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Non-Chemical percipitate question

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dsinjc

Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
21
Location
ny
i am running my first batch ( woo hoo) i am using AR so far I have a very nice emerald green solution going.very dark.so I guess i need to reduce ph first with urea. I have been only able to find it in fertilizer ?? will that work cuz there is other stuff in it.also instead of sodium meta bisulfite, can I use sodium bisulfite ??.
So urea, drop, filter,wash, melt ??
 
Hello,
You must use +80% urea for neutralization. And if you get that stuff, you'll probably have a lot of impurities in it. Aim for 99%+ Urea (look on ebay)
Sodium Metabisulfite and sodium bisulfite are near the same. You will get the same results.
I hope it helps and good luck !
 
thanks for the help. I am excited that all of the spare computer stuff that i have collected througout the years might pay a small dividend. The liquid is a very dark green I had some bigger chunks in it. I pulled one out after 12 hours and there was clean copper on one side and scaly gross lookin stuff on the other.hope i didn'r do it wrong.
 
russford said:
"Your green solution indicates copper, but you will probably have some silver in there worth recovering.

Wrong!

He clearly stated that he dissolved his material in AR-----silver will have already been precipitated as silver chloride, so nothing would be recovered, assuming there was any present in the beginning. Having started with AR instead of nitric, virtually none of the silver would have gone in to solution.

The problem I see with this entire operation is the fact that AR was used prior to eliminating base metals. The fact that there was base metal remaining virtually assures that there will be little, if any, precious metal left in solution. The crud described on the one side of the copper is likely the values, having precipitated on base metals. Why would anyone process by that method?

I'm mystified by the lack of knowledge in folks that are attempting recovering precious metals. There's an abundance of good and proper information on this list, free for the reading, which makes mistakes like this not excusable.

There is no good reason to process base metals with AR, with a few exceptions. If your material copper, or a copper based alloy, if you don't strip the gold, or eliminate the base metal by dissolving it in nitric, or an equivalent substitute, you're spinning your wheels and have much to learn about refining.

Harold
 
It may appear to be unfriendly, but the information you dispensed is not in the interest of anyone that wants to learn to refine properly. Something needs to be said that will keep people from chasing their tails, and I'm not the least bit shy about doing so. Sorry if it offends, it was not meant to, but I would go far out of my way to instruct others to ignore your process. Not because I'm an ass, but because you clearly do not understand acceptable procedures, and are muddying the water with information that isn't in anyone's best interest, regardless of how well you may feel it works. There are readers of this forum that have had endless difficulties following your prescribed advice.

Refining isn't a stranger to me, having done so for a living for years. I am more than familiar with processes that yield excellent results and don't require endless roundabout methods to extract the values. Fact is, if you'd read some of the posts I've made regards procedures, you might learn a few things that will make your life much easier.

It's obvious you need to do some reading. Given your self proclaimed experience, you would have never mentioned precipitation of silver from an AR solution. By its nature, it will have already precipitated the silver. That was my point. You should have also known that precipitating gold from dirty solutions yields dirty gold that is difficult to bring fine, even with considerable washing. There are far better procedures that insure good results.

I'd like to recommend a book that will help you better understand acceptable procedures. It's titled Refining Precious Metal Wastes, written by C.M. Hoke. It will clearly state the reasons why your recommended procedures should be avoided.

Harold
 
russford said:
“..He clearly stated that he dissolved his material in AR----silver will have already been precipitated as silver chloride..”

Not if he started with AR.

russford,

I apparently overlooked this portion of your post.

To be perfectly honest, I am at a loss to understand your point.

If you start with AR and alloyed gold, you'll create some silver chloride, but virtually NO silver will be in solution. That, of course, has already been addressed in a previous post, and can be verified by reading Sir. T.K. Rose's book The Metallurgy of Gold, or Hoke's book as well. Silver and gold can not be in solution at the same time in an acid. You may not like the news, but that's the way it is.

