Item type I haven’t seen before

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Alabama938

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Feb 13, 2021
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I haven’t seen these on any other posts before, there appears to be gold in it… The attached picture is three days into AP Leach. It’s A really interesting phenomenon how dark it is and snaps back to emerald green with the addition of peroxide. I was just doing one as a test, but it’s going to take an enormous amount of AP and eventually aqua regia to cover 30 of these things after they are fully leached. They seem to be made of a filled material that doesn’t want to shatter it just wants to crinkle like auto glass. Any suggestions are welcome.
 

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Don't add peroxide to AP once it started. You will probably dissolve some gold. It will likely cement back out on the base metals, but instead of leaving you recognizable foils, it will become a black sludge. Once your AP is started, all you need to add is an air bubbler, and perhaps HCl.

Dave
 
Don't add peroxide to AP once it started. You will probably dissolve some gold. It will likely cement back out on the base metals, but instead of leaving you recognizable foils, it will become a black sludge. Once your AP is started, all you need to add is an air bubbler, and perhaps HCl.

Dave
Thanks for the heads up, I was actually wondering about that and so I dropped some right on a foil, no visual reaction but I see your point. I guess I’ll have to filter more carefully.
 
So 30 of these have been running in AP for a month, they’re falling apart and plating falls right off…the solution is super dark, maybe too weak of an air pump?

I’m guessing the yield is 1-2g max, end it took 2 1/2 L of AP to cover all of them. That’s going to be a ridiculously slow drop, and a lot of acid… at least that’s what I’m worried about. Would it be a good idea to pass them through say AR individually, that would take roughly 1/5 the volume of chemicals I estimate… about the same amount of oxidizer probably.

I was planning on using AR because when I ran one as a test and used AR stannous showed positive for palladium. I just thought that would get it into my stock pot. I haven’t ventured into the PGMs much, if I have any they are in the stock pot or the silver cell slimes.

What is the preferred way, or is there a good way to drop these out of solution after an SMB drop. Cement on copper? Would zinc still work and be faster? I was just trying to plan a more immediate way to part them in that waste, even if it’s minuscule amount to save up and learn/practice on.
 
Take the big metal connectors off and process them separately with another process.
I suspect they're made from aluminum or other base metals, which will cement the copper ions from your AP.
Those base metals will be using up a lot of acid and creating more waste.
AP is for thin copper traces and tiny plated pins. Not for big chunks of metal.
Martijn.
 
The green color comes back after H2O2 addition because the dark brown copper 1 chloride needs oxygen (or air) and HCL to convert to the green copper 2 chloride.
Add an air bubbler and the AP will keep refreshing itself to bright green, as long as no copper is cemented out on big chunks of metal.
 
Actually just read your last post.
Do you have a picture of the lot? The boards fell apart? Into dust or pieces?
You're supposed to filter the gold foils and gold dust from the solids with a strainer. Collect the foils and dissolve with ml's of acid. 50ml HCL in a beaker with 1ml of HNO3 should be good to dissolve a lot, if not all of those foils.
If the boards fell apart into sand, you'll have to put that all in AR or in HCL and bleech.
 
By fall apart I meant that the connectors on either ends dissolve the way and fell apart, the little chips on the one side fell apart, the boards themselves are intact. I had initially just planned on spraying the foils off to collect at the bottom of the beaker. That seems to be missing some of the little bits where there are all these dents like rivet sites trapping the gold. That’s why I was trying to find a method or any ideas regarding passing each one through AR.
 
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