If there are 8 fl oz per cup, 44 fl oz would be about 51/2 cups, or about 1300 ml.
118 ml of HCl will hold an ounce of gold easily, more if concentrated, (This is from Hokes statement, four fluid ounces of HCl and one fluid ounce of HNO3 will dissolve an ounce of gold).
So 4 fluid ounces is about 120 ml or about 1/4 cup so a quarter of cup of HCL will dissolve an ounce of gold (with a strong oxidizer like nitric acid), and this solution can be concentrated down quite a bit (de-Noxing solution), and still hold the gold in solution as chlorides.
With HCl/NaClO (bleach) the volume is tremendously higher, for a couple of reasons (the bleach is almost all water), and the acid is neutralized by the bleach forming salts in solution, so with this solution you would have quite a bit more volume of liquid involved and could not evaporate it down as far before it became just one big lump of salt, with gold chloride salt being one of them involved, but at this point you still have an awful large volume of liquid for having only six grams of gold in solution.
As we discussed above with the HCl and bleach we neutralize the HCl and can make NaCl and other salts in solution, you may see these as you evaporate the solution, with the SMB added we will also have some sodium sulfate or bisulfate salts, all of these are water soluble.
The gold may or may not begin to reduce as you concentrate, (it probably will not as the SMB has already reacted previously), but just in case. you can dissolve the saved salts in water to see if any gold may have also reduced with them (if the gold is reduced to metal, brown or black powder, it will not dissolve with the other water soluble salts).
The cotton looked like powders to me, that makes much more sense now, I believe you are getting close, we can see the violet from your stannous chloride test, not as violet as I would expect for that much gold in solution, so I am guessing we may still have some chlorine to get rid of from solution, (keep in mind also if the solution is not that acidic it will also hold chlorine easier) but it is looking like you are getting closer to getting your gold, I would like to see that stannous reduce the gold to a strong violet colored Q-tip, or cotton ball, (you will probably need more HCl acid after removing more liquid volume), if we can get the gold to reduce well with the stannous test, then we should be able to bring the (acidic) solution back up with water diluting it before trying to precipitate the gold again with fresh SMB.
These are just my ideas of what is going on, and how I may try to deal with it, although my Ideas may not always be right, and there could be other or better ways of going about this to get your gold from solution.
118 ml of HCl will hold an ounce of gold easily, more if concentrated, (This is from Hokes statement, four fluid ounces of HCl and one fluid ounce of HNO3 will dissolve an ounce of gold).
So 4 fluid ounces is about 120 ml or about 1/4 cup so a quarter of cup of HCL will dissolve an ounce of gold (with a strong oxidizer like nitric acid), and this solution can be concentrated down quite a bit (de-Noxing solution), and still hold the gold in solution as chlorides.
With HCl/NaClO (bleach) the volume is tremendously higher, for a couple of reasons (the bleach is almost all water), and the acid is neutralized by the bleach forming salts in solution, so with this solution you would have quite a bit more volume of liquid involved and could not evaporate it down as far before it became just one big lump of salt, with gold chloride salt being one of them involved, but at this point you still have an awful large volume of liquid for having only six grams of gold in solution.
As we discussed above with the HCl and bleach we neutralize the HCl and can make NaCl and other salts in solution, you may see these as you evaporate the solution, with the SMB added we will also have some sodium sulfate or bisulfate salts, all of these are water soluble.
The gold may or may not begin to reduce as you concentrate, (it probably will not as the SMB has already reacted previously), but just in case. you can dissolve the saved salts in water to see if any gold may have also reduced with them (if the gold is reduced to metal, brown or black powder, it will not dissolve with the other water soluble salts).
The cotton looked like powders to me, that makes much more sense now, I believe you are getting close, we can see the violet from your stannous chloride test, not as violet as I would expect for that much gold in solution, so I am guessing we may still have some chlorine to get rid of from solution, (keep in mind also if the solution is not that acidic it will also hold chlorine easier) but it is looking like you are getting closer to getting your gold, I would like to see that stannous reduce the gold to a strong violet colored Q-tip, or cotton ball, (you will probably need more HCl acid after removing more liquid volume), if we can get the gold to reduce well with the stannous test, then we should be able to bring the (acidic) solution back up with water diluting it before trying to precipitate the gold again with fresh SMB.
These are just my ideas of what is going on, and how I may try to deal with it, although my Ideas may not always be right, and there could be other or better ways of going about this to get your gold from solution.
