Refining Gold from Gold Filled Jewelry

[butcher]

I would not burn large amounts of circuit boards, but I have built a fire with a good bed of coals and put some of the fiber chips in the pan with a lid shoveled coals over the top and threw firewood on top of that, the flames were hot enough to burn the smoke from the pan, this was not large batch's, after they cooled the fiberglass sheets would separate and I could separate the metal from the fiberglass, my fire was not hot enough to melt the metals but incinerated the resin in the fiberglass.

Since then I have seen members like no Idea and patnor discussing Pyrolysis of the chips (I understood the theory from making my own charcoal), this was kind of what I was doing with the fiber chips in the pan, but if I done it again I would use some of the ideas these guys have brought to the forum.

if you can keep the smoke in the fire until it burns it up there is not much more smoke that the regular fire, smoke in wood besides water is un-burnt fuel. The smoke from resin would also be un-burnt resin (fuel).

Still these have a little lead solder I the pins, so I would not stand there and roast hot dogs over them.

I would not think of doing this for large batches without building afterburners.

I enjoy hearing how much you and your grand-baby enjoy each other.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Butcher, just wanted to say hey, I have been back to the hospital again. Just getting back to feeling like sitting up again. I hope you and your family have been doing well. I want to get started on the solutions once I finish up this first batch of chips and fingers. I had to let the last refines sit for a while but hopefully I will be back on it again in a couple of days.
Butcher, I just walked over to check on everything I had to leave as it was. While I was checking on everything I looked closely at the solutions that I have been accumulating.
I did mix solutions at the begining but later on I did get to doing things (mostly) right and I would seperate solutions into 5 gallon jugs and mark. I paint the lids on the jugs also so what happened with the marking of the vessels with magic markers and have the markings disappear would not happen again.
I have Nitrate's, HCL washes and Sulphuric solutions from my cell that (I Think??) that contain only those acids and aren't mixed with anything else. But I can't be absolutely sure?
Since I can't be 100% positive that I didn't mix anything else with the earlier solutions that I think are pure, would you take the chance or just go ahead and process as you said in your previous post and not worry about saving/recovering any of the used acids that I can't be 100% sure about?
For the last few months though I have got it together and do a good job on keeping everything seperated. I give this stage the attention it deserves, but I had to learn this the hard way I guess.
I know for sure I have precious metals in the early waste solutions. I made a good many mistakes the first couple of months. This time period is when I refined all my good quality scrap. I probably have as much as 1/4 of the total gold in these waste solutions that I have already recovered and most my silver in these used solutions.
But I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know that I am still around.
Thanks Butcher, as always, your help is very much appreciated.
Oneal

 

[butcher]

Oneal, it is good your back up and about, sorry I do not remember what we were talking about with these used solutions so I will not try and answer something I am not sure of, It is good your up and wanting to get back to work, take it easy and do not overdue until the body strengthens and can take it.
Small steps and we will see some more of your beautiful gold.

Your friend Butcher

 

[Oneal58]

Hey my old Buddy Butcher, hope you and family are doing well. Have requested Dr. to test my blood for heavy metal poisoning. I have just been too sick for too long. I just want to know if I may be more sensitive to the whiff's I get from the chemicals from time to time than anyone anyone else would normally get. Such as taking off the tops of canisters, making homemade nitric, adding sulphuric upwind from batch but still getting a whiff sometimes. Such situations as that. I may be more sensitive to the vapors than most people. I need to know this before I mess with the recoveries anymore right now. I think most of this came from the last batch of silver I melted, caught a little of the smoke off the melt. If I am that sensitive to the vapors I am just going to get me a positive air flow mask/suit and that will take care of that problem. This is the first time I have been back up in days and days. Waiting on Blood test results. Will let you know when I find out something of what's going on with me. Haven't been doing anything at all with the Gold until I find out for sure what's going on with me.
Will let you know Buddy when I find out something. My family Dr. had to send samples off to have tested. Says she will call me when results get back. Said that that type testing is something she has had to study up on herself, I guess no one else is doing what I am anywhere nearby or using my Dr. at least? Holiday slowed down everything down everwhere. It may be the first of the week before I know something for sure. Will let you know.
Thanks, Butcher
Your friend, Oneal

 

[butcher]

Oneal,

Sorry to hear your still having troubles with your health, I know it is not any fun.

