Inreesting PM scrap find inquartation question???

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croverto

Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2021
Messages
13
Hi all,

Brand new here and thanks in advance to all of you, I hope to be a good contributor here as well.

I have been buying and selling precious metals for many years and recently decided to refine my own metals. Needless to say one and the other don't make you good at refining. I am reading a recommended e-book and due diligence is happening before I go jump into anything.

That said I have a large amount of scrap obtained from what used to be a steel and metal supplier, not a foundry but a guy who bought metal scrap and such for many years. He was shut down due to the EPA and his kilns were dozed over. The scrap I have obtained comes from a small kiln which he threw catalytic converters, gold plated material, everything of some value. I know this because one of the survivors (most everyone who worked there died of cancer), Told his son who I happen to know that there was a good amount of PM in this one location. he brought it to me and yes there are chunks of low karat alloys and some pieces that hold true to up to 14 karat acid tests. Now there is a ton of copper in some of the big pieces and I'm sure there is lead, silver, platinum, maybe bronze???? but many of these pieces under jewelers loupe seem to have pockets that contain gold as well. Now maybe I am confused and I doubt this is a sure way to detect gold in scrap but considering the actual karat gold found I think it's worth trying to recover.

Inquartation question: This metal in a way is already inquarted, However knowing that it is a large amalgamation of different metals would this material need to be brought down in nitric solution and then inquarted or should this be stripped and then inquarted with clean copper or silver? Don't want to put chemicals to it and waste time or cost-effectiveness.

Thanks again!
 
With an unknown, it's a good idea to get an assay or two, and then do some testing on small samples. That will give you, and us, a better idea of what you have.

Dave
 
Will be having one done this afternoon found a recycler who has equipment in town, will let you all know what I have later on!

It's actually a bit exciting!

Thanks for the great advice!
 
So I took a few pieces over to the recycling guy here in town, they had a handheld Thermofisher Triton which he said will assay the outer component of the metal and give back what is most prominent Au came up every time as well as Ag (which I knew because I cleaned a few pieces up with nitric acid and saw the silver chloride.

Now all these pieces are different some had a lot of copper 60-70% zinc, lead, some had 55% Ag and most of the pieces had around 2% Au less in the heavy copper pieces but all contain Au and obviously there is still the pieces that hold up to acid 10k and 14k. Seems like even at 2% there is value in reclaiming Au also I have access to pounds and pounds of this material.

I can always have a more in-depth analysis done but I will have to send some samples somewhere...

Thanks again,

Trevor
 
My advice for what it is worth is to select not cherry pick some samples say around 100 - 200 grams cover well with distilled water and put onto heat, slowly add nitric in small increments until all reaction stops , this will create toxic fumes so either use a fume hood or do it outside with the wind behind you and preferably not over your neighbours fence or house , the solution you produce will have any silver any palladium and possibly if enough silver is present any PGMs which you can test for using stannous, the remaining solids will contain any gold and any other material that will not react to nitric which can be dissolved in AR and selectively precipitated.
If all this or even some seems above your head do not do anything until you fully understand what I’m explaining to do, be aware we are creating toxic fumes and solutions which need sorting properly, as stated if this all seems too much it’s reading time until you do know what you are doing and why.
 
croverto said:
as well as Ag (which I knew because I cleaned a few pieces up with nitric acid and saw the silver chloride.

Nitric acid does NOT produce silver chloride --- unless there is some kind of a chloride present &/or introduced to the nitric

In other words - nitric dissolves silver putting the silver into a solution (silver nitrate)

Note; - normally the nitric is diluted 50/50 with distilled water to dissolve the silver

Then - silver chloride is created by adding some kind of a chloride to the silver nitrate (such as salt or hydrochloric acid) --- or it can form - when dissolving the silver - if you use tap water instead of D-water to dilute the nitric --- that is due to chlorine being present in the tap water

If you used "just" nitric acid (with no chloride) & you got something that "looks" like silver chloride - then that indicates some other kind of metal in the alloy - such as tin - that is because nitric does not dissolve tin but instead turns it to a white oxide of tin that kind of "looks" like silver chloride

If there is lead in the alloy - nitric will dissolve the lead as well as any silver - then if you add a chloride - the chloride will precipitate the lead - as well as the silver - giving you a mix of both silver & lead chloride

Kurt
 
croverto said:
also I have access to pounds and pounds of this material.

