Non-Chemical help identify reaction

[Jon in VA]

Hi All.

This is my first post to the forum.

I have lurked for a couple of weeks now and am tremendously thankful for the wisdom shared here. You all are top notch!

I had about 40 various CPUs I had collected over time and wanted to put them through a nitric bath before moving to AR in order to try to reduce the amount of chemicals used... not sure if I have accomplished that - but that is another post.

I used poor mans nitric (sulphuric and sodium nitrate) and heated it in a coffee pot out on my deck. Solution turned green, gold pins and foils separated, and all looked good.

I was pouring out the nitric into a 5 gal bucket and then ran some TAP water into the pot to rinse it and instantly saw a white cloud form. As I filtered that I also saw what appeared to be black sediment too. From my AR days I am wondering if the black powder is gold? I wouldn't think it should be b/c I have no muriatic in the solution as of yet. I am also wondering what the white cloud is? Could that be silver? I am guessing the chlorine and / or copper in the tap water caused the precip?

I know from now on to use distilled water until I am ready to precipitate.

Oh, last question... I watched Laser Steve's video on cementing silver using the copper tubing but wasn't sure if I had to deal with the nitric first in order that it does not re-dissolve? If so, how would I do that?

Thank you and I hope I can learn enough to offer back to the community.
Jon

 

[lazersteve]

Jon,

The white powder was likely silver or lead chloride, or both.

Hot water will take out the lead chloride.

Proceed to dissolve the gold and properly filter.

Use only enough nitric to dissolve the silver, not excess as nitric is expensive. A very slight excess when cementing is ok and preferred by some.

Steve

 

[Jon in VA]

Thank you Steve.

Have an excellent weened!

 

[eeTHr]

It turns out that Poor Man's Nitric can contain a little HCl. It has been discussed on here before, so it can be searched for. There are remedies for it, too.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

It turns out that Poor Man's Nitric can contain a little HCl. It has been discussed on here before, so it can be searched for. There are remedies for it, too.

I don't remember reading that!

 

[Platdigger]

Actually what was said is that some sodium nitrate can have a bit of sodium chloride, or other chlorides.
The cure is either adding a bit of silver powder or some silver nitrate to your homemade nitric, to remove any cholrides as silver chloride.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I probably did catch that some where and it went right over my head. My old brain can't absorb as much new info as it use to. 8)