Recover gold from ammonia precipitation of AP

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Jwdds

Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2022
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18
I was following an expired patent to make gold electrolyte for electro forming. I started with AP and 20 grams pure gold powder. It went into solution as planned. Next step was to add ammonia to get a precipitate. This went as planned too. I added ammonia until the resulting liquid tested negative with stannous. The third step was to add ammonium sulfite to dissolve the precipitate above to yield the electrolyte. Unfortunately that step failed. I tried with gentle heat and agitation but after time when I stop the agitation the precipitate remains and the solution above tests negative for gold with stannous.

Since this is likely a redo what is the best strategy to drop gold from this yellow cake sludge I created?

And or does anyone have any ideas why step 3 failed?

The two photos are the sludge and sludge with ammonium sulfite solution.

Btw ph of solution is in the 7’s
Also used distilled water to create ammonium sulfite solution from crystals wondering if ammonia instead of distilled water would have had a different outcome.
 

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I think you have created gold hydroxide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold(III)_hydroxideReacidify with enough HCl to get gold chloride and precipitate with SMB.
No idea why ammonium sulfite is needed in this patent.

Should the electrolyte be in AuCl form?

Some patents seem to be tryouts that never made it to production.
They would have extended it if it was successful.

There are threads here about gold electrolytic cells. Sreetips made some video's about it.

Martijn.
 
I think you have created gold hydroxide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold(III)_hydroxideReacidify with enough HCl to get gold chloride and precipitate with SMB.
No idea why ammonium sulfite is needed in this patent.

Should the electrolyte be in AuCl form?

Some patents seem to be tryouts that never made it to production.
They would have extended it if it was successful.

There are threads here about gold electrolytic cells. Sreetips made some video's about it.

Martijn.
Thank you for the reply I’ll give that a try. The purpose of the ammonium sulfite, ostensibly, was to bring the precipitate back into solution. I have read a few different articles that I believe validate that but what you’re suggesting makes sense.
 
What I created was gold fulminate, which I’m keeping hydrated. I read another source that used sodium sulfite that was heated with fulminating golf for 72 hours. The solution from that is the electrolyte. I’m doing the same now with my fulminate and after 4 hours the solution is testing positive for gold. :)
 
Just kind of thinking out loud, but what happens to the Gold in the Gold fulminate after you smack it with a hammer. Besides the detonation, does the gold get totally annilelated (disappearing from the universe), or turn into some other form of a Gold compound. Obviously the atoms would be scattered, but if somehow collected, what form or compound does the detonated Gold fulminate produce. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
 
The gold would be.conserved and scattered likely in too small in particle size to be collected. There are reports of death from gold fulminate but I suspect you’d need a lot of it. There is YouTube video of someone hammering it with not much of a reaction. There’s a thread on google of someone with a mixture like mine who was complaining of popping -lame, as he was trying to melt it down. His mixture was likely wet but as layers were drying up they combusted. The fulminate has to be dry to combust. In a hydrated state it’s stable to work with. Hope that helps.
 
Just kind of thinking out loud, but what happens to the Gold in the Gold fulminate after you smack it with a hammer. Besides the detonation, does the gold get totally annilelated (disappearing from the universe), or turn into some other form of a Gold compound. Obviously the atoms would be scattered, but if somehow collected, what form or compound does the detonated Gold fulminate produce. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Upon detonation, it will produce light, heat, NO2 and pure gold but I'm not sure it would be the best way to do it.
 
The gold would be.conserved and scattered likely in too small in particle size to be collected. There are reports of death from gold fulminate but I suspect you’d need a lot of it. There is YouTube video of someone hammering it with not much of a reaction. There’s a thread on google of someone with a mixture like mine who was complaining of popping -lame, as he was trying to melt it down. His mixture was likely wet but as layers were drying up they combusted. The fulminate has to be dry to combust. In a hydrated state it’s stable to work with. Hope that helps.
Besides creating a high explosive, what were you going to use the electrolyte for? If you are trying to make pure AuCl3, there are safer ways to do it.
 
Besides creating a high explosive, what were you going to use the electrolyte for? If you are trying to make pure AuCl3, there are safer ways to do it.
Ammonium Gold Sulfite for electrofoming is my endpoint. Pretty sure I had chloroauric after the AP step prior to adding ammonia.

I would happy to hear any suggestions you have as far as creating a gold electrolyte formula that could be used to electroform/grow layers 200-300 microns in thickness.

Thank you in advance :)
 
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What I created was gold fulminate, which I’m keeping hydrated. I read another source that used sodium sulfite that was heated with fulminating golf for 72 hours. The solution from that is the electrolyte. I’m doing the same now with my fulminate and after 4 hours the solution is testing positive for gold. :)
Silver fulminate is much more fun. ;]
 
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