Need help with Chemical Process

[chadputt]

Hello,
I'am new to refining gold and wish I would have paid more attention in chemistry. I have started my process of participating the gold. After following steps (probably not right) I ended up with a glass dish full of nothing. The color is green with a slight hint of orange/brown. I used muratic acid and bleach to participate gold flakes also rinsed with bleach (maybe my problem?) too much bleach? Then dropped a lot of smb and basically nothing happened. At the crossroads of wondering if this will continue to be a hobby of mine. Can I get the gold back or is it history? Any help is appreciated. I can take the bashing but tread lightly lol.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Hello,
I'am new to refining gold and wish I would have paid more attention in chemistry. I have started my process of participating the gold. After following steps (probably not right) I ended up with a glass dish full of nothing. The color is green with a slight hint of orange/brown. I used muratic acid and bleach to participate gold flakes also rinsed with bleach (maybe my problem?) too much bleach? Then dropped a lot of smb and basically nothing happened. At the crossroads of wondering if this will continue to be a hobby of mine. Can I get the gold back or is it history? Any help is appreciated. I can take the bashing but tread lightly lol.

I try to be as helpful as possible to new members, but I can't begin to understand your post.

I don't know what you mean by "participating the gold".
You have a dish full of nothing.
The nothing is green with a slight hint of orange/brown?
You used muratic (muriatic) acid and bleach to participate gold flakes, and rinsed with bleach?
Then you dropped a lot of SMB and nothing happened.

I would say this is not the hobby for you.

If you really want to learn this art, you can get started in the Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum thread.

Dave

 

[chadputt]

Sorry for confusion.

I started with muratic acid covering the gold flakes (inside beaker)
I then added common household bleach (all gold dissolved)
Third step i filtered the solution using coffee filter.
Next step is where I rinsed previous beaker with bleach, also rinsed filter paper so I would leave no solution containing gold behind.
I added four ice cubes to solution and started to mix.
While mixing I started to add SMB.
This is where my problem occurred.
I did not see any reaction. Mixing for about 10 minutes and adding SMB here and there (still no reaction)
20 mins pass and the solution color is a darker green.

Hope this will help better understand my situation.
Thanks for the tips Dave

V/R

Chad

 

[FrugalRefiner]

That makes a lot more sense. I'm assuming when you rinsed with bleach, you poured those rinses into your pregnant solution. You should have used water instead. You added extra oxidizer to your solution. To rid the solution of the excess bleach, you can heat it, put it in the sun, or just wait a day or two. By adding ice right away, you keep more of the bleach in solution. You didn't see a reaction with SMB because any gold it reduced was immediately redissolved by the bleach and acid.

Set your solution aside for a few days. Spend that time downloading the book in my signature line and reading on the forum. Follow that link I gave you in my last post, as well as all the threads it is linked to. You'll have a better idea of what to do then.

Dave

 

[chadputt]

Awesome! Thank you for your assistance. I will do much more reading and will post my results in a few days.

I appreciate your wisdom!

V/R
Chad

 

[kernels]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

 

[mls26cwru]

just out of curiosity, what was the starting material?

your comments are making me wonder if you started with gold leaf/foil maybe and not gold from finger connectors?

 

[chadputt]

Kernels...I tried adding water to the solution. No reaction when applied. However, I added water to the solution not solution to the water. Could this have been another problem? The problem is I learned some poor techniques and methods. Wish I would had found this forum earlier. I've been reading C_M_Hoke and already figured out some of my issues. Any help is appreciated, thank you!

mls26cwru....I used AP solution on gold computer fingers and pins. These came from laptops,computers,cell phones. I processed them in separate batches and rinsed into coffee filters. However, I placed all filters in my HCL/Bleach solution. Would these (fingers and pins)have needed too be separately processed even though they were all stripped?

 

[nickvc]

Mixing the foils from various sources shouldn't matter if fully clean, no tin left, your problem as Dave pointed out is you have free chlorine still in your solution once that has gone you should be able to precipitate your gold fairly easily.

 

[solar_plasma]

Another possible problem: What pH does your solution have? If it is neutral or higher, you have used up all HCl by making chlorine, you have an excess of sodium hypochlorite. Then the SMB will not have any HCl left to react with to form some SO2, which could precipitate gold. On the other hand, if the pH is much too high, any gold and many metals will have formed insoluble hydroxides.

 

[mls26cwru]

mls26cwru....I used AP solution on gold computer fingers and pins. These came from laptops,computers,cell phones. I processed them in separate batches and rinsed into coffee filters. However, I placed all filters in my HCL/Bleach solution. Would these (fingers and pins)have needed too be separately processed even though they were all stripped?

Okay, just wondering... generic gold leaf is, often times, mostly copper... I had someone ask me to recovery the gold from some once and it was less than 2 percent gold by weight. It dissolved in HCl/bleach leaving a very green solution that yielded almost nothing when it came time to drop the gold. sounded very similar to your situation. Knowing the starting material can be critical when asking for in troubleshooting a process.

 

[goldsilverpro]

mls26cwru....I used AP solution on gold computer fingers and pins. These came from laptops,computers,cell phones. I processed them in separate batches and rinsed into coffee filters. However, I placed all filters in my HCL/Bleach solution. Would these (fingers and pins)have needed too be separately processed even though they were all stripped?

Okay, just wondering... generic gold leaf is, often times, mostly copper... I had someone ask me to recovery the gold from some once and it was less than 2 percent gold by weight. It dissolved in HCl/bleach leaving a very green solution that yielded almost nothing when it came time to drop the gold. sounded very similar to your situation. Knowing the starting material can be critical when asking for in troubleshooting a process.

