Newbie needs some advise

[michelemalatesta]

Hi, I spent a couple of months researching the chemical process of recovering gold and platinum. I downloaded printed and put the book Refinin precious metals wastes by cm hoke into a binder. I read it a couple of times still not completely understanding but that comes with actually do the process. I ordered the kit from I shore with the sub zero.

Here is what happened. I put the subzero and muriatic acid in a crock pot and added my metals. The content of the metals were gold pins from computers some 14 k jewlery and some cell phone parts that tested up for gold. I performed this process 3 times....the first time I did not filter....I can understand that...the second time I didn't dump off all of the acid before the rinse and I redisolved the gold...this time this is what i have...

I believe I followed all of the directions correctly, I put the mud from the firsts and second batch in the solution, and also computer parts and jewlery that tested up for gold most only testing 10 k . I heated up the solution in a crock pot and let it go for a couple hours. Then I added the urea, it did not fiz but i added another pinch just to be sure. I filtered the liquid to make sure no other undisolved metals were in the solution. Then I added the solution to the storm precipitant. I let it set for about 20 minutes. I poured off the acid and in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket was about an inch of brown metalic mud. I then added the water to rinse. I let it set for about 20 minutes to settle to the bottom and proceeded to pour the liquid off expecting to see the mud again. There was nothing there. The 5 gallon bucket after adding the water still has a very strong odor. Does anyone know what I could have done wrong and how do I get the gold out of the 5 gallons of water?

 

[Trustworthysole3]

I feel your pain shore left me out to dry many times before I stopped using them. Number one job is to use your gold test solution shore sent you and find your gold. The stuff shore uses is very temp sensitive like above or no go. Find your gold and tell me what the conditions are like what is in etc.

 

[chemist]

It is possible that the gold has redissolved in the acid because the nitric was not completely neutralized by the urea.
Like trustworthysole suggested, you need to use your stannous chloride solution (a.k.a. precious metals detection liquid) to figure out if the gold is still in solution. I wouldn't dispose of anything until you figure out what is going on.

 

[michelemalatesta]

Ok, this is what I have, the wash water, I wasn't sure how to test that but this is what I did. After letting it set for a couple hours, Its still cloudy but I poured it off and at the bottom there is some white mud. I tested that with the amonia and it turns gray, then I tested the water with the gold detecting vial and it shows black on the paper towel. so I think my gold is in the wash water. I also tested the acid in the crock and that also turns dark brown telling me there is also gold there but i think most of the gold is in the wash water.

 

[michelemalatesta]

Ive been reading the other posts and If I understand it right the white substance at the bottoom of my rinse water is copper chlorine. As soon as i move the bucket to pour off the water it redisolves in the water. I'm not sure what to do with this water or how to get the gold out of it.

Thank you for any advise This site is great!!! I just signed up for it yesterday and I have found alot of useful information.

Michele

 

[chemist]

Are you now sure that you have neutralized all of the nitric? Try taking a small amount of the wash solution (a few millilitres) and adding smb to it. If you get the gold to precipitate, then great. If not, the problem may be that you have not fully neutralized the nitric. I would try adding a small amount of urea to your small amount of wash solution. If the urea creates bubbles, then you still have nitric in solution. Watch out for foaming when you add the urea.

 

[michelemalatesta]

First let me thank your for your help it is greatly appreciated. Now this is what I did, first I checked the acid that I first put precipitant in and it showed there is still gold in there, then I checked the rinse bucket and that also showed gold. Both containers smell very strong, i'm not sure if that has any bearing on this but, I added more urea to both containers. then I added precipitant to that.. Im not sure how long to let it set before pouring off, I don't think there was any mention of that in anything that I have read. The original container is was a brown color and my rinse bucket is a blueish white color. Am I doing everything right so far?

 

[michelemalatesta]

Oh, by the way, I did the test on a small amount first. I added a lil bid of the precipitant and nothing happened, then i added some urea, no foaming but I did see some bubbles. A very small amout. I added precipitant again and nothing.

 

[michelemalatesta]

ok, I added more urea and then put precipitant into the acid solution. I waited a couple hours and did a test on the liquid to see if the gold was thrown down and its not..The acid test turned dark black. So I added more urea again..How much urea should I be using and should it still have a strong smell?

