precipitating result: yellow mud sludge?

[ZIMMY]

keep in mind that we are total nubies…
trying our first run with name brand stuff [Subzero (Sodium Nitrate) / Storm (SMB)]
we followed the instructions… put in the correct stuff, but believe we may have confused the measurements

HERE WAS WHAT WE DID:

in a 5-gallon bucket we put 1.5 gallons of HCL (30%), we then put in 250grams of Sodium Nitrate (subzero)…
then we submerged approximately 2 pounds of computer CPUs using a plastic (fiberglass) mesh net (we removed the metal shielding from the CPUs first) …

we let the solution do its work over night… because it was slower than seen on videos… the solution became dark emerald green (almost black)… extremely dark
most of the gold was no longer on the processors… we removed the processors from the solution…
and there was gold flakes still foating on the surface of the solution.

the liquid was soupy dark black…
we neutralized the solution with UREA…

we filtered a 1/2 gallon of the solution through a plastic filter cloth to try to leave only solution and no floating particles

then began using SMB to precipitate the gold, very slow reaction of changing colors and separating (precipitating?) … a lot of foaming fizzing and smell… ultimately used 2 pounds of SMB…

the liquid turned brown almost oily looking?… then a yellow sludge separated from oily transparent brown soup… it separated as though oily liquid was bubbling up through the yellow sludge…

we poured off the oily liquid and were left with this… please see photo… advice, input?

we have begun reading Hoke's book after hearing of it’s existence…
just needing to know what this yellow sludge is, and how perhaps to re-process it.

sincerest thanks,

 

[butcher]

Well it is kind of hard to decide where to begin to answer this question, first the Shor company does not sell anything that you can not buy yourself much cheaper from stores in your location, they also do not really have any special method that is not commonly knowledge, they normally took common knowledge and common chemicals and sold it as propitiatory information or special chemicals renaming them, as far as most of us here are concerned this company is shady and almost crooked just ripping people off of their money and leave them hanging or keep them hooked on trying to get their gold.

Basically what you are using is poor mans aqua regia, although the ratios of chemicals you used were way off, to much of this, too little of that, and way too much of one big mess.

Your gold in still there as long as you did not throw anything away, where? well keep reading Hokes and when you get to testing with stannous chloride pay close attention, you will also read in her book about cementing metals out of solution, with a metal higher in the reactivity series, this is a great tool for dirty solution containing values. that sulfate/chloride sludge you formed could also contain your values, save it and you will learn how you can get your gold back from it.

I could sit here and try to explain how you can try and recover your gold from this mess, but it would not help you any, yes you may get a few grams of gold from it, but that is not where you will find your true values, where you will prosper is by storing this mess in a safe place until you have a good understanding of how to deal with it, and when you study and learn to recover and refine gold, getting an understanding of the chemistry and principles involved to solve any problem you encounter, but more importantly learn not to get into those problems.

You started in the right place with Hokes book, good start, keep studying it, reread it until you get a firm understanding of the principles she is teaching along with the basic principles she teaches, it will normally take reading her book a couple of times before the lights will come on in your head, practice the getting acquainted experiments in the book, these tools will be invaluable later, keep studying the forum.

Study the safety section and pay close attention to the thread there dealing with waste, a few grams of gold are no good to dead men, or would not be worth much to the man who poisoned his children or his neighbors children over a little bit of gold.

Take the tour of the forum, in the guide to the form found in the general chat section.

I know you just want to get the gold out of this mess, well that is easy, but safety, learning to recover and refine precious metals is not easy, and can require study, and lots of it, to learn to recover and refine you have to become educated in the science and principles of this type of metallurgy, you can not learn that by asking a couple of questions and getting a couple of answers, you will not learn it from watching a few videos, or reading several articles, this is a fairly complicated science that takes much study to understand, and it will take you quite a bit of study even to begin.

If you just want to recover a dirty gold powder to sell to some refiner I can give you instructions on how, after you read the thread dealing with waste we can discuss that, but if you wish to learn to recover and refine precious metals then get busy studying, as you have a ton of research to do before you will be ready to use acids to recover and refine gold (even from the mess you have now).