I agree with all sides in this discussion :lol:
Read more and ask less stupid questions.
Seek and search and ye shall find.
You cannot learn by asking a few thousand questions, it only leads to more questions and answers you would not understand anyway.
Help your fellow member.
Read Hoke's.
I do search, and spend my free time studying; I also try and spend time contributing to the forum and helping others, from what I learn from my study, and from others.
Many times that help comes by telling the person asking the question to study.
Well let’s see if I can add a little more to this topic.
Here I will do a couple of search’s for information on oxalic acid, I will not spend much time looking for the information, and will use tools available like the forum search, and my computer search engine like goggle.
Several of our members have made some very nice videos
These are also good tools, to go along with your study, seeing it action can also help to understand better what You have been reading about, or what people have discussed although the video will not replace study, because without study you would not understand many of the very important minor details which the video most likely will not go into, or discuss, so without spending your time studying, you most likely would not be able to produce the results seen in the video, and without study the video although very interesting would be of little help.
Goggle search of video:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Oxalic+acid+gold&oq=Oxalic+acid+gold&gs_l=youtube.3...0.0.0.16982.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac..11.youtube.
The forum has links to many very good video’s made by our members, reading their threads, and checking out their web sites you can learn from these fine members, who have spent time studying and sharing with others what they have learned.
Just asking these members to repeat information they have shared, will most likely not help you get started, you would not understand what you needed in the discussion, they would most likely just tell you to go and read Hokes book and study the forum, and the safety section and study other safety information. Because there is no way they could explain everything you would need to know or understand unless you spent time understanding the basic principles, this is where studying Hokes, and the forum will help you understand the basic principles.
If you are working hard and studying and ran into something you do not understand, or run into a road block and need pointed into a direction to help you in finding information, and you have studied and wish to learn a few more details, or need help in a process you have been studying and run into trouble or just wish to discuss the topic to learn more these members are more than willing to help where they can.
Forum search oxalic acid, notice how the recent thread (we
Are in now) is in the results of the search, hopefully we can make this thread useful for members who later search the key word oxalic acid or precipitants.
Notice also 617 hits with this word in my search, my guess is that the task of finding how to use Oxalic acid here is going to be very time consuming I will bet most of these posts only mention oxalic acid in the topic, or may help someone with a detail of the subject, it may be very hard for us to find a process or detailed explanation here.
Forum search Oxalic acid:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=Oxalic+acid+&terms=all&author=&sv=0&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
The search above was too daunting of a task to read through all of those posts to find information, here is were reading the forum helps, you begin to learn a little about the members, and can use this in your search to possibly help you find more information and to limit or narrow the search results.
Forum search Oxalic acid / Kadriver (author):
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=oxalic+acid+&terms=all&author=kadriver&sv=0&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
Another way I may look for information on this topic, is to search through the subjects on the forum like Chemical processes, other processes, techniques…, and looking for a title of the topic which may lead me to more interesting information on the subject.
This also is time consuming but sometimes will lead to good results (and normally many others interesting things to learn about).
Search / Board index / techniques:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=39&start=550
A look into the thread with topic of oxalic method as title.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=601
Okay I have searched and searched, read until my old eyes are sore, and still have not found enough information what shall I do?, Ask a question on the forum? And get the answer to read Hoke’s, and read Harold’s Ranting?
After reading Harold’s post I decide to look into Hoke’s index, and I see that on pages 59, and 173 there she discusses Oxalic acid.
From Hoke’s book page 173 we read:
The Use of Oxalic Acid
This method was mentioned briefly in Chapter VI as being especially
suitable for the recovery of gold from solutions that contain
relatively few impurities. Its disadvantage is that it will work only
when all the solutions are hot preferably boiling which means
that the precipitation must be carried out in vessels that will with
stand considerable heat. It costs more than copperas or sulphur
dioxide, about the same as sodium nitrite. Under most conditions
the gold recovered is of high purity.
For each Troy ounce of gold you will need at least a Troy ounce
of oxalic acid crystals. If you failed to expel all the excess nitric
acid, you will need more.
Dissolve the oxalic acid in hot water. Add a little ammonia, say
a teaspoonful or less to an ounce of oxalic acid; add slowly to avoid
spattering.
If you have litmus paper,
use it here, and let the mixture show a slight acid reaction. Have
the mixture in a big beaker or jar that will withstand heat.
Next, heat your aqua regia solution to boiling. Also have the
oxalic solution hot boiling if possible. Pour the gold solution
slowly into the oxalic acid solution. Gold comes down at once with
hot oxalic acid, but takes hours or even days if it is cold.
Some people pour the oxalic into the gold; we think it is better
to pour the gold into the oxalic.
There will be bubbles and fumes, so work slowly or the liquids
may boil over when they come together. If you failed to expel all
the excess nitric acid, brown fumes will appear here; if this happens
you may have to add much more oxalic acid in order to kill all the
nitric acid.
Let the mixture stand for some time, keeping it hot if possible.
The gold comes down as bright clean crystals, often very beautiful,
which usually settle promptly.
Finally pour or filter off the liquid, after testing some of it with
the stannous chloride testing solution to be sure you used enough
oxalic acid. If worthless throw it away at once. In rare cases it
may show enough palladium or platinum to be put in the Stock Pot.
The brown powder of gold should now be washed well with much
hot water, to remove all traces of hydrochloric acid, then boiled with
a little nitric acid, to remove traces of palladium or base metals.
Finally wash with plenty of hot water again, and dry and melt as
usual. This normally gives gold of high quality.
Dang I should have listened to Harold and read Hoke's book first.
Now I can ask the question:
When precipitating gold in the second refining process, Hokes mentions to adding ammonia (she states a teaspoon or less), but gives no details of how much oxalic acid in a water solution she has mixed up, (besides about the same amount as gold ounce for ounce or a little excess), when adding ammonia to the oxalic acid she does not say how much oxalic acid was used or how much gold she is wanting to precipitate, but she states "Do not use too much ammonia the mixture should not smell of ammonia after being stirred. If it does, add enough additional
oxalic acid to kill the ammonia smell.
Is there an ideal pH for the ammonia in the oxalic acid solution? or is smell the best way to tell the proper amount used.
I have seen it mentioned as pH 5, in other information I have studied is this the ideal pH.
