Making Auric Chloride at Home: Questions and Comments

[aflacglobal]

It's me, Ernest T.

That's right here i go again. Tiatomic Oxygen.

I still think that the 3% H2O2 is holding you back in these experiments. I've used 30-35% H2O2 all my life to jack up dissolving reactions. I've used it with all acids, many alkalis, and cyanide. They all go faster. But, one secret of speed in most reactions is to keep the water out.

O3 ? could it be introduced Thru a aeration stone into the acid. No water.
And you can control the addition pretty specific. Might solve the heat problem ?

Just remember that the solution won't hold all the chlorine gas produced by mixing the acid and bleach and the excess gas will therefore need to be dealt with

Could it also be used to convert the excess chlorine into some less harmless gas or liquid ?

How much futher outside the box can i get. lol

Ralph

 

[lazersteve]

I can't find out where to get the tin powder!

Lead free solder at the hardware store (95% tin / 5% antimony).

or


I bought the tin powder from ebayer "finepowder".

Steve

 

[lazersteve]

I still think that the 3% H2O2 is holding you back in these experiments.

The reaction does not call for peroxide as demonstrated. The addition of peroxide was discussed, but I haven't tried it myself.

It's been a while since I developed this method and I've successfully scaled it up to do larger quantities of gold. The largest amount of gold I've dissolved in one batch using this method was 11 grams. Heat was not a problem, nor were excess off gases. The trick is adding the Clorox in small portions with stirring. Heating isn't required for foils, but helps a little with gold powders

Steve

 

[scavenger]

I found some Tin Oxide powder at a jewelers equipment store. Do u think it would be suitable for making test solution? Cheers Dave.

 

[Charlena]

Lead free solder at the hardware store (95% tin / 5% antimony).

Would any of these be that type?
I can't find on them the ingredients. :?

 

[lazersteve]

Try searching the manufacturers web sites for MSDS information.

Steve

 

[Charlena]

same packaging at fry's but they put that info on the price tag! Much more helpful than lowes!
So yes i got it....YEAHHHHH
works awesome!
is there a suggested formula on this stuff? ratio wise?
and shelf life? capped or uncapped?
Thanks hun :arrow: Steve :!:

 

[postmako]

I found some Tin Oxide powder at a jewelers equipment store. Do u think it would be suitable for making test solution? Cheers Dave.

You would first need to convert it from SnO to Sn and here is a patent regarding this. I think you will agree that it is easier to buy solder.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5342590.html

Cheers,
Kory

 

[Charlena]

I think you will agree that it is easier to buy solder.

Do you know what the exact formula is on the solder method? how much do i use per how much hcl?
Thanks
Char

 

[lazersteve]

The ratio is not critical.

1. Add 20 mL HCl and clip in 4" of lead free solder to a pyrex beaker.
2. Heat until the solder begins to dissolve.
3. Let the reaction proceed with gentle heating if required.
4. The bulk of the solder will dissolve leaving a fine black powder (antimony powder).
5. Pour off the solution into a CLEAN 30 mL dropper bottle (amber is better).
6. Do not pour any of the black powder into the dropper bottle.
7. Test the stannous chloride solution with a know auric chloride solution.
8. Remains active about 1 week.
9. Test before each use with known auric chloride solution.
10. Refresh activity with additional solder, HCL and heating as needed.

Steve

 

[Charlena]

You rock!

 

[goldsilverpro]

Although it doesn't make much difference, I've always preferred using stannous chloride. I use a clean eyedropper (drug store) and put 2 drops of the solution to be tested on a piece of filter paper. I then get a few crystals on the tip of my knife and put them onto the drops. Then I add a drop or two of water. The water re-moistens it and makes it work faster. Notice the color. Gold is purple or nearly black. Palladium is yellow-brown. Platinum is yellow. The only other thing, that I know of that will produce a color, besides some of the other platinum group metals, is cobalt. Sometimes, it produces a light blue.

The type filter paper is important. The drops of solution are absorbed by the paper and the colors spread out. The various precious metals spread out to different distances. You can tell what, and how much (if you're good at it) of each of the metals you have by noticing the color and intensity of each color ring. You want a fairly hard paper that won't allow the colors to spread too quickly. There is an common analysis method called paper chromatography. You simply hang a strip of filter paper (sometimes, treated) down into a small container of the liquid sample. The solution climbs up the paper and separates into it's individual chemicals. Interesting stuff. By running and comparing standards, you could get a pretty good idea of what and how much is in the solution.

