newby first step

[jimdoc]

4metals mentioned it in this thread;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6551

And I have had some handles get rusty to the point of not trusting
them. And my Pyrex coffee pot's "stainless looking" handles (actually the strap)
get very rusty to the point that I don't trust them.

 

[callicom]

agitation speeds the process.rotate your reaction chamber in a sudden motion back and forth a couple of times a day to move the pins around,but not so violently to cause a spill.i do this with the wire handle on my bucket.

i was thinking of using a styck to push the pins over the bubbling, spinning it i probably less trouble, i`ll keep posting thanks

 

[callicom]

day four- the liquid has turned to a dark brown and i`m starting to see gold flakes floating around. it nice to see this happening especially knowing the cost is minimal and the products easy to get. i`ll keep an eye on the handle but i don`t see a problem on the short run, what do you guys do anyway , drill a couple holes and run a rope through them :?:

 

[Geo]

when your solution gets the color and consistency of Worcestershire sauce it will be saturated with copper and will not digest any more.if your container is large enough you might add more acid to whats there,if not turn off air supply and let foils settle (a couple of hours should do it) and slowly and carefully decant used solution to a new container careful not to disturb foils as much as possible.add more acid ,no more peroxide should be needed,restart air supply.filter used acid into a sturdy plastic container (a 5 gallon bucket will work for now) and place a lid on for later processing to remove copper.as for the handle, personally i think this is a non-issue.although good advise for someone that doesnt stay on top of whats happening to their equipment,and of all the people out there that work with chemicals im sure there are a few that dont but to me its like the tag on your hair dryer telling you not to use it in the shower.

 

[callicom]

day six-- i had to add alittle acid but there wasn`t many pins left so i only put a little, its realy all dissolving and i chequed the green stone and it looked quite healthy, it looks like it might serve for a few baths

 

[Geo]

great.sounds good so far.if your solution is saturated with copper it will have pushed out any gold that went into solution when you added peroxide so you might have a little black powder as well but its always a good idea to test with stannous chloride before processing the copper out of your solution.

 

[callicom]

what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:

 

[Geo]

what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:

when you heat hcl, gold can actually go into solution,the same with adding peroxide.when you put gold into hcl then add peroxide the initial color change you see is a yellow color,that's gold going into solution.as your solution becomes saturated with copper the gold will drop out of solution.it wont be much but when you decant and filter your foils may have some black powder.if you do this is probably gold.if your solution isn't saturated yet use it to start your next batch that way it will cement out any gold left in solution when it does become saturated.if the pins are digested let the foils settle and decant as much as possible without disturbing foils in the bottom.filter whats left into your receiving container.if you filter before decanting it will take forever and if your going to reuse the old solution there's no need to be too precise, just don't spill any.rinse foils in a separate container and add to you stock pot.keep all filters and place in a plastic container to dry.rinse foils in a little fresh hcl to get rid of any stray copper.pour rinse in your next batch and let foils dry in filter. whew! collect foils for refining.

 

[callicom]

yes it was a light yellow when i started the process and i was wondering if it was gold. to find out if the solution is saturated i guess i do a stanous :?:

 

[Barren Realms 007]

what are you saying :?: that i should add a little peroxide before i decant the solution :?: i`m ready to decant so i`ll wait for your answer before i go any further :!: i will take the bubbler out so the gold can settle at the bottom :mrgreen:

when you heat hcl, gold can actually go into solution,the same with adding peroxide.when you put gold into hcl then add peroxide the initial color change you see is a yellow color,that's gold going into solution.as your solution becomes saturated with copper the gold will drop out of solution.it wont be much but when you decant and filter your foils may have some black powder.if you do this is probably gold.if your solution isn't saturated yet use it to start your next batch that way it will cement out any gold left in solution when it does become saturated.if the pins are digested let the foils settle and decant as much as possible without disturbing foils in the bottom.filter whats left into your receiving container.if you filter before decanting it will take forever and if your going to reuse the old solution there's no need to be too precise, just don't spill any.rinse foils in a separate container and add to you stock pot.keep all filters and place in a plastic container to dry.rinse foils in a little fresh hcl to get rid of any stray copper.pour rinse in your next batch and let foils dry in filter. whew! collect foils for refining.

Actually this should only be possible if you have added nitric, peroxide, chlorinted tap water, clorox or another substance to dissolve your gold. HCL by itself should not cause this.

 

[Geo]

i may have had some impurity in my solution when i tried to remove solder by boiling in hcl acid but when i pulled the board out the gold foil had been removed and was not floating.at the time i didnt know about stannous chloride so i lost that little bit.i assumed the boiling hcl had put the gold into solution.i cant remember having anything else in the pot,no water or other chemical.that is a mystery ill have to explore.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

i may have had some impurity in my solution when i tried to remove solder by boiling in hcl acid but when i pulled the board out the gold foil had been removed and was not floating.at the time i didnt know about stannous chloride so i lost that little bit.i assumed the boiling hcl had put the gold into solution.i cant remember having anything else in the pot,no water or other chemical.that is a mystery ill have to explore.