 

[Trustworthysole3]

Put in the urea until it does not bubble at all and watch your Temperature if below 70 deg F then it can take days for the stuff to drop. Do not keep adding the smb until the bubbling has completely stopped. When the urea has stopped bubbling and a few granules remain on the bottom then try the smb. You should see a color change. Have you watched Lazersteves videos yet? He has been a god send for me in the refining field. As previously stated do not throw away anything until you have your gold.

 

[michelemalatesta]

I have don'e a couple of searches for his video but I havent come across any link. Do you have the linK? I also wanted to purchase his cat video.

Thank you for your input. I'm going to do the precipitate next. and i'll poke around a lil bit more for the videos.

Michele

 

[dick b]

Here is Steves website:
http://www.goldrecovery.us/
You need to agree to the terms and use the password to get in
Username: gold
Password: goldm1ner*

dickb

 

[michelemalatesta]

Ok, I have added the smb and the gold still has not dropped. I read through older posts and If i'm understanding corectly i have chloride. Thats why nothing is dissolving. I know that I put several different metals in my solution without running it through the nitric acid or the acid peroxide first. Lesson learned. Now what do I do?

 

[butcher]

here's how I would mess with this, a copper buss bar boil this in solution to syrup but not to crystal salts, bush off busbar into solution.
(Save the bar for later use some gold will plate to it)
add HCl to this syrup to wet, boil down again to syrup, (this will eliminate the nitric).
add at least 3 volumes of water, see if you have a white precipitant of silver, adding a small amount of HCL till no more silver precipitates, let this settle overnight, if you see silver chloride white powder, now you will have copper and silver and gold in powders if they were present, carefully decant (remove liquid), test this liquid with stannous chloride spot test to determine if any gold still in solution,
these copper gold silver powders I would incenerate to drive off any chlorides, and to oxidize any base metals present, heat them slowly till they drive off all liquid raising heat slowly untill they glow red (in air or oxygen) but do not melt them back to metal, let cool, and if I were you I would put then in a jar and store them for a couple of rainy days and read up on the forum of the best way to process these, I would forget the shore product, use the real acids (or make your own shore products from fertilizers)
forget about Urea, use evaporation method instead, rid base metals before going for the gold, and if you do study and don't understand something there are dozens of people here willing to help,
I would start my study by looking at eliminating base metals with nitric and maybe how to make nitric acid, (then use these powder to practice with), then maybe the Aqua regia process, then how to eliminate nitric, then recovering silver from nitric, then how to make stannous chloride and use it to test with, then how to precipitate the gold, and Harolds wash proceedure and to tell if these powders need re-refined, then how to melt to beutiful gold buttons, look for Hokes book, Harolds posts are also a great source of info, I hope you dont live in the desert, here in Oregun we have plenty of rainy days, and can have time to read, and I dont mind getting wet.
keep us posted of ypur progress.

 

[michelemalatesta]

Thank you very much for your reply help. I spent much of the day looking up this process. I wasn't able to find many posts on copper bus bar but from what I did find, let me just make sure im understanding correctly if you don't mind. We are adding the copper to eliminate the other metals but, some gold may be removed as well?

I have two things going on here. I have my rinse water, which is a blue color with white at the bottom. When I tested the white sediment it tests for gold. So i should decant most of the liquid and then start the process that you have explained?

Then I have the original aqua regia solotion that is also testing for gold.

I think I understand what I have done wrong in the first place. First I added to many metals. I now know that I should have cleaned everything up first with the lye then with the nitric acid. That all makes since to me. Then when I put the metals in the aqua regia in a crock, I covered the crock 3/4 with a lid. Not allowing the other metals to evaporate?

Is there any other searches you can recommend? I searched copper bus bar boil, copper bus bar,

And I have one more question, I went onto steves site to order his videos, I am interested in the catalytic converter refining and also a full video of refining computer scrap. It does not give me an option to pay for the videos I can watch what he has there.

 

[goldsilverpro]

I haven't taken the time to wade!! through this thread, so my comments may be meaningless.

michelemalatesta,

We are adding the copper to eliminate the other metals but, some gold may be removed as well?