I do believe some people can be more sensitive than others, to almost anything including metals an these vapors, if you have other health issues the immune system can also be weakened and I would guess make a persons system more agitated by these substances, also certain metals in certain states can be dangerous for a healthy man, and for someone having health trouble I believe can be much more dangerous (like melting zinc, these fumes from welding galvanized iron have made me sick with cold sweats for days after, (I know better know).

if your system is weakened by a cold, flue or pneumonia any fumes surely would not be good for the lungs or the health in general.

It is a good Idea to get your blood levels checked for these metals, Hopefully the level will be normal and the doctor can find some simple solution to get you back on your feet and hopping around like a spring chicken chasing June bugs.

Take care of yourself; all the gold in the world is no good without your health.
Your friend Butcher

 

[Oneal58]

Hello Butcher, and everyone.
Well, I am back from the dead, literally. I will not bore everyone with my experience on the operating table but I thought I would just let you know I am still around and kicking. I was able to gather enough strength today just to post a note to you. Just to let my buddy know that all the work he has put into me wasn't all wasted. I am hoping in a couple of weeks I will be up and going once again.
Butcher it would be good to hear from you. I have missed aggravating you this last couple of months.
Give me a shout to let me know you are still educating ones like me.
Waiting to hear from you Butcher,
Oneal

 

[Palladium]

Great to hear your doing alright Oneal. I been there brother! God wish you a speedy recovery.

 

[butcher]

Hey, it is great to hear from you, I was wondering how you were Oneal, thank goodness your still with us, I bet you holding your grandbaby close by, get strong so you can play with them they need you so much, I know your as stubborn as an ole mule so keep Kicking and build up your strength, I still try to help on the forum, although I have had a hard time reading everything everybody writes nowadays.

It is good to hear from my friend, and to hear he is getting back on his feet, take care.

Butcher

 

[Oneal58]

Thank you fellows, it has been a rough ride but hopefully in a few weeks I will be up and going again. Thank you for welcoming me back. I spent the long days in the bed studying and looking forward to getting back up and going. Hopefully it will not be too long, then I will be able to get back to doing what I have become to love. The longer I am here the more thankful I am for each day I am blessed with.
I will be aggravating everyone in no time once again.
Butcher, you are exactly right. Those Grands need me right now. I am the only one they trust to pull their teeth, so what would they do without me, :lol:
Thanks Everyone,
Oneal

 

[maynman1751]

Oneal,it's great that they found what was ailing you. Hope you have a full recovery and can get back to business. John. 8)

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Butcher,
I finally felt like going out to work place and taking a look at what was going on. I have many 5 gallon jugs of spent Nitric solution with copper bussbars that have been in the solution for probably 2 months now. I drained/filtered a couple of these jugs, (poured into a larger barrel). I found that I have a fair amount of silver in the bottom of all the jugs. I also can visually see gold mixed in with the silver that is in the bottom of these 5 gallon jugs.
As you know I have been making my own Nitric. Most of this material is pure silver. My thoughts are that my homemade Nitric is not strong enough to dissolve the silver and leave the gold. Surprisingly when I first got started at this I was losing a lot of gold into my decants?? That has settled out over time into the silver in the bottom of the jugs, I guess when I mistakenly poured my metabisulfite into the jugs when I was first getting started? I have a condenser that I could make stronger nitric but it would take me a while to make enough to dissolve all the silver that's in these jugs, it's a fair amount.
I have also thought about just dissolving the gold with Aqua Regia and leaving the silver to clean and process. I will rinse the silver bearing gold many times before attempting this making sure I have all the other chemicals that could be present still in the solution.
Does it make sense to you to add some metabisulfite to the spent nitric solution to make sure and drop any gold that still may be in solution before I attempt this.
Or is there a more simple way to go about recovering the gold out of the silver?
This would leave only Liquid which I will process with the method you gave me earlier before I got sick.
Your thoughts would be very much appreciated on this Butcher.
Thanks Butcher,
Oneal
P.S.
Thanks maynman for welcoming me back, it's appreciated. Oneal

 

[butcher]

Good your back at it.

