help please gold will not drop

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
He has copious quantities of SMB in HCl. Adding zinc can form hydrogen sulfide which is a poisonous gas. It is worth noting that after exposure to as little as 150 parts per million your olfactory nerve will be overwhelmed and you will no longer smell it. Exposure to over 700 parts per million can cause sudden death. For those not familiar with PPM (parts per million) and just how small that is, it works out to 1 part in 1,428.57 = 700 parts per million.
 
I am not sure why you want this in cubic feet but there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot. Since 700 PPM is 1 part in 1,428.57 then 0.8267 cubic inches per cubic foot would be equal to 700PPM.
 
michelemalatesta said:
No, I am not metalfish. I don't know who that is. 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.
After letting the qtips sit overnight, the dark brown that I got last night did dissapear.
Before you explain to me how to fix this, do you know what i could have done wrong? It seems that everytime I process, I have the same results. Could it be that i'm using to much clorox? I also know that I used to much smb, when the brown kept dissapearing, i kept adding smb.


Positive Gold test should be some shade of purple not brown. And it shouldn't disappear. I have a swab that sat outside all winter through rain and snow and sunshine and its still purple.

If you dissolved all the base metals and were left only with washed foils to digest in HCL/Cl your Gold test should range from a faint purple from a weak solution to black from a very concentrated solution. I'm not convinced your gold is still in solution.

Was your base metal digest complete? Only foils or flakes of gold remaining?

The spot tests on the left are positive for gold notice the inky purple stain in the well. The two on the right left no stain so no gold. All the spot tests are from the same dirty solution from a stripping cell experiment.

The tatty swab was from last summer and is so weathered the cotton is falling to dust.
 

Attachments

  • brown test.jpg
    brown test.jpg
    80.8 KB
Oz said:
I am not sure why you want this in cubic feet but there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot. Since 700 PPM is 1 part in 1,428.57 then 0.8267 cubic inches per cubic foot would be equal to 700PPM.

I was wanting it just for referance. just one of the few things I have never equated together PPM/cu ft.

And I figured you had the answer right at your fingers. 8)

And I thought I would put my dunce hat on for a few minutes and act like a newbee. :p

Thanks
 
I had a very long reply typed,discussing the true dangers of H2s and the true figures on its hazards.But since I am such a safety stickler,I will not "play down" your figures.However I do want to add the following

(And Johnny please stop saying zinc. You don't test with it, and copper is a better choice (for a complete reset) to leave out more of any base metals present.)

I was not continuosly saying that,I only said that once and you know I made a simple mistake,which I have edited.But seeing how michele didn't head anything I said prior to my last post,I don't see how it mattered.Copper may be a better choice but I prefer zinc shavings.Gold does not precipitate on the shavings like it does on the copper.And I refuse to wait days for the same thing I can accomplish in minutes.I can live with washing the powder extra well.
Johnny
 
Johnny,
I did not personally test the levels that you lose your sense of smell at or the fatality point. By all means be a stickler, I like constructive input! I look forward to your post. I got my numbers here; http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/815139-overview

To be clear, I am not saying you will definitely get poisoned or die because you put zinc into an HCl solution that has SMB added, but there is a risk. A lot of the risk is dependent of how nice of a lab setup you have such as a proper fume hood. Other than that it depends on if you are just feeling lucky.

As for the copper, one advantage is that it does not displace hydrogen per the electromotive series of elements like zinc does, therefor you avoid the risk of hydrogen sulfide forming.
 
No Oz,I need to go to bed.I had a rough day and I took what you said the wrong way.I know I did,because you and I are friends and I know you would never say anything derogatory to me,but thats the way I took it.Please don't apologize,you didn't do anything wrong.I have been helping a member almost all day and I am just beat and I took it the wrong way.I guess I owe you an apology,Im sorry.I'm gonna go crawl in bed and get ready for tomorrow.
Have a good night bud.
Johnny
Talk to you guys tomorrow.(night barren)
 
leavemealone said:
No Oz,I need to go to bed.I had a rough day and I took what you said the wrong way.I know I did,because you and I are friends and I know you would never say anything derogatory to me,but thats the way I took it.Please don't apologize,you didn't do anything wrong.I have been helping a member almost all day and I am just beat and I took it the wrong way.I guess I owe you an apology,Im sorry.I'm gonna go crawl in bed and get ready for tomorrow.
Have a good night bud.
Johnny
Talk to you guys tomorrow.(night barren)


Night man, hope your day goes better tomorrow. I'm just finishing the night up myself from depalting some pentium pros. What a day.
 
