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Palladium said:
Somebody either please explain to this man to keep these threads together or a moderator please combine this mess. Sir your problem is one continuous lot and process, keep them together in the same thread.
Following this is pissing me off! Time is money and if i have time to answer or help i don't want to chase the information to hell and back. Plus in the future new students won't have a clue what all this clutter is. The value of your questions serve no informational purpose to anyone except you. In business i charge for that information and time. It's kinda of how i make a living! Here you get it FREE! Patience is a virtue and one you better learn if you want to be successful at anything. Back to refining! :D
Didn’t know this was a boys club.
I’ve read some great information on here from you Palladium and hope to do so in the future.
Your anger honestly seems a little over the top, it’s refining, not curing cancer or Covid 19.
I’ve been relatively successful a t a few things in life.

Regards to all
 
galenrog said:
Decant any solutions. Set solids aside. Cement solutions with copper.

Solids remaining after your foray into foolishness should be inquarted. Proper methods can be found on this Forum and any of the many texts on the subject of recovery and refining.

Solids remaining after decanting solutions should be tested.

Solids after cementation should be refines a few times to achieve good results.

You WILL lose some silver while recovering from your mess, and perhaps a tiny bit of gold. Get over it.

One more thing about Shor, and others of their ilk. While they MAY be purveyors of chemicals and compounds that are initially less dangerous than the standard acids and precipitants (I question this because they will not provide me with actual chemical makeup of their products), once used, these “less toxic” chemicals become hazardous waste just as much as standard acids and precipitants.

I am leaving a lot out, but my stroke addled brain does not want to play any more.

Time for more coffee.
Thank you Galenrog,
That’s just what I was looking for, some excellent information, with some well deserved commentary (foray into foolishness) that made me smile.

Thank you
 
Hartbar said:
Palladium said:
Somebody either please explain to this man to keep these threads together or a moderator please combine this mess. Sir your problem is one continuous lot and process, keep them together in the same thread.
Following this is pissing me off! Time is money and if i have time to answer or help i don't want to chase the information to hell and back. Plus in the future new students won't have a clue what all this clutter is. The value of your questions serve no informational purpose to anyone except you. In business i charge for that information and time. It's kinda of how i make a living! Here you get it FREE! Patience is a virtue and one you better learn if you want to be successful at anything. Back to refining! :D
Didn’t know this was a boys club.
I’ve read some great information on here from you Palladium and hope to do so in the future.
Your anger honestly seems a little over the top, it’s refining, not curing cancer or Covid 19.
I’ve been relatively successful a t a few things in life.

Regards to all

Just take the advice given. You are a guest here, and can be shown the door for attitude problems.
Just realize what this forum contains, and keep polite to remain here.
 
Dude! Let me explain the value of the information on this board and the time we volunteer to help people like you out. My knowledge and time has value! You make it difficult to help. What you see as anger i see as frustration. Have it your way!
 
You need to realize whatever you have been successful at in the past counts for diddly squat when it comes to recovery and refining and the people replying have and still are successful in an art you re trying to learn, we have had trained and practicing chemists who we have had to re educate to be successful at this :shock:
My advice stands cement your solution save all the solids and cap your solution safely then download and read Hoke, free from frugals posts, until you understand what she is teaching, for karat scrap refining it’s an essential read as it covers everything you need to know, once you understand her teachings come back and post what you aim to do to get your values, if you do understand her teachings you should be good to go but as a safety net if you post we can and will critique your processes to allow you to be successful.
You can do this it’s not overly hard once you understand the basic chemistry involved but no one has the time to hold your hand to make this happen and chances are if we did your next batch would be a failure too especially if you encounter problems you do not understand how or why it happened.
You may think we are been mean here but in honesty we are not we are trying to help but we do expect you to help yourself by doing the necessary reading and study, if you want to do this the basic chemistry is essential for success.
 
i feel sorry for you,

but yeah ,,read hoke's book or CW.Ammen 's book entirely then you will see how to do it next time,

but you know maybe this time it's hard for you but i'm sure you'll be successfull next time cause inside the difficulty is the ease,

finish your process and don't think about it anymore then do it again following the books method i've mentioned above ,

failure has to happen and success comes next
 
No need to feel sorry for me Adrian, but thank you. Let it be the worst thing that happens to me.
I have been reading Hokes book the last few days. Ive referenced her book a few times in last months, but now realize the good advice on here, put the stuff away and read the entire book.
I have been giving my situation a lot of thought with the advice on here in mind. Cementing seems to be the first step, I’m about ready to try it and have attached some pics on status.
My plan (subject to change and open to critique)
I put a small amount of the solution in a smaller beaker and put some clean copper in it. Definite reaction and looks like something dropping. I’ll know when I decant or filter. I’ll try and cement the large beaker with solution, not sure if I can just stand some clean copper pieces in it, or need to suspend the pieces in some way, as shown in empty beaker, see pics.
I’m going to search forum on cementing gold from solution some more and wait for any input.

Regards
 

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Keep all the copper submerged in the solution when cementing. If not, the part above the solution's surface will oxidize and can drop into the solution and contaminate your cemented values.

Circulation of the solution is important to cement all the values.

Dave
 
Thanks Dave,
So submerge the copper, can it sit on bottom of beaker, or does it need to be suspended?
Still not sure how to address the Buchner filter papers from rinse filter.
Regards
 

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I’ve looked high and low on forum for detailed process cementing my gold solution from here.
Processes, chemical processes, technices, tutorials and I’ve searched cementing, cementation.
From Dave’s advice: the copper must be fully submerged, but best if not touching bottom of beaker.
I posted pic of copper hanging from plastic ties, will plastic mess up process?
If there is a link to detailed instructions, please post. Thank you
Meanwhile I’ll carry on seaching
 
You never mentioned the step of de-noxxing your AR.


