hi to all with knowledge

[crazyman]

Hello to all the people with the knowledge I wish I had. I have been experimenting with chemicals and prospecting for about 20 years, off and on, not every day, I have observed colors made by different ores and muriatic acid but never tried to recover precious metals. I know the serious precautions about acids from a friend that had his skin on his finger slide off like it was a glove. I forget what acid it was? I think hydroflouric that he made up not realizing it? I worked as a guard at a copper mine which also required me to be a certified emergency medical technician. Sorry so long winded. I joined the forum to learn. I have my protective gear and chemicals, I even have ore and ore concentrates but am unsure of where to start. All I have done so far is concentrate the ore and get an assay, It proved positive for metals that could make me some money. I'm reading everything on the forum, making notes and downloaded Hokes books from ta member of the forum, not good with remembing names. I hope to learn what I need without offending or making myself look too dumb. Thank you for this site.
P.S., my forum name does not mean I am crazy, I am however very concerned about my privacy and take any precautions for my identity.

 

[Geo]

no problem with being cautious,just ask one of these guys where their favorite place to pan for gold is. :lol: welcome to the forum.looks like your already headed in the right direction so don't be afraid to ask question and post comments. any pictures your willing to share would be great.the forum loves pictures. 8)

 

[eeTHr]

crazymen---

Although it's good to be cautious about identity theft, and other things, it is a good idea to put a general location in your profile, with the User Control Panel link, because sometimes people need to know an approximate location to help with things like local laws, availability of certain chemicals, access to materials to refine, and prospecting recommendations.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[crazyman]

Although it's good to be cautious about identity theft, and other things, it is a good idea to put a general location in your profile, with the User Control Panel link, because sometimes people need to know an approximate location to help with things like local laws, availability of certain chemicals, access to materials to refine, and prospecting recomme--

I go to the library to use a computer and sometimes my phone so I have limited forum access. Our claim is about 10 miles out of Ely, Nevada. Almost everyone has a claim or land of their own. I don't think my phone links up to the forum as I have sent a few posts that don't make it. We have a good share of metals according to the assay it cost $225 from Auric Labs. We roasted the concentrates and put some of the concentrates in HCI to remove base metals. There is nothing in Hokes book on ore processing. Is there a good contact on the forum for this subject?

 

[Claudie]

I am thinking Richard36 may be able to help you out with this. You can usually find some of his posts in the "Refiners, Buyers, Assayers, etc." part of the forum.

 

[crazyman]

I am thinking Richard36 may be able to help you out with this. You can usually find some of his posts in the "Refiners, Buyers, Assayers, etc." part of the forum.

Thanks, I thought the same thing so I sent him a private message. I don't want to involve the entire forum with my tribbles.

 

[eeTHr]

I am thinking Richard36 may be able to help you out with this. You can usually find some of his posts in the "Refiners, Buyers, Assayers, etc." part of the forum.

Thanks, I thought the same thing so I sent him a private message. I don't want to involve the entire forum with my tribbles.

Actually, it's just the opposite. Everyone interested in ore can learn from what you learn, if your discussion is posted.

 

[crazyman]

Thank you for accepting me into the forum, I am in desperate need of some help. I am up to speed with my safety equipment and prob overboard with my precautions. I have a very nice vent hood I use and even don my resirator when working with it. I got pnuemonia a few years ago from beathing fumes so I am overly safe now, I did not like coughing up literally chunks of green/yellow goop. So I'm doing it right this time but I'm having a hard time learning from reading as I had a head injury from a mine collapse in 2008. Hope this long post doesn't offend anyone? Is so I'm sorry and will improve. I'm not good with a lot of the terminology you folks use so I will need to use simple language. Here is where I'm at in my processing; dug into an old riverbed with an excavator, down to blue mississipian limestone, ran this through a number of sluices, had an assay, rich in silver, fair for gold, some Pt, Pd of course copper and base metals, naturally sulfides. We took roughly 30 lbs of the concentrates and roasted of the sulfides and dissolved the material in half a gallon of nitric (70%) and 2 gallon of water, filtered and have been putting this solution in 4 crockpots to concentrate. We know our acid amounts were off now because I have since found this forum. We also thought 2 gallons of 70% HCI wouldn't hurt. I wish I would have found this forum before that!! I had access to very strong acids but that access is no longer. So I am concentrating the solutions since the metals are quite diluted . Now I have a white substance growing everywhere, I assume this is the silver and my acids are getting very brownish green, it has been filtered and I am getting a shiny black mud out of the filters. I read read read and am not understanding. I want so bad to achieve success at this. I have harvested the crystals and they are like fibers and white as snow. Silver I am sure since silver screamed from the assay. With my very dark green solutions I am stumped. I want to buld a e-cell and was wondering if copper and stripped welding rod would work but I'm at a cross road and only know that refinerys use large cells a don't know what materials they use for anode and cathode or if they are different for each targeted metal. I even bought steves cd on silver and can't absorb it. So here I am with all this metal in solution and now feel like a failure. Thanks for letting me share.

