Need help!!! i put SMB but No gold drops!

[Martijn]

But again: before you start anything, (like an attempt to evaporate to percitapotato) (yes, I intentionally misspelled that) ASK FIRST!!! (yes, I am shouting)

Did any of that gold leaf ever stick to a gasmask in the past by any chance? I get a very strong deja vu here.

e.g.: Why on earth did you dissolve pure gold foil?

Could you make some time to answer some of our questions?

It would be very respectful.

 

[Shark]

To add to Martijn’s post…. For good evaporation to take place you need a large surface area. I prefer long, wide dish’s for this. I use a casserole dish that is about 10x14 inch’s and often heat on a frying griddle on lowest setting.

 

[goldshark]

I really wish you could edit out the undesirable comments/posts, before they appear on this forum. I have seen the same comments about the use of Urea time and time again. I just wish all the misinformation about Urea in the deNoxing, would just go away.

 

[Alondro]

As Yggdrasil said, use your urea in the garden, not in your refining. While you may see many people using urea on youtube videos, there are much better techniques.

You also don't want to neutralize the solution. It needs to be acidic for the SMB to produce the SO₂ that reduces the gold to a metal.

You want to use sulfamic acid, dissolve more gold, or evaporate the solution to deNO_X it (i.e., eliminate excess nitric acid and its by-products).

Dave

It's why I dissolve gold foils with the HCl + bleach method. Use HCl to excess, then slowly add bleach, just a little at a time until the foils are gone. Then just heat the solution for about 2 hours to drive off the excess chlorine (doing so in bright sunlight speeds the process even faster, since the UV helps transform the dissolved chlorine into gaseous form. No need to worry about excess nitric. The only risk is adding too much bleach, which makes the solution basic. But that's why you add only a little and then stir and wait to see how much foil remains.

Then the SMB drop works perfectly. And, from my experience, incredibly fast.

Lead removal would still be needed, though. However, it would take just a few drops of sulfuric acid in most properly prepared gold chloride, since cleaning the base metals off with HCl (and CuCl2) in the very first step should remove virtually all the lead.

The only time I use AR for gold is when it's chunky jewelry. HCl-bleach can't dissolve thick gold very well.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I really wish you could edit out the undesirable comments/posts, before they appear on this forum. I have seen the same comments about the use of Urea time and time again. I just wish all the misinformation about Urea in the deNoxing, would just go away.

Unfortunately, that information usually comes from outside the forum. People watch youtube and other sources that continues to use urea, then bring that experience here. We can't control the information outside. All we can do is try to lead members to better practices.

Dave

 

[Alondro]

Unfortunately, that information usually comes from outside the forum. People watch youtube and other sources that continues to use urea, then bring that experience here. We can't control the information outside. All we can do is try to lead members to better practices.

Dave

Using urea for denoxing is an OLD error. My very first gold recovery kit from the mid 90's had urea for that purpose. So the incorrect chemistry is unfortunately very deeply embedded.

 

[galenrog]

Years ago that was my experience also.

Time for more coffee.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Years ago that was my experience also.

Time for more coffee.

Before that property of Sulfamic acid was "discovered", it was the only way to reduce the impact of Nitric overuse.
That was probably the reason Harold was quite hard on how the Nitric was used
and his special trick of using a weighed button of Gold to deplete the Nitric when needed.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Actually, Harold intentionally overused nitric acid because he was on a strict time schedule to return his clients' gold to them. Using excess nitric put his clients' material into solution promptly. He developed his technique of adding a gold button to use up the excess.

It was goldsilverpro who taught us all to add nitric acid sparingly, in increments, to avoid overuse.

Dave

 

[Yggdrasil]

Actually, Harold intentionally overused nitric acid because he was on a strict time schedule to return his clients' gold to them. Using excess nitric put his clients' material into solution promptly. He developed his technique of adding a gold button to use up the excess.

It was goldsilverpro who taught us all to add nitric acid sparingly, in increments, to avoid overuse.

Dave

Thanks for the clarification, it was before my time here😏

 

[ReedKidd]

And here I thought they were all mis-spelling urethra (urea). lol

But seriously folks, I have read and was told that modern foils (1990s to current) are only 18-20 karat at best. Only foils from the 1960’s - 1980’s were near or at 24k.
Thoughts?

tnx

 

[Yggdrasil]

And here I thought they were all mis-spelling urethra (urea). lol

But seriously folks, I have read and was told that modern foils (1990s to current) are only 18-20 karat at best. Only foils from the 1960’s - 1980’s were near or at 24k.
Thoughts?

tnx

I really don’t know, but for me it seems unlikely that you are able to plate a certain alloy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but how can you control the deposition quality and rate if you have a mixed electrolyte?
I alway believed it was a misreading from the XRF, due to the thin layer of plating.

 

[kreinhardt]

I really don’t know, but for me it seems unlikely that you are able to plate a certain alloy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but how can you control the deposition quality and rate if you have a mixed electrolyte?
I alway believed it was a misreading from the XRF, due to the thin layer of plating.

I have read of Israeli manufacturers who can do electroforming (which is essentially plating on a non-metal substrate) of sterling silver. The process is proprietary and thus not known. I have seen the jewelry and it appears to be sterling as opposed to fine silver, but I've never tested it. In general, though, plating an alloy, while it may be possible, is completely counter to how plating normally works.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have read of Israeli manufacturers who can do electroforming (which is essentially plating on a non-metal substrate) of sterling silver. The process is proprietary and thus not known. I have seen the jewelry and it appears to be sterling as opposed to fine silver, but I've never tested it. In general, though, plating an alloy, while it may be possible, is completely counter to how plating normally works.

That will raise another question,why do that to electronics, if it is hard and you accomplish nothing else then make it more expensive?
Maybe if you plate thin enough layers they somehow fuse together?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I miss GSP (goldsilverpro). He was very heavily involved in the recovery of gold from electronics for decades. He taught us that virtually all gold plating on electronics is very nearly pure gold. There are a few metals that are used in the plating baths as "hardeners" for the plating so it stands up to multiple insertions and removals, but they are there in only minute quantities.

You can do a search for plating with him as the author to read his accounts first-hand.

Dave