plz help: which is the suitable method?

[Abdo1992]

Good morning everyone, and thanks for this great forum, I have two sources of gold: 1. gold-copper ingots with gold 4-5% or 1K so to speak 2. Rocks and sands with gold >10% and some are 50%, what is the best method of extraction for each?,the sand contains silica and the rocks have lots of iron MAINLY. is electrolysis good for both or the solvent extraction is good only for the sands and rocks ????
thank you in advance my friends.

 

[Darkness Falls]

Good morning!

Please go to this thread and read up!

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=6873#6873

Welcome to the forums!

 

[rickbb]

Melt and pour the ingots into shot or flakes, then soak in Hcl to dissolve the copper. Siphon off the Hcl with the dissolved copper and wash the remaining gold for further refining or melt and pour for new higher gold content ingots.

Crush the rocks and sand, then use gravity separation, (water, panning, sluice box, blue bowl), and so on to recover the free gold.

 

[jeneje]

Rocks and sands with gold >10% and some are 50%, what is the best method of extraction for each?,the sand contains silica and the rocks have lots of iron MAINLY.

Welcome to the forum. Have you had a fire assay done on the material? I see you are stating some rocks have >10% and some are in the 50% range of Au. What type of tests have you had done so far to validate this claim?

With this type of concentration, grinding and gravity will produce the best results. Once you are down to 200 mesh and below, use chapman to smelt the remainder, this will recover up to 90% or better of the fines from the black sands. If, this is Sulfide ore, you will need to use a different type of flux altogether.

Trying to leach the free gold from sand with Fe is a total waste of time. The Fe will saturate the leach rather fast allowing any gold that may have been in solution, to cement back out as finely divided black powder. I have however, used HCl to remove the Fe first in a very small test batch, then use SSN to recover any gold that may have been in the test.

Good luck,
Ken

 

[kurtak]

Melt and pour the ingots into shot or flakes, then soak in Hcl to dissolve the copper. Siphon off the Hcl with the dissolved copper and wash the remaining gold for further refining or melt and pour for new higher gold content ingots.

rickbb

What I underlined above is NOT true --- HCl alone will not dissolve copper - it needs an oxidizer - the problem being HCl with an oxidizer will also dissolve gold

If you are thinking AP/CuCl2 that's different & if that's what you mean you should say so along with at least some basic instruction - other wise you above advice is useless

Abdo1992

If you want help you need to tell us more - do you have a ingot that is 1 kilo that is 4 - 5 % gold & the rest copper - or do you have ingot(s) that you think will total 1 kilo gold if they all have 4 - 5 % gold --- meaning MANY kilos of copper ingots & at 4-5 % gold it should add up to a kilo of gold

How do you know its 4 - 5% gold

What was the source of the ingot(s)

Are there other metals in the ingots

If so what are they & what is the percentage of copper

Its hard to help if you don't give complete information

Kurt

 

[NobleMetalWorks]

Melt and pour the ingots into shot or flakes, then soak in Hcl to dissolve the copper. Siphon off the Hcl with the dissolved copper and wash the remaining gold for further refining or melt and pour for new higher gold content ingots.

Crush the rocks and sand, then use gravity separation, (water, panning, sluice box, blue bowl), and so on to recover the free gold.

When dissolving copper in HCl, it should be diluted, and you need an oxidizer, oxygen works, H2O2 works, Nitric Acid, etc. Unless there is oxygen in your solution of HCL, it will not dissolve the copper.

Scott

 

[NobleMetalWorks]

You could make a copper cell if you have a rectifier, and suitable container. This would be considered a copper proposition, the impurity or by product being gold and whatever else is not copper. This will end up as a mud in the anod basket if you are using that type of cell.

You could also fractionalize it, or pour into find shot and dissolve in AR, then use a precipitant that will not drag down copper also, or extract the gold using BDG, etc.

