I bought over 200 pounds of jewelry.

[upcyclist]

Color of the base alloy is also a factor--which is why you see brass so much. Close to gold in color, easily worked, fairly cheap. The same reason it's used in gold-filled wire & sheet.

 

[Rougemillenial]

Nice . my suggestion is to process a sample of the gold plated stuff and the gold filled stuff. the process I'd suggest is to melt the material down with a bit of scrap copper and stir w/ a graphite rod. Then pour into a shallow container. Put it into a CuSO4/H2SO4 parting cell and electrorefine the copper to remove it. the zinc is dissolved in the acid so an excess might be needed. the slimes on the bottom are washed with water and dissolved in HCl/CuCl2
to remove remaining base metals. then, dissolve the silver in nitric acid then the gold can be dissolved in AR.

I hate to be so abrupt, but I think that your entire recommendation has zero merit. I would suggest you think about this more thoroughly. What would be your second choice?

Being an experianced chemist and having tried this myself, it does indeed work if the base metals are high in copper. Though if it's not the method you'd want to use, acidic dissolution is the way to go for filled items. Acidic base removal will not work for plated items. You'd have to use cyanide or a sulfuric acid cell. The issue with acidic dissolution of base metals in plated items is that the plating is sometimes so fine that it will mostly go into solution as colloidal gold. Not to mention the amount of waste would be enormous. You'd end up spending way more money disposing of gallons of toxic waste than your yield's value. That's if you get any yield at all. There are multiple methods that can be used though I'd highly suggest separating plated from filled items. Good luck! :mrgreen: :G

If the base metal is high in copper...which it rarely is. Much more common is brass, bronze, nickel, zinc, steel. Costume jewelry has to be made to a price point, so they use base metals that behave well for casting/forming. Copper tends to oxidize too regularly in the melting process.

Not to say you couldn't melt then flux out all the metals lower than copper, but I have a feeling you'd be adding quite a bit of copper.

you can part steel with a sodium bisulfate solution[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQ67POLiqg[/youtube] though as for the zinc, a sodium zincate solution or zinc sulfate solution can be used. though as I've said, this works best for gold filled scrap. gold plated material needs a different process. A sulfuric acid cell or cyanide solution is really the only sensible way to go in my opinion since the percentage of gold in plated material is well under 1% by weight according to streetip's video on the subject. https://www.scribd.com/doc/40289717...cs-Computer-Telecommunication-and-Other-Scrap

 

[solar_plasma]

Being an experianced chemist and

In the palladium nitrate thread you stated you are an amateur "Being an ametuer chemist, "

Now, you have become an experienced chemist already. What's next? A chemist is someone who studied chemistry at a university college or a university and finished it with an academic grade or diploma. And btw all chemists I ever met, are able to spell "experienced" and "amateur" correctly. Please don't call yourself a chemist at all, if you aren't. Users might mistakenly understand your postings as a professional opinion.

 

[Rougemillenial]

Being an experianced chemist and

In the palladium nitrate thread you stated you are an amateur "Being an ametuer chemist, "

Now, you have become an experienced chemist already. What's next? A chemist is someone who studied chemistry at a university college or a university and finished it with an academic grade or diploma. And btw all chemists I ever met, are able to spell "experienced" and "amateur" correctly. Please don't call yourself a chemist at all, if you aren't. Users might mistakenly understand your postings as a professional opinion.

I apologize for the contradiction. I am experienced in terms of lab time. I was simply attempting to convey that I'm not just some random joe sitting in his basement seeking for attention by stating things I have no clue on for unearned intelligence points. Though many of my posts mention more unconventional methods of recovery I personally tried. Might not be as effective, but I'd rather state things I've actually tried rather than making potentially baseless suggestions.

As for the misspelling, I don't have autocorrect on my phone and I honestly wasn't paying attention to the spelling that much. I by no means am an English master. I am actually an experienced amateur chemist. I've ran my own lab for around 10 years but still have yet to get a degree. Though that's why I didn't say I was a professional, as that would be a flat out lie. Also, if anyone did mistake me as a professional, I apologize for the unintentional misconception I made. I admit that I'm not even a bachelors degree chemist yet neither do I have supervised lab experience. I'm entirely self-taught. I'm entering college next fall actually to major in Biochemistry so that won't be for long.

 

[4metals]

In case you were wondering Rogue who this Solar Plasma guy is, he is a teacher in Germany, chemistry, physics and a few other subjects.

And I would bet money he has a diploma to prove it.

 

[butcher]

Rougemillenial,

There is no doubt you have learned a lot about chemistry. so have I, but here is a difference.
When I came to the forum I knew a little about chemistry (mostly from jobs and schooling myself, when I came to the gold refining forum, I used the chemistry I learned to learn more, I knew I knew very little about recovery and refining of precious metals, and paid attention to the forum and its members (many of which knew nothing about chemistry but knew the reactions and how the chemistry worked, Those non-chemist have taught me a lot of chemistry along with my own study. I did not come here to teach I came here to learn. I learned and I shared what I learned. If I would have come here teaching (what little chemistry I know I would have been laughed off the forum or booted off. by learning, I expanded my knowledge tremendously in chemistry and gained an education in the chemistry of precious metals that many professional chemists would pay to have.

many of our members have no chemistry background, but can they can teach you more about chemistry than you can get from years in college. Some members have a good understanding of the chemistry, and some are professionals in the field. even professional chemist come here to learn more about the chemistry of this professional field of precious metal recovery and refining,.


You are smart no doubt, you have learned a lot. you have some chemistry background (that is a big plus her), but you do not know your butt from a beaker when it comes to precious metal recovery and refining.
Coming here to teach (something you know nothing about just make you look dumb, You and I both know you are smarter than that.

I suggest you stop teaching and continue learning (then share what you learn).
At this point you have been a major disruption of the forum, you are spouting educated nonsense (for this field), and this makes it difficult for other to learn, it wastes the time and resources of the forum, where educated members have to clear up the confusion or misleading info.

Your name is close to the ban button.
Not because you do not have anything to contribute (because I believe we could learn a lot from you), not because you're causing trouble (you are a gentleman and have taken criticism well that is a big man in my eye).

But because your enthusiasm to teach or show what you know yet you really have no clue of the subject, yes you learned some chemistry but you do not know recovery and refining and try to teach it. which is causing way too much disruption of the forum.

please take this as a friendly warning, Please spend more time studying and less time trying to show what you think you know. I would like to learn from you and think you could be one of our better members if you took a little advice from your friends.

Think about it.
Be safe stop using mercury in your lab.