Refining iridium Ore

[levs]

I have ore material 100kg with .28% iridium 99.4% iron.

Anyone here want to buy the ore or is this a chemical extraction that I get done by a professional.

 

[levs]

Xrf analysis

 

[Yggdrasil]

Xrf analysis View attachment 53847

You will need a proper assay before anyone can be sure of the actual result.
Most likely what you see is Arsenic XRFs are notorious to read As as Ir.
Where did the material come from?

 

[galenrog]

If from any iron ore, it is arsenic, not iridium. This has been covered on the Forum numerous times. Put the XRF away and have an assay performed. An XRF is only as good as the library loaded, calibration, and operator expertise.

Time for more coffee.

 

[kurtak]

I have ore material 100kg with .28% iridium 99.4% iron.

levs - Yaggdrasil is quite right when he tells you that the iridium reading from an XRF used on ore is likely a false reading & is more likely actually arsenic

This has been discussed here on the forum many times

Here is just one example of how an XRF will tell you it is iridium when in fact it is arsenic

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/false-iridium-finds.28009/
In this case the XRF said it was 71.49 % iridium when in fact it is 71.49 % arsenic

Kurt

 

[orvi]

I have ore material 100kg with .28% iridium 99.4% iron.

Anyone here want to buy the ore or is this a chemical extraction that I get done by a professional.

If it is shown on a rock/milled ore sample, it is just non-trustworthy number. If you manage to smelt the ore and get metallic sample of iron (for example by induction furnance, in graphite crucible with silica and calcium oxide as fluxes) - and it still shows iridium, then I would get interested in further proper assaying by ICP or NiS assay But chances are low. Usually, if the ore does not show Ni & Co, very little chance to contain PGMs.

XRF machines collectively does not work very well on light-elements matrices like rocks, powders, liquids etc. And mainly elements like PGMs tend to appear quite often as mistake of an algorhytm, which reads some bands as PGMs.

 

[Platz]

The other classic is the lead, cadmium, bismuth alloy showing up as 56% iridium by XRF by NiS its 0.000%

 

[Alondro]

99.4% iron? That's not an ore, that's just IRON! You'd NEVER find that in nature. Even an iron meteorite isn't that pure in iron, not even close. Those are usually high in nickel as well.

Are you sure you don't just have lumps of pig iron from a foundery?

 

[orvi]

The other classic is the lead, cadmium, bismuth alloy showing up as 56% iridium by XRF by NiS its 0.000%

that is then totally uncallibrated or otherwise quite crappy machine. on metallic alloy, it shouldn´t make such a crappy measurement. Even our NITON old XRF which wasn´t callibrated for like 10 years make relatively OK qualitative measurement. I assume there would be library and proper mode issue.

 

[levs]

Machine is fine. The 'ore' is actually tiny grains of meteorites.

 

[levs]

Sorry for my lag in reply time. Here's what a larger sample looks like. Not looking to refine or tamper large meteorite samples.

 

[levs]

I understand the scepticism. But even more interesting would be if I could find a real professional who has experience with meteorite iron with trace isotopes of iridium.

 

[orvi]

I understand the scepticism. But even more interesting would be if I could find a real professional who has experience with meteorite iron with trace isotopes of iridium.

What I want to say, if NiS tell you there is zero Ir, there is ZERO Ir. If the XRF tell you there is 56% Ir, then the machine is either crap or user do not know how to use it properly, or it isn´t capable of reading matrixes like you have. About this, there is no discussion. Maybe just shot on the wrong mode setting. Was it shot on Geochem mode ? Or at least some cat mode ?

Precious metals will read and "create" unimaginable portion of crap outputs, as they cannot cope with light elements matrix. On precious metals mode, you can only measure samples which are metallic, if you want reliable numbers. And even then, you must be sure that every major element which could be present is indeed present and incorporated in library of that mode setting.

Example: Recently, I acquired some interesting gold plated discs from triacs and high power industrial diodes. Discs are both side gold plated on either tungsten or MoSi alloy. With tungsten, there is no problem shooting it in Precious metals mode - as W is callibrated in this mode on my spectrometer. On the other hand, when you shot the MoSi alloy - molybdenum nor silicon are incorporated in the library of PM mode and XRF will show you 35% Ru 20% Rh and other imaginary crap results. That´s it

 

[jobinyt]

100 KG of meteorite material is a goodly sum. How did you get it?

 

[levs]

100 KG of meteorite material is a goodly sum. How did you get it?

Yeah it is I can tell you I made the discovery from the dirt my friend. It's a good sum and its a sum I'd like to reduce to pure iridium.

 

[levs]

Happy to send out 100g packages of meteorite pebbles if research data is of interest

 

[levs]

I could just tumble the matter in aqua regia?

 

[Yggdrasil]

I could just tumble the matter in aqua regia?

Have it tested, it it’s the real deal it will be worth more as samples than ore.

 

[levs]

Aye aye sir

 

[Alondro]

Legitimate meteorites will sell for quite a bit of money. It'd be a total waste of time chasing a few grams of iridium when you could sell the meteorites for much more.