Learning newbie in E-scrap

[Cheffrey17]

Ok so after some time researching and figuring out my next move I decided to work with the leftover material from the first attempt, I found quite a bit of left over copper pins and what not. Yggdrasil mentioned if there was any left over base metals that the gold most likely cemented out on other metals.

He was right! I added some HCL to clean up whatever was in the mix and saw a bunch of gold flakes pop up, so I decided to work with that.

I filtered out everything and dissolved the gold flakes with AR. I think I still over did it with the nitric ( I added 2 mL) but it was MUCH more manageable than the 40+ mL I added before.

Fast forward to the fun part I was finally able to precipitate the gold, I left it over night and then in the morning I added a bit more SMB for good measure. Then this afternoon I decided to reduce/filter the precipitated gold solution.

Here’s where I believe I messed things up, I was heating the solution to reduce it down some however my precipitated gold turned into this white powder? I was doing other things when this happened but I took it off the heat once I noticed and added a bit more HCL however it still just this white powder like susbstance. What could this be and how do I turn it back to metallic powder gold??

The first two pics are once it started precipitating and then there’s the white powder it turned into after heating.

Let me know if y’all have anymore questions! And I appreciate your time!

 

[Cheffrey17]

I just wanted to share with y’all that I finally had a successful drop! It’s a measly .17 grams! I probably have a lot of dissolved gold in my stock pot that I will eventually have to cement out, I’m still researching that also, the details are a little scattered and everyone seems to do it differently so it looks like I’ll have to experiment with that likewise.

Also I wanted to see about the best way to extract gold from these boards, I have not seen a video done on boards like these and I’d like some input as to what the best method is to do it with. I’m still practicing with other types of materials until I get get my losses down to a more manageable level like gold fingers, cpus, gold pins etc.

So for right now I’m leaving these beauties on the back burner, I’d appreciate anyone’s input on these types of boards!

 

[Martijn]

Nice little shiny nugget!
What's confusing about waste treatment to you? Maybe I can help.

 

[Cheffrey17]

I'm up to .47 grams now!

So I guess I might be over complicating things with regards to cementing, from the sounds of it you pour your waste into a proper container and stick some copper in it and that's it? you gain lost values that easy??

I feel like it's more technical than that like does it matter what ph it is? do i need to dilute? or is it really as simple as that??

Nice little shiny nugget!
What's confusing about waste treatment to you? Maybe I can help.

 

[dannlee]

My first bead was .11 grams and had the pipe pocket where the center still melted contracted as it cooled and drew in from weakest hardened shell to make a ‘pipe’…

used to be rule here to show off a buttons ‘pipe’ as it is a good indicator of purity… prop the camera against something and snap a close-up. ; )

 

[Shark]

Love to see those buttons. All new people should post pictures more. There is no bad gold, only impure gold and that can be remedied fairly easy.

Show us those pictures!

 

[Cheffrey17]

Of course! Here are a few pics, I have not yet done an acid wash on it, I’m still in the process of stripping gold of other parts to add to it

 

[Cheffrey17]

My first bead was .11 grams and had the pipe pocket where the center still melted contracted as it cooled and drew in from weakest hardened shell to make a ‘pipe’…

used to be rule here to show off a buttons ‘pipe’ as it is a good indicator of purity… prop the camera against something and snap a close-up. ; )

That’s really interesting I didn’t know that was possible, do you have a pic of that phenomena?? Is it just like a hole or small indention on it??

 

[Martijn]

So I guess I might be over complicating things with regards to cementing, from the sounds of it you pour your waste into a proper container and stick some copper in it and that's it? you gain lost values that easy??

Yes.
Its a redox reaction, reducing and oxidizing at the same time, also called a displacement reaction.
The reactivity series also helps understanding it, google it.

There are some buts: the metal that you cement on, in this case the copper, has to be soluble in the solution you're trying to get metal salts out.
so it's a chlorine based solution, or a nitric based solution or a sulfuric based solution, etc.

Lead for instance is not soluble in sulfuric, so it wil not displace any lesser reactive (i.e. more noble) metals out of a sulfuric solution.
A little air bubbler helps with agitating the solution, and within a few hours you can have all the precious metals cemented out, if there is no oxidizing agent present.
For some strange reason Nickel does not cement out on iron, if i understood that one correct, and there can be more exeptions to the rule.
But an acidic solution containing pm's will be cleaned by a copper solid bar.

as far as my limited range of understanding goes, e.g. cyanide or iodide are not included in my book.
Pgm salts scare me, I keep any trace of them in the stockpot and will melt with silver to sell or donate to a member once I have enough.

 

[Martijn]

That’s really interesting I didn’t know that was possible, do you have a pic of that phenomena?? Is it just like a hole or small indention on it??

That is a beautiful sight and a sign of vey pure gold. The reflection inside the pipe can make it look radiant orange and yellow. really nice to see.
i had a very cool one once.
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/my-new-button.28987/

 

[Shark]

Larger pieces look like that…

 

[Martijn]

I meant this one:

 

[Yggdrasil]

I meant this one:
View attachment 57841

That is a fine specimen indeed

 

[Shark]

I once melted a button that was only .2 grams and loved. It proved to me I could recover the gold from a copper cell. I can’t find the picture right now though.

