inquarting with copper

[jonn]

My apologies, I've weighed the gold and here is what I have:

9k: 15g
14k: 13g
18k: 11g
22k: 18g
24k: 16g

The combined carat is approximately 18k
As I mentioned before I don't have a licence to purchase or aquire nitric acid as it is a controlled substance in the UK.

There is less 9k than I thought but I am still unsure if there is enough low carat to be a problem if I go straight to poor mans AR.

Regards,

Chris

Hi Chris, Yes, you can use poor man's AR on your material. Here's a recommendation for you :
Melt the 22k with the 18k, make a button and flatten between a piece of leather by beating with a hammer.
Digest in AR and precipitate.
Add the dry powder to the 14k, melt and repeat the steps above.
Add that dry powder with your solid 24k to the 9k and melt into a button . Repeat the steps above, flattening, digesting, etc..
If for some reason you run into a problem with the silver chloride freezing your reaction, simply place your beaker in a sonic jewelery type cleaner, the ultrasonic effect will allow for a complete digest.
I would not add copper, or silver if you can't get nitric. That would be inquarting and that requires nitric. Good luck.
Jonn

Ps. AR works excellent on high karat gold, and rather quickly if thin and rolled into a coil standing on end. Add some heat.

 

[jason_recliner]

Genius idea, Jonn!
The only difference I would offer, keeping in mind I have never done any of this, is to consider keeping the 24k until after the 9k is digested.
Of course this depends on just how "24k" it is, but if it's top shelf stuff then you can use it to ensure you have used up all the nitrate, a la "Harold's button", then melt it in.

 

[chrisjames]

Hi Chris, Yes, you can use poor man's AR on your material. Here's a recommendation for you :
Melt the 22k with the 18k, make a button and flatten between a piece of leather by beating with a hammer.
Digest in AR and precipitate.
Add the dry powder to the 14k, melt and repeat the steps above.
Add that dry powder with your solid 24k to the 9k and melt into a button . Repeat the steps above, flattening, digesting, etc..
If for some reason you run into a problem with the silver chloride freezing your reaction, simply place your beaker in a sonic jewelery type cleaner, the ultrasonic effect will allow for a complete digest.
I would not add copper, or silver if you can't get nitric. That would be inquarting and that requires nitric. Good luck.
Jonn

Ps. AR works excellent on high karat gold, and rather quickly if thin and rolled into a coil standing on end. Add some heat.

John that really is a genius idea. I hadn't thought about that!
The 24K is an old necklace from Thailand so I would have to say I can't imagine it is very pure.
Unfortunately I don't have a sonic jewellery cleaner and can't really justify the expense for one project.

If I can't get hold of the nitric I think this will be the way to go. at least it'll be quite interesting at any rate!

Thanks again John, you've been a great help.

Chris

 

[chrisjames]

Thanks so much guys. I've taken lots of notes from you all. You've all been so helpful!

I'm thinking about Johns idea about keeping the carat as high as possible and doing it in stages. In my head it seems like a good idea. Of course I may be on here panicking that I've messed up but we shall see

I'll get the bits together and start things this weekend.

Kind regards,

Chris

 

[rewalston]

No disrespect but how can you give advice about urea having no place in refining if you've never "done any recovery such as this". The best thing to do in order to not have excessive nitric in you final solution is to add nitric to your scrap incrementally allowing each addition to be exhausted. Unfortunately no matter how careful you are there is almost always unused nitric. If the amount left over is very small you've done well. Some people on this forum swear by the evaporation method and shun urea but in reality the evaporation method can be very slow and deceiving while urea is fast and predictable. Urea works just fine especially when dealing with small amounts of nitric. Urea absolutely does have a place in refining!

None taken. I've been doing a lot of reading in the years that I've been here. I was simply repeating what I have read over and over by the Pros on the board. Even Harold says not to use urea. Simply put I rely on what the Pros are saying and that is what I passed on. If others want to use urea that is fine by me. There are other ways to kill the nitric, some fast, some slow. I guess it all comes down to what you have and what you want to do.

Rusty

 

[Anonymous]

Adding copper would increase the amount of Nitric required over that of adding silver. I would suggest silver over copper any day.

My limited understanding of inquarting ( Harold is the best on here for that) suggests that you need the gold content to be at the highest 25% or under 25% overall. I could be completely wrong here of course because my small expertise is limited to IT escrap where inquarting has no place. Is 25% gold 18k?

edit- copper for gold.

Pure gold is 24k, when you inquart gold you are quartering the gold. So you would have 1/4 gold and 3/4 copper or silver...So 1/4 gold would be 6k roughly. I believe that's what harold had said.

Rusty

I got that Rusty - I was being almost rhetorical mate 8) 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Chris if you can avoid having to faff about with Silver Chloride I would do so.

 

[g_axelsson]

To answer the original post I would say that the subject is wrong, as been noted later in this thread inquarting is lowering the gold content so all the base metals could be dissolved without dissolving the gold. What chrisjames is trying to do is "dilute gold alloy for direct digestion".

I don't remember exactly which level of silver could be accepted for direct dilution, GSP have written about it and I think it was in the vicinity of 5-10%, probably closer to 5%. At that level it was possible to go directly to AR without inquarting first.

So to answer the first question, yes, you can dilute the alloy with copper until the silver level is low enough to allow for direct digestion with poor mans AR. As you don't know exactly the amount of silver in your scrap I suggest testing on a small piece of remelted alloy to see if the silver level is low enough. If it isn't, just add more copper and remelt.

