ingots on eBay

[bigdog99]

I have bought ingots from e-bay which are pins from sources unknow. I run these thru a Nitric Acid Bath.
I soak 1 cup of Nitric solution to 20 cup's of distilled water, with two quarts of hydrogen peroxide. Up
to date I have used 7 different flux mixtures and still have large amounts of base metals in the ingots.
Could any give me some info on what is going wrong.

 

[anachronism]

sure. The short answer is that it's extremely likely that you have extremely small amounts of gold.

 

[g_axelsson]

Well... you bought unknown ingots from eBay. That's your first mistake.

Do a search for "gold drops ebay" and you will find out what's been said about them before.

Can you describe what you have done in a bit more detail, for example weights. Maybe add some pictures too.

Göran

 

[Shark]

If your ingot weighed 1 pound you most likely have less than half a gram of gold. With 454 grams per pound you need to remove 453.5 grams of base metals to get to the gold. (all of this is rough rounded numbers as well). I think 453.5 grams per pound is the correct number therefore you would actually need to remove 453 grams to get to your (maybe) half gram of gold. With luck you could do this with a gallon of HCl ($8 per gallon here with tax) plus the need to refine it, would add a few more dollars, say $2. That leaves you with MAYBE $10 profit, if your ingot was free. If you started with a 1 or 2 ounce ingot of melted computer pins, you most likely would never see the gold even if everything did work out right. I recently worked 2 ounces of computer pins (not in an ingot) and the recovered powders was so small my scales wouldn't weight them.

 

[Shark]

Powders from 2 ounces of random computer pins in a 150ml container.

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals and gemstones. There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, (373.24 g) rather than the 16 ounces per pound (453.59 g) found in the more common avoirdupois system.

But, Shark is right regardless of what measure of pound. Gold drops have barely any gold.

Consider this, though.
Should you go to college for an education, there is tuition, books, room and board, transportation, etc..

Here, your education is free... Many of the best teachers and tutors on this site are better than any professor at a university. So, do like myself, and many others... And chalk it up to paying for some education.

You will eventually be able to reclaim that gram of gold out of there after your knowledge gained has came to that point.

Download Hoke, take the guided tour, read thread after thread. When something in a thread doesnt make sense to you, search (at the top right corner) for threads about that part, and follow any links to other threads contained there-in. Before you know it, you will be cleaning out your stock pot at a future date, low-and-behold, there lies your gram.

I payed alot for my education in the beginning... But, it's beyond worth it (to me...dont ask my wife though..)

 

[jason_recliner]

Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals and gemstones. There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, (373.24 g) rather than the 16 ounces per pound (453.59 g) found in the more common avoirdupois system.

But, Shark is right regardless of what measure of pound. Gold drops have barely any gold.

Thus demonstrating that brass bricks have no business using Troy measurements.

 

[goldsilverpro]

1 cup (8 fl.oz.) of nitric will dissolve only 1/8 of a pound of copper (57g).

Why did you use so much water? Why did you use hydrogen peroxide? Flux melting will not remove an appreciable amount of copper. The ingots are essentially all base metals, with a trace of gold in them (maybe).

 

[upcyclist]

A brick of anything is difficult to digest. My advice would be to melt it, shot it in water (i.e., create shot/cornflakes), and use that shot for inquarting. Inquarting is a process used in refining karat gold (again, see Hoke), and any trace amounts of gold from the ingot will show up in your final product.

I do the same thing with gold-plated items--use them for inquarting, and get the plating for free.

 

[bigdog99]

Does any one have a way to remove the acid from my dried powder to keep it from boiling in furnace
causing a over flow when I go to melt it.

 

[patnor1011]

How does acid get to your dried powder?

Did you just evaporated acid completely? Can you elaborate on what that powder come from?
Perhaps repeated washing with hot water is what you need to do.