I would look at using the silver to in-quarter my gold with, and recover the silver and gold in those processes, if this silver was cemented from copper then you could wash and then melt it and shot it for use.

Trying to dissolve the gold out of this is going to form some silver chlorides, all of the silver may not convert to chloride, I suppose you could do that, but then you would have silver chloride to deal with.

The homemade nitric could have some chlorides, (sulfates with homade nitric are also almost always involved) which the chloride if involved could have dissolved a little bit gold,(gold could also have been in fine powder or flakes especially if tin was involved and got carried over then), but if you cemented everything in this nitric with a copper buss bar,That gold would have also cemented with the silver and settled out of solution, I see no need for adding SMB to the nitric acid (it most likely would not work anyway), if you were concerned of any valuable metals in solution, you could take a cup of the solution, a very clean strip of thin copper and heat the solution with the copper see if and powders form (black powder for gold, PGM or gray cement for silver). I do not think the stannous test would work if any nitric was still active, if all of the solution was converted to copper nitrate solution with no free nitric (even when heated, then the reaction with stannous could show something (although if this was the case most likely all values would have been cemented before copper nitrate was saturated).

Take it easy and be careful.

 

[Oneal58]

Hi Butcher,
I agree, that's the best way to go. I do have a problem though with using the silver to in-quarter with. I estimate that I am going to have 4 or more pounds of this gold bearing silver. That's getting up around a pound of Karat Gold that I would need, of which I do not have on hand?
I have been through most of what gold filled I had on hand, (80%) or so. I will more than likely end up with even more silver from the remainder of the Gold Filled I have on hand when I process it. So, I am spinning my wheels, as far as getting at what gold I have in the silver I have now.
I did take the time to make up some new stannous and test each and every jug, all tested negative for gold. So, as you said, what gold was in the spent nitric has dropped out of solution.
I think I will do this, I have been wanting to build me a silver cell. When I get to feeling a little better I will build a silver cell, recover the pure silver bullion and collect the gold out of the filter bags.
Do you think this would work Butcher?
Thanks Buddy,
Oneal

 

[butcher]

silver cell would be a good option,

Since this batch was cemented silver from homemade nitric acid, it is likely you also have silver sulfate, or other metal sulfates in these powders, in this case I would try inceneration, with some iron metal in the mix, this can help to drive off any sulfate as SO2 gas, then use store bought nitric ( or distilled nitric) to dissolve the silver, clean up any iron, copper ect, and seperating most of the gold, then re-cement the silver on copper, wash the copper out of the cemented silver, melt silver into anodes.

You will ned good nitric for the silver cell.

You could try to incenerate (some iron in the powders) wash and melt and try running the impure silver several time's through a cell (similar to running sterling through the cell), but I do not see any advantage in this process as you would be using just as much nitric acid (constantly replacing contaminated nitric electrolyte, and silver purity would surely suffer with the process).

maybe another member has a better Idea on how to proceed with your batch.

 

[goldenchild]

If I've read the last few posts correctly Oneal has a batch of finely divided silver mixed with finely divided gold. In these forms the metals are easiest to deal with so I wouldn't try anything that involved melting the metals. So unfortunately I think the best route would be to rinse your silver/gold powders well and digest the silver in nitric. I know the downside to this is the amounts of nitric you'll need to use. Have you a distillation setup? This is something I've been wanting to try with gold filled and imagine it would work great with silver but... If you take your silver and put it in the reaction vessel of the distillation setup and digest with nitric, you will be able to capture all of your spent nitric and use it over and over again. Then you would simply decant the digested silver and leave the gold on the bottom of the reaction vessel. Add more silver powder and repeat. At the end you will have all of your silver in one container ready for cementing and all of your PM's on the bottom of the reaction vessel. A minimal amount of nitric would have been used. Just an idea.