For the sand and rocks, you should mill everything down to about 300 mesh, use a magnet to remove iron or other ferrous metals. Roast the ore to drive off sulfides and/or phosphates and any organic material. Use a magnet again to remove iron that has been liberated by roasting. Smelt using a flux that contains soda ash to resolve silicate material and any other material that can be smelted. Pour into a cone mold, the heavier metals should end up at the point of the cone mold but check slag for metal. You may want to use a collector metal like silver.

Re-melt the tip of the cone where the values are, fractionalize or pour into fine shot, dissolve in HCl first to remove base metals, wash, process with Nitric to remove silver and/or copper, then AR for gold.

Or dissolve everything in AR and extract with BDG, and process accordingly.

Scott

 

[rickbb]

Melt and pour the ingots into shot or flakes, then soak in Hcl to dissolve the copper. Siphon off the Hcl with the dissolved copper and wash the remaining gold for further refining or melt and pour for new higher gold content ingots.

Crush the rocks and sand, then use gravity separation, (water, panning, sluice box, blue bowl), and so on to recover the free gold.

When dissolving copper in HCl, it should be diluted, and you need an oxidizer, oxygen works, H2O2 works, Nitric Acid, etc. Unless there is oxygen in your solution of HCL, it will not dissolve the copper.

Scott

I stand corrected, CuCl2 is what I was thinking but typed HCL.

 

[Abdo1992]

That was a great help from you guys, thank you all,
I got the copper-gold ingots by inquartation of copper with sands, by this way, I test all of my sand samples. I take a copper plate, put it on the sand, I melt it with borax, then I find my gold at the bottom of my copper piece, i have more than one kilogram of these ingots, the copper is too much in this process.Mr scott can you please explain more about the electrolytic process, what electrolyte do I need? What are The anode,cathode?


Mr rickbb, can you please tell me exactly, how to do Ap/cucl2?

I love you all thanks

 

[Barren Realms 007]

That was a great help from you guys, thank you all,
I got the copper-gold ingots by inquartation of copper with sands, by this way, I test all of my sand samples. I take a copper plate, put it on the sand, I melt it with borax, then I find my gold at the bottom of my copper piece, i have more than one kilogram of these ingots, the copper is too much in this process.Mr scott can you please explain more about the electrolytic process, what electrolyte do I need? What are The anode,cathode?


Mr rickbb, can you please tell me exactly, how to do Ap/cucl2?

I love you all thanks

You should search copper sulphate cell.

 

[Abdo1992]

Thank you Barren,

Yesterday, i precipitated a black mud, dried it, it turned to brown, when I melted it down, it produced a silver-colored pure metal that does not dissolve in concentrated 68% nitric acid. What could this metal be?! The sand from which I precipitated this metal was tested by inquartation to contain gold.

 

[patnor1011]

Thank you Barren,

Yesterday, i precipitated a black mud, dried it, it turned to brown, when I melted it down, it produced a silver-colored pure metal that does not dissolve in concentrated 68% nitric acid. What could this metal be?! The sand from which I precipitated this metal was tested by inquartation to contain gold.

What do you mean by that?

 

[g_axelsson]

Thank you Barren,

Yesterday, i precipitated a black mud, dried it, it turned to brown, when I melted it down, it produced a silver-colored pure metal that does not dissolve in concentrated 68% nitric acid. What could this metal be?! The sand from which I precipitated this metal was tested by inquartation to contain gold.

Abdo1992, have you read Hoke yet? (Download link all over the forum in several of our members signature)

What you write shows that you have no knowledge of what you are doing, no way anyone can tell you what you have.

Yesterday, i precipitated a black mud

Precipitated with what from what?

when I melted it down, it produced a silver-colored pure metal

How can you know it's pure metal when you don't know what it is?

The sand from which I precipitated this metal was tested by inquartation to contain gold.

Say what? How could you precipitate anything from sand? Sand is already a solid.
You don't test gold content in sand by inquarting. Inquarting is a refining method to refine carat gold.