I'm just finishing the night up myself from depalting some pentium pros.
Good morning baby (holding coffee cup up)lol.
Deplating pros huh?Do you have a lot of them?I got a couple the other day from a municipality sale,along with some quite rare mil-spec LSI's with 2 triangles,instead of the usual 1.I think I am going to research another forum that I am on and see if anyone wants to buy them for collector value.
Ok well heading off to work in a minute so I'll wrap this up.
Talk to you guys later.
Johnny
 
leavemealone said:
I'm just finishing the night up myself from depalting some pentium pros.
Good morning baby (holding coffee cup up)lol.
Deplating pros huh?Do you have a lot of them?I got a couple the other day from a municipality sale,along with some quite rare mil-spec LSI's with 2 triangles,instead of the usual 1.I think I am going to research another forum that I am on and see if anyone wants to buy them for collector value.
Ok well heading off to work in a minute so I'll wrap this up.
Talk to you guys later.
Johnny

Coffee is up to you too. AHHHHH the breakfast of champions.
Yea I had 50 of them to do. I got about half of them done last night. I was trying just to deplate the heat sink on them but it also deplated a lot of the connector pins. I'm still going to have to run them in some HCL to finish them up. I came close to putting them on Ebay but I needed to process them for the yield results for future info.
Hope you have a better day today.
 
March 16th, 2010, 6:06 pm by Barren Realms 007
Re: help please gold will not drop
michelemalatesta wrote:
Ok,

I used 2 batches,

1st one had mostly gold plated pins 1 lb. after the nitric treatment filtering and rinsing ..I added 2 cups of muriatic acid and 1 1/2 cups of clorox, I then added 2 tsps of smb, i saw the brown and then it dissapeared. I then heated it for a couple more hours. I then added the smb again. Nothing happened. The solution just turned a light yellow.

If you started with 1 lb of pins you might have 2 grams of gold there.

Did you incenerate after the nitric treatment?

Did you boil with water 3 times after the nitric treatment?

2 cups of HCL and 1-1/2 cup of clorox.

Did you add the clorox in small increments or a lot at a time? How long of a time did it take you to add the clorox?
Im sorry I thought you said to boil it down the add water. I did answer your questins I thought,,I'm getting confused with all of the posts. Here are the answers to your questions.

You can disolve an oz of gold in about 5-6ounces of HCL/CL mix, you have roughly 28 oz of fluid you are working with. Keep your fluids to a mini
Did you dilute this with water? If so this adds even more fluid you are dealing with

Answer: No I did not dilute the solution


Sorry to get off track, to answer your question it sounds like you still have nitric still in the mix or still too much chlorine.

Have you tested this with stannous to see what reaction you get?
If you have and you get a reaction does the reaction hold or does it dissapear on the tester?

Answer: It did hold but when I checked the next day, it dissapeared.



If it dissapears put 3 drops of solution on a plate and add 3 drops of water to dilute it and see if the test color holds.

Answer: I did thata and again it holds but in the morning the brown was gone



You will probably have to add about 3 cups of water and boil down to about 3 cups of fluid to make sure that all your chlorine is out. But if you still have nitric in the mix you will have to do diffrently.
 
Ok,

You said you haven't diluted this. How much fluid do you still have in the container. If you haven't diluted this and you still have about the 3-1/2 cups you started with then I'm going to say that you still have chlorine in the mix with the reaction that you are getting during your test.

Bring the solution to just under a boil and evaporate it till you have 3 cups and test.

Do you by any chance have some urea. If you have some regular fertalier in bag look inside of it and get one of the white pellets and drop one in the solution before you heat this and see if you get a fizzling reaction. If you don't have this then heat and test.
 
1st one had mostly gold plated pins 1 lb. after the nitric treatment filtering and rinsing ..

What did you have at this point and approximately how much solids?

Don't get stuck on the estimate of 2g per pound. Depending on which type of pins you processed you may have far less.
 
Ok I will do that, I will have to check and see if i have fertilizer. I'm looking for the white pellets.

I have a couple questions if you don't mind. Yes I am reading hokes book but I'm just trying to understand what is happening here.

When I use the nitric acid to dissolve the base metals, that solution is a nitrate? correct?

If i were to use nitric acid and hcl that solution it is a nitrate until i boil all of the solution and then it becomes a chlorine of some sort?
Based on what metals are in the solution?


Now you said if there is copper in the solution, the gold will cling to the copper,,,Does that depend on how much copper is in the solution?

When I am dissolving the base metals in Nitric acid the ph is up?

What about when I am using an aqua regia?

I have had alot of problems when I use nitrc acid instead of hcl cl, Is there a certain kind of glass that I can use to boil down? I have broken about 3 glass pyrex dishes and now I'm gun shy.

