how to recover my gold foils after ap?

[artart47]

Hi everyone, merry christmas!
It's gonna be the big evening that I been waiting for! My gut is full of butterflies! I have everything ready on the bench to "HCl/Cl" my gold jar contents. Got tears in my eyes right now, yeah!! Goning to finally see that beautiful auric chloride dripping from the bottom of the funnel!
It's been two years of scarfing computers, cell phones,converters and everythingelse with PM's; A good year on the forum learning to be dangerous! Ha Ha! And a few months APing fingers,pins and filtering little gold flecks from solution buckets untill they actually start talking to you at 3am!
I hope my teachers will be proud! artart47.

 

[tek4g63]

That's exciting stuff. Can't wait to see the pics from this part of the process. I'm going down the same road as you, just I'm about 6 months behind ya! But I have a tuch over 10g of foils so far. Good luck man, I'm excited for ya!

 

[pimpneightez]

really no need to do this.if you had an air supply in your AP it wouldn't take as long and there would be no need to keep adding acid.hcl acid does not dissolve copper but copper chloride will.you need the dark colored solution to dissolve the copper,every time you drained it off and replaced it with fresh acid you actually slowed the process down.copper chloride will etch copper as long as oxygen is present to oxidize the copper,adding an air supply such as a fish bubbler keeps the solution aerated and rich with oxygen speeding up the process.[/quote]

I have an oxygen concentrator that blows 98% pure oxygen. Any hazards in using this? will it work faster with higher concentrations of oxygen?

 

[Geo]

really no need to do this.if you had an air supply in your AP it wouldn't take as long and there would be no need to keep adding acid.hcl acid does not dissolve copper but copper chloride will.you need the dark colored solution to dissolve the copper,every time you drained it off and replaced it with fresh acid you actually slowed the process down.copper chloride will etch copper as long as oxygen is present to oxidize the copper,adding an air supply such as a fish bubbler keeps the solution aerated and rich with oxygen speeding up the process.

I have an oxygen concentrator that blows 98% pure oxygen. Any hazards in using this? will it work faster with higher concentrations of oxygen?[/quote]

too much oxygen as i have learned is not a good thing for AP. the oxygen supply in regular air should be fine. an excess of oxygen will dissolve gold into solution and with the excess of oxygen could dissolve quite a bit of the gold. you would rather your gold show up as glittering foils rather than some black powder that would be easier to overlook or discard.

 

[pimpneightez]

Intresting, I was just trying to think outside the box on this one. You never know where a good idea will come from, or a bad one.

 

[steyr223]

Thank you
I've been wondering the same thing

 

[artart47]

Happy New Year!
I did my recovered gold with the HCl/Cl, was that ever cool! everything seems to have dissolved except the garbage. I posted the pics of the dirty solution. I just found a great "auric chloried jar" at the salvation army, looks like the one in Steve's video. So I'll be filtering it when I get home from Denny's! I'll get some pics.
I did it outside on the driveway, just brought it inside to get the pics!
Any noobs that are about to attemp this, never do a reaction like this indoors or in an enclosed space. I was outside and upwind of the container and I was surprized at how violent the reaction is and the amount of chlorine fumes that are released! ADD CHLOROX ONLY A SMALL AMOUNT AT A TIME! It will boil over! wear protection too!
Be back soon!
artart47

 

[tek4g63]

Artart47,
Can't wait to see more. Thank you for reminding everyone how serious safety is. Even breathing a small amount of fumes can be awful for your health.

Just wondering how much your foils weighed dry, and how much your refined powder weighs when your finished. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that would love to know the before and after yealds. This is a very exciting process, isn't it? I'm not at the the refining ( HCL/CL ) process yet, but I'm getting closer all the time. It's awesome to see the foils pile up.

Thank you for letting all of us be a part of the fun with you!

 

[Geo]

artart47,
looking good so far.when you precipitate the gold it will still be impure so you may need to refine it again.this time when you dissolve it you will see nothing but the rich golden color of AuCl.you have done a great job.keep up the good work.