A lot of the time it is best to set you up a container that you can put solutions like that in and let them set for a couple of days and then siphon off your solution. Put what settles to the bottom in a container and when you have a sizeable amount then process it. You can have your gold break loose in such small flakes on thinly plated material that you will not be able to see the flakes especially if your solution is heavily saturated with copper or other base metals.

 

[butcher]

HCl and oxidizer will dissolve gold, it is possible for atmospheric air to be the oxidizer, boiling hot HCl bubbles collecting air, but if any elemental base metals in solution, if any gold dissolved it would plate out onto remaining un-dissolved metals.

This is a bit off topic but on my mind now.

I do not know this for sure, but from my observations, although gold is harder to dissolve than copper, when I put HCL and strong oxidizer on a metal of copper and gold, it appears to me that the gold dissolves very quickly (yellow in solution) and as base metals dissolve the solution gets darker say green, or brown,(plating gold out of solution back onto base metals) so I feel gold will somewhat dissolve early in solution, although if there was no or very little oxidizer to dissolve the gold in the HCl you should have very little gold dissolve, as the oxidation of the metals would be much slower, and conversion of the metal oxides to chlorides would be slower.

here is something that crossed my mind with a solution of gold and base metals dissolved in solution, example copper and gold in aqua regia, when heating solution to vapor off NOx gases, to lower excess nitric in solution,
A pure gold solution may give up the nitric easily as it concentrates and convert to gold chloride salts,
But, the copper may take these gases and make copper nitrate in solution.
copper nitrate does not give up its nitrates easily, in fact if only copper nitrate was in solution I could evaporate it dry and still have copper nitrate salts,
And here we are not pure copper nitrate so we will eventually change the copper in our aqua regia to copper chloride solution,
my point being, not only will gold make a salt (colloid if you will with copper remaining in solution), but also make ridding nitrates more difficult, now this is speculation on my part but just another thing to consider, there is a lot of chemical reactions going on in a pot of aqua regia and metals so there may not be much way to tell if this happens or not, eliminating base metals prior to dissolving gold will result in success, base metals in solution (you better keep and understand the principle of the stock pot).

 

[Geo]

of coarse this happened before i found this forum.thanks to all of the members here i have a basic, very basic, understanding of what i'm doing now. i actually had the material before i had a plan as to how to refine it. a web search led me to Lazersteves website and from there i followed the link here.I've spent hundreds on chemicals and hundreds more on equipment and haven't made a penny. yet. but i have over a pound of gold foils and powder and am working on the refining process. i think i have the reclamation part understood,well, at least the parts ill be using.i just finished refining my first ounce of pure gold today, when i pour it into a bar ill post a pic of it as my very first one.

 

[callicom]

well i`ve decanted my solution into three smaller glassware that i will let settle for a couple of days so i can decant them and hopefully recover some more gold. meanwhile i seem to have quite a bit of foils left in my 5g bucket, after lunch i`ll be washing this with a little more hcl to remove the remaining copper that i`ll decant out again and repeat if need be so that i remain with only the gold and board parts that the fingers remained on. thanks for the help geo, after going through it once it will take all the guessing and hoping out of it. when i`ve decanted my three smaller glassware and got all the gold together i`ll be going to hcl and clorox and dropping the gold out with sodium bysulfite. i`ll keep posting the results, thanks again.

 

[Geo]

no problem at all,glad i could help.remember to keep your spent solution to reclaim the copper,not only for the value but with the copper its considered toxic waste.

 

[callicom]

well when i get to the copper part i`ll probably be calling again unless hokes could help me on this, i should know tomorow if i received my hard copy :mrgreen:

 

[callicom]

well so far so good, i`ve washed my stuff in hcl a few time if not more and transfered everything in new clean glassware, and added about a cup of hcl with the stuff and added bleach as i stirred. i was surprised to see all the foils dissapear so quickly and even the acid clear up with the plastic particles going to the top of the solution. right now ists filtering and i`ll be dropping it in a little while. i do see three to five particles in the bottom of my yellow solution so i guess i better filter it one more time before i drop the gold.

i`ve done this in my barn using a fan and i see i`ll need a fume hood so i don`t affect my health. i looked in the section (making your own tools) but i didn`t see any good plans but mostly what seemed trial and error kind of stuff , does anyone know where there is a simple easy to build plan i can use :?: thanks for everything its nice to see that piss looking stuff since i know its the gold :mrgreen:

 

[Geo]

you have to let the chlorine evaporate before you precipitate your gold. if you are impatient place a glass pan on your hot plate fill half way with water then place the container with your AuCl in the pan and set to high setting.be sure that the container with your gold is not sealed or pressure will build and it will burst.bring the water to a boil and let the container sit there till you see small bubbles form in your solution (dont let your solution come to a boil).take pan off the hotplate and sit on a dry cloth or oven mitt.make sure the container with the gold is open to let chlorine escape.let the solution cool to room temperature then place water in a glass container large enough for the solution and 2X that amount in water then add your solution.add SMB in small increments (about 20-30 ml at a time) and stir until liquid clears.stir vigorously till liquid becomes dark.let the solution sit over night and theres your black gold in the bottom.

 

[callicom]

will 24 hours be enough or should i wait 48 :?: