how to recover the failures

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shel8483

Active member
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
25
I have dumped all failed process attemts in a 5 gallon bucket. Whats in the bucket? HCL/WATER/dissolved base metals/Gold/SMB/PEROXIDE. I have the stripping method down finally and disolving in hcl/bleach but having a big problem with smb working for me I may have a bad batch. Just want to find out the best way to recover contents in my dump bucket and get the gold out. Not sure how to cement Values so I can redisolve them and refine gold out. Any help would be appreciated
 
If you have it use a copper buss bar or just take a piece of copper pipe and split it length-wise and flatten it out. Punch a hole through it and hang it in your solution. It will cement all values as a black powder.
 
thats what i thought but not much results. i cleaned the boards really well. not much comming out unless it takes a long time. Also alot of water in it
 
i know you have heard this a undred time ... but did you tested it with stannous ?
if the reaction is negative and it was me, i would just put it on the side for a month or 2. to see what come to the botom
if the reaction was positive i guess the best would be to cement everyting out with copper as other said
if a realy strong positif (i would heat and evaporate some of the content in 2liter batch and drop it with smb)

anyway maybe better answer will come
 
what chapter missed that, chapter using hcl /peroxide. in alternative methods I did not see hcl/pre - hcl/clorox in there. could you give me a page number i have the book
 
you will not find these in Hoke's book. the processes in her book is the text book procedures to follow. the other processes you mentioned are considered "work around's" because the chemicals in the book are either hard to acquire or the work around is less dangerous to work with.

some of the processes promoted on the forum were developed and perfected by members on the forum.
 
I do not have her book with me but look in the index for stock pot.; you should read and understand her instructions.

Ok let see if I can give some thing here,

You have a stock pot with everything in it, and possibly gold in solution,
Decant solution and test these solutions for values, if values cement them using a copper buss bar.

the powders left, wash in boiling water till clear, let powder settle but decant hot, this will help remove some metals and other non valuable powders, (test any solution for values before treating for waste).

Neutralize the powder using water and sodium hydroxide, the water decanted should be fairly clear, wash out the salt water with boiling hot water washes.

This whole process can be done on solid burner hot plate in corning ware casserole dish including the incineration.

Decant washes while still hot but let powders settle, after boils lower heat to let powders settle but keep hot, you can decant with suction bulb tool and plastic pipette.

dry powders on low heat with lid, do not let it bubbles form that pop and splatter your values, as it dries you can raise heat, before it gets too hard crush it, I use a large piece of glass from a boiler sight glass as a mortars, crushing to powder, raise heat to high, sometimes if a lot of base metals, it will dry harden and then fuse to a syrup again, if it does this you will need to re-crush after it dries again but before it gets too hard,(stir it every once in a while), after your hot plate on high turns the powders dark, and no longer is oxidizing the powders heat the powders with a propane torch, getting them red hot stirring often keep heating burn off anything until no smoke and powder is red hot, do not breath these fumes.

This has oxidized the base metals, burnt of trash.

let cool down, cover with HCl, and bring to boil, after boiling I use a water spray bottle and wash sides of pot down adding some water to boiling solution, not too much water, lower heat but keep hot to let powders settle, decant solution leaving powder, this will help to remove copper chloride, lead chloride and tin, and other base metals, (your jar you decant this solution to could contain traces of values, so keep that in mind also), add water to powder bring to boil lower heat to let powder settle, decant hot, repeat till solution is clear, (if a whole lot of base metals you may need to repeat HCl boil and water washes),

Two ways to go from here:
This should leave values in powder, these can be neutralized again and salt washed out, dried and incinerated to remove chlorides, then treated in nitric acid (dissolving base Metals, silver and possibly palladium, which can be recovered cemented out of solution with copper).
If gold you can move onto aqua regia, if Platinum you would need to heat to 150 degrees, and so on.

or you can skip the second incineration and nitric and dissolve gold from silver powders, leaving silver chloride and any other dirt behind, using HCl and bleach, or aqua regia,(which this dirty silver chloride powders could be dissolved and re-precipitated later, if storing keep damp until you collect enough to process).

much of how or what process I may choose depends on circumstances, so it is hard to give you a process to follow, I am not in your lab, and am not the one working on your material, if I was I may change how I did some things, this is why you should read Hokes book and get an understanding of how to deal with different situations, and then make decisions of what to do next by the situation you encounter, every circumstances a bit different, understanding what Hoke teaches, you can deal with any materials.
 
i have a 5 gallon bucket too filled with AR, tested positive very fast, nuff gold in there, wont drop, think i put too much nitric, it was 500mlHCL, and i think i put 150ml nitric ? diluted it with water 4 - 1. dropped like 30g out 45 g with smb, tested it, went positive, i then added more wata, threw more smb in there it started to drop and then went away added more water and smb, same thing. what do you think i should do with it, any help would be appreciated.

nuff respect.

i like the copper plan, will the amount of water in my AR affect the way copper reacts ?
 
It's not really necessary but you can evaporate your solution down to 2/3 of it's volume with a piece of copper in it let the material settle and then reprocess the material more careully the 2nd time.
 

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