g-day I seem to have a problem with some gold in murcury that has been in suspension for about 75 years and am having trouble getting it to separate can someone please help it came from an old battary table on the australian gold fields and has been in my grand fathers shed all this time and forgotten there is quite a lot
how to recover gold from old mercury that has been in suspension for app 65 years.I am having trouble getting it to separate
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You really do not want to touch the Mercury or put the vapors in the air.
A heavy filter cloth can separate it, you twist squeeze the amalgam into water.
Gold mostly will stay in the cloth, liquid Mercury passing through the pours of the rag falling to the bottom of the water in a glass pan.
Then to get off all the Mercury, you would need to build/buy a retort.
This unit will evaporate the Mercury from the gold, collecting the vapor back to liquid Mercury under water.
Leaving your gold to be cleaned or refined.
If there is so much Mercury , are you sure there is gold in it to be recovered?
Put a small sample drawn from the bottom of the mercury container in a beaker, and nitric acid use PPE and fume control. The acid will attack the mercury until gone, thus leaving a small amount of Au behind as nitric acid alone will not dissolve Au.
(My odd ball theory here) You might need on the outside chance to charge the amalgam with more gold to make collection possible.
If you think there is gold in the mercury, I think I can lead you to a few good videos.
Also ,You really do not want to touch the Mercury or put the vapors in the air.
A heavy filter cloth can separate it, you twist squeeze the amalgam into water.
Gold mostly will stay in the cloth, liquid Mercury passing through the pours of the rag falling to the bottom of the water in a glass pan.
Then to get off all the Mercury, you would need to build/buy a retort.
This unit will evaporate the Mercury from the gold, collecting the vapor back to liquid Mercury under water.
Leaving your gold to be cleaned or refined.
If there is so much Mercury , are you sure there is gold in it to be recovered?
Put a small sample drawn from the bottom of the mercury container in a beaker, and nitric acid use PPE and fume control. The acid will attack the mercury until gone, thus leaving a small amount of Au behind as nitric acid alone will not dissolve Au.
(My odd ball theory here) You might need on the outside chance to charge the amalgam with more gold to make collection possible.
If you think there is gold in the mercury, I think I can lead you to a few good videos.
Also ,You really do not want to touch the Mercury or put the vapors in the air.
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thanks Richoc I will give it a go ( with extreme care) and post how i go. nugget
Sounds to me like you are not prepared to set up a retort or even test with nitric acid. So here is an old miners trick you can use to get an idea if the amalgam is holding gold.
Get a nice sized potato. Cut it in half and scoop out a small depression. Fill the depression with the amalgam you want to test and place the 2 halves of the potato back together and wrap it well in tin foil. Next throw the potato into a campfire. After it cools get out the now roasted potato and unwrap it. If there was any gold it will be inside the potato and the mercury will have been absorbed into the potato as it volatilized away from the gold.
Obviously this is a quick test which old miners used in the field cleaning up amalgam from black sands. This is not a practical method for production. Unless you are a frustrated potato farmer turned gold miner.
And don’t eat the potato, or leave it where an unsuspecting animal can eat it.
Get a nice sized potato. Cut it in half and scoop out a small depression. Fill the depression with the amalgam you want to test and place the 2 halves of the potato back together and wrap it well in tin foil. Next throw the potato into a campfire. After it cools get out the now roasted potato and unwrap it. If there was any gold it will be inside the potato and the mercury will have been absorbed into the potato as it volatilized away from the gold.
Obviously this is a quick test which old miners used in the field cleaning up amalgam from black sands. This is not a practical method for production. Unless you are a frustrated potato farmer turned gold miner.
And don’t eat the potato, or leave it where an unsuspecting animal can eat it.
lazersteve
Well-known member
I first saw the way 4metals describes to do it in a Prospector Ed's (I think that was his name) guide. Golden oldie. I posted about his book here on the forum almost 15 years ago. It's a great read with lots of good information. Highly recommend book for your library.
Steve
Steve
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lazersteve
Well-known member
Post in thread 'Testing for Gold and PGMs Part 3' Testing for Gold and PGMs Part 3
Just to add to this.. burn the bejesus out of the depression you scoop from the potato.. form a good carbon layer first
If.... you create any mercury nitrate in your journey to recover the gold... mercury dissolved in a solution can more readily get absorbed through the skin....PPE is a must. Also, don't get anything containing acetone anywhere near the mercury nitrate.
You should be able to cement any mercury back out of solution with copper.
You should be able to cement any mercury back out of solution with copper.
thank you for the advice on my recovery problem but it seems I am not to hard to fine I have sold 80kg the of amalgem to a verv nice chinese guy and I will play with the small amount i kept it is set very hard in the bottom of the bottel with the free mercury on top, the big bottels were the same so now i dont care cash is a lot lighter with out the danger of prossesing
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Nugget have you worked on any recovery of what you have left.
Wondering how it was going with what you kept?
Have you heard any results from the buyer, as to recovery?
I have not done as yet I have had the flu for the last three weeks and dont feel much like playing with nasties but will keep all informed as it happens i kept just over two kg there is plenty to work with the byer has asked not to be named so I must respect that he parted with a large sum of money and I must say good wine is nice. nugget.
He did not ask who the customer was, just if he had shared some results with you.
Paul Moynagh
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Guys, does anyone know what % gold is typically recovered by using mercury?
Welcome to us.
We do not recommend Mercury due to its toxicity.
And no, I do not know how much is picked up by the Mercury.
It is not a fixed amount that is for sure, it will depend on which ore, how it is treated and how the Mercury/Ore slurry is treated and so on.
Here is for your studies:
We ask our new members to do 3 things.
1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=19798
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/safety.47/
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/dealing-with-waste.10539/
Suggested reading:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/the-library.101/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/when-in-doubt-cement-it-out.30236/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threa...le-read-this-before-you-post-about-ore.33333/
Forum rules is here.
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/
I believe that over time, the Gold amalgamated with mercury has turned into colloidal gold.. this was a common failure occurring with stamp mills. When Zinc powder is stirred into the Gold amalgam the Gold zink alloy can be collected. Action Mining sells a book on this process.
Gold amalgam is actually an alloy so the Gold is dissolved in the Mercury, as far as I understand.
Retorting it will remove the Mercury from the Amalgam and leave pure Gold behind.
Bigger chunks and particles in the Mercury may only be amalgamated on the surface and can be retrieved by pushing through a cloth of kinds.
At least that is how I understand it.
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Yes, Gold can dissolve in Mercury, but I think it will passivate at a certain point, but I do not know at what degree, the passivation stops. It is probably a time in immersion factor. To get the nano Au, a retort is the best option, over Nitric dissolution/ Copper cement option. Retorting does not refine to pure Au, it only leaves the residue from whatever the amalgam held initially. Mercury can amalgamate with a variety of metals.
That is correct. When gold is dissolved in mercury, or simply contaminated by mercury, as was some I pulled out of a few rivers back in the stone ages, a retort is the best option for having the smallest volume of waste.
There are at least a few threads on retorts here, although it has been a while since I read any of them.
