liquidauction,
Here is my suggestion and comments.
Well you just gave yourself away, you have not been studying, or reading, as we suggest almost daily on the forum, you have took two very dangerous acids and mixed them with metals, made some very dangerous and toxic fumes, you also have some dangerous powders mixed in a toxic liquid, do you understand how to deal with this waste? You have created a mess, this mess is not recovering or refining, it will take some time to get this cleaned up, and what little gold you had is most likely going to be harder to get back, you do need to reconsider trying things you do not understand, this is too dangerous to do that with the chemicals and wastes we deal with, gold is too valuable to throw away, trying things you do not understand.
First read the safety section, also study the chemicals you’re using, the dangers of the reactions with metals, the gases that form.
Read the sections on dealing with waste, this is also in the safety section.
Spend time studying the processes before you try them, understand how to process materials and protect your health and those around you when you do this.
Read Hokes book and doing the experiments it recommends.
Study the forum, and other recommended materials.
The gold probably just dissolved in the acids and plated back to the un-dissolved metals, rinse these metal pieces off and add the rinse water to the solution you have made, put these into a jar with a lid and label jar of contents.
Aqua regia is not a process to use to recover gold from base metals.
The white powders may contain very small traces of gold, but is most likely copper silver and other base metals, separate these from the liquid, rinse them well and put in a jar label jar, the liquid add a large piece of copper metal to cement any powders from solution that may form, if you do get powders, rinse copper bar into the solution let powders settle and decant solution, rinse the powders and add to jar of powders in your jar, the solution add a large piece of iron, (read dealing with waste), stir solution with the piece of iron for a few times over a few hours, when no more powders form from solution, let settle separate these powders, dry them, then add lime to the solution till pH 9 let settle separate the sludge from liquid, dry the sludge, a little Epsom salt and adjusting the pH of solution to close to neutral should give you a clear salt water solution you can dispose of, but be careful of what you do with this solution as it will kill vegetation and can ruin soils, a sewer system (not a septic tank can handle this clear salt water solution.
Do not make this mistake again, spend time learning, the gold will be there when your ready to deal with it, I also feel if you do not study, your just might as well go out and buy gold and silver jewelry, pay good money for them, and throw them in the trash, it would be much safer than what your doing now, and that is where the gold and silver is going when you try to recover or refine without studying first.
Do not feel too bad your not the first to make this mistake and you will not be the last, but if your smart, you will not make this mistake again, and you will do the recommended studying so your recovering gold and not making costly toxic waste to deal with (without and metal to proudly show your wife) also I would reconsider having my wife around these toxic chemicals until she is also educated on the dangers and understand taking proper precautions to protect her health.
