Need information on acids

[Martijn]

Great article overall you setup is the most important thing ....fumes can be invisible and deadly and saturate things

I've been prepping for about a year I've acquired many different ways to try my timeline is spring till fall wherein can open garage I have a 6 inch vortex fan with carbon filters for direct venting and will run a 20 inch van at door equipment setup within 5 ft of door I also have either masks there are safer ways but not efficient ..... Not matter how long I've been prepping I get new info and thankyou

Welcome to the forum.
Tell us more of what kind of material you have and what your procesding plans are please.

Fans are important for ventialtion of fumes away from you but make sure they do not get in contact with the acid fumes or that they can resist it.
Filters will saturate in time, scrubbers are continuously efficient if monitored well.
Prevention of excessive fumes escaping should be the first thing to control. By slow reactions and fume reflux into the vessel.

Martijn.

 

[aferland66]

Be very careful when using HCL/Bleach
Because it will release Chlorine gas
that is very toxic and If You breath long enough
it will Kill You!
Please Don’t breath those very poisoning fumes/gas.
again this is very serious
It will Kill You if You breath it long enough

When using HCL/Bleach please use a gas mask and a well ventilate it area
away from animals and others persons

If You use HCL/Bleach
And I Hope You Don’t use it.

Just add a drop of Bleach
one at the time when is need it
until gold is dissolve it.

forget the crap thing (1-3) or (1-1)
You can see on internet
That’s a Big mistake from new peoples
that can cost they money and probably their own life.

That measure of (1-1) or (3-1)
that is to much Bleach and will release so much chlorine gas that can kill You and others person and animals

Be very careful when dealing with Chlorine gas

I personally Don’t use HCL/ Bleach never again.

A friend of mine almost died because Chlorine gas.

He had 15 years of knowledge
and He make a little mistake and He almost died

HCL/Peroxide is bit better to use.

HCL/Peroxide is what I'm thinking of using. Sreetips has a video on gold fingers with HCL/Peroxide 3%, I will start with that but would like to know if a higher % Peroxide will do the job a bit quicker? His video take more than a month of AP to get all the foils off. I would like to know if there is anything that can be done about the fumes? I'm not that into releasing toxic stuff into the air like that. Can the fumes be dissolved in a bath of liquid and later neutralized? or passed through a cooler to condense them? or anything?

I will be building a fume hood before I start any of the Acid stuff, and will be doing it outside next spring, but if there is a way to stop those gasses from going into the environment, I would love to know.

 

[aferland66]

You probably mean a list with more metals, not more acids and other solvents.
Like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_tableOr:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility_chartStick to the acids and processes you have and need, not more.
Now if you look at copper sulfate is soluble, but copper does not dissolve in sulfuric unless its hot and concentrated, so you need experience to understand how metals react to acids when cold, hot, dilute or concentrated, and which metal to treat in which order to avoid problems with separation.

Don't over think it.
Read Hoke's.

I ordered Hoke's book (I hate reading on a screen), I was very surprised that it was from 1940, I would of thought that the E Waste we have these days is very different from the mix of metals back then. I get that the chemistry does not change, but the mix of metals must have. Anyway, I will be getting it soon from Amazon.

 

[Shark]

HCl with an aquarium air pump will take about 5-6 days to remove finger foils if an excess volume is used. If you think ahead you will see that the excess is not wasting acids. If you use higher strength peroxide you run the risk of putting gold into solution. This isn’t a huge problem, but more of an annoyance.

Stick to the HCl and an air pump, they get the job done very well.

 

[aferland66]

The biggest mistake that new people do is to treat Precious metals refining as a Hobby

Don’t do that mistake.

Refining is a very serious business,Not a Hobby

(that was a good advise from a person here in the forum).

Before working with acid
learn the trade
Refining can be a very rewarded career.

If You learn it the right,that is how it should be.

