I have a batch of mud

[tamihamm]

I tried to process 13 ozs of mostly gold filled and a small amount of gold plated jewelry with Nitric acid substitute. I now have a batch of mud it did not work. I went through the whole process and I just don’t know what I did wrong because it looks just like mud green mud. Can I start over from the beginning using real nitric acid?

 

[Lino1406]

I tried to process 13 ozs of mostly gold filled and a small amount of gold plated jewelry with Nitric acid substitute. I now have a batch of mud it did not work. I went through the whole process and I just don’t know what I did wrong because it looks just like mud green mud. Can I start over from the beginning using real nitric acid?

Best is adding aqua regia which takes gold, copper, nickel into solution, then filter and drop the gold from liquid

 

[tamihamm]

Best is adding aqua regia which takes gold, copper, nickel into solution, then filter and drop the gold from liquid

 

[ZiegenSauger]

I am currently working on the same scenario. I have batches of gold-filled and gold plated material (just for reference, 90% filled, 10% plated) just to seize on the process.
The thing is I sort everything out. For example, watch cases, watchband caps are always on the main batch.
A second batch would be the lockers, connections, watch movements, and anything that should be stainless steel or question mark things.
The remainder (fillings, pins, the internal coils, and metal the caps are mounted upon.

Usually, it is 50%, 30%, and 20% in terms of weight. From the main batch, my usual yield is 2.5%, from the second batch it is under 1%. The rest go to the recycle bin.

Processing the secondary batch always behaves like your scenario. Always. So nowadays I cook this second batch on recycled and reactivated A/P solution, filter, wash, then proceed to diluted Nitric cooking, filter, wash, remove every last bit of magnetic leftovers with rare earth magnet and move to a very clean AR.

I never put everything together, I always sorted the main gold-containing batch, however when the weight was smaller, I would just incinerate and proceed as above with everything that was not burned.

Cheers