removing gold from copper?

[Harold_V]

What you want to do is impossible. Don't waste your time. Study the forum.

o.0 its a process currently used to make and refine gold... I just didn't know the exact terminology. Nothing is impossible!

Ok, this is getting beyond something I intend to tolerate.

Please post cites that substantiate your claim that the process is used to "make" gold---or even one that suggests it is used to refine gold. That simply isn't true, and nothing you can say will make it true. Gold may be recovered by the use of copper (which is a common carrier of values that are extracted in copper cells in the way of slimes), but no gold is "made", nor is it refined due to copper. Copper is the enemy--it is one of the many elements that must be removed in order to bring gold fine.

"hoke" returned much more relevant results, one of which was my post. Which shows that there is little specific data under this title and wording. So i hope it helps other people who come here, learn quicker and get the info they are seeking, without the flaming and time consuming dead end searchs and reading of indirect and misdirected posts.

What I hope they learn is that they should not come to a forum where you have the benefit of more than 100 years of practical refining experience, and try to tell them how things work, as you have done. I also hope they have enough wisdom to start off by reading Hoke's book, which is the only book known that takes a novice by the hand and teaches how to test, how to make testing solutions, and how to refine. Until you, or anyone, has this basic knowledge, the questions that will be asked will do nothing but annoy those of us that try to help. It's no different from asking a brain surgeon how to operate on a brain when you have no knowledge of surgery. It can be just as deadly, too. Further, don't you think it's a little foolish to argue with experienced people over an ill conceived idea (I call it a hare brained notion) when you don't have even a basic understanding of anything even remotely related to refining? In short, you are irritating me no end at this point.

Thank you paladium, I will read these links you have provided in your siggy, which i learned was what you were referring to after searching "hoke". I probably would have already known of this person, if he hadn't been edited out of our history books?? :?

Hoke is a woman. She has not been edited out of your history books. She simply had no place in history books, no more than I do. What she did was write a book for the small consumer of gold to enable him to refine his own wastes when it was illegal to do so without a federal license. The impact she made on history is irrelevant, at least up to now. Her only other " claim to fame", if you care to consider it as such, is that she was an outspoken socialist.

It wasn't my intention to ruffle feathers, Just get a heading somewhere. And some re-direction where otherwise i was just going in circles and reading stuff that didn't apply to what i was seeking. So i was learning nothing i didn't already know about.

I came here to learn. And also to prevent any round abouts (forums / threads that simply stated, everything is here in this forum, go read it. Instead of provideing the more specific info in the thread posted.) If i had become knowledgeable from reading those, i would not have posted a new thread asking for more info about my chosen method of extraction.

I will try sweating first, before i go wasteing money on more expensive trial and error, with hazardous chemicals. Which would not only hurt or kill me, but also my family and the surrounding area. Heat i can isolate, insulate, and control, much better then corrosive vapors I can not see, or seal...some of which need speacial materials and equipment to do so safely.

So then, what you've really come here for is validation, not advice?

Get a new attitude, and get if fast. There will be no more of you disturbing the tranquility of this forum. You have heard from members that know more about gold processing than you can hope to learn in the balance of your lifetime. If what you read doesn't agree with your thoughts, which one do you suppose is out of line? How can you possibly hope to read about a process that is known NOT to work? Why would we go on and on about something that has no interest except in the minds of those that don't have a clue?

And even then its not fool proof and from what i've read in the forum, several times, over several posts, could completely destroy both the copper and the gold to the point where "none exist anymore". Which would have made it a complete waste of time, money, and the material used. :|

Nonsense. If in reading this forum, you have managed to draw that conclusion, you have a terrible case of not understanding anything you read. What you need to do is find a new hobby. This one is obviously not suited to your mentality.

You, sir, are on thin ice with me. I fully expect you to start reading Hoke's book, and not to stop until you understand what she teaches. Any more conversation about your "revolutionary" gold refining process is not going to be met with my approval, and I get down right cranky with those that persist.

Do you play chess? If so, do you understand the meaning of checkmate?