Take a look at this simplified electromotive series. The only metals precipitated by copper are those below copper in the series, including gold. Anything above copper will remain in solution
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=821

Not allowing the other metals to evaporate?

The metals don't evaporate. The solution will evaporate from an open container, but the metals will stay in the pot.

 

[butcher]

As GSP stated this uses the reactivity series of copper to precipitate your values from solution, basically cementing out your values, as powder, the acid and heat will replace your values with copper in solution and the copper will push out values from solution,

Normally I would remove copper bar and brush it off in solution when I was sure that most all values have precipitated, as if the copper was left in for the whole evaporation process we would also add copper to the solution, which will take a little more nitric to eliminate in the nitric step, this can be done also in an acidic solution and if not too strongly heated (giving time to work) the copper would replace values in solution and only dissolve as much copper to saturate and replace free acid to a copper salt in solution, this can take some time (by boiling above we may add some more copper but speed up process),

The evaporation process will eiminate the oxidizer's like nitric in solution that will not let the gold precipitate, they are not easy to eliminate, this is the purpose of several boils with HCl additions,

The slow heating of these precipitates is because as we heat these salts of metals the acids concentrate and the anion portion starts to concentrate and drive off as gases, a dry powder will melt and liquify to a syrup and bubble off the gasses changing this chloride salt to a bubbling mass of chlorine releasing syrup, My feeling is too strong of heating at this point may possibly result in loss of gold either in hot gasses or sputtering bubbles popping, slowly raising heat just eases my mind and slowly releases chlorine gas (or what ever acid portion was to make these metal salts), and not my values,then raising the heat to red hot in air will oxidize the metal powders that will oxidize, I do not believe the gold would oxidize here, this will help later in the process, especially if there are troublesome base metals involved, and I believe would also help acids later in process not to have to use their power doing as much oxidizing, another point here is with this inceneration of metals we have eliminated the previous acid from these salts, (a salt is a metal disolved in an acid and forms crystals or salts of these metals, example: a silver chloride powder is a salt of the metal cation of silver, and the anion of the acid chloride, it still contains the chloride) (and if we dissolved this chloride salt in another acid such as nitric we would form aqua regia, which if we were not wanting to dissolve gold would defeat our purpose of just eliminating the base metals in nitric and leaving our gold undissolved), so roasting or inceneration drives out previous acid cation from salt.

A buss bar is just a chunk of copper, normally found in the electrical breaker panel,the bar that distributes main current to each breaker in the panel, the reason for not using copper wire is that it is a smaller surface area, and would dissolve easier in solution, and harder to clear of gold that may plate,
the copper bus bar is also electrically refined so has a higher purity, an alternative take a piece of new clean copper plumbing pipe (not quit as pure) about 6" long, cut it long ways slitting it, unroll it out to a flat plate punch a hole in it to hang it on a copper wire, sand off surface and use this as your copper buss bar.

read this carefully and hopefully it makes sense, I have a hard time explaining.

 

[michelemalatesta]

First I would like to thank you for taking the time to explain that to me, that was alot of typing. Yes I think I understand but im going to read it a couple times before I do anything. I will look it over tonight a couple times then I will dive in tommorow. I will let you know how I make out. Again, Thank you all for your help. This site has been very helpful, thank god for computers and communities.

Michele

 

[michelemalatesta]

Oh by the way that link was very helpful as well. Thank you all for your support!

 

[Harold_V]

The evaporation process will eiminate the oxidizer's like nitric in solution that will not let the gold precipitate, they are not easy to eliminate, this is the purpose of several boils with HCl additions,

That isn't a requirement for cementing the values. Simply adding copper in a form that can be retrieved when the values are down is all it takes. I do not recommend any heating, aside from warming the solution if one is working in a cold environment. An attempt to evaporate anything can be a mistake in that you hope to have a solution that is not thick at the end of the cycle, so the cemented values will settle well. It is VERY desirable that all base metals remain in solution, so they can be separated from the cemented values.

Reducing the volume of solution by evaporation isn't a requirement, in other words, and can work against you.

One should look at the cementing of values as a recovery process, not a refining process.

Harold