Reverse gold electroplating-a battery,salt,water and vinger

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goldmelts

goldmelts

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 15, 2008
Messages
76
Location
Astralasia
HI all,

I was playing with some reverse electro plating.

I was using water, salt, vinegar, 4-D cell batteries, a gold plated sterling silver medal, and a copper penny.

After running the process for 1/2 hour the gold plating on the coin turned black. I thought ewwww, thats horrible, and scrapped the black stuff off the medal, and it left a nice silver medal behind.

The I flushed the BLACK coating DOWN THE DRAIN, and cleaned up.

Is this black coating the actual gold??? If it is I didn't know it at the time :-(

If I redo this for other medals, can the black stuff be melted in to gold again?

thanks,

Goldmelts
 
HI,

Basically what I'm trying to say is this an inefficient way to remove gold plating from sterling silver medals?

Also, what is the easiest way for a noob to remove the gold plating from sterling medals?

Since I scrapped the black stuff off the medal this must be the gold, right??

thanks in advance.
 
Yep. That was the gold.
Once you get the black stuff out, you should really dissolve it all using HCl-Cl or AR, then precipitate out the gold.
This will purify it.
I've never done the reverse plating thing, but this is the common consensus, so I've read.
 
Actually i tried to electrolytically drop some "oversilver" gold and i think that it is not the easiest way compared to nickel/gold plating.
Maybe AP is the easiest.
If you decide not to use AP and try AR your silver will fall down as silver chloride and then you "neutralize nitric" with urea and after that you can precipitate your gold with SMB.
I never used AP method but i know Steve used it for getting gold from gold plated (75 nm immersion plating) PCBs.
 
Thanks all,

The reason I ask...

I have collected 100+ sterling medals that are gold plated. They are a little over 2 inches diameter. I purchased these to send to a refiner for the silver content.

Then I started to think, the refiner will reclaim the silver for me, but probably not the gold. (as in, they will keep the gold)

I was trying to find a easy way (no harsh chemicals, non toxic) to de-plate the medals. now vinegar and salt water seem pretty simple

Then when I send some gold to the refiner, I can add the black scrap I collected of the medals? therefore, no need to refine the black stuff.

What do you guys thinks about that? how much gold could be on the medals? Some of the medals are heavily plated and some are not. lets assume they are all lightly plated.

thanks.

goldmelts
 
HI all,

I had some more fun and games :)

I used the same 6 volts plus two copper wires. made a solution of vinegar and salt. placed the gold plated medallion in the solution and left it reverse plate for 1.5 hours.

As the time went by, I noticed small gold flakes floating around. As time continued, I noticed black crystals accumulating on the -ve copper wire. Tapping the wire made the crystals dislodge and fall to the bottom. also the gold flakes disappeared.

The clear white solution has turned green, blue yellow color. Also the medal has turned a brown color.

I have taken some picture and will post them up.

Can some of the better educated forum members explain what has happened?

Not trying to do serious refining just having some fun and learning.



goldmelts
 
Hi All,

Attached are some images

The top two images are the outcome.

The plate contains the medal scrapping on the left, and the black crystals that accumulated on the -ve, on the right

the bottom four pictures shows what happened during the process.


goldmelts
 
Also,

I weighted the medal:

start: 65.91 grams
finish: 65.38 grams

therefore, .54 of a gram was removed from the medal.



goldmelts
 
You should dissolve a small bit of the black powder with AR or HCl-Cl to determine if it is gold. Test the dissolved black powder solution with stannous chloride.Most likely it is. Also test the acetate solution with stannous chloride.

The acetate solution should be properly handled and disposed of as it can be very harmful. Wiki copper acetate,, nickel acetate, and silver acetate to get and idea of what you are dealing with. Also study the MSDS's on these acetates.

Steve
 
Is this the copper penni?
Tell what happened to it
and if copper wires also
in touch with the solution?
 
No it's not the copper penny, That was the first test.

The second time I just used a coiled peice of wire.

The penny looks pretty cool after the first test. It's now a silver plated penny!!. Looks authentice also.

goldmelts
 
The Chinese use to have a way for producing silver from mineral sources. They put some of the rock in a vessel, add vinegar and salt waster, seal it, and bury it for about 6 months. When recovered the silver would be in the form of silver chloride. I tried this once on some gold ore and found that on that particular ore it worked great. But another ore it didn't work at all.

Randy in Gunnison
 
Ok so if both electrodes are stainless steal plates (say pump base leveling shimes) will the gold migrate from one plate to the other as they discribe on this page and Utube video?

http://www.goldinpc.com/reverse-electroplating-for-gold-recycling-without-using-chemicals/#comment-3329

Also I have been using Vinigar, Hydogen Peroxide, water and salt solution to remove the protective coating on PC boards and memory sticks. Would adding electricity lift the gold off? Of course I do cut off as much of the board and memory sticks that do not have gold on them.

Chevyman_76 :?
 
Currently I do find that some flakes appear floating on top or lay on the bottom. When I add Jet Dry all flakes drop to the bottom. The water turns green of course from the protective coating coming off the PC cards and sticks.

Chevyman_76
 
chevyman_76,
I just glanced over this old post, barely reading it, but read enough to know it is not something I would waste my time on.

I think you are just going to have problems with this method.

In the general chat section you will find the general reaction list and the guide to the forum, this will lead you to many methods that will work.
 

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