attached. I’ll send some more photos tonight if you like

 

[Yggdrasil]

I’m sorry what do you mean? It looks how it looks in the video I attached. I’ll send some more photos tonight if you like

Videos are sound only in my end.

 

[DJPGold]

Videos are sound only in my end.

Ah shit. This work?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Ah shit. This work?

Its my viewer, I saved it and opened in a dedicated viewer.
What was your starting material?
Very strange, Gold foils should not leave much at all.

 

[DJPGold]

Its my viewer, I saved it and opened in a dedicated viewer.
What was your starting material?
Very strange, Gold foils should not leave much at all.

Starting material was 10kg of trimmed gold fingers from RAM. I assumed they were all really well trimmed so didn’t inspect each one for a bad trimming job.
After running all the fingers through the one AP cell I ended up with a lot of foils but also a small handful of SMDs and probably MLCCs that I did not see until the foils had dissolved. Which I assume has caused the contamination and subsequent gold cemention.
Because I thought they were clean fingers, I didn’t do any acid treatment except for a HCl boil twice and sulfuric to precipitate lead. I didn’t use nitric acid because I don’t have access to it.
Though I’ve just started learning about converting calcium nitrite to sodium nitrate, to be used in AR in place of liquid nitric acid

 

[Yggdrasil]

Starting material was 10kg of trimmed gold fingers from RAM. I assumed they were all really well trimmed so didn’t inspect each one for a bad trimming job.
After running all the fingers through the one AP cell I ended up with a lot of foils but also a small handful of SMDs and probably MLCCs that I did not see until the foils had dissolved. Which I assume has caused the contamination and subsequent gold cemention.
Because I thought they were clean fingers, I didn’t do any acid treatment except for a HCl boil twice and sulfuric to precipitate lead. I didn’t use nitric acid because I don’t have access to it.
Though I’ve just started learning about converting calcium nitrite to sodium nitrate, to be used in AR in place of liquid nitric acid

What do you mean with an AP cell? I have never heard that expression before.

 

[DJPGold]

What do you mean with an AP cell? I have never heard that expression before.

Just a normal acid peroxide bucket set up. Always called it a cell for whatever reason