Read Hoke’s Book
ask question
Here are lot of good peoples that will gladly answer and will help You in Your endeavor

Just to be clear, I always treat my hobbies with the highest respect and don't cut corners. I turned my last hobby, keeping reptiles, into a business for 12 years. I'm here asking questions because working with chemicals and fumes and possible bad reactions is not a game to me. I will put as much work into this hobby of mine as I would into a full blown business.

The only reason I call this a hobby is because of the time I will be spending on it. My IT job keeps me busy, so I'll be doing this mostly on weekends, it does not mean I'm not very serious about it.

 

[aferland66]

HCl with an aquarium air pump will take about 5-6 days to remove finger foils if an excess volume is used. If you think ahead you will see that the excess is not wasting acids. If you use higher strength peroxide you run the risk of putting gold into solution. This isn’t a huge problem, but more of an annoyance.

Stick to the HCl and an air pump, they get the job done very well.

Wow I love that quote from Eleanor Rosevelt. My plan is to start with the fingers as suggested by many here.

HLC alone will put what metals into solution?
Once I have the foils, how do I get the gold into solution without Nitric if possible? Will that bring along any other metals?
Most of what I've read and seen is using AP, at this point I'm pretty sure that is HCL/Peroxide for removing base metals, why go with HCL alone?

 

[Shark]

The peroxide ads extra oxygen to the HCl. The air pump does this while reducing the ability to over oxygenate the HCl. Too much oxygen will cause the gold to go into solution. Get the foils to come off and filter them out. Filtering the foils should also catch any gold cemented out from to much oxygen. Once you have the old into solution and since it is thin foils, you can use HCl and bleach to dissolve the foils.

The air pump does the work of the peroxide and reduces the risk of over oxidizing the solution. Less chance of putting gold into solution. Less gold in solution can mean more gold recovered.

 

[Martijn]

I ordered Hoke's book (I hate reading on a screen), I was very surprised that it was from 1940, I would of thought that the E Waste we have these days is very different from the mix of metals back then. I get that the chemistry does not change, but the mix of metals must have. Anyway, I will be getting it soon from Amazon.

Well you could just download the free printer friendly pdf from this forum version which has side notes by a member because we do chemistry a little different, like tasting salts and such. The basics stay the same.

 

[minero74]

I’m Glad to hear that You take safety very serious

Safety,that’s the first and biggest step in refining .

Your health and well being should be Your first priority.

Have baking soda and water near You all the time,will be help you to neutralize acid in case that you have an spill or splash
wash hand,face with water with baking soda dissolve it in it.

Martijn said:
Prevention of excessive fumes escaping should be the first thing to control. By slow reactions and fume reflux into the vessel.

I use HCL/Peroxide 3%
and add Drops of peroxide 3% to HCl
one at the time until gold is dissolve it
and it’s work perfectly for me
And almost not produce fumes

personally i’m against using HCL/Beach
process
I hate it,that’s my personal view
I use it before,but is hard to control the fumes emission and is dangerous
so I discard that HCL/Bleach process

HCL/peroxide 3 % is cleaner if You do it the right way

There lot of guys here with more experience than me
I’m just a miner who adopt some process that refiner here use
for my mining experiments

 

[aferland66]

Does temperature affect the AP process? I'm pretty sure it's yes, but I'm asking since it's in the minus Celsius where I live. I guess it's no time to start AP on fingers?

 

[Golddigger76]

Yes temperature does effect how fast acids will dissolve metal.
Being cold will not stop the reaction from happening but can suppress it.

Heated acids will dissolve your metals faster but you can use an aquarium heater to make the process speed up a little.

Even with frigid temperatures acid/ peroxide will do just fine but adding a air bubbler will help, just don't get carried away with the peroxide, a little bit will get it started.
If you added a lot of peroxide it's not going to make much difference other than you will increase the waste solution that needs to be treated, and you will waste money that can be spent on something meaningful like nice beakers or other needed chemicals.