Metals from picture fixer solutions?

[rusty]

Wow l love it
Dr. Poe did u say 3/4 of an ounce of gold
From a single pc
was this at lab grade or at home grade
I mean ,you know, you weren't pulling 1g of gold
From a 55gal drum of gold chloride in your garage ....

Or were you. :lol:
Thanks steyr223

Probably before most forum members were born.

IMB System 360, most machines were scrapped when they could no longer profitably be leased, partly for the gold and other precious metal content of their circuits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360

 

[Dr. Poe]

Wow l love it
Dr. Poe did u say 3/4 of an ounce of gold
From a single pc
was this at lab grade or at home grade
I mean ,you know, you weren't pulling 1g of gold
From a 55gal drum of gold chloride in your garage ....

Or were you. :lol:
Thanks steyr223

No, not a PC, a computer (PC stands for personal computer which were just beginning back then). To help you understand; Donkey Kong and Pack Man were new arcade games. Computers back then were way too expensive for the average person.
Components were bigger and were heavy gold plated on heavy silver plate on nickel plate on solid copper or gold on solid silver pins. Although there were transistors, there were also vacuum tubes.
Televisions: Zenith 'Works in a drawer' had just come out. Dr. Poe

 

[Juan Manuel Arcos Frank]

I think a thanks to Manual is in order here for being the one to point out that there is even a danger in employing acetylene in refining metals. --- Without his pointing that out in the first place I certainly would have never guessed such a thing & the journey of researching it has taken me on “very” informative & educational journey to say the least.

Thank You Manual :!: :!: :!:

Kurt,you are welcome,this is exactly what this Forum is for.

Please,get the biggest bottle of whisky/run or tequila and say CHEERS!!!! to me.

Kindest regards.

Manuel

 

[Ian_B]

I can definitely see the advantages of using the re-bar method as it is cost effective compared to purchasing Potassium Nitrate but If one didn't have access to a gas furnace to use the iron re-bar redux method and Potassium Nitrate was unavailable wouldn't Nitric acid work fine to convert the Silver Sulphide to Silver nitrate without any adverse effect? I have done a bit of research and have found a number of equations through google where silver sulphide is reactive with Nitric
Ag2S + 2 HNO3 → H2S + 2 AgNO3

The off gas being Hydrogen Sulfide you would want to do it under a fume hood or in a well ventilated area.

I have done a very small test with less than a gram of Silver Sulphide and it does indeed dissolve in nitric on the small sample I tested however was curious if anyone else has used this method on a larger scale and if their is any adverse effects besides cost effectiveness compared to the re-bar method.

The few thoughts I have on the subject is that you would want to be careful with adding the powdered Silver Sulphide to the nitric acid as the small particle size could cause a violent reactive if too much was added to quickly.
Availability of nitric acid and cost could become an issue.
Costs of copper and use of distilled water
City tap water may cause silver chloride to form causing more steps to be needed to recover the silver.

Of course in a perfect world the iron method or Manual's Potassium Nitrate method would be preferable to use.

I was thinking that this method might be effective if the silver sulphide was from non-fixer sources or photographic sources which may contain unknown amounts of other metals?

Just bouncing idea's off a wall. thought's and criticisms welcomed and encouraged.