 

[artart47]

Hey!
Went home and got the filtering done! I added some water to the left over debris so i can make sure i get all the gold chloride out of it and into the filter. The debris is a dark almost black powder that diden't dissolve in HCl/Cl. It is changing from the bottom up to granuals that look like the copper sulfate crystals from my childhood science kit. it seems to happen as i wash the powder with water and the acid level drops. I'll try to get a picture of it tonight.
Tech4g... God, it is exciting! It just seems to take forever to get to the next step! about the before and after. I can't say exactly. The computers that i've been getting are older,and about half were commercial and industrial. I had no scale as I started the fingers in AP. I weighed the stripped finger pieces at 14lbs, then there is gold flecks from filtering the bucket in which i soak plated connectors...
Everything (recovered gold) went into the storage jar and soaked in HCl untill now. as the acid would turn green I'd syphon it down and add a little fresh. The final time it stayed pretty clear so I figured the gold was clean. They were always in HCl along with some garbage and I coulden't get their wieght. I'll post wieght of the dryed powder after the drop!
Just keep collecting man! I wanna see you on here doing you gold!

Geo!
Thanks. you advised me along while back, when I first got started,to put the foils and all the garbage in a container and the next step would take care of it. Cool how that works! When you're a noob and panicking, advise from someone like you,Steve, Herold means alot!
You're right. I'll have to refine a second time, do the "Herold wash" on the powder. The jar is already starting to acumulate again.
Here is a picture of the AuCl. It's pretty clear but I had to keep wiping off the condensation on the outside of the jar to get the picture. It was cold from being outside.
Thanks everyone!

 

[artart47]

Hi evreyone!
Did the gold drop this morning! I made a saturated solution of smb last night, took it outside today and mixed it in. My AuCl got clear and then brown like the video. after an hour, when the sulphur smell died down I put saran wrap over the top, loose and brought it inside where it's alittle warmer. This is dirty gold and will be rerefined so I hope the powder drops like it's supposed to.
I diden't have any pure tin so I got some 95%tin/5%antimony solder,disolved it in HCl to make stannis test. There are some black bits in the bottom and the piece of solder is coated with black. I assume that is the antimony. Hope it dosen't affect the test! I did a spot test with it from my auric chloride, turned jet black, so I put one drop of AuCl in 10-12 drops water and the q-tip turned very dark purple!
Getting some breakfast at Denny's and will check on it when I get home! Can't wait!
Later artart47

The background?
I'm loading everything on the trailed and truck for my trip to boardsort!
Also added a pic of my next step in learning refining! I get alot of good old stuff with alot of gold.

 

[Geo]

you still have gold in the solution.if it test positive even after a few minutes of adding SMB then you need to add more SMB.show us the gold when it all drops. i hope boardsort pays you a very good price if your selling them whats in the photos because that stuff looks very rich. :mrgreen:

 

[artart47]

Hey Geo!
The stuff going to boardsort is about a thousand pounds of mb's, defingered cards/memory ,hd boards, de wired power supplies, boardless hard drives, all from "best buy grade" computers. I am going to learn to refine all the rich stuff.
Cpu's will probably be my next quest! I'm enjoying the hell out of this experience! Thanks for all the help! I'm gonna test for gold when I get back.
artart47

 

[artart47]

Powder down, q-tip from stannis test.

 

[Geo]

good job.looks good too,good color.

 

[tek4g63]

Looking great man! Can't wait to see the finished button.

 

[artart47]

Thanks guys!!

 

[artart47]

Hey everyone!
I'm rolling right along! let the smb solution settle and syphon-decanted down near the powder. then transfered the left over to a smaller dish for washing.
I have no experience handling powder. It's a real pain in the exhaust porthole. The powder never completely settles! it's on the walls of the container, The syphoned or decanted liquid seems, upon magnification to have millions of tiny particals of gold. to get it back in the dish,(sprey-bottle) just keep ending up with larger liquid volume. I just checked on the decanted smb jar and there is a very fine gold coating on the bottom and parts of the side of the jar.
I assume that by the time I would complete all the steps of "Herold washing" I'd have like two gallons of liquid or have gold powder all over everything. HaHa !
I been doing a little searching for anything, a post, tutorial that teaches how to tranfer and wash Au powder and keep it contained.
If anyone can point me to such I'd be thankfull!

artart47

 

[martyn111]

I been doing a little searching for anything, a post, tutorial that teaches how to tranfer and wash Au powder and keep it contained.
If anyone can point me to such I'd be thankfull!

artart47

I would say that the precipitated gold shouldn't leave the vessel in which it is dropped, until it has been washed and redissolved or washed and dried ready for melting, eliminating the chances of loosing any powder during the transfer process.

Editted for clarity

 

[Geo]

if the gold is pure it will settle quickly.if you think theres gold floating, add a drop of dish soap.just put a drop on your finger and swish it in the water.let it sit over night .by the next day the water should be crystal clear. also gold sticking to the side of the glass means the glass was dirty and may be sticking to particles too fine to see with the naked eye.