Molten Lead Panning??

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NoIdea

NoIdea

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
602
Location
New Zealand
Evening All - doing something a wee bit out of the norm, im gunna ask a question about a posible process before actually trying it out first. :lol:

We have all read or heard about using mercury to amalgum with the gold while panning, thus removing it from iron sand, my question is this, how would you think panning with molten lead?

Over heat and taking all the necessary health and safety issues into consideration of course.

Thoughts Please

Thanks

Deano
 
I just finished a blood lead level screening. My level is 9.5 micrograms per deciliter. (One half a microgram higher and I would be required to enter a medical monitoring program) This is just from normal construction inspection related activities in existing structures and time spent as a part time employee on the sales floor of a pistol range.

Lead (Pb) fume will collect on clothing, hair etc and can be brought home to your loved ones. This is a very similar situation to how many housewives were found with asbestosis and silicosis.

In other words, don't do it...
 
Though I don't wish to promote the use of mercury in any way, but it has the advantage over lead in that it can be vaporized off and distilled easily.

Are you looking to run a molten lead iron tumbler near 900F.?

Heat promotes oxidation, oxidation prevents fusion. What flux would you use?

Where would the smoke go, your own local environment?

You might be able to buy contaminated solder cheaper than you can make your own. :wink:
 
Afternoon All - thanks for the replys.

qst42know said:
Are you looking to run a molten lead iron tumbler near 900F.?
Click to expand...

Im thinking hotter, maybe 600degC, and it will more than likely be a cast iron pot.

Heat promotes oxidation, oxidation prevents fusion. What flux would you use?
Click to expand...

From what i have experianced while going through my cupellation phase, :roll: , was that lead at a certain temperature the lead oxide became molten and stayed on top as a multi-coloured layer, this will protect the lead underneath. Cupellation involves the absorption of this layer thus exposing more lead for oxidation, in my case it says put.

Where would the smoke go, your own local environment?
Click to expand...

In my first post i mentioned that i would be "taking all the necessary health and safety issues into consideration". This includes any envronmental issues. Ok, that should cover any issues around lead and how bad it is. 8)

So, with that said and done, does anyone think this would work? :p

Cheers

Deano
 
in the presence of molten lead, the melting temperature of gold will drop. whats to keep the gold from mixing with the lead or is that your intention?
 
Geo said:
in the presence of molten lead, the melting temperature of gold will drop. whats to keep the gold from mixing with the lead or is that your intention?
Click to expand...

Hey Geo, yep, i want to produce the same effect as mercury, well sort of, i wish for the gold to migrate into the lead, thus separating it from iron sand, very fine iron sand and very fine gold.

Cheers

Deano
 
Deano as usual I like your thinking out of the box. I must admit if the safety issues can be properly addressed then it might be worth a try, I'd suggest a small trial batch and see if it works and how well as I'm inclined to think this might not be a known process or at least rarely used in the recovery of gold. Gold certainly likes to alloy itself so it might be worth the effort for the trial run, i think the lead will only be able to alloy so much gold but I doubt there's much written about how this will work or how well so you might well be on your own to determine it's effectiveness.
Good luck.
 
with the right flux, you may be able to collect quite a bit of gold with very little lead. gold will adhere to every exposed area like it would mercury. the only setback i can see is you may not be able to do it in a metal container at all. i know that gold will bond to iron or steel, especially with the right kind of flux. it would be neat to have it set up like a shaker table where the material is passed over a pool of molten lead while vibrating. it should suck up any gold or silver that crosses over it.
 
qst42know said:
Have you read this thread?

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=12450&hilit=7000+lead
Click to expand...

Thank you very much, so to conclude, the answer to my question is "Yes". :p

Deano
 
At soldering temperatures the gold can somewhat dissolve into lead.

Bismuth added to lead, the alloy can be soldered with a match, or the alloy will melt in a coffee pot.

