Polysulfide
New member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2020
- Messages
- 1
A friend gave me a small bottle full of small assay buttons.
Some were very white
Some were very pink
And a whole spectrum in between.
Obviously nothing resembling pure gold or silver. Only small amounts of copper.
Could be absolutely any metals though.
I thought it might be fun to do some ad-hoc analysis while refining these. I am curious what is in there. There’s enough non-gold that I didn’t think any inquartarion was necessary.
So I melted them all together and poured them into shot. Nothing particularly difficult to melt. Did it all in a melting dish with an acetylene torch. I washed and dryer the shot.
First I washed the shot in HCL which resulted in a bright yellow solution. I let this work for 24 hours until it quit reacting completely. This appears to be tin. Fun. Washed the remaining shot a few times with distilled water.
Then washed in dilute sulfuric acid.
The acid immediately became cloudy and then slowly formed a white precipitate. Going on 24 hours. There seems to be more precipitate but any reaction isn’t vigorous.
I can’t find much information on what metal isn’t soluble in HCL but is soluble in sulfuric while making a white cloud or precipitate. Thallium comes up.
I only rinsed a few times after HCL so there may be some residual chloride but I don’t think enough to account for this much precipitate were this a metal chloride.
Any thoughts on what this might be?
Some were very white
Some were very pink
And a whole spectrum in between.
Obviously nothing resembling pure gold or silver. Only small amounts of copper.
Could be absolutely any metals though.
I thought it might be fun to do some ad-hoc analysis while refining these. I am curious what is in there. There’s enough non-gold that I didn’t think any inquartarion was necessary.
So I melted them all together and poured them into shot. Nothing particularly difficult to melt. Did it all in a melting dish with an acetylene torch. I washed and dryer the shot.
First I washed the shot in HCL which resulted in a bright yellow solution. I let this work for 24 hours until it quit reacting completely. This appears to be tin. Fun. Washed the remaining shot a few times with distilled water.
Then washed in dilute sulfuric acid.
The acid immediately became cloudy and then slowly formed a white precipitate. Going on 24 hours. There seems to be more precipitate but any reaction isn’t vigorous.
I can’t find much information on what metal isn’t soluble in HCL but is soluble in sulfuric while making a white cloud or precipitate. Thallium comes up.
I only rinsed a few times after HCL so there may be some residual chloride but I don’t think enough to account for this much precipitate were this a metal chloride.
Any thoughts on what this might be?