There are only 2 types of yellow leaf out there, real gold leaf of various karats or faux gold leaf containing no gold at all. The lowest karat real yellow leaf I could find was 16K = 67 percent. No one makes 2 percent gold leaf. There is absolutely nothing it could be used for. The only way a batch of leaf would run 2 percent would be if someone had mixed some faux leaf with a little bit of real leaf.

 

[g_axelsson]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

Low pH is no problem. I have precipitated gold from gold chloride in more or less concentrated HCl directly after denoxing via evaporation. Though, I have started to dilute it with water because SMB reacted violently with the acid and most SO₂ just went into the air instead of the solution.

There could be numerous other reasons why the gold didn't drop and sometimes it just takes some time for it to aggregate enough to fall to the bottom.

Göran

 

[kernels]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

Low pH is no problem. I have precipitated gold from gold chloride in more or less concentrated HCl directly after denoxing via evaporation. Though, I have started to dilute it with water because SMB reacted violently with the acid and most SO₂ just went into the air instead of the solution.

There could be numerous other reasons why the gold didn't drop and sometimes it just takes some time for it to aggregate enough to fall to the bottom.

Göran

Have a look at this video Göran, it was what I was remembering https://youtu.be/asAEqbDmGzo?t=567

 

[g_axelsson]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

Low pH is no problem. I have precipitated gold from gold chloride in more or less concentrated HCl directly after denoxing via evaporation. Though, I have started to dilute it with water because SMB reacted violently with the acid and most SO₂ just went into the air instead of the solution.

There could be numerous other reasons why the gold didn't drop and sometimes it just takes some time for it to aggregate enough to fall to the bottom.

Göran

Have a look at this video Göran, it was what I was remembering https://youtu.be/asAEqbDmGzo?t=567

Well, I might remember wrong, but Cody's lab isn't a role model for gold refining anyway. I might have had some water in my gold chloride, it's a number of years since I did it anyhow.

What I don't understand is how he could have solid SMB on the bottom of a beaker full of hydrochloric acid, I thought it would react violently releasing SO2.

Göran

 

[kernels]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

Low pH is no problem. I have precipitated gold from gold chloride in more or less concentrated HCl directly after denoxing via evaporation. Though, I have started to dilute it with water because SMB reacted violently with the acid and most SO₂ just went into the air instead of the solution.

There could be numerous other reasons why the gold didn't drop and sometimes it just takes some time for it to aggregate enough to fall to the bottom.

Göran

Have a look at this video Göran, it was what I was remembering https://youtu.be/asAEqbDmGzo?t=567

Well, I might remember wrong, but Cody's lab isn't a role model for gold refining anyway. I might have had some water in my gold chloride, it's a number of years since I did it anyhow.

What I don't understand is how he could have solid SMB on the bottom of a beaker full of hydrochloric acid, I thought it would react violently releasing SO2.

Göran

Yep, 100 percent agree, he has certainly made lots of mistakes along the way, but his videos are entertaining

I'm no chemist and not even at all experienced, that part of that video just stuck in my mind, I guess I'm always trying to remember reasons why things may not go as I expect. I wonder if maybe the SMB needs to be in solution (in H2O) for the reaction to take place ? I guess it would be pretty easy to test by pouring a bit of solid SMB into some concentrated HCl.

 

[UncleBenBen]

I wonder if maybe the SMB needs to be in solution (in H2O) for the reaction to take place ?

SMB will react when added dry, but there has to water available for it to react with. In the video, he evaporated all the water out. Without the oxygen atoms in the H₂O, the SMB can't react to form the O₂ in SO₂.

You can hear the SMB start to react when he first adds it, reacting with what little water was left from the HCl. Once the water was used up it stopped. I think that's how that works isn't it?

Edit: Scrap that thought, SMB should react with just acid to produce SO₂...

SMB with Acid:

Na2S2O5 + 2 HCl → 2 NaCl + H2O + 2 SO2

 

[goldsilverpro]

Also, if the PH if your gold bearing solution is too low (too acidic), the gold won't drop with SMB. You can try diluting the solution. I've seen the same result on a video where the guy was doing all his washing with concentrated HCL instead of water, added the SMB and no precipitation. Poured everything into a large beaker with water and the gold instantly precipitated.

Not true. It has nothing to do with an excess of HCl, a non-oxidizer. If an adequate amount of SMB doesn't drop all the gold, it's due to the excess of an oxidizer, such as nitric acid, bleach, or hydrogen peroxide.

 

[kurtak]

chadputt

are you sure the SMB you are using is the sulfite - or is it sulfate - - if its the sulfate it won't work - it needs to be sulfite

If all else fails you can put copper (large/heavy piece works better then fine wire) into your solution to cement your gold out - it won't be pure gold but it will give you your gold back which you can then re-do once you have a better idea of how to do this

Kurt

 

[chadputt]

Kurt.... I've come to the conclusion of cutting my losses and doing it all the right way. The copper plunge seems to be my option right now. Its taking a lot of time reading vast amount of information which most of you are advanced at this. That being said this forum has been plentiful. There are 100+ ways to skin a cat and I'm seeing there is just as many ways to extract gold (I have 2 cats that still have their fur) <----sensitive people...... Only thing I've learned was not to use 2 or 3 people's methods and include my own. Need one system and to stick with it, chemistry with the right chemicals.
SMB used was Bonide Stump Out