 

[butcher]

goldenchild, I agree, but with this method I would watch for undissolved silver sulfate (sulfate from the homemade nitric used previously).

 

[Oneal58]

Thanks Butcher, Goldenchild, for your post, they are appreciated!
I do have a distillation system. I bought it when I first considered refinning, never have used it though. I think that the method that goldenchild mentioned might work best for me since I have everything I need to get this job done. This method sounds like something I can already handle as well.
BUTCHER, the comment you made about the sulfates in with the PM's from the homemade Nitric I have used? You mentioned incenerate with iron metal to drive off the sulfates as S02 gas with some iron metal in the mix. Can you give me an idea of how much iron to use per ounce and what form the iron needs to be in to use in the mix. Also, I know Iron comes in various qualities and my knowledge is very limited in this area. Can you recommend which type iron I would use for this and where I would find it? I have strong angle Iron, would that work? Do I use it like it is or take my grinder and finely grind it up into shavings?
One more question, how about the possible SMB Solution in with the solutions, MAYBE??? Will several rinses with distilled water take care of this?
Thanks Butcher, Goldenchild and Everyone.

 

[butcher]

Oneal, I would use small pieces of iron, like horse shoe nails, or transformer laminates, regular nails would probably work but they are steel, I would not worry about having more nails in there than you need they can be screened out later, I believe this is a contact process for iron to collect the sulfates from the silver and then heat to decompose them to SO2 gas, so you want the silver powder to come into contact with the iron stirring powders well while heating, not much iron would dissolve in the mix so here not much iron would be needed (except the contact with silver sulfates).
Iron powder or filings would work and get good contact, but would be harder to remove the undissolved iron later.

any SMB powders should wash out, but if much was in there and if base metals were involved it could have also made sulfate salts (the iron should help here also).

 

[Oneal58]

Butcher,
OK, I got some horse shoe nails I found in an old box from auction along with some horse shoes. My wife makes wind chinmes out of the horse shoes, maybe the luck will rub off of some of these nails. :lol: I guess I should not be depending on luck but I guess it never hurts?
Anyway, from the way you are explaining it, there is not a count per ounce, it just has to be enough to make good contact with all the silver when I add the nails and stir? Cutting the nails into say (8), 1/2" pieces before adding may help, don't you think?
I will rinse several times with distilled water, let settle good between each rinse and make sure and sink the floaters. Add the nails, heat.
Question, how long to heat and what to look for when the S02 has been removed? I don't see where you mentioned a (LENGTH OF TIME) either? Do I need to boil or just bring to just under boiling point.
If there is not an indicator to look for, if not, how long would you say to heat 4 ounces per run of silver/gold with half-dozen or so horse shoe nails cut into 1/2 inch lengths? Do I need to use more nails per 4 ounce run of silver/gold material. Could I use more silver/gold or should I use less silver per batch and also how many 4 inch nails, (cut into 1/2" pieces) should I place in the Silver/Gold mixture to accomplish this? Would a indicator be when none of the nails are being dissolved?
Then, just go with the distilled Nitric, reclaim the Nitric by distillation and start on next batch?
Butcher what would be the best way to get rid of the Nitric left in the solution, incenerate silver and gold mixture or do my best to rinse out the Nitric with several boils in hot water and decant, then incenerate? Since I will be using Nitric to dissolve the silver and leave the gold do I need to worry about the Nitric? Will the hot water rinses get rid of the iron that may be left in the solution?
BUTCHER, if you see where I need to make adjustments to this plan please let me know.
As Always Butcher, THANK YOU. I don't know what I would have done without your guidance from the very start. Just let me say again, I really appreciate you and nothing/your help/and especially your friendship will ever be forgotten or is taken for granted!
Your Friend,
Oneal

 

[lender]

I'm trying to download Hoke's manual but scribd won't let me without paying for it. Is there something I need to know about the free download I keep seeing throughout the forum? I even tried the one day pass and I still could not get it to download.