What do you mean by pounds & pounds --- 10 pounds - 100 pounds - 1,000 pounds - 10,000 pounds ???

answering that may help us better get you headed in the right direction on how to best deal with what you have

Kurt
 
nickvc said:
.
If all this or even some seems above your head do not do anything until you fully understand what I’m explaining to do, be aware we are creating toxic fumes and solutions which need sorting properly, as stated if this all seems too much it’s reading time until you do know what you are doing and why.



No, it makes sense I have done enough research to completely understand you, I assume I should melt the material together and then drop it into a bucket of water above the floor to create more surface area in the metal and not worry about adding any other material to the material I have (inquart). I think the process is named after a cereal I forgot... Because these pieces are solid some have wires running through them that I believe come from CATs but the rest would take a lot of time otherwise.
 
kurtak said:
croverto said:
as well as Ag (which I knew because I cleaned a few pieces up with nitric acid and saw the silver chloride.

Nitric acid does NOT produce silver chloride --- unless there is some kind of a chloride present &/or introduced to the nitric

In other words - nitric dissolves silver putting the silver into a solution (silver nitrate)

Note; - normally the nitric is diluted 50/50 with distilled water to dissolve the silver

Then - silver chloride is created by adding some kind of a chloride to the silver nitrate (such as salt or hydrochloric acid) --- or it can form - when dissolving the silver - if you use tap water instead of D-water to dilute the nitric --- that is due to chlorine being present in the tap water

If you used "just" nitric acid (with no chloride) & you got something that "looks" like silver chloride - then that indicates some other kind of metal in the alloy - such as tin - that is because nitric does not dissolve tin but instead turns it to a white oxide of tin that kind of "looks" like silver chloride

If there is lead in the alloy - nitric will dissolve the lead as well as any silver - then if you add a chloride - the chloride will precipitate the lead - as well as the silver - giving you a mix of both silver & lead chloride

Kurt

Yes, I initially put a little tap water on a couple of pieces when I first had the material this is before I spent the time and money to get a few basics like beakers and such and threw some nitric acid which at the time made by nitric salt H2O and a little sulfuric acid. Now I have a clear understanding and stock of D water.
 
kurtak said:
croverto said:
also I have access to pounds and pounds of this material.

What do you mean by pounds & pounds --- 10 pounds - 100 pounds - 1,000 pounds - 10,000 pounds ???

answering that may help us better get you headed in the right direction on how to best deal with what you have

Right now about a 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket or so. The gentleman knew I bought gold and was a friend and asked i I would take a look at some of this scrap about 6 months ago he said he can go dig up more the site is quite contaminated and I refuse to visit it however he takes precaution. But he thinks there potentially could be a couple more 5 gal buckets out there stuff ranges in size from grams to 5 oz chunks one of the pieces that held to 14k test is about 2 oz however I see a sheen of copper on the surface but it still helps like any karat jewlry. Obviously, if it's profitable I will take in as much as he brings me but at the moment about 10 pounds, a lot of that is big copper which might take a lot of chemicals to extract anything. so I would say I can put together 2 pounds of stuff like I took to the refiner yesterday.
 
Also guys I am pretty smart (or not too dumb more like it), so like I said in an earlier post I totally get what you guys are talking about in terms of dealing with the chemicals and all but have never really gone through the process. So I don't want to get too Western with large bathes out the gate as I am not equipped mentally or with glasswareI am well outfitted just waiting to get some stannous, and I feel like I have at least enough to get going on a few ounces at a time. I don't want to purchase a ton of beakers and all sorts of stuff until I know there is money to be made.

Also, the same guy has a secret area along the local river that has small to golf ball size pyrite spheres and I have a literal 5 gal bucket full of those as well. I am almost positive after looking through some dirt in a pan that this could be ground up and go through the process of reclaiming from sulfides but we can save that for another day I have only just started to wrap my head around the process of extracting from pyrite.
 
croverto said:
one of the pieces that held to 14k test is about 2 oz

I would not get to excited with this material passing a karat "scratch" test

Being as how this material came from a smelting process - there are a "number" of things that could cause it to pass the scratch test but the test NOT be even close to to reality --- in other words cause a "false" positive

Just as one example; - if there was any silicon in the smelt - & if the right flux was not used to slag off the silicon it could cause a "very" false positive passing of a scratch test --- not saying that is the case - just that it is possible to get a very false positive

Again - considering the material - I would NOT rely on a scratch test - at all :!:

Have that "same" piece tested by the guy you know with the XRF - tell us what the XRF read out is - give a "complete" list of what the XRF read out says

though not a "true" assay - an XRF test/read out will be a "much" better "indicator" then a scratch test for this type material

Thats all I have time for today

Kurt
 
kurtak said:
croverto said:
one of the pieces that held to 14k test is about 2 oz

I would not get to excited with this material passing a karat "scratch" test

Thanks, Kurt!