Harold

 

[J burley]

I found this thinking you would discuss a non acid way to remove gold foils from memory sticks
Are there chemicals in the home that would accomplish this
I’ll worry about separating the gold and copper later
Thanks

 

[Shark]

Some search terms to look into……

AP, CuCl2, copper chloride, these three, when doing a search of this forum, will be an overwhelming amount of information to try and consume. They all mean the same thing but produce different results. Also check into copper 2 chloride. Same stuff, different search results. Read some, then ask for what you may not understand.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

I found this thinking you would discuss a non acid way to remove gold foils from memory sticks
Are there chemicals in the home that would accomplish this
I’ll worry about separating the gold and copper later
Thanks

Hydrochloric acid can be produced at just about any hardware store. It’s usually called Muriatic acid and is used to clean driveways and garage floors. The only other thing you need is hydrogen peroxide. The thing you have to understand is that the gold foils are bound to the copper underneath. What you need to do is dissolve enough of the copper to release the gold. That’s what the acid and peroxide does. Once the gold is released, you don’t have to worry about separating it from the copper. All the copper will be in solution. So the answer is no. You’re going to have to use acid. Unless you want to smelt it, but that’s a very expensive, time consuming and labor intensive process that won’t yield pure gold.

 

[J burley]

Thank you
I will try it
Do you know the ratios of acid and peroxide?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thank you
I will try it
Do you know the ratios of acid and peroxide?

You did not say what you are using it for.
But if it is for liberating the gold foils with the so called AP method.
Then you actually do not need any Peroxide at all.
Find some corroded copper and put it in HCl and you are there.
Add a aquarium air pump and bubble air through the solution and you are ready.

As a new member we want you to read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap and then study safety and waste treatment.
Everything you need to know is in the forum already so learn to search and find what you need by yourself, ask questions if you do not understand some tings.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

Thank you
I will try it
Do you know the ratios of acid and peroxide?

I don’t know the exact ratios, but I used to put about a gallon of Muriatic in a 3 gallon bucket filled with fingers and 3 liters of peroxide to get it started. Then another liter of peroxide every 2 days to freshen it up. A bubbler is good to keep the solution mixed up but you can also just agitate the bucket by hand a few times a day if you don’t have a bubbler. You’ll be told that you don’t have to add peroxide. It’s true. You don’t have to. But peroxide is cheap and not adding it will increase the time to complete from about 7-10 days to possibly 2+ months. Peroxide is cheap.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I don’t know the exact ratios, but I used to put about a gallon of Muriatic in a 3 gallon bucket filled with fingers and 3 liters of peroxide to get it started. Then another liter of peroxide every 2 days to freshen it up. A bubbler is good to keep the solution mixed up but you can also just agitate the bucket by hand a few times a day if you don’t have a bubbler. You’ll be told that you don’t have to add peroxide. It’s true. You don’t have to. But peroxide is cheap and not adding it will increase the time to complete from about 7-10 days to possibly 2+ months. Peroxide is cheap.

You have to be very careful adding Peroxide since it may dissolve some of the Gold.
That is why it is better to use an aquarium bubbler for the oxygen need.
Air is even cheaper than Peroxide

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

You have to be very careful adding Peroxide since it may dissolve some of the Gold.
That is why it is better to use an aquarium bubbler for the oxygen need.
Air is even cheaper than Peroxide

As long as there’s any copper left, no gold will dissolve due to copper being higher on the list of reactivity. For the amounts we’re discussing there’s really no danger of dissolving gold.

 

[Yggdrasil]

As long as there’s any copper left, no gold will dissolve due to copper being higher on the list of reactivity. For the amounts we’re discussing there’s really no danger of dissolving gold.

Well that is not entirely true, it will dissolve but not stay in solution,
it will cement out which is a bad thing since you have no control on where it cements out.
That can happen on the traces inside the PCB.
This is the reason we advocate the use of air pumps for bubbling air.

And of course the amounts are tiny but why "throw away" any of the little amount of gold they have been struggling to get their hands on.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

It would take a lot more peroxide than I recommended to dissolve any gold at all and even then it would only start to dissolve after the copper was almost completely dissolved. Gold is just too much less reactive than copper. And you don’t have to dissolve all the copper. Just enough to break the bond that holds the gold. The bubbler is mostly used to keep the solution moving and, when peroxide is used, to help keep it uniformly mixed in the solution. There’s not really all that much oxygen in air. Far more nitrogen. That’s why it takes so much longer if you don’t use peroxide.