It seems from a million miles away that you can't drop gold because you still have excess "nitric" in solution. So IF you failed to de-nox, goto a Home Depot or Lowes, or tile store and get some "GROUT CLEANER" which should be comprised of "SULFAMIC ACID Crystals." Read the label. It generally only takes a teaspoon or so. Then your de-noxxed solution"Theoretically" might allow you to drop the gold with SMB.

It STUNS my sensibility (and trust) that only ever on RARE occasions does anyone contributor explain the (apparent) necessity to DENOXX an AR batch gone wrong because SIMPLY of too much free nitric! Is this like a test, or a rite of passage, or hazing, or something equally offensive, that people fail to advise about?

I have been experimenting with cementing onto suspended copper. Yes Au does cement, but so does a lot of copper (apparently) so your "black powder" will have to be washed thoroughly to get rid of the copper. Just FYI. Then you will have a bunch of excess (hopefully barren of Au) solution to add to your "stock pot, for some time in the distant future, when you can sort out how to get the rest of the PM's out. Hopefully, you have the advice and patience, the time, and the space to keep from disposing of your excess solutions...

I did some Karat gold recently WITHOUT INQUARTING, it took way too much much time, temperature, and too much extra chemicals. The ancient secret of "quartering" still has value. I am winding up for a proper Au inquartation, with .999 silver, then using "poorman's AR" I expect a lot of pesky silver chloride, but I am prepared to deal with that eventuality.

Nitric acid is absurdly expensive where I live, hence my use of "poorman's AR." FYI.

As many a wise wizard has said here, "don't discard any liquids, until you are SURE they are barren of whatever you are trying to recover (I paraphrase)."
 
Hartbar said:
I’ve looked high and low on forum for detailed process cementing my gold solution from here.
Processes, chemical processes, technices, tutorials and I’ve searched cementing, cementation.
From Dave’s advice: the copper must be fully submerged, but best if not touching bottom of beaker.
I posted pic of copper hanging from plastic ties, will plastic mess up process?
If there is a link to detailed instructions, please post. Thank you
Meanwhile I’ll carry on seaching

Some plastics do indeed get eaten by acid while trying to cement, others do not. Fishing line does, much to my chagrin.
 
1mysurveymail said:
It STUNS my sensibility (and trust) that only ever on RARE occasions does anyone contributor explain the (apparent) necessity to DENOXX an AR batch gone wrong because SIMPLY of too much free nitric! Is this like a test, or a rite of passage, or hazing, or something equally offensive, that people fail to advise about?
Maybe that's because one should take care not to overshoot expensive & harmfull HNO3 to avoid getting into problems while precipitating or cementing. It's better to leave a bit of metal undigested in stead of having a bunch of nitric to denox (one X, two XX'es implies the founder of this forum, which is not nice :wink:) It also saves on BFRC containment measures.

Second, you can denox effectively and economically by adding more gold to the digestion, until it stops dissolving. Problem solved. No sulfamic acid needed. Never used it myself. (during my tiny hobby size operation).

@ Hartbar: there are no detailed descriptions of this "process" other than "dealing with waste" or silver cementing for the silver cell or the "When in doubt, Cement it out!" phrase.
The process is displacement of metals according the reactivity series. Stick metal in solution let reactivity deal with the rest. Add air to agitate.
The metal that drops out first is purest. You can divide the cement into batches at any given time during cementing.

Leaving copper sticking out of your bath, will/can introduce copper oxide in the solution, but you'll need to refine after cementing anyway. There will also be tiny pieces of copper that came loose without dissolving to displace pm's. Any other pm's will also be cemented out. So a second refine of those powders is needed anyway.

Patience is the most important ingredient.

Martijn.
 
One more thing: when inquarting (dirty) carat gold, you can save on nitric to inquart with lesser than high purity silver, say sterling.
This is very economical, because you kill two birds with one stone: recovering gold for further refining, and dissolving 'dirty' silver to cement out on copper.
In stead of having three nines fine melted with dirty gold and basically starting over again. The small percentage of copper in the dirty silver will not make much of a difference in the end result. (got this one from butcher)

So save your dirty silver or sterling for inquarting and save dirty gold and silver to denox.

Martijn.
 
Yeah, i'm bored at work, so long posts :lol: ...correction on the last post: to denox for a client, use high purity gold or silver, so you can weigh the added gold. (Your'e not Santa)
 
Thanks for the input Martijn and mysurvey,
I’m processing all the info slowly and reading hokes book from front cover to black.
So the metal that drops from solution when cementing with copper will be mixed metal, anything that dissolved in solution I assume. Metals that are lower than copper in the reaction series, so will/should be gold and silver.
Hence the re refine need.
Regards
 
Half way through Hokes book, very good read. I can see why it’s so important to read thoroughly.
On my mess up, anyone have input on what the next step is after cementing out?
I’ll have gold, silver and probably some copper after cementing, is it nitric next or AR?
 
Keep reading. She'll give you the answer.

Not trying to be a jerk, but you'll gain a lot more by learning from her than if someone just gives you a quick one line answer. That will just lead you to the next question. She'll give you answers to questions you don't know you have yet.

Dave
 
I get it Dave, teach a man to fish, and no, your not being a jerk.
I just don’t understand your position entirely?
I’ve heard on Forum, “tell us your plan and we will critique and advise”
I did that, cemented out. I’m now looking for advice and critique.
I’m told read the book.
I am half way through Hokes book, it’s 355 pages, I’m taking notes and will have to read twice I’m sure.
If users ask which way to go at a point in the process, would you have them take a shot in the dark and make a serious mistake?
Maybe this is amusing to some on here?

Respectfully
 
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