 

[crazyman]

Pic of the crystals, is this what I convert to elemental silver? This I have found is Iron. It takes me a while to learn but I had to know the difference, one of those things suggested in Hokes book so as to know what it is if I see it again.

 

[nickvc]

If I'm reading this correctly you added the hydrochloric to the nitric which would have converted any silver dissolved into silver chloride, this is usually a white light weight material that will colour when exposed to daylight,the problem is it will convert other metals to chlorides too some of which you really don't want . My suggestion would be to convert your silver chloride back into elemental silver using either zinc dust or the karo syrup method and then redissolve the silver in nitric and then cement the silver out on copper buzz bars. If as you say you have PGMs in the mix as well as gold and silver they might well report in your silver cement so a further refining using a silver cell and a recovery of the slimes will probably be called for.

 

[Geo]

did the assay say anything about tin? it precipitates out as a long white crystal.silver chloride is white and fluffy kind of waxy looking in the filter.did you put a pinch of salt in your solution? if you add salt and it makes a white cloud then thats your silver.most people on the forum use copper to cement the silver out of solution but you first need to make sure you actually have silver in it to begin with.

 

[crazyman]

Wouldn't my assay tell me tin was in there? Tin wasn't listed on the assay. Gawd I have made a big monster with hydrochloric. I wish I would have found you guys about 3 months ago. How did you people get so smart! Sounds like I will be starting from step 1 again. Oh what I always learn the hard way. So turn my white crystals into elemental silver and use nitric only, I need to get the silver out of the way before I can process any other metal? Is this correct? Also I harvested approx 2 lbs of these crystals and 5 minutes later they turned into black mud and I did nothing to them to make them change? Was it from the sun?Thanks for your help.

 

[crazyman]

did the assay say anything about tin? it precipitates out as a long white crystal.silver chloride is white and fluffy kind of waxy looking in the filter.did you put a pinch of salt in your solution? if you add salt and it makes a white cloud then thats your silver.most people on the forum use copper to cement the silver out of solution but you first need to make sure you actually have silver in it to begin with.

When cemented the silver falls to the bottom as a white precip, is this correct? If so I have done this and have approx 2 inches in the bottom of a bucket that I keep adding this precip to and its under 8 inches or so of clear green solution

 

[crazyman]

did the assay say anything about tin? it precipitates out as a long white crystal.silver chloride is white and fluffy kind of waxy looking in the filter.did you put a pinch of salt in your solution? if you add salt and it makes a white cloud then thats your silver.most people on the forum use copper to cement the silver out of solution but you first need to make sure you actually have silver in it to begin with.

When cemented the silver falls to the bottom as a white precip, is this correct? If so I have done this and have approx 2 inches in the bottom of a bucket that I keep adding this precip to and its under 8 inches or so of clear green solution

I posted a pic, are you able to see well enough? Can't imagine it being anything but silver since my assay was so high with silver content.

 

[crazyman]

I also have some metals that won't dissolve, I boiled them in nitric, Ar and they refuse to dissolve. Is it possible I didn't get the sulfides hot enough. I tell you what, you people are a smart group of people! I wish I could learn more efficiently and get some confidence in myself again.

 

[nickvc]

I'm far from an expert on ores, or most other things, but I think that a copy of your assay posted on the forum or a detailed breakdown of exactly what's in the mix would help those that really know their way round this sort of material. No two ores or concentrates seem to be the same so what works for one causes a mess for others. We have now got several very knowledgable members who really know their subject and with a full report can probably point you in the right direction and tell you what to avoid and what process will likely prove successful. Working chemistry knowledge is what you need and any work arounds that some of the clever miners and processors have used to recover their values and I'm fairly sure you will get help if anyone knows how to process your material successfully but full details will help those that can help you.