Take the guided tour, read Hoke and do the acquaintance experiments to learn how to test for precious metals. And since you are working with ores, read up on assaying ore and geology.

No one will be able to help you if you don't speak the same language as us and we will only waste our time trying to help you when you don't understand what we are telling you.

One of the rules of this forum is that we all do an effort to learn the subject before asking for help to respect the time of those that helps you all free of charge. The collected knowledge of this forum is fantastic, all we demand is that our members try not to waste our mentors time.

Don't bother to answer my questions above, but answer this one. Kurt asked you the same thing four days ago. For example you have not told us how you know your copper contains any gold at all, if you don't know how to refine it or test how could you ever know the gold content?

By the way you have gotten a lot of questions. I suggest you will stop your wild experiments and spend some time to answer the people trying to help you or your stay on this forum will be cut short. This I say as a moderator, trying to do what Harold would have done in this situation. :mrgreen:

Göran

 

[maynman1751]

Abdo1992, check the links (in blue) under my signature line. These are what Goran is referring too.

 

[Abdo1992]

Mr goran, thank you, I already read Hoke's book, maybe I misused the word "inquartation", i will tell you what i do, i bring my sand or crushed rock, i put a piece of copper on the surface of the sand, i melt the copper piece with borax with an oxygen flame, after ten minutes of melting, i pick the piece and cool it with water, then i turn the piece over and look at the bottom, i find the shiny yellow gold, this is the test that i do. I dont mean to waste anybody's time , sorry for that.

 

[jeneje]

Mr goran, thank you, I already read Hoke's book, maybe I misused the word "inquartation", i will tell you what i do, i bring my sand or crushed rock, i put a piece of copper on the surface of the sand, i melt the copper piece with borax with an oxygen flame, after ten minutes of melting, i pick the piece and cool it with water, then i turn the piece over and look at the bottom, i find the shiny yellow gold, this is the test that i do. I dont mean to waste anybody's time , sorry for that.

:?: :shock: :roll:

Ken

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Abdo1992, I'm guessing that English is not your first language, so it may be difficult to translate everything. Copper is sometimes used as a collector metal during a smelting process, but I've never heard of it being done as you've described. That's not to say that your method might not help to concentrate values from your concentrates, but there may be better ways. Spend some time exploring the information on the forum and you may find some improvements you can make.

Dave

 

[g_axelsson]

Mr goran, thank you, I already read Hoke's book, maybe I misused the word "inquartation", i will tell you what i do, i bring my sand or crushed rock, i put a piece of copper on the surface of the sand, i melt the copper piece with borax with an oxygen flame, after ten minutes of melting, i pick the piece and cool it with water, then i turn the piece over and look at the bottom, i find the shiny yellow gold, this is the test that i do. I dont mean to waste anybody's time , sorry for that.

I think you need to read Hoke again until it makes sense.

Inquarting is to melt carat gold with another metal to get the amount of gold down to a quarter (25%) to be able to dissolve out any base metal while leaving the gold as a solid mass.

What you describe sounds like a misguided trial to use copper as a collector. But you can't just put a piece of copper on sand, melt it and look for changes in color. That doesn't say anything at all.
Copper oxidizes when heated and copper oxides can make a piece of copper take almost any color at all. Not to mention if you got other metals present.
For example if you melt a piece of copper onto some zinc you get a yellow metal, but that's not gold, it's brass. So you see the color tells you nothing at all.

If you have sand mixed with gold then you should be able to pan it. That's an well tried technique practiced for millennia. Learn that first, then go out prospecting. When you start learning to pan you will wonder how gold would look, but when you found your first gold grain in a pan you will see that nothing else looks like gold and it's really easy to spot.

Göran

 

[Abdo1992]

Ok I see, if I post the pictures here, will you be able to recognize it? This will be very helpful

 

[Abdo1992]

I forgot to tell you that when I treat these copper pieces with nitric acid, the yellow side doesn't dissolve..