somebody help i used subzero as the nitric and mixed it with hydrochloric as recomended i soaked all my gold pins, ram chips, cpu's, and some motherboards. seem like everything is going fine im getting a dark green solution then it starts to turn a dark brown with a dark green i drop a drop on the napkin and it looks like brown particles with the green liquid spreading outward on the napkin. so i filter my solution, added my urea which it didnot fizz or anything when i droped some in. so now i go and percipitate the gold out with storm percipitent all it does is foam up when added im not getting any mud on the bottom. im positive i did enough gold plated pieces, oh i also checked the solution for gold but i got no color change where did i screw up and its got 10 lbs of cleaned pins,cpu's,and ram chips thats not to mention the other 6 motherboards i put in so please can anyone save it
help with the process
- Thread starter rkbassin
- Start date
Help Support Gold Refining Forum:
Welcome to the forum,
As a general rule of thumb you should not process mixed types of e-scrap together, especially directly in AR. The proper procedure is to sort the scrap and remove the base metals first, collect the gold foils and powder then process in AR as you did.
Urea is not required if you carefully control the amount of sodium nitrate (aka 'sub-zero') used to dissolve the gold.
Your gold is likely the fine brown powder you saw in the dark green/brown liquid. If the gold is not in the solution, it is either in your filter or in the bottom of the reaction vessel or both.
Check out the Guided Tour link below for more information.
Steve
As a general rule of thumb you should not process mixed types of e-scrap together, especially directly in AR. The proper procedure is to sort the scrap and remove the base metals first, collect the gold foils and powder then process in AR as you did.
Urea is not required if you carefully control the amount of sodium nitrate (aka 'sub-zero') used to dissolve the gold.
Your gold is likely the fine brown powder you saw in the dark green/brown liquid. If the gold is not in the solution, it is either in your filter or in the bottom of the reaction vessel or both.
Check out the Guided Tour link below for more information.
Steve
Barren Realms 007
In Remembrance
The gold flakes need to be dissolved before you melt them. You might still have some nitric in your solution. You can also add some HCL and heat your solution and it might redissolve your brown mud back into your solution and mght let you know if you still have nitric in your solution.
dtectr
Well-known member
Not trying to sound smug or like a snob or anything - I am still VERY new myself & need lots of help along the way, but ...
Have you even looked at the guided tour link lazersteve provided?
Have you even looked at the guided tour link lazersteve provided?
jimdoc
Well-known member
Doesn't Shor give any directions? Or does everybody dive in without even reading their directions? It seems like everyone who buys from Shor has problems.
Jim
Jim
yes i checked out the links and yes the shor kit came with directions and i did read them lol followed them to the tee it just seems like the golds not falling out of the solution thanks for all the help folks. im also in the middle of reading c.m. hoke but anymore help is greatly appreciated
jimdoc
Well-known member
Like Steve mentioned you don't want to mix scrap, and whole boards with the solder can cause problems. Hoke will teach you the basics, but she doesn't get into electronic scrap (it was written in 1940), or the alternative methods to do scrap. For that you have to study the forum.
Jim
Jim
goldenchild
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2009
- Messages
- 1,810
rkbassin said:
I think shor is geared more towards karated jewelry/scrap.
wrecker45
Well-known member
when i bought from shor i had problems. i phoned peter at shor told him what steps i did he told me i did it wrong. i told him i did it by the instructions he sent me. he said not to go by them. i said why would he send me instructions that are wrong . he did not have an answer.
Some of the problems people have,
Not preprocessing the materials: separate types of materials, incinerate when needed, leaching base metals, removing solder, trying whole circuit boards where acid cannot reach copper under mask but gold can plate to this un-dissolved copper, skipping base metal removal before trying to dissolve gold and only plating the gold to base metals un-dissolved, this list can go on.
Using too much acids to get the job done, too much nitric can be a problem.
Working like a blind man, dissolving metals in solution with out using testing methods to determine what metal may or may not be dissolved in solution.
Using too much nitric to begin with, and then not eliminating nitric (or other Oxidizer) before trying to precipitate their metal from solution.
Dirty solutions base metals, organics or other contaminates in solution are very hard for the proper precipitant to happen.
These and many more mistakes (too many more to list depending on process) can easily be overcome with some study before diving off the bridge of refining before studying to see what water or rocks are under that bridge, it will take some time to do that foot work, but the outcome will be more positive.
Sounds to me you have made many of these mistakes, well that is the hard way to learn, like banging your head against a wall to get the house remodeled.
I would test your solution for values using stannous chloride. (De-NOx) before testing this can be done with small portion like a test tube or few drops of solution
Assume values may be in un-dissolve materials, do not discard anything till you know where and what you have.
if you cannot precipitate gold from solution using normal methods a copper buss bar is a good tool to have in your box.
You now have found this forum, with a gold mine of information, spend time in this mine and learn, what is under that bridge before you dive in, it may seem like an awful lot of work to get the gold, but with exploring this mine of information you will find many more nuggets of values, and be well on your way of melting those valuable metals than you will by just banging your head against that wall.
Not preprocessing the materials: separate types of materials, incinerate when needed, leaching base metals, removing solder, trying whole circuit boards where acid cannot reach copper under mask but gold can plate to this un-dissolved copper, skipping base metal removal before trying to dissolve gold and only plating the gold to base metals un-dissolved, this list can go on.
Using too much acids to get the job done, too much nitric can be a problem.
Working like a blind man, dissolving metals in solution with out using testing methods to determine what metal may or may not be dissolved in solution.
Using too much nitric to begin with, and then not eliminating nitric (or other Oxidizer) before trying to precipitate their metal from solution.
Dirty solutions base metals, organics or other contaminates in solution are very hard for the proper precipitant to happen.
These and many more mistakes (too many more to list depending on process) can easily be overcome with some study before diving off the bridge of refining before studying to see what water or rocks are under that bridge, it will take some time to do that foot work, but the outcome will be more positive.
Sounds to me you have made many of these mistakes, well that is the hard way to learn, like banging your head against a wall to get the house remodeled.
I would test your solution for values using stannous chloride. (De-NOx) before testing this can be done with small portion like a test tube or few drops of solution
Assume values may be in un-dissolve materials, do not discard anything till you know where and what you have.
if you cannot precipitate gold from solution using normal methods a copper buss bar is a good tool to have in your box.
You now have found this forum, with a gold mine of information, spend time in this mine and learn, what is under that bridge before you dive in, it may seem like an awful lot of work to get the gold, but with exploring this mine of information you will find many more nuggets of values, and be well on your way of melting those valuable metals than you will by just banging your head against that wall.
ok ive finaly got tan mud in the bottom of my bucket, so i started washing the mud everytime i added water it would turn a milky color so i let it sit it would settle i add water it did it again so i let it sit all nite checked it today now its a light green with some kind of milky green sludge floating around can anyone tell me what reaction is going on ALSO I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR THERE HELP THANK YOU
hey wreker45 so what did the guy at shor say to do i know ive got one set of instructions that came with the kit but if you go to the web site it says to do something totally different im not going to buy chemicals from them again but where do i get good chemicals at a good price or does steave have them for sale
wrecker45
Well-known member
you can find all you need on the forum to make your own chemicals. and shor is not cheap...Jim
rkbassin,
Read up on copper I chloride.
I'm not going to type it all here again.
Please use the search function.
Steve
Read up on copper I chloride.
I'm not going to type it all here again.
Please use the search function.
Steve
