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The only reason that I considered going down to 75% ,is because I'm starting with about 30% and boiling all of that down will be extremely time consuming.I can get that kind of volume of "Rooto" but of course the financial expense would just be rediculous,30 gallons would be around $900,where as the 30% in 5 gallons quantities would be about $550
 
The Nickel (or, Cobalt) problem The standard H2SO4 solution will dissolve nickel somewhat. If too much dissolves, the solution will stop stripping gold and the solution will have to be changed. The parts I ran had the standard nickel plating underneath the gold plating and I had no problems with this small amount of nickel. However, when stripping gold from high nickel or cobalt alloys, such as Inconel or Stellite, the solution stopped working after a couple of days. I've never tried this, but I've always thought that a small addition of potassium dichromate would prevent the Ni or Co from dissolving. Were I to try this, I would start with a small sample bath and, at first, would add about 1 oz/gal. The combination of acid and dichromate tends to passivate base metals. It might even work with a weak aqua regia to dissolve gold plating from copper, without attacking the copper very much. It wouldn't work using nitric on silver plate because silver dichromate would form as a solid and you would have a mess.
 
Hey guys I'm back home and online. I've given a lot of thought to all of the excellent info from everyone. So I am going to do numerous changes and try to start back up this week. In the meantime I ran across this guy yesterday that claims to have a lot of plating solution he wants to get rid of both 22 and 24k. Roughly 50 gallons, says its cyanide free. I have not seen it yet but plan on checking it out in the next couple of days. I really don't know much about it so I'm gonna turn to the Gurus of Gold. Got any knowledge or experience with this stuff? My main question is how do I test to calculate the actual amount gold. The next one would be how to get it out? Plating I know, what about evaporation or precipitating? If plating it out what would be the best for anode and cathode?
 
He probably has some written instructions on how to use it. Find out the names of the 2 solutions and maybe we can figure out what's in it. How you analyze it and how you get the gold out can be dependent on what's in it.
 
He lives in a nearby to and I hope to hook up with him in the next day or two. He mentioned that he has some small amounts in quart jars and would let me have a couple of samples for testing.
 
These things crossed my mind.

Due to the fact that they are designated as 22K and 24K, they sound like they are plating solutions that are sold to jewelers. When new, these usually run about 1 gram/liter, or less. I may be wrong about this, since 50 gallons is a lot for a jeweler to accumulate.

This may come from a company that plated costume jewelry. They also buy their solutions based on karat. They would also generate a lot more solution. The solutions they use can run from 1 to 8.2 grams/liter, when new, depending on how thick they are plating.

If this solution is stolen, it could run high. It is not uncommon for employees to take a little good solution home each day. If it is not hot, it could be that the company plated the solution until it stopped working and replaced it with a fresh solution. In this case, the gold could be quite low.

If you are buying this solution, I would be very careful about the sample he gives you. Something he has sitting around in a quart jar is meaningless as far as values are concerned. Ideally, all the solution should be put together and well mixed before the sample is taken.

If there are solids on the bottom of the solution, that complicates things. The solids may or may not contain gold. We used to heat the solutions to dissolve the solids before sampling. In your case, I wouldn't worry about it. Base everything on the liquid. The solids may be a bonus.

I suggest that you be present when all this is done. Don't be embarrassed about asking for a good sample. It makes you sound more knowledgeable and professional.
 
More questions for the pros. OK I finally found out a bit more about the plating solutions. They came from a supply place in Louisiana called Swest inc. that was going out of business. It is new and he has 18 and 24k solutions(about 20gal 24k, 10gal 18k). I have a gallon sample with label. It's TivaGlo-Free 18k, cyanide free and ecologically friendlier by Tivian Ind.. I figure I got two choices for recovery, one plate it out, two quick evaporation in the hot Texas sun. The directions for plating on the label is, stainless anode, heat to 140f, 3-4 volts for 30-45 seconds. I can do this, but wouldn't evaporation insure I recovered 100% of the values? What are the chemical(s) and how well will they evaporate. I haven't had time to do a bit of research so I do not know the total yield per gallon thus far.
 
I couldn't find an MSDS or a data sheet for the TivaGlo solutions but I did find a price - $771 for 5 gallons for all the various karats. That figures out to $40/liter. Therefore, you can't expect the gold content of a new solution to be more than about .8 grams/liter. It could be less. No matter what the karat is, they should contain the same amount of gold, when new. The lower karat colors are obtained by adding certain base metals, like copper, to the solution.
http://www.goldtouchinc.com/tankplating/TankPlatingChemicalPrices.html

Although there may be exceptions, most all of the non-cyanide gold solutions I've seen are made from sodium gold sulfite and operate at an alkaline pH - usually about 9.5. The gold complex is unstable at an acid pH and will decompose. When the pH is lowered to the acid side, the gold will drop out as a fairly pure brown sponge that is very easy to filter. As a sample, I would take about 100-200 ml of the gallon sample and add 10%, by volume, sulfuric acid to it, under a fume hood. When diluting the sulfuric, add the acid to the water. You can also use battery acid (about 35% sulfuric - buy at an auto parts store) diluted about 4 or 5 times with water. Add the sulfuric to the gold sample, in small increments, with a little stirring, and see what happens. If this is a normal sulfite solution, the gold will all drop out at some point. It shouldn't take much acid. Once you reach a certain pH, brown powder should start forming in the solution. Since there is no simple way to test the solution for gold, it's hard to estimate how much acid you'll need. Also, the solution may be buffered in order to stabilize it at the operating pH. It may take a little extra acid to overpower the buffer. I don't think a little extra acid will hurt.

I have read that there are some newer gold sulfite solutions that can be operated at an acidic pH. If so, it is possible that the sulfuric method given above may not work. If this is the case, I would lower the pH of a small 200 ml sample to about 2, or so, with weak sulfuric (maybe 5 or 10 ml of 10% sulfuric acid to your 200 ml sample) and add some 325 mesh zinc powder. The 325 mesh zinc powder is available from Ebay in 1# units and is inexpensive. Buy only 325 mesh. Add the zinc in small pinches, with stirring, since it can react violently, especially when you add too much at one time or, if you have started with too much acid. Wear gloves and a face shield. The zinc should precipitate all of the gold. Use a slight excess of zinc. You can tell this when the zinc no longer reacts with the acid and the precipitate appears as a gray powder. Filter and rinse. Transfer the powder to a beaker, cover with water, and add a little full strength battery acid. The acid will dissolve the gray zinc and you will be left with brown gold powder. It helps to heat it slightly at the end.

If you try to plate the gold out, I doubt if you'll be able to get it all. These "color" gold baths have very little gold to start with and most are only designed to plate for short periods of time. As the gold content gets lower, the plating efficiency gets lower, and the current splits more and more water at the cathode. At some point, all the current will be used in water-splitting and almost none will be used to deposit gold.

If you evaporate the solution, you will end up with all the chemicals in a dried out condition. In order to recover the gold, you will have to redissolve them and will probably then have to use one of the methods above. In other words, you will be right back to where you started from.

Try the sulfuric method first. It is by far the simplest method and I would expect it to work. Use small samples in your experiments. You don't want to screw up the entire solution, in case the method doesn't work. Let me know what happens.
 

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