Now I wouldn't run out and sell the material as karat gold however could a false positive on the acid test mean zero gold? The one thing here I am pretty good at is an acid test, but this does have a copper patina that just isn't right also a bit harder than any 14k I have ever seen it's definitely an alloy the area that tests has no patina no matter what you do to it the other 1/2 will hold 10k for a brief minute. Also having bought and sold many ingots of copper in my life I have never seen the tint of gold that these copper pieces have it's got something else in it, and wouldn't copper be more prominent on the surface of the metal than gold? Which the surface is all the xrf would be able to measure I guess seeing as how the XRF told me there was gold in all the pieces I feel comfortable in the assumption that there is going to be gold in the material that out of everything most resembles gold and held up to acid. But I'll make an effort to get the pieces under the XRF however remember the majority of the material in hand was 2% ish and there's mostly copper or silver 55% on silver honestly I didn't take note of the copper pieces...

If a guy were to move forward on a batch of the small stuff would you re-inquart the possible gold left over from the nitric acid treatments, or just move forward to aqua regia? with what you have over after removing the copper or silver all other metals were small percentages...

Might be a minute but I'll let you all know what I can find out on the xrf! Pictures wouldn't be of much help I assume... I can post some pics!

Anyone that can recommend a place to just send this material to get properly assayed?

Thanks again Kurt and all of you who have taken some interest in this I wish I could buy you all a beer!

Trevor
 
Trevor

First of all - yes - you have a very interesting find

with 2% gold - plus silver - plus "posable" PGMs there is certainly "value" there

The question is - what is your best option to turn that value to cash

I am going to be VERY busy this week end so do not have time to post any details (about options) &/or questions (there are still a LOT of question)

Send me a PM (Private Message) with your phone number & I "may" try to call you

In the PM tell me what state you live in (so I know the time zone) & best time to call you (example; - anytime between 8 AM - 5 PM any day, your time zone)

Once I have your phone number I will first text you about calling you - you may need to wait awhile for that text

Kurt
 
Kurt,

I hit you with my number! In advance I meant one of the two states at any given time I wasn't trying to make you guess LOL! Same time zone...

T
 
Hey everybody,

Here's an update on what I have been doing with all this scrap. First off thanks to Kurt for giving me a lot of good information and re-inforcing what I have already learned.

First I have precipitated some gold from a small batch of handpicked pieces. I believe I will continue to process the strange somewhat granular-looking copper pieces with a chemical process. There are some good pieces of what seems like a slag but is not that did fine throughout the process. Stannous tested purple and black in all the solutions from small batches.

Second, there is a ton of very valuable-looking slag material. Now I wasn't quite able to do much with the industrial slag with chemicals so I am thinking of crushing the slag into a fine powder then smelting with Borax (possibly with some sort of Iron attractant and finally putting that into a conical mold to see if I can produce a button. Stannous did test positive with the slag material, however, there were mostly the nice metal pieces in that concoction.

There is so much different material and strange but very interesting slag that I'm a bit overwhelmed, to be honest.

If anyone has some experience they might like to impart on smelting slag please chime in...

Trevor
 
I watched a lot of video's from this channel and he explains smelting and cupelling very well. He has one about trying out different flux recipies to recover from black sands, tailings and from old slag as well. Learned a lot from watching him.
https://m.youtube.com/user/mbmmllc
 
Yes, Jason is a great resource and a wonderful guy! I have sent him a couple of emails and he is very helpful!

I have another update on what I thought was a botched attempt at using copper to leech the gold and use up excess nitric in my solution ended up being a success I am a bit confused on why the gold was not washed off back into my solution however I have an amazing piece of copper with gold all over it! I kept the copper pieces aside and last night happened to throw them in some diluted nitric acid to clean them up a bit out of curiosity and I was quite shocked. I'll try to post a picture in a bit as it's a very impressive sight!

Thanks!

https://imgur.com/a/lsEfD6V
 
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