 

[Geo]

copper is not selective.it will cement all metals that are higher than copper on the reactivity scale.this means silver,gold, and all the PGM's.you will want to do this because you can then process the metals in sequence.take the cemented powder and dissolve all that will dissolve in nitric acid.anything that doesnt dissolve can only be a couple of metals.everything that does dissolve will only be a couple of different metals.since you have an assay you will know what is in the nitric and whats not.you know you will have silver so deal with that first.since you will have more than one metal in the nitric you cant cement with copper because that defeats the purpose.you may have to precipitate your silver out as silver chloride using salt and the work with the pd.with the other solids that wouldnt dissolve in nitric you can incinerate and use hcl/cl on the powder to dissolve the gold (does hcl/cl dissolve pt?) and then precipitate with SMB.

 

[crazyman]

copper is not selective.it will cement all metals that are higher than copper on the reactivity scale.this means silver,gold, and all the PGM's.you will want to do this because you can then process the metals in sequence.take the cemented powder and dissolve all that will dissolve in nitric acid.anything that doesnt dissolve can only be a couple of metals.everything that does dissolve will only be a couple of different metals.since you have an assay you will know what is in the nitric and whats not.you know you will have silver so deal with that first.since you will have more than one metal in the nitric you cant cement with copper because that defeats the purpose.you may have to precipitate your silver out as silver chloride using salt and the work with the pd.with the other solids that wouldnt dissolve in nitric you can incinerate and use hcl/cl on the powder to dissolve the gold (does hcl/cl dissolve pt?) and then precipitate with SMB.

Thank you so much Geo for breaking it down like that for me to understand, I can follow those instructions. I was starting to think the black mud was something I made and not my values. I'm sorry I forgot to add in my previous posts that I had added uniodized salt to the solution to get the silver out if it makes any difference. I must have recovered all the big values since I am getting no more black mud in the bottom of my crockpots. I have been up night after night with this on my mind and you have helped more than you know. I know alot of you on the forum probably get tired of reading idiotic things folks do but like I said I thought this was going to be as easy, all I had to do was read shore's instructions and dissolve away. (no offense, since they didn't know what material started with) one last question, the silver chloride is the white crystals that I posted a picture of, this is what I mix with the sodium hydroxide, rinse and add karo syrup? then melt?

 

[Geo]

one last question, the silver chloride is the white crystals that I posted a picture of, this is what I mix with the sodium hydroxide, rinse and add karo syrup? then melt?

thats one method.a simpler method is to take the silver chloride and place it in a glass container then add concentrated sulfuric acid (just enough to to cover the silver chloride) then use a piece of scrap steel to stir it up and then leave the steel in the solution.after 24 hours all the white silver chloride should be converted to gray silver metal.rinse it with water a few times and then refine it using nitric acid and cement with copper.when you cement silver from solution that has nothing but silver then your silver will be almost pure depending how clean your equipment is and your work habits.you could get .995 from cementing with copper.

 

[Harold_V]

a simpler method is to take the silver chloride and place it in a glass container then add concentrated sulfuric acid (just enough to to cover the silver chloride) then use a piece of scrap steel to stir it up and then leave the steel in the solution.after 24 hours all the white silver chloride should be converted to gray silver metal.rinse it with water a few times and then refine it using nitric acid and cement with copper.when you cement silver from solution that has nothing but silver then your silver will be almost pure depending how clean your equipment is and your work habits.you could get .995 from cementing with copper.

Cementing with copper is generally the fastest and easiest way to deal with silver in solution, I agree, although to suggest you might achieve 995 quality may be a bit of a stretch.

A thought.

Assuming the silver chloride in question is relatively clean, there's really not much to be gained by reducing with iron (steel), then dissolving again, to cement with copper.

I propose that a washing with HCl after it has been well rinsed of sulfuric will serve to provide pretty much the same level of purity as one might hope to achieve by dissolving and recovering with nitric. In either case, the silver is best parted in a silver cell, so there's really no advantage in the nitric process. No sense adding cost and labor when there's no benefit.

I welcome your thoughts.

Harold