Göran

 

[goldsilverpro]

To answer the original post I would say that the subject is wrong, as been noted later in this thread inquarting is lowering the gold content so all the base metals could be dissolved without dissolving the gold. What chrisjames is trying to do is "dilute gold alloy for direct digestion".

I don't remember exactly which level of silver could be accepted for direct dilution, GSP have written about it and I think it was in the vicinity of 5-10%, probably closer to 5%. At that level it was possible to go directly to AR without inquarting first.

So to answer the first question, yes, you can dilute the alloy with copper until the silver level is low enough to allow for direct digestion with poor mans AR. As you don't know exactly the amount of silver in your scrap I suggest testing on a small piece of remelted alloy to see if the silver level is low enough. If it isn't, just add more copper and remelt.

Göran

With real AR, 8% Ag slows the dissolving rate down and 10% really slows it down.

The problem is that no one knows how much Ag is in each item on the list. Guessing is worthless because of the huge silver spread possible in each. According to a chart I have that I feel is reliable, the Ag in yellow 10K usually runs from 5% to 12%, yellow 14K from 4% to 17%, and yellow 18K from 10% to 20%. All depends on what exact shade of yellow the manufacturer preferred.

 

[Anonymous]

If Chris wants to do it the simplest way I can sell him 150g of silver and I'm sure that I can point him in the right direction for some Nitric, because it's perfectly legal to own it in the UK as an individual until 2016. Then he could inquart properly and not have to mess about with processing in poor man's AR and then have to mess around with silver chloride. There's no need to over complicate things.

The silver isn't a wasted cost because it's then recovered and kept to use for other things or to be sold.

Jon

 

[g_axelsson]

Another good example of refiners helping refiners!

8)

Göran

 

[davisnic12]

Okay, I have been reading up for about a week. I have scrap jewelry from 10k to 18k, I see talk on silver freezing the reaction. The 18k I have is white gold 27.6 grams, 14k yellow 5.1g, and I think I am going to hold off on doing the 10k for now which I have about 50g. on the 14-18k going into AR will that hold the alloy in solution? I think I've read just enough to get into trouble. Should I do the nitric wash on the gold first filter then AR, or go straight to AR? WHere do the rhodium and other alloys go? Can anyone point out the thread for that? I don't want to inquartate if I don't have to but if that's the way to go....

 

[UncleBenBen]

I think I've read just enough to get into trouble.

That is the answer to your questions. Unfortunately, a week isn't near enough time to learn what you are wanting to do. Refining is a lifelong study, there is just so much to be learned. Read and reread Hoke until you understand what she is teaching about processing karat scrap. All your questions will be answered there.

Once you have studied the processes enough to begin without asking questions, you will still need to learn how to deal with the toxic wastes you will be creating.

Take the time to find the answers yourself, and you will learn so much more on the way, and in the end you will be glad you did. Good luck and stay safe!

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I don't want to inquartate if I don't have to but if that's the way to go....

When I first started studying refining, I didn't understand why people inquarted their material. So I'll answer your question with a question. Why do we inquart? What is the purpose? When you understand the answer, you can apply it to your material. Hoke covers the subject quite well. It's also been discussed extensively here on the forum. You may understand my answer better if you read through the Why Can't I Ask a Simple Question and get a Simple Answer? thread.

Dave

 

[Harold_V]

I had a few spare moments and came across this thread. Interesting that such a simple process is confusing to so many.

The purpose of inquartation is to allow for dissolution of the resulting alloy, but it is not restricted to gold being 25%. As has already been discussed, there's absolutely nothing wrong with alloying such that gold is the predominant metal, which then allows for dissolution with AR. That is, assuming that silver content is lower than 10%. When it's low enough, or when the particles are fine enough, it isn't a problem, although there is considerable reside remaining (silver chloride) from which one must rinse the gold chloride.

Alternately, if one intends to furnace recover waste values in the future, traces of gold can remain, to be recovered when the accumulated wastes are processed. That was my procedure, and it served me exceedingly well, as I withheld all of my waste materials for years, as a retirement plan.

Hint. When you must inquart, regardless of which way, pouring the molten metal to water creates what I call corn flakes. So long as the metal is poured from the lip of a melting dish or crucible, it won't form pellets, so the surface area is quite large as compared to the cross section. In most cases, by the time silver chloride is becoming a problem, acid has penetrated to the center, so the pieces simply disintegrate, leaving behind the silver chloride as finely divided powder. Conversely, if one dissolves the base metals with nitric, there is full penetration of the acid before isolation prevents further dissolution of the base metals.

Inquartation with silver has some distinct advantages. In general, one rarely processes enough platinum or palladium to warrant an attempt at recovery. If you've read Hoke's book and understand what she teaches, you then realize that those metals do not precipitate chemically unless they are somewhat concentrated, and even then they may or may not come down entirely. It was exceedingly rare for me to recover either of them to the point where they were not detected in the solution from which they came.

To get around that problem, one is well served to inquart with silver. Doing so provides a way to recover both metals with little effort, as they follow the silver and cement when the solution is provided with copper. The ultimate recovery is then accomplished when the cement silver is parted in the silver cell, leaving behind a high concentration of both metals.

I generally advise against the use of copper alloys for inquartation. The risk of introducing lead or tin is all too real, both of which complicate the refining process. I highly recommend the use of silver, for the reason I mentioned, above, although the fact that silver consumes far less nitric in the process of being dissolved is also reason enough to avoid the use of copper.

Read Hoke's book. Read it until you understand what she teaches. If it takes a half dozen readings, so be it. You'll be well pleased that you did when things start making sense to you.

Harold