I'd be in your debt if you would take the time to explain to me what your point is. One uses the process of inquartation to make it possible to dissolve gold alloy in nitric, eliminating base metals, along with silver, which can be, and often is, the added metal in the inquartation process. It need not be, although it is far easier and more economical to dissolve than copper or brass. The solids that remain after this process will be finely divided particles of high quality precious metal, and can then be easily dissolved in AR for final separation. The ultimate is when the particles retain their original form, so they are easily handled, but are honeycombed such that acid has perforated them to their core.

Why would the novice avoid this procedure and go directly to AR, which tends to be nothing short of trouble, and yields less than good quality gold under most circumstances?

Harold
 
".."Your green solution indicates copper, but you will probably have some silver in there worth recovering.."

I was referring to the sliver oxide sludge that was left when he disolved his batch - not the AR.

I will do as you say. I will become a lurker and read the back posts. I did not join this forum to engage the guru in debate. As you say I'm a novice! Let this be a lesson to other novice lurkers...... if you post anything here, you will be ridiculed instead of delt with in a kindly manner. I suppose that's not a bad idea on a forum such as this. At least that way you won't have a lot of misinformation or even alternative methods posted. I suppose there is truly only one acceptable way to skin a cat. :wink:

Having said that and as I walk out the door......

I never said that silver and gold could exist in the same sloution. You said I said that. Could you have misunderstood what I was talking about? If you look at the other post I made on the Tutorials questions forum you will see that I said:

"..That is exactly what I wanted because all of this will be going into the Aqua Regia and the acid reacts much more quickly and thoroughly to small thin pieces of gold rather than say, a solid wedding band....By droping the gold into water I exposed a lot more surface area and that's why my next step was to put everything into a nitric bath on the hotplate and let it simmer until all the fumes were gone. I drained off the liquid and dropped in some talbe salt to see if there was any silver. I got quite a bit of white precipatate which I believe to be silver..."

Please pay attention to my words "that's why my nest step was to put everything into nitric" that means before AR!!!!!
I leave you to your kingdom with your crown in place. ....rf
 
russford said:
".."Your green solution indicates copper, but you will probably have some silver in there worth recovering.."

I was referring to the sliver oxide sludge that was left when he disolved his batch - not the AR.

Having conveniently altered your original post, it is now a mute point, but you, indeed, did not say that, otherwise you wouldn't have talked about introducing salt to AR.

I will do as you say. I will become a lurker and read the back posts. I did not join this forum to engage the guru in debate.

Lurking isn't a bad idea for anyone that is new to a forum. It's a great way to conclude the level of information that is being dispensed by others, a measure, if you will, of where what you may know will fit with existing conversation. There are people on this forum that have dealt with the gold industry for more than 40 years. I am not one of them. They have brought to the table information that has been very revealing to the majority of readers----myself included. In some cases, processes that have been discussed are very foreign to others, and may not even make much sense until all of the equation is well studied. There's room for any and all procedures, as long as they are just that, procedures. The same does not apply to misinformation.

As you say I'm a novice! Let this be a lesson to other novice lurkers...... if you post anything here, you will be ridiculed instead of delt with in a kindly manner. I suppose that's not a bad idea on a forum such as this. At least that way you won't have a lot of misinformation or even alternative methods posted.

You just hit the nail right on the head. Misinformation. That is precisely what I corrected, and it should have been.

I suppose there is truly only one acceptable way to skin a cat. :wink:

Let me make one thing clear. One person doing something wrong for an endless period of time won't make it right. Nor will 100 additional people doing the same thing, still wrong, make it right. I dedicate far too much of my time to this forum, time spent with no hopes of any kind of a return aside from the possibility of helping others that are struggling with a procedure. To have someone come along and post misinformation that serves no purpose aside from clouding the water for others isn't very welcome, certainly not by me. This isn't a matter of finding a different mouse trap, this is a matter of insisting that a mouse trap that isn't functional being used to catch mice.