 

[Yggdrasil]

It would take a lot more peroxide than I recommended to dissolve any gold at all and even then it would only start to dissolve after the copper was almost completely dissolved. Gold is just too much less reactive than copper. And you don’t have to dissolve all the copper. Just enough to break the bond that holds the gold. The bubbler is mostly used to keep the solution moving and, when peroxide is used, to help keep it uniformly mixed in the solution. There’s not really all that much oxygen in air. Far more nitrogen. That’s why it takes so much longer if you don’t use peroxide.

The bubbler works two folds.
It adds Oxygen (enough oxygen) and keeps things well mixed and stirred.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

The bubbler works two folds.
It adds Oxygen (enough oxygen) and keeps things well mixed and stirred.

I guess it depends upon what you consider enough. For me, waiting 2+months for something that already won’t yield enough to be worth the effort is way beyond my threshold. Peroxide is cheap.

The bubbler works two folds.
It adds Oxygen (enough oxygen) and keeps things well mixed and stirred.

It really only keeps the solution moving. Air is only about 20% oxygen and most (nearly all) of that is lost in the bubbles. There’s no appreciable chemical reaction taking place. Peroxide gets distributed throughout the solution and significantly improves the rate of oxidation of the copper.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I guess it depends upon what you consider enough. For me, waiting 2+months for something that already won’t yield enough to be worth the effort is way beyond my threshold. Peroxide is cheap.

It really only keeps the solution moving. Air is only about 20% oxygen and most (nearly all) of that is lost in the bubbles. There’s no appreciable chemical reaction taking place. Peroxide gets distributed throughout the solution and significantly improves the rate of oxidation of the copper.

We are not looking to oxidize the Copper, that is just to form Copper Chloride CuCl₂.
The actual etching is done by the Copper Chloride reacting with the Copper and then forming CuCl:
Cu + CuCl₂ → 2 CuCl
Then the CuCl is regenereated to CuCl₂ by the oxygen in the liquid.
Short description her : Faster, Safer, and Simpler etching with cupric chloride

Bubbling adds plenty oxygen to keep the Copper Chloride etch active. (Or fish alive )
You can of course shake the container vigorously a few times a day, but that may be impractical.
The liquid will soak up enough air from the surface to start the process, but it will take even more time.

It is not a fast process, but what you start and let it do its thing, while you do something more productive.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

Not a fast process? That’s an understatement. 7-10 days is not a fast process. 2+ months is unreasonable and unacceptably slow. You can type formulas to your heart’s content, but it won’t change the facts. Peroxide is cheap and reduces the time to complete the process by more than 2/3. That’s the proof.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Not a fast process? That’s an understatement. 7-10 days is not a fast process. 2+ months is unreasonable and unacceptably slow. You can type formulas to your heart’s content, but it won’t change the facts. Peroxide is cheap and reduces the time to complete the process by more than 2/3. That’s the proof.

It is not even close to cheap where I live, and many others I guess.
So we use the cheap way.

 

[Shark]

Running fingers in AP should take no more than 4 days using only an air bubbler and copper oxide. Three under optimal conditions. If it is taking weeks or more my first suspect would be to little solution. Almost all YouTube videos show people using way too little volume of acids for the amount of material they are running. If I need fingers done quicker then don’t even bother with AP and go straight to AR. I have done gold filled in AP with an aquarium pump in 5 days and 4 using a nebulizer. AP is about volume of solution versus amount of material. We keep seeing questions about ratios of HCl to peroxides when the real question should be how much CuCl2 to material volume. Even if it can do fingers in 4-5 days I consider it slow. AP is for for those items I am in no hurry for. Toss in the material and forget it until I get bored or curious. If I need it quicker than that then I need to be doing something else.

Also, there are other solutions that do the same job and often quicker. Let’s see a good discussion on ferric chloride. Hot vs cold. And using real numbers skipping the “about” and “maybes”.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

It is not even close to cheap where I live, and many others I guess.
So we use the cheap way.

I just looked it up on WalMart. 6x32oz bottles for $5.98. Definitely not expensive.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I just looked it up on WalMart. 6x32oz bottles for $5.98. Definitely not expensive.

We do not all live in the US you know.

 

[Ag and Au]

I used too much Peroxide my first time and ended up with a mess; fortunately, the Pros here bailed me out and I recovered the gold.