Rhodium ore

[Shecker]

I have access to some of the richest rhodium ore on earth. I have 300 pounds of this material at my house right now and can get tons more. This material comes from the South American "platina belt" and is material the Spanish tried to smelt and couldn't do it. Finally they abandoned millions of tons of this material, leaving it for someone with better metallurgical knowledge. In time it was forgotten. How I am getting this material is my secret.

I have decided to offer small amounts of this material t anyone on the forums who wishes to extract rhodium. This material yields a bright green solution with everything I have tried, but straight HCl seems to work the best. This stuff comes in pieces that weigh as much as 20 pounds. I have no means right now to crush this stuff and it has a tendency to flatten before it breaks.

Here is the deal. I have access to far more of this material than I can ever use. After due consideration I have decided to share with others on the forum. But I am not giving it away. What I am asking is 50% of what you receive for processing. You cover the costs of extraction and I cover the costs of shipping. If you think this is far please let me know by emailing me at [email protected]. I will send pictures of this material and initial samples to all of those interested.

But remember this -- rhodium is carcinogenic and requires proper fume control.

I will also be running my own material and producing rhodium metal. It starts out red like copper, but is much heavier, and turns gray on drying.
I extract it with just HCl and use iron as a reducing agent. I currently have about 20 ounces of this -- but I have pounds of the yellow alkaline chloride of rhodium. This is made by adding ammonium hydroxide to the HCl solution until a deep blue solution is reached. This occurs at about a pH of 10 to 12. A small addition of HCl drops the pH to about 8 and the yellow rhodium chloride precipitates out. As they say there is more than one way to skin a cat, although getting the cat to hold still must be a real problem.

Please do not ask for a sample of this unless series about doing something with it. Right now my money is very low and shipping costs money. But I will ship a sample to anyone who is series.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Lino1406]

Did same with hot water?

 

[Shecker]

This is completely different from the other material I work on. The other material is near Gunnison, CO. This material comes from South America.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Lino1406]

I asked if the same ore that gives "green
with everything", does same also with
hot water?

 

[Shecker]

This particular material does nothing with hot water. I wish it did. Things would be a lot simpler. But I can tell you this -- a chlorox solution will produce canary yellow ptcl(2). That alone is highly profitable. An HCl solution comes out lime green and yields a great deal of rhodium and ruthenium. I am going to try a bisulphate fusion to see what it produces. A solution of HCL -Cl produces both platinum, rhodium, and ruthenium. Agua Regia would do the same.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Lou]

Chlorox won't give you PtCl2 no matter what the nature of the ore is. PtCl2 is not an easy one to make from aqueous solutions Randy. Also, PtCl2 looks like rust; it's not canary yellow regardless of pH. Likewise, you won't be having any alkaline rhodium chlorides. If you think you have rhodium, add some HCl to it and then tell me the colour. I've seen lots of RhCl3 in my time, and many, many, many other PGM compounds and complexes.

I wish I had access to really nice camera equipment so that I could take photos of all the commonly encountered PGM salts so that people on this forum could see what they really look like in their pure state and not get excited over different colours of solutions.

I can see you dissolving some Ru and Os with hypochlorite, but I highly doubt you're getting platinum out it, or rhodium.


I have a book that I suggest you read. It is by Cotton and Wilkinson, two excellent chemists that I wish were still around. It will teach you wonders about coordination chemistry of the PGMs. Get the 5th Edition.

Advanced Inorganic Chemistry
Hardcover: 1488 pages
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc; 5th edition (March 1988)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0471849979

This book will help you understand why you're being fooled by other transition metals and how the PGMs really behave. It can also give some insight into how you might treat your ore if you knew what was really in it (meaning you have a real assay done by professionals, again try Ledoux).

My point is that PGMs are quite rare. Your ore may have them present, but it won't be in an easily extractable matrix nor in a form that you can just hit with sulfuric or nitric or HCl even. You won't find the PGMs forming salts (like halides, i.e. chlorides/bromides) which are soluble and amenable to wet chem extraction because those salts are UNSTABLE and unlikely to survive the heat and pressure involved in their being thrust from the mantle to the crust and our own familiar terra firma. More likely you'll find Pt as an intermetallic with elements it likes-usually metalloids like As, Te, Se, Ge but maybe C and S.


I'm not saying that your ore is barren, it just sounds like you're extracting iron and copper and other first row d-block transition metals.


Just my thoughts.



Lou

 

[arthur kierski]

i am in accord with lous remarks----i did not write before because i did not want to destroy mr randi dreams---but i made remarks with 2members of this forum which i exchange information with----i do not say that this ore does not have pgm, but never in these astronomic quantities that shecter told in his thread----20 ounces of rhodium is today 200thousand dollars----

 

[Shecker]

I refer you the recent article on the South "America platina belt in the International California Mining Journal. The author (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) lists these levels of pgm's from historical records.
This is where Devil Metals were first discovered and first produced.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[markqf1]

Ahh, It's worth taking a look to see.
He's not trying to sell it to anyone.
Sure, it sounds astronomical and unbelieveable, but it can be proved true or false, ... right?

Mark

 

[markqf1]

Shecker,
A link to that article would be great.
As I'm sure you know, a standard fire assay with lead as a collecter will not represent the rh values correctly.
If your going to have an assay done, be sure that the company you are dealing with, is very familar with the characteristics of pgm's.

Mark

 

[Shecker]

Just Google on "California Mining Journal".

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Shecker]

It was the June, 2008 issue, not the current July, 2008 issue.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Shecker]

If I told all of you who is running car loads of this material as fast as they can get it there would be no argument over what I am saying, but I am not going to do. I have my secrets as well.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[markqf1]

Pgm's and secrets seem to have gone hand in hand over time.

Mark

 

[Froggy]

I have one of the most experienced pgm labs right here in my backyard, Send me a pm and I will have your ore looked at, and if it holds any value, I can have it all proccessed with a small plasma arc furnace (best &safest recovery available), But I have to warn you , if your bullshitting me , I do not take kindly to anyone wasting my time, and thats a fact........Frog

 

[Shecker]

Pgm's and secrets do go hand in hand. I have very open on this. All I am seeking to do is help some forum members who need the help. The only thing I am keeping to my self is how I know of it and where I am getting it.
Beyond that I will share information as much as I am able to do.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Shecker]

A person that I cannot name (but there NO higher authority anywhere) recently told me that I have more of this I can ever run -- why not share it with those who can do something with and improve the circumstance of these times. That was my intention and it still my intention. I believe in helping ours. This is one of the core elements of my life. If you wish a sample I will send. But other than the fact that what is in it (although not the exact amounts) I claim nothing about it. If you don't want any you don't get any.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[markqf1]

Sounds plenty fair to me!

Mark

 

[Shecker]

Testing has shown that this material contains a great deal of gelatin. The Spanish use to smelt with animal parts, particularly the blood of cows. For those of you want a source this is right out of De Re Metallica. This confirms that the point of origin was the Spanish in South America and that this came from the old platina belt.

Randy in Gunnison[/quote]

 

[Froggy]

I still havnt recieved my chunck for testing?