One of the most difficult things I had to do when I started following this forum was to endure the work-arounds that have been so kindly provided by others. In most cases the processes are totally unrelated to those that I used in my more than 20 years of refining for the jewelry industry. Still, I persevered, and came to understand that these processes were not in contradiction with refining procedures, they were simply a different approach to the same problems I, and others, had been solving with conventionally prepared solutions, commercial acids. They are one of the best things to have been contributed to readers, for in most cases, certain acids are not available without considerable difficulty and expense.

Unlike the above, you stated that one should precipitate silver from an AR solution. Perhaps it was in error on your part, that you simply stated your position incorrectly. If that was the case, you'd have gained considerably more respect by correcting your position instead of insisting that your way works fine and you'll continue to use it. The water had already been muddied by your erroneous comment, and you insured that it remained so.

I have spent countless hours privately trying to help others on this board recover from bad experiences. To have anyone fuel the fires of misinformation and allow it to go unchallenged undoes all the hard work that so many of us have contributed to others----leaving me with the question-----why am I here? How much of my time am I willing to discard as trash------when all it takes is one misinformed person with an attitude to post misinformation------then refuse to accept the smallest correction, instead of taking it as a personal affront.

Feel free to contribute to this, or any thread. Also, be prepared to hear from people like me that have invested a considerable amount of their time trying to be helpful, when your contributions are in error.

We won't always agree-----and there are times when I must bite my tongue------not because the other person is wrong----but because the other person uses a procedure that I did not. A good example is the use of an electric furnace to cast ingots. I owned one, but quickly discovered it was far more inconvenient to use than a Hoke torch and a melting dish, even for casting large (10 ounce) gold ingots. That is my choice. It appears that several others find an electric furnace to be in their best interest. That's called personal choice-----there is no right or wrong in this case. I must respect the other person's contributions, for they are viable solutions to problems, whether I endorse them, or not. Adding salt to AR isn't one of them.

Harold
 
I have held back from commenting on the forum other than for specific technical issues, usually when I need to know how to do something.

I believe I can honestly claim to have had played an important role in the creation of the forum. Both NOXX and Lasersteve have told me that the info I published for years on eBay, "Refining Gold from Electronic Scrap" and "Secrets of Refining Gold from Electronic Scrap". helped to get them into this field. My emphasis was on the ins and outs of electronic scrap, and learning what parts had value, for resale, and what items were best for refining and well as other aspects of the trade.

I have never claimed to be very knowledgeable in this field as to the refining , but only that I knew how to get SOME gold off of electronic scrap. For 15 years I floundered on my own trying to improve upon the methods I was using with little success. Knowing that my ways were lacking, I never tried to do any "production" volume in refining, but was content to just dabble and get satisfaction in producing a nugget or two, while losing plenty of values in the process. Knowing the shortcomings in my ways I was content to glean some income from my CD's on the subject that I was selling on eBay.

I don't feel I was leading people astray, since I did NOT claim to be able to recover gold efficiently, but only that I could get some gold. Because my methods were simple, others found that they too could do the same and were generally satisfied. I've always offered full money back on my CD's and eBook, and have not had a single taker.

In all those years I never produced at one time as much as a single ounce of gold. Now, armed with the info found on this forum I've had the confidence to attack this problem with accurate information. I recently recovered my first full ounce of gold, and captured the silver as well (after using nitric acid to pre-treat the scrap). Now I'm almost done producing my second ounce of gold.

I'm tired of doing things WRONG out of ignorance. I now turn to the seasoned experts on the forum who graciously give of their time and knowledge to impart info that is often well guarded from others. I am deeply indebted to contributors such as Harold_V, and Lasersteve, as well as many others.

Even though I still continue to sell my eBook on eBay, "Secrets of Refining Gold from Electronic Scrap", I have dropped the price down to $9.99, (I've sold it for as much as $50.00 for a time). Lots of people still find it to be a good introduction to the subject. I now tell all buyers of the eBook that they owe it to themselves to join the Gold Refining Forum, and that there they will find both BETTER and SAFER methods of doing this.

One thing I believe I can take credit for is the "Crockpot" method that is listed on the forum. As far as I know I am the originator of that method. I first tried it several years ago, and for over a year published the info on eBay for FREE. I came up with it as a way to do pins. If I'm mistaken in my belief of being the originator, I don't mind being corrected.

