Whoa whoa whoa.Hang on a minute! I asked you to answer qst's questions.We need more information about what you have already done....before we can give you accurate answers to the problems you are having.If you want us to help you,then you need to help us first.We can't diagnose a problem without first knowing exactly what was done to that point.Understand?I am not trying to be rude,I promise,but you completly avoided what I asked you to do,and proceeded to say you were going to boil it down.
Understand this,if you continue down this path,there is a good chance you will end up with more,and possibly worse,problems than you are having right now.If that happens you will have at least one person(me) that will hesitate to help you in the future.I do not speak for anyone else on the forum,but we frown on members asking for help then not doing what they were advised to do to fix the problem.
I used nitric acid to dissolve the base metals. Someone asked me if i rinsed the nitric 3 times. Because i used clorox hcl, i assumed he was talking about when i dissolve the base metals.
Before you explain to me how to fix this, do you know what i could have done wrong?
If it were me I would add zinc until everything dropped out and start over from scratch using only Hcl,however if you would like to salvage what you have started then...........
Lets start over from the beginning.You said you used nitric to dissolve the base metals.No problem.
(A)If you did not completly dissipate,or neutralize the excess nitric that was left on the foils then that is the first problem.
If you have urea,then let the solution cool to room tempurature,add just enough filtered water to bring the level back up to what you started with and add one or two balls of urea.Did the balls bubble or fizz? If so then you have unused nitric.If you do not have urea,then continue here.However if you do have urea and it did not fizz,or if you incinerated the foils before starting to make your auric chloride,then continue below at (C).
(B)If you have urea,then you need to add about 10 balls at a time,stir the solution once the balls have dissolve,and continue with this until the balls no longer fizz or bubble.If you do not have urea,you need to condense the solution by evaporating it and adding small amounts of Hcl to drive off the excess nitric.Considering the level of nitric is most likely very little I will only ask you to evaporate it once.If you had used AR you would need to evaporate more than this due to the higher ratio of nitric.Simply boil the solution(slowly) down to almost a syrup consistency.Make sure you do not boil it fast,if you do,you will more than likely burn the salts that will self precipitate during the evaporation process.After you have boiled the solution down,let it cool out in the open(NOT in the refridgerator or freezer)
for about 10 minutes.Then slowly add enough Hcl to bring the solution to the level that you started with,stirring slowly.
(C)At this point we will assume the only potential problem is the addition of too much salts from the smb.You will need to dilute the 1-1 with water,then decide how to precipitate.I would not suggest using smb again,seeing how you already have an abundance of added salts,I would suggest using copperas,2-1 and washing the powder very well.
If you still have a problem after using this advice it is possible your gold has bonded with the copper in solution,in which case you must drop everything with zinc and start over.Either way,keep us up to speed on your progress so we'll know what went wrong if you have another problem.
Johnny
