LeftyTheBandit
Well-known member
Before I found this form I found an interesting web page from a basement chemist who liked to prospect and made his work available online in a very fun and colloquial manner.. His name was Dr. A.K. Williams, PhD.
I will share some of his insights on the use of Iodine to leach gold. I believe he has now passed away and his family keeps his web-sight going as a memorial. I in no way had any input into it's creation, although his simple process might be worth some discussion from some of our knowledgeable members and I hope posting his words is by no means breaking any rules of intellectual property. If so, please feel free to vaporize this topic.
Enough of my words... here is a paraphrase of what he had to say about Iodine Leaching;
"If you want to store iodine, it is much better to store it in its reduced form so that it won’t evaporate."
"...if you want to dissolve gold with it, it must be in its elemental or oxidized form."
"...you must be able to shift the iodine from its oxidized to reduced form."
"When you want your (iodine) in it’s elemental or oxidized form, simply add a little Clorox bleach. If you add an excess, Iodine will precipitate from the water solution and settle to the bottom as pure elemental, blue, iodine."
'If you want to dissolve the iodine, you must reduce it. This you can do by adding a little Red Devil Lye dissolved in water. The blue iodine will begin to go in solution so that the solution will first turn bright blue and upon addition of more Lye it will become colorless as all of the iodine is reduced to sodium iodide.'
'Elemental (oxidized) iodine will not dissolve in water. So if it won’t dissolve, how are we going to use it? It has another characteristic. It will dissolve in solutions of sodium iodide.'
'Now we have our ore with a nice red-brown solution of iodine and, hopefully, a whole bunch of dissolved gold in the solution. …... First we have to get rid of all the material that we have been extracting. This can be done in a number of ways but probably the most Basement way is to filter it… and try to get a rather clear solution. Remember that the solution must still be red-brown. If it isn’t, you have left your gold behind in the filter. .. KEEP IT RED-BROWN.'
'Once you have your red-brown solution free of material, now, you can let it go colorless or make it go colorless by addition of the Lye solution. Your gold will now slowly settle to the bottom as a black powder. Or, you can filter the solution through a fine filter to recover the gold.'
'… we got a whole bunch of gold but if we lose that iodine we are still going to be in the hole. Remember, at this point it don’t look like iodine but it is still there. By this time you probably have a pretty good volume of liquid with the iodine in it. If its more liquid than you want to deal with simply dump in an excess of Clorox , let the iodine settle to the bottom, pour off most of the water, add some Lye solution and you have your sodium iodide in a concentrated solution which is the way you want to store it anyway. Ready for another extraction.'
Could it be this simple? I'm going to try it... Instead of ore, I'm going to try eDust.
I will share some of his insights on the use of Iodine to leach gold. I believe he has now passed away and his family keeps his web-sight going as a memorial. I in no way had any input into it's creation, although his simple process might be worth some discussion from some of our knowledgeable members and I hope posting his words is by no means breaking any rules of intellectual property. If so, please feel free to vaporize this topic.
Enough of my words... here is a paraphrase of what he had to say about Iodine Leaching;
"If you want to store iodine, it is much better to store it in its reduced form so that it won’t evaporate."
"...if you want to dissolve gold with it, it must be in its elemental or oxidized form."
"...you must be able to shift the iodine from its oxidized to reduced form."
"When you want your (iodine) in it’s elemental or oxidized form, simply add a little Clorox bleach. If you add an excess, Iodine will precipitate from the water solution and settle to the bottom as pure elemental, blue, iodine."
'If you want to dissolve the iodine, you must reduce it. This you can do by adding a little Red Devil Lye dissolved in water. The blue iodine will begin to go in solution so that the solution will first turn bright blue and upon addition of more Lye it will become colorless as all of the iodine is reduced to sodium iodide.'
'Elemental (oxidized) iodine will not dissolve in water. So if it won’t dissolve, how are we going to use it? It has another characteristic. It will dissolve in solutions of sodium iodide.'
'Now we have our ore with a nice red-brown solution of iodine and, hopefully, a whole bunch of dissolved gold in the solution. …... First we have to get rid of all the material that we have been extracting. This can be done in a number of ways but probably the most Basement way is to filter it… and try to get a rather clear solution. Remember that the solution must still be red-brown. If it isn’t, you have left your gold behind in the filter. .. KEEP IT RED-BROWN.'
'Once you have your red-brown solution free of material, now, you can let it go colorless or make it go colorless by addition of the Lye solution. Your gold will now slowly settle to the bottom as a black powder. Or, you can filter the solution through a fine filter to recover the gold.'
'… we got a whole bunch of gold but if we lose that iodine we are still going to be in the hole. Remember, at this point it don’t look like iodine but it is still there. By this time you probably have a pretty good volume of liquid with the iodine in it. If its more liquid than you want to deal with simply dump in an excess of Clorox , let the iodine settle to the bottom, pour off most of the water, add some Lye solution and you have your sodium iodide in a concentrated solution which is the way you want to store it anyway. Ready for another extraction.'
Could it be this simple? I'm going to try it... Instead of ore, I'm going to try eDust.
