Question on recovery

[surshot]

I had disolved some fingers and some cpu's in ap and then in ac. While I was waiting on some SMB the jar got knocked over spilling about one third of the solution. I wiped up the spill with a clean rag. Now should I incinerate the rag or should I rinse out the rag well with water then evaperate the collected water. Any ideas will be welcome.
thanks Ed

 

[4metals]

It's too late now but since you've wiped it up in a cloth you should ring out what you can and burn the rag to leach out the balance, since you were in acid already, there's no silver in there which can inhibit future gold collection so that's good. Evaporating off the rinse water will help before filtering and dropping the gold.

In the future, a clean shop vac without a filter will collect the liquids easier and eliminate the need to burn the rags. On the brighter side, Ive been witness to some mighty spills and can say I've always recovered all of the metal. That may be because in a refinery with some decent production there is gold in most nooks and crannies and when you do a good cleanup you get it all.

 

[Harold_V]

In the future, a clean shop vac without a filter will collect the liquids easier and eliminate the need to burn the rags.

A cautionary note.

If you use a shop vac to clean up a spill, don't use one that has a metal canister, or has any metallic pieces that come in contact with the solution. Any place that has exposed metal will precipitate the values in solution, along with the base metals, and destroy the vacuum cleaner. You would also have considerable value tied up in the hose unless it was well rinsed after cleanup. When it failed, it most likely would warrant incineration and processing to recover lost values.

Good post, 4metals.

Harold

 

[4metals]

Good point Harold, I should have been specific about the shop vac. I've always used plastic ones because you can always burn it when it dies.

 

[surshot]

Thanks guys, didn't think of the shop vac route altho with my shop vac I would have had to incinerate it before I could use it, :shock: (Its so dirty)