HCL/CL Problems

[muddle171965]

Hi everyone

I just wanted to report back on what I have done since I last posted! I said I had problems testing my solutions due to the solder I had, I could not seem to get a true test result and I could not work out why?! So I ordered new tin powder this time and what a difference!! I gave my solution two seperate hours of simmering on a low heat to evaporate any Cl left in my solution. Then I added double the amount of water after a couple of days and it was a further 4 or 5 days before I could test for any values.
I got what I believe to be a "False Test". The test spot went a deep brown and I tested a couple more times that tested the same. I also tested a different solution from my first go at AP, which I thought I had over used the peroxide and possibly dissolved some of my values! That was negative for any values in the solution, so although I still don't know what to do with re-testing my HCL/CL, I am glad I am confident with testing my solutions in general! I have learned a lot on this site, and I really have slowed things down. Iv'e been off line for a week or so and Hokes' book has been a good source of reference and a good read! I don't know if anyone can give me any further help with my problem? I always keep my solutions until I think I have recovered all values but I know I lost values at the beginning! This was proved on Friday when I was melting a small amount of gold into a button. It was roughly 1.4 grams and as I brought my dish back into the house, it must have cooled too quick and pinged out my dish and I thought went into my kitchen sink! I could not find it so then thought, it must have gone down the plug hole! :evil: Off came the U trap underneath, which is quite a deep one, and emptied it into a bowl. When I looked in the bowl, it was like looking at the bottom of my AP bucket! It was saturated in gold flakes which I collected and gave it the clean up proceedures and then topped my button up to 4 grams! A while ago I used the Ferric Chloride and there would always be gold plated pins that whould drop off my boards when I washed them in the sink, and must have missed picking them out! There was also about 2Lbs of them completely stripped but lucky for me the gold was there too!!
Anyway I would really appreciate any help with my HCL/CL solution if anyone knows what to try next, i'm not giving up on it yet!
Thanks again for all the help given thus far!
Kind regards all
Leigh

 

[butcher]

I would first try out the stannous tests,
make up some solutions using relatively pure gold, you can make this in a test tube to keep volume low, separate this into smaller portions, make up your stannous chloride solution to do the experiments with, try testing the solution under different conditions, like chlorine in solution, solution heated to remove chlorine, SMB added, too much SMB, ferrous sulfate added, and gold precipitated, maybe even one loaded with base metals, or possibly add tin to form colloids (that even though gold is in solution your test would not show it), by working with these experiments, you will learn when tests work, when they do not, and what to look for later, these can be done on a qtip or as drops on filter paper.


keeping a stockpot you should not loose values, you can miss them for a while, but they are not lost, reading Hoke’s is great, rereading it you will even learn more, most of this she explains in her book, the first time you read the book you do not catch the finer details, of processing she explains, the second or third time you read the book you still learn from it.

HCl/Cl is easy to deal with, after you understand it, do not give up, just spend a little more time studying and working with small experiments, to get the understanding, before processing for values.

Train yourself on a small track before racing on the big track.