 

[Cheffrey17]

That is a beautiful sight and a sign of vey pure gold. The reflection inside the pipe can make it look radiant orange and yellow. really nice to see.
i had a very cool one once.
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/my-new-button.28987/

i just went through that thread and it looks amazing! I know now what to look for once it comes down to melting/cooling to rough check the purity, im also seriously considering buying decent camera for new gold button pics lol, I have found it to be extremely hard to get a close up on the phone.

 

[dannlee]

Post-processing!

Use only optical zoom for sharpest image, bracing phone on solid wall / doorframe / furniture then crop away all the boring parts - easier on a PC because the cropped "smaller" print size can be enlarged again but a phones software can capture it well and the viewers browser will stretch image...

Also - rock slightly toward / away from subject to minimize smearing blur... And take 10 or 15 shots to maybe get one snap perfect!

 

[Martijn]

i just went through that thread and it looks amazing! I know now what to look for once it comes down to melting/cooling to rough check the purity, im also seriously considering buying decent camera for new gold button pics lol, I have found it to be extremely hard to get a close up on the phone.

My pictures are all taken with an android phone. You can focus by tapping on the screen. And take a lot of pictures to choose from.

 

[realhumangold]

Post-processing!

Use only optical zoom for sharpest image, bracing phone on solid wall / doorframe / furniture then crop away all the boring parts - easier on a PC because the cropped "smaller" print size can be enlarged again but a phones software can capture it well and the viewers browser will stretch image...

Also - rock slightly toward / away from subject to minimize smearing blur... And take 10 or 15 shots to maybe get one snap perfect!

That cat, and Dylan...what a city!

 

[Cheffrey17]

Yes.
Its a redox reaction, reducing and oxidizing at the same time, also called a displacement reaction.
The reactivity series also helps understanding it, google it.

There are some buts: the metal that you cement on, in this case the copper, has to be soluble in the solution you're trying to get metal salts out.
so it's a chlorine based solution, or a nitric based solution or a sulfuric based solution, etc.

Lead for instance is not soluble in sulfuric, so it wil not displace any lesser reactive (i.e. more noble) metals out of a sulfuric solution.
A little air bubbler helps with agitating the solution, and within a few hours you can have all the precious metals cemented out, if there is no oxidizing agent present.
For some strange reason Nickel does not cement out on iron, if i understood that one correct, and there can be more exeptions to the rule.
But an acidic solution containing pm's will be cleaned by a copper solid bar.

as far as my limited range of understanding goes, e.g. cyanide or iodide are not included in my book.
Pgm salts scare me, I keep any trace of them in the stockpot and will melt with silver to sell or donate to a member once I have enough.

Yeah anytime I hear “salts” brought up in a thread it’s never a good thing it seems like. I’ve started cementing my stockpot today and it really is as easy as sticking some copper in . Well at least it was this time, I don’t think there was any free oxidizer left in it so powder just started falling off the copper.

What’s weird is it looks like the powder coming off the copper is brown-ish in color but at the bottom where it’s pooled up it looks quite silvery/white, is this normal? I’m almost positive there’s a mix of gold, silver, and possibly palladium and platinum but not much I’d assume.

Is there a particular way to process these mixed up pm powders?? So far I have only been focusing on extracting the gold to keep things simpler for now but I think I might be ready to start getting the silver and gold out with the stock pot as a starter run.

Eventually I’d like to get to where I can extract all pgm’s in one fell swoop, I’m not sure if there is a “recipe” out there for that but I’d like to find or create a proper way to extract everything. Like drop the gold, then drop the silver out of solution, then the palladium etc. I’m not a chemist so I’m not sure if that’s even possible without cementing? Just a thought, that’s my goal!

 

[Martijn]

Yeah anytime I hear “salts” brought up in a thread it’s never a good thing it seems like. I’ve started cementing my stockpot today and it really is as easy as sticking some copper in . Well at least it was this time, I don’t think there was any free oxidizer left in it so powder just started falling off the copper.

What’s weird is it looks like the powder coming off the copper is brown-ish in color but at the bottom where it’s pooled up it looks quite silvery/white, is this normal? I’m almost positive there’s a mix of gold, silver, and possibly palladium and platinum but not much I’d assume.

Is there a particular way to process these mixed up pm powders?? So far I have only been focusing on extracting the gold to keep things simpler for now but I think I might be ready to start getting the silver and gold out with the stock pot as a starter run.

Eventually I’d like to get to where I can extract all pgm’s in one fell swoop, I’m not sure if there is a “recipe” out there for that but I’d like to find or create a proper way to extract everything. Like drop the gold, then drop the silver out of solution, then the palladium etc. I’m not a chemist so I’m not sure if that’s even possible without cementing? Just a thought, that’s my goal!

Salts are just ionized metals in solution bonded to another element or as an insoluble solid.
It's knowing how these salts can be made soluble or separated from other sals that make hydrometallurgy and refining possible and so much fun to do.

Read Hoke.

Pd and Ag dissolve in nitric.
Au and Pt dissolve in AR.
Pt stays in solution when dropping gold by SMB i think.
I would get the Au, Pd and Ag out and cement the PGM's on copper and melt them with silver to lower the melt temp of the PGM's.
Separate silver nitrate from Pd by making AgCl and filtering out the Pd solution.
PGM salts are extremely toxic. Be very carefull.

Martijn.