 

[aflacglobal]

Interesting indeed. When i grow up i want to be like you GSP. lol

The solution climbs up the paper and separates into it's individual chemicals

Hey! A new idea :idea: Seperation by the wicking method. :wink:

 

[gold-seeker]

New here, hi everyone, been watching the forum for a while, question i have is what all base metals does the Auric Chloride desolve? This reason im asking is that if i put mixed small sand, gold and whatever else may be in their, what all gets desolved? Thanks

 

[ChucknC]

Ralph,
It's called thin layer Chromatography. A fairly old method of analysis of an ore.

 

[lazersteve]

New here, hi everyone, been watching the forum for a while, question i have is what all base metals does the Auric Chloride desolve? This reason im asking is that if i put mixed small sand, gold and whatever else may be in their, what all gets desolved? Thanks

Gold-Seeker,

When using HCl and Clorox to dissolve your gold, the base metals should have previously been removed by another means. If not they tend to dissolve into your HCl-Cl first which could prevent your gold from dissolving at all.

Auric Chloride is the dissolved form of gold in solution and does not dissolve base metals. The HCl-Cl does all the dissolving.

Best practice is to keep all base metals out of the HCl-Cl reaction as much as possible.

Steve

 

[gold-seeker]

Thanks Steve and Others, if i have already dissolve everything, (then i have a mess) can it be seperated then the gold dropped!
Thanks

New here, hi everyone, been watching the forum for a while, question i have is what all base metals does the Auric Chloride desolve? This reason im asking is that if i put mixed small sand, gold and whatever else may be in their, what all gets desolved? Thanks

Gold-Seeker,

When using HCl and Clorox to dissolve your gold, the base metals should have previously been removed by another means. If not they tend to dissolve into your HCl-Cl first which could prevent your gold from dissolving at all.

Auric Chloride is the dissolved form of gold in solution and does not dissolve base metals. The HCl-Cl does all the dissolving.

Best practice is to keep all base metals out of the HCl-Cl reaction as much as possible.

Steve

 

[Harold_V]

If everything is in solution, there's nothing wrong with precipitating the gold via normal procedures. It will come down quite dirty due to drag down, and won't wash nearly as well as if it had been precipitated from a cleaner solution, but doing so is better than starting over. If you choose to go this route, figure on re-refining the gold to bring it pure. It likely will benefit by doing so.

If you choose to precipitate everything in solution so you can start over, you'd do that by inserting a piece of aluminum or steel (or zinc in any configuration, including flour), which would reduce all the metals in the form of a sludge, at which time you could then dissolve the base metals without dissolving the precious metals.

This process is a little more involved than I've just mentioned, so don't jump in with both feet unless you're prepared to jump through a hoop or two. It's important that you eliminate any chlorides in the collected sludge, so you can dissolve the base metals without the values going in to solution as well. It's also a bit of trouble removing values from the surfaces of the remaining aluminum or steel, unless you have an abundance of HCl in the solution. In that case. it would dissolve the surface enough to liberate all traces.

There's one more way you can precipitate the gold, but it's hard to clean up the deposits for the same reason, above. You can use a piece of copper, which will selectively precipitate the gold and any platinum metals you may have dissolved. All the base metals would stay in solution. The problem is cleaning the copper of values when they have all been precipitated. Much easier if you're working with a nitrate solution in this case.

Harold

 

[The Refiner49er]

Harold wrote:
There's one more way you can precipitate the gold, but it's hard to clean up the deposits for the same reason, above. You can use a piece of copper, which will selectively precipitate the gold and any platinum metals you may have dissolved. All the base metals would stay in solution. The problem is cleaning the copper of values when they have all been precipitated. Much easier if you're working with a nitrate solution in this case.

I want to read this back to ensure I saavy this separation process. If you have a solution of mixed metals, you can precipitate the gold and PGMs onto copper (a thin copper sheet for instance), and then dissolve the Cu with nitric or AP, and filter the Au and Pt solids from the solution.
It seems like this is a fairly direct method of losing the base metals from a dirty solution. Did I get this right? I hope so.

One of these days I'm gonna have to learn to read english. (swahili is my native language) :lol:

 

[Harold_V]

If you have a solution of mixed metals, you can precipitate the gold and PGMs onto copper (a thin copper sheet for instance), and then dissolve the Cu with nitric or AP, and filter the Au and Pt solids from the solution.
It seems like this is a fairly direct method of losing the base metals from a dirty solution. Did I get this right? I hope so.

Yes, you got it right. Copper will precipitate all of the precious metals you're likely to encounter. The only fly in the ointment is if you have palladium in solution. It will re-dissolve along with the copper if you clean up with nitric acid. If so, you would simply clean the copper by washing with tap water, and leave traces on the plate. You'd collect them the next time you used the copper for the same purpose. It, eventually, would be totally consumed. You have a little value locked up, but it's not lost.

Harold