My goal has always been to find the best and safest methods, and to lead others to them as well. This continues to be my main objective and I am overjoyed that the forum exists for the benefit of all. I encourage you and other valuable contributors to continue to do so. Once again, my sincere thanks.

Regards, Steve

Noble Metals Recovery, LLC
 
I'd like to follow my own post with a technical question.

After processing some CPU's in nitric acid (with the metal plates removed) there's a fine white powder precipitate in the acid. I've added salt to drop the silver chloride, which formed the normal looking white curds. Now I have the white curds and the white precipitate mixed together after pouring off the acid and rinsing.

Any ideas as to what the fine white powder is, and how to separate the silver chloride from it?
 
Excellent post Steve,

Truer words have never been spoken here! :wink:

It's true that the forum has your CD's in it's deepest roots. I'm sure a lot of the members have purchased your material.

Regarding the solution, if it was saturated with copper chloride the white salt you mentioned could very well be a cuprous chloride (copper I chloride- CuCl). It can also form if too much SMB is used when dropping the gold from solutions high in dissolved copper chlorides. It's soluble in dilute HCl.

Other possibilities are for the unknown white powder are lead or tin nitrate compounds if solder was present in the source material. Lead will make more crystalline salts while tin will form a gel like material. Hot water should remove lead nitrate.

You should have filtered the solution clear before dropping the silver to avoid mixing the two precipitates. Your best bet now is to rinse the silver chloride with lots of hot water.

Harold and some others may have more suggestions.

Steve
 
Thanks again Steve.
Without you, I wouldn't have come into this thing and this forum wouldn't exist :D You can also add to your credits that is it gold refining who mostly made me choose my studies.

As a result, we both helped each other unconsciously.
 
I would suspect that it is cuprous chloride, since I have not yet added any SMB. Would anyone know offhand how to dissolve the cuprous chloride away from the silver chloride?
 
Assuming you haven't introduced any sulfuric acid-----any lead present should still be as a nitrate, and would dissolve in hot water. It has to be introduced, thoroughly stirred, allowed to settle, and decanted before the solution cools, otherwise the lead precipitates again. In your favor, hot solutions tend to settle rather quickly. It may require more than one repetition.

Harold
 
There could be sulfuric acid in the mix. I used battery acid and sodium nitrate to make the nitric acid, so there could have been some free sulfuric acid which I guess would have produced a sulfate that doesn't dissolve in water, hot or cold.

This batch doesn't matter too much. I'll know what to do on the next one to avoid the problem of having an unwanted precipitate mixed with the silver chloride.
 
If it's an issue, could be you can dissolve everything that can with ammonium hydroxide, then recover the silver from that solution. Any lead left behind as a sulfate won't go in to solution.

Hoke's book discusses that as one of the testing methods when you are dealing with an unknown white substance, if memory serves. I haven't looked at my copy in years. I used the test on rare occasions, but I have never experienced silver recovery from ammonium hydroxide, so I can't report any experiences in that regard.

Harold
 
Silver is very easy to reclaim from ammonical solutions.

Acidify the solution with HCl and you will have a nice white percipitate of silver chloride that settles rapidly. You must add enough HCl to the ammonia solution to convert all the ammonical silver to silver chloride. Add the acid slowly as the reaction produces lots of heat and thick white fumes (Ammonium Chloride). Don't breath the white smoke.

Pour off the liquid leaving the white powder (AgCl) and rinse with several washes of warm water. Proceed to converting the AgCl using 5-10% H2SO4 (twice the volume of AgCl) and an iron stirring rod.

The silver changes from white to dark gray as it converts. The iron stirring rod (I use an old pc case support arm) pushes the silver out of the solution as it dissolves with stirring. The progress of this reaction can be monitored by the color change of the silver chloride in the bottom of the beaker. It's very interesting to do this reaction... almost magical. I was amazed the first time I ever converted silver chloride this way. I learned the second part of this method from Hokes book.

Steve
 

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