Just completed my first gold refining! I started with a 4g 14k ring and a 2g 10k necklace. I inquarted with about 6g of sterling silver. When I was dissolving the base metals, I feel like it took about double the amount of nitric/h2o than it should have. I ended up doing it 5 times for a total of 110ml each of nitric/h20, with no more than a 15/15ml bath at a time. When I was calculating it, I should have only had to use 25/25 each so I was a bit confused. I just went till the solution was clear.
When I made the AR I did 12ml of HCL, a drop of sulfuric acid, and 2 ml of Nitric. The gold was dissolved in an instant, I was surprised and thought I used too much nitric. When I went to go precipitate the gold, I used a sprinkle of SMB and since I was afraid that I may have put in too much nitric it would all dissolve back, but luckily it didnt! I tested it with some stannous and it came back clean. So I waited for it to settle. Decanted off the solution and washed it in hot water, hot HCL, then hot water again. The powder came out looking amazing.
Unfortunately I only have 1 crucible at the moment which I used to melt down some copper so I think the gold may be tainted with a little of it from the dish, but I will be refining the button again in the future when I have a dish for gold only. So all in all I think it worked out great! Took about 8 hours from start to finish, dont think that's too bad for my first time. And now I am currently precipitating out my silver from the silver nitrate that was left behind with the copper I melted down earlier.
Any feedback and/or tips would be great! Thank you!!
Also I dont have a very precise scale at the moment but the scale I do have now weighed it to be 3g, which is what I was expecting! (3.166g to be precise)
When I made the AR I did 12ml of HCL, a drop of sulfuric acid, and 2 ml of Nitric. The gold was dissolved in an instant, I was surprised and thought I used too much nitric. When I went to go precipitate the gold, I used a sprinkle of SMB and since I was afraid that I may have put in too much nitric it would all dissolve back, but luckily it didnt! I tested it with some stannous and it came back clean. So I waited for it to settle. Decanted off the solution and washed it in hot water, hot HCL, then hot water again. The powder came out looking amazing.
Unfortunately I only have 1 crucible at the moment which I used to melt down some copper so I think the gold may be tainted with a little of it from the dish, but I will be refining the button again in the future when I have a dish for gold only. So all in all I think it worked out great! Took about 8 hours from start to finish, dont think that's too bad for my first time. And now I am currently precipitating out my silver from the silver nitrate that was left behind with the copper I melted down earlier.
Any feedback and/or tips would be great! Thank you!!
Also I dont have a very precise scale at the moment but the scale I do have now weighed it to be 3g, which is what I was expecting! (3.166g to be precise)