The experiment sounds interesting but I do not like the idea of having to separate a large batch of lead from the gold, well maybe you could put that large pile of animal bones to use.

And as alway's take precautions with your health, sure would hate to hear of someone getting lead poisioning.
 
Thanks butcher.

butcher said:
The experiment sounds interesting but I do not like the idea of having to separate a large batch of lead from the gold, well maybe you could put that large pile of animal bones to use.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, yep, cupellation sound ideal, ah the bones, wonder how human bone would work. :mrgreen: Just kidding :mrgreen:

And as alway's take precautions with your health, sure would hate to hear of someone getting lead poisioning.
Click to expand...

Due to our free health care here down under(apart from local GP visits, around $30NZ a pop) i get free blood tests, which i get every six months, all test normal, and that was before i started to get serious about health and safety, breathing all kinds of fumes, very very lucky. 8)

The solder is from circuit boards, so thier is probably serious amounts of silver to.

Cheers

Deano
 
Very interesting idea Deano - in fact I have recently been thinking along this same line the only difference being using tin as the collector for gold (to collect the fine gold wires from IC chip ash)

Yes I know that generally speaking tin is something we want to "remove first" in the recovery process &/or keep out of the refining process - but then generally speaking this true with lead also.

The idea is based on the principal of inquarting karat gold - only in this case you are not actually creating an alloy to be parted with acid but rather you are collecting particals by using a metal with a "much" lower melting point.

You should then be able to part the tin from the gold with nothing more then a HCL treatment being as how you have only "collected" particals of gold with the tin & not actually formed an alloy of the gold & tin.

Just a thought - open to comment

Kurt
 
P.S. the reason I was thinking tin instead of lead is that tin lends its self better to acid treatment (HCL) to recover the gold then does lead - also more enviromental & health friendly.

Kurt
 
Tin?? Hmmm. How about zinc, then all one has to do is distill off the zinc, and from what a recall, gold and silver quite like zinc.

Deano
 
Butcher – Yes I agree – tin can be & often is a refiners nightmare – a nightmare we all encounter in working with refining PMs from electronic scrape.

The tin we encounter comes from primarily 2 sources – one is the tin from solder & the other is tin alloyed with base metals (such as tin in brass pins)

The tin nightmare we all dread is the stannic tin (tin paste) we encounter when we dissolve base metal alloys that contain tin with nitric & end up with the stannic tin to deal with

On the other hand – with solder – the first thing we do is treat it with HCL to “eliminate” the tin before moving on to the next steps in our refining --- which is why “in theory” I have been thinking about using tin as a “collector” of fine gold (instead of mercury)

Deano’s post caught my attention because I had been thinking along the same line which is to use a “low” melting point metal as a collector (instead of mercury) to recover fine gold partials from concentrates (black sands &/or chip ash)

Lead, zinc, bismuth & tin have all been suggested

My thought for tin in this “theory” is as follows

(1)Tin is readily available (tin solder – same as we use for making stannous chloride – or recovered from CBs)
(2)Tin is cheap
(3)Tin has the lowest melting point @ 232 C. then bismuth @ 272 C. then lead @ 373 C. then zinc 420 C.
(4)Tin is easily eliminated with HCL (keep in mind we are only “collecting” the gold with tin – not alloying it with tin)
(5)Tin is relatively health & environmental friendly

Lead (1) readily available (2) fairly cheap (3) higher melting point (4) ether hot dilute nitric or cupelling to eliminate (5) not health & environmental friendly

Zinc (1) readily available (2) not so cheap (3) highest melting point (4) easily eliminated with HCL (5) not sure of health & environmental concerns

Bismuth – don’t know enough to comment

So – at least in theory – tin should not be a big problem – unless you actually smelted the tin with the gold to form a tin/gold alloy

Kurt
 
Ultimately, you will always deal with an alloy, as molten tin will dissolve at least traces of gold, if not more. I suspect it will dissolve to the point of saturation given long enough exposure.

Harold
 

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