New gold cell not working

[oldtimmer]

After watching Steve's Videos several times and an accumilation of plated pins from an assortment of connectors, I decided that it was time to build a gold cell. Battery charger, Pyrex dish, lead strip for an anode, battery acid (32% sulfuric acid) glycerine and clips on wires.

Everything setup and ready. When I do a single plated pin, I get a lot of bubbles, battery charger goes to 6 amps, but the gold does not appear to get removed. After about 20 seconds, the acid around the pin gets very dark purplish black and continues until the pin is completely dosolved. I have tried two other plated items with about the same results. When I did a second pin, I removed it as soon as I saw the color change of the the material comming off from the pin. I then looked at the pin under an eye loop and it appears as if much of the gold plating is still on the pin.

Having a gold plated lid from a CPU, I decided to try it. It was slow to start and got the same bubbling action. No gold coming off as black precepitate, insted I am seeing small (tiny) pieces of gold plating starting to float on and in the acid. The base metal appears to be steel/nickel/iron and not copper. The gold is being removed and leaving the base metal exposed. In looking at the lid after I took it out of the cell, the gold was removed from the bottom up about 1/2 way up.

The battery charger goes to 6 amps when I use a single pin, or the large lid from a CPU. Any ideas as to what is the problem and what I have done wrong?

 

[jimdoc]

You have to use concentrated sulfuric such as Rooto drain cleaner.
I have found that is easier than concentrating the battery acid yourself.
Jim

 

[gorfman6154]

Oldtimmer, it seems to me that you are using the wrong strength of sulfuric acid. You need to use 100% sulfuric acid as found in certain drain openers. try to get a brand without any buffers. Check out Steve's videos again. I hope this helps. Some of the other members may be able to line you up with several brand names of drain openers that you can purchase. Good luck!! G.

 

[markqf1]

Boil your h2so4 down until it doesn't want to boil any more.

It will probably take on an amber color.


Mark

 

[Palladium]

Yep, Your concentration is not strong enough.

Forum book # 1 has all the info you need for this process.
Look in my sig line for the link. :wink:

 

[leavemealone]

There is a very easy solution to this problem oldtimmer.You will unfortunatly have to boil down the acid you have,but this is a very easy process.You can boil down the acid you have even with the dissolved pins already in it.Take a specified amount of the acid,say 900ml and boil it down to about 300ml.You will have multiplied your concentration by 3,turning your 32% into 90+%.You will have to watch it as it gets closer to the 90% range because the boiling point raises as the concentration raises.So it will boil very easily at first but will take considerable more heat as it concentrates.Once it has cooled and you pour it back into your cell you will need to add another dose of glycerin.And if any material has precipitated out,then you will want to filter the acid BEFORE you process any more material in it.This will take out the added base metals from when you completly dissolved the pins.That will help keep your powder more pure in the end.At this point you should be ready to continue as normal.
Johnny

 

[Palladium]

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=342&highlight=estimate+amount+gold+electronics

 

[oldtimmer]

Thanks for the help. I found my mistake by going over all of my notes. When I transposed all of my hand written notes to a nice clean set that I had put in a protected cover, I forgot to copy over "concentrated" for the Sulfuric Acid. As such, I made the mistake of assuming that regular battery acid would would work.

This is the first project after a cup of coffee in the morning.

 

[Emil]

oldtimmer, In Steve's video the lead is the Cathode and the gold is the Anode. When the bubbling stops he removes the base metals that are left to prevent or reduce the amount metal going into solution. Your first post stated that the lead was the Anode.

Emil

 

[oldtimmer]

After cleaning up the mistake and replacing the Sulfuric Acid with some good concentrated acid, the gold cell is working like advertised.

I made a very interesting discovery in the process. Tired of stripping CPU pins with acid? Try using the cell.... I have a few nice CPUs with gold plated lids that I had not got to processing. These CPUs are still intact and the lids had not been removed. I wanted to see the cell stripping the gold from the lid. Did a great job and very fast. When I removed the CPU and rinsed it, I noticed that the gold plating had been removed from almost all of the pins. The alligator clip was attached to several of the pins while holding the CPU. Apparently there is enough electrical contact internal in the CPU, plus the high current may have helped. I moved the clip to the pins that were not stripped to strip them. I have tried four different CPUs and will try more later. One that I tried was the AMD K6 with the Al lid removed and it also stripped the gold from the pins.

Photoshop is not working to crop the pictures so I will try to get it working and post pictures later.

 

[leavemealone]

lol....glad to hear it.
Johnny