Im trying to grasp what is going on with each process so that when something goes wrong, I have a little understanding on what is happening.

I'll be back in hoke book tonight.

Thank you for your help and please bear with me, Im trying to really have an understanding here. Its all very overwhelming. I read posts and a little bit of the book and think i got it until i get outside and have the solution in front of me.
 
Hello Johnny

Forgive my earlier post about zinc (gone now). No malice intended.

Johnny and Barren you guys keep giving these long winded processes and michelemalatesta just seems determined to pick and chose only bits and pieces.

We all are just trying to help but I don't believe you are going to get anywhere providing too many choices and getting too few answers.
 
qst42know said:
Hello Johnny

Forgive my earlier post about zinc (gone now). No malice intended.

Johnny and Barren you guys keep giving these long winded processes and michelemalatesta just seems determined to pick and chose only bits and pieces.

We all are just trying to help but I don't believe you are going to get anywhere providing too many choices and getting too few answers.

I'm trying to shorten it by taking small steps insted of the whole process now and hopefully he can be guided thru this. 8)
 
Ok I will do that, I will have to check and see if i have fertilizer. I'm looking for the white pellets.

Yes that is correct the white ones.

I have a couple questions if you don't mind. Yes I am reading hokes book but I'm just trying to understand what is happening here.

When I use the nitric acid to dissolve the base metals, that solution is a nitrate? correct?

AS far as I know yes.

If i were to use nitric acid and hcl that solution it is a nitrate until i boil all of the solution and then it becomes a chlorine of some sort?

Incorrect, when you mix the HCL/nitric it make a chlorine that attacks the gold. You do not have to boil it just mixing them together completes the solution to disolve the gold and any other base metals.

If you heat the solution it will put everything from platinum down in the food chain into the solution.

If you have even the slightes bit of nitric on the gold you have disolved the base metals with when you add HCL you will disolve some gold. That is the reason for the washes in water and the steps taken to clean any residue of the nitric

Based on what metals are in the solution?

Nope metals in the solution have nothing to do with what the HCL/Nitric does when it is mixed. Don't jump the gun here follow me...


Now you said if there is copper in the solution, the gold will cling to the copper,,,Does that depend on how much copper is in the solution?

Lets say you are disolving some base metals in your nitric. You have a saturated solution of copper with gold flakes, or gold specks. lets say you use a spatulata to stir another solution of HCL. You dip the tool in water and think it is washed off. But low and behold it is not and poof you have just disolved some of your gold. But it is such a small amount that you can't detect it. Now that small amount of disolved gold is going to try to percipitate out, either as a small brown speck or if you have enough gold disolved it will try to plate onto some of the copper floating around in the solution and make it look like a larger piece of gold.

Anything that can develop chlorine in nitiric can have the possability of disolving gold. Even tap water to an extent.
Anything that can develop chlorine in HCL can have the same effect.

When I am dissolving the base metals in Nitric acid the ph is up?

What about when I am using an aqua regia?

Same thing. A base will change it, like soda ash, ash from a fire place, caustic soda. But not mixing HCL/nitric.

I have had alot of problems when I use nitrc acid instead of hcl cl, Is there a certain kind of glass that I can use to boil down? I have broken about 3 glass pyrex dishes and now I'm gun shy.

Use a coffee pot. Or put your pyrex dish inside of another dish with sand in it to keep from heat shocking the glass. If you take you dish from the burner and put it on a cold surface you have the chance of breaking it as well because of themal shock.

Im trying to grasp what is going on with each process so that when something goes wrong, I have a little understanding on what is happening.

Hey thats no problem I was just thinking today that I'm coming upon a year being on here and one of my first questions was "How do I drop silver from HCL". :roll: Everyone has to learn.

I'll be back in hoke book tonight.

Thank you for your help and please bear with me, Im trying to really have an understanding here. Its all very overwhelming. I read posts and a little bit of the book and think i got it until i get outside and have the solution in front of me.

When it starts clicking for you, you will see it really isn't that hard.
 
Johnny and Barren you guys keep giving these long winded processes and michelemalatesta just seems determined to pick and chose only bits and pieces.

Sorry chris.I get so wrapped up in my explanations that I forget that I need to "simplify" things a bit.
And thnx for the PM I know you didn't mean anything by it,I just needed to sleep off a bad day after trying to help a newby all day,and they just could not grasp most of the info.Anyways its in the past brother.
Ok now to eat and hit the bed.
Night guys.Talk to ya tomorrow.
Johnny
 

Latest posts

Back
Top