Most lucrative way.

[dansdismantling]

I have several bars from electric panels that are considerably heavy for their size. Gold coated and plentiful however I do not wish to dissolve the entire bar. From 14 inches to 28 inches. If I cut them down I obviously compromise losing material as well. I’ve never done electrolysis..? Perhaps that’s the best?? Cheers to you all. Thanks for reading and hopefully responding.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have several bars from electric panels that are considerably heavy for their size. Gold coated and plentiful however I do not wish to dissolve the entire bar. From 14 inches to 28 inches. If I cut them down I obviously compromise losing material as well. I’ve never done electrolysis..? Perhaps that’s the best?? Cheers to you all. Thanks for reading and hopefully responding.

Where do they come from?
To me they look galvanized, not Gold plated.

 

[olawlor]

I have several bars from electric panels that are considerably heavy for their size. Gold coated and plentiful however I do not wish to dissolve the entire bar. From 14 inches to 28 inches. If I cut them down I obviously compromise losing material as well. I’ve never done electrolysis..? Perhaps that’s the best?? Cheers to you all. Thanks for reading and hopefully responding.

Step one is to verify the coating is actually gold. I'd add one drop of hydrochloric acid to the surface--if it's gold, absolutely nothing will happen. If it's some other yellow coating (chromate passivated tin is an option) it will likely dissolve.

If it is gold, a cyanide leach should remove it without touching the copper, but cyanide is unforgivingly lethal, and hence not a good first chemical project!

Have you considered using a belt sander or angle grinder flap disk to take off the outside gold layer, and collect the dust? It will remove some copper as well, but acid separation would be straightforward from there.

If I'm doing the math right, the front and back of a 1 inch wide strip 28 inches long has about $1 of gold per microinch of coating thickness (I asked google "1e-6 inch * 2 inch * 28 inch * 19.3 g/cc * $2000 / troy ounce in USD"). So even assuming a thick 25 microinch hard gold coating, you might not come out ahead if you need to buy the tools and materials to do this safely.

 

[dansdismantling]

Step one is to verify the coating is actually gold. I'd add one drop of hydrochloric acid to the surface--if it's gold, absolutely nothing will happen. If it's some other yellow coating (chromate passivated tin is an option) it will likely dissolve.

If it is gold, a cyanide leach should remove it without touching the copper, but cyanide is unforgivingly lethal, and hence not a good first chemical project!

Have you considered using a belt sander or angle grinder flap disk to take off the outside gold layer, and collect the dust? It will remove some copper as well, but acid separation would be straightforward from there.

If I'm doing the math right, the front and back of a 1 inch wide strip 28 inches long has about $1 of gold per microinch of coating thickness (I asked google "1e-6 inch * 2 inch * 28 inch * 19.3 g/cc * $2000 / troy ounce in USD"). So even assuming a thick 25 microinch hard gold coating, you might not come out ahead if you need to buy the tools and materials to do this safely.

Thanks for the reply. I have tested them all and they all together came out of the sorounding pin sockets on a 1960’s cnc controller called an acramatic IV cimtrol. All pins backplane everything heavily coated in au.

 

[dansdismantling]

Where do they come from?
To me they look galvanized, not Gold plated.

They come from a acramatic IV controller by Cincinnati milacron cimtrol. Look it up and see for yourself. Far from galvanized…

 

[Yggdrasil]

They come from a acramatic IV controller by Cincinnati milacron cimtrol. Look it up and see for yourself. Far from galvanized…

The new pictures are better, but seriously get some gloves on your hands!

 

[dansdismantling]

The new pictures are better, but seriously get some gloves on your hands!

So you’re saying something like a hundred little capacitors or a thousand with small plates bond wires would be more beneficial to process than some solid plated bars…. Or perhaps these older pin sockets would be better so don’t waste my time eh???

 

[Darkthirty]

So you’re saying something like a hundred little capacitors or a thousand with small plates bond wires would be more beneficial to process than some solid plated bars…. Or perhaps these older pin sockets would be better so don’t waste my time eh???

I have a pile tucked away in a corner. If they test Au, I'll hit them with a belt sander with the dust bag on over a storage tub, and ream out the holes with a drill bit. Scrapyard will dock you down to #2 Cu if they are coated. I have a few that are thick and long that I might cold forge into wall-hanger swords.

 

[Yggdrasil]

So you’re saying something like a hundred little capacitors or a thousand with small plates bond wires would be more beneficial to process than some solid plated bars…. Or perhaps these older pin sockets would be better so don’t waste my time eh???

That is impossible to say, unless we know the plating thickness,
It is all about surface area times thickness.

And then again nothing about what I said about gloves, if you want a long and healthy life, use gloves when handling anything in your"lab".

 

[orvi]

Sand a little bit from one bar, few square centimeters is enough. Dissolve in AR or HCL/peroxide or HCL/nitrate and test it with stannous chloride. This will tell you if you are dealing with gold, but from the first glance (and if the camera does not skew the colours) looks like gold plate to me.

Be careful with sanding, as good portion of the gold stay smeared on the abrasive paper of disc. You will need to either painfully scratch it off or treat the whole belt/disc with AR to get it back. Gold or even copper are very soft and smear easily on hard surfaces.

 

[MvK]

How about a sulphuric cell for the bars?

 

[Yggdrasil]

How about a sulphuric cell for the bars?

What base metal is it?

 

[MvK]

What base metal is it?

He posted this picture, my bets are on copper

 

[Yggdrasil]

He posted this picture, my bets are on copper

Then the sulphuric cell would fit quite nicely, but not for just these pieces.