I am new and made a mistake

[teriobost]

Hello. I want to thank everyone on here for all of the great knowledge I have found so far.

I was processing a small batch of pins that have gold and silver. I used hydrochloric acid instead of nitric to dissolve base metals. Now I have a bunch of silver chloride in with my gold mud.

Should I just process this like it were silver with water, lye, and sugar then reprocess from a button? Or is there and easier way to separate the silver chloride from the gold? It was low grade scrap so everything is in a very fine state.

All help is appreciated.

 

[MicheleM]

Hello , I'm not an expert but if you have dissolved all the base metal in HCl , I would try this 1) filter the liquid to separate Au and AgCl from the solutions containg the base metal chlorides and then 2) HCl- Cl to dissolve gold and filtering again to separate AuCl3 (aq) and AgCl (s) 3) process gold solution and treat the AgCl separately

 

[Alabama938]

If you do add some thing to the HCl, it might be hard to tell when all the gold is dissolved… But it shouldn’t take very much nitric or bleach. It should be a mighty pain in the butt to filter, but you should be able to separate the gold from the silver by putting gold in solution, and rinsing the filtrate

 

[teriobost]

If you do add some thing to the HCl, it might be hard to tell when all the gold is dissolved… But it shouldn’t take very much nitric or bleach. It should be a mighty pain in the butt to filter, but you should be able to separate the gold from the silver by putting gold in solution, and rinsing the filtrate

Does that mean to use AR to put gold into solution or should I use hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide? Or does it matter?

 

[teriobost]

If you do add some thing to the HCl, it might be hard to tell when all the gold is dissolved… But it shouldn’t take very much nitric or bleach. It should be a mighty pain in the butt to filter, but you should be able to separate the gold from the silver by putting gold in solution, and rinsing the filtrate

I filtered it and rinsed it really good with distilled water.

 

[teriobost]

Hello , I'm not an expert but if you have dissolved all the base metal in HCl , I would try this 1) filter the liquid to separate Au and AgCl from the solutions containg the base metal chlorides and then 2) HCl- Cl to dissolve gold and filtering again to separate AuCl3 (aq) and AgCl (s) 3) process gold solution and treat the AgCl separately

 

[teriobost]

After I rinse the silver chloride really good could I dissolve the gold in aqua regia, then filter off the silver chloride to process separate and continue with processing the AR? I am having trouble understanding if silver chloride will go into solution with AR or not.

 

[Aurian]

Filter and dry the sludge. Incinerate or burn nicely to drive off the HCL. Wash in distilled water 3x, Incinerate again. Now it's clean and dry, something we can work with.

Now, there are a few possible routes. One, maybe attempting to dissolve the silver chloride in warm concentrated sulfuric acid.

Another is to burn the crap out of it, wasting some silver, (do this in proper vented area) eventually melting it into a blob, pour out as shot, and start again. This is probably the most brute force way I could think of.

You could try to reduce the silver chloride with the gold present, it's not something ive done, im not sure.

Also, it's been years since I did any of this as well, so always read about the reactions before taking my word for it.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Filter and dry the sludge. Incinerate or burn nicely to drive off the HCL. Wash in distilled water 3x, Incinerate again. Now it's clean and dry, something we can work with.

Now, there are a few possible routes. One, maybe attempting to dissolve the silver chloride in warm concentrated sulfuric acid.

Another is to burn the crap out of it, wasting some silver, (do this in proper vented area) eventually melting it into a blob, pour out as shot, and start again. This is probably the most brute force way I could think of.

You could try to reduce the silver chloride with the gold present, it's not something ive done, im not sure.

Also, it's been years since I did any of this as well, so always read about the reactions before taking my word for it.

There are many ways to reclaim from AgCl but most requires the chloride not to be dried. Search the library.
Silverchloride, NaOH, Zinc and so on maybe good to start with.

 

[Aurian]

There are many ways to reclaim from AgCl but most requires the chloride not to be dried. Search the library.
Silverchloride, NaOH, Zinc and so on maybe good to start with.

You're right lol. I knew I was a bit rusty, but apparently I have a bit more cobwebs than I thought around the attic haha

 

[teriobost]

I appreciate all of the advice. I think I am going to go with the only way that I actually have a little experience with the lye and glucose to get the silver cemented out and just reprocess with nitric acid. Again thank you all for your help hopefully someday I can return the favor.

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Silver chloride is soluble in ammonia too.
But that will create a different waste stream than the usual stockpot. Most advise against using ammonia.

What is the rough % of silver to gold?

Convert it, melt it, silver cell it. Id do that if the silver is anything higher than traditional inquartation. If the silver is roughly half to 3/4, nitric the melted alloy

But. Just use ar while in powder form. It will be fastest.

Yes, silver chloride is slightly soluble in AR.
It is common practice to chill and dilute AR before final filtration to remove all silver chloride and lead sulfate insolubles. AgCl is not soluble in cold dilute ar

Again, which processes depend on what % the metals are, approximately

 

[teriobost]

Silver chloride is soluble in ammonia too.
But that will create a different waste stream than the usual stockpot. Most advise against using ammonia.

What is the rough % of silver to gold?

Convert it, melt it, silver cell it. Id do that if the silver is anything higher than traditional inquartation. If the silver is roughly half to 3/4, nitric the melted alloy

But. Just use ar while in powder form. It will be fastest.

Yes, silver chloride is slightly soluble in AR.
It is common practice to chill and dilute AR before final filtration to remove all silver chloride and lead sulfate insolubles. AgCl is not soluble in cold dilute ar

Again, which

I appreciate the help. I did pretty much exactly what you said. I converted it from silver chloride to silver but instead of going to the silver cell I dissolved it all in AR and precipitated the gold, then silver and then to the cell. I am sure that was a run on sentence lol.