Rookie's first run issues

[nickvc]

Please don't take this the wrong way but you have got help you just do not see it yet
I think we all know your frustration most of us have been there at some point and will be again.
We could simply tell do this and that and hey presto it's done but you won't learn anything, if you intend to pursue this then do it properly and read and learn, the next time you do something wrong the fix you get for this might not work. You seem to understand the dangers or some of them but this is not for the faint hearted, the chemicals we use and the solutions we produce are toxic some very toxic, the materials we try to refine can and frequently do have toxic elements than can be released by either chemical processing, grinding or incinerating.
For now so long as you have thrown nothing away your gold is safe, carefully store it all somewhere safe and get reading, there is no shortcut you need to understand what's happening, what could happen and the next step in each process, your not the first member to arrive here with this situation those who take our advice are now competent refiners, those that don't normally give up.
You can do this, you can learn to recover and refine, you just need to bite the bullet and study.
Good luck.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Excellent post! I try to be as safe as I can with the PPE I have, but so far I've only had to deal with Cl fumes. Nitric is still a ways off for me. If PAPR or SCBA weren't so expensive, I'd love to have them, but for the moment I've got an M17 mask with new filters (and hood), neoprene gloves, leather apron, and long sleeves. Not ideal I know, but it's what I've got.

You've probably produced more than just chlorine fumes. That is the point of the thread I linked to. Since you don't yet fully understand what you're doing, you have no idea what kind of fumes you're producing.

I do my work outside since I don't own real estate (being a broke recent graduate of 27) of my own and have no fume hood. Aside from sudden changes in wind direction (as mentioned in one of the links) are there any major downsides to working open air?

Yes, you poison everyone and everything downwind from you. It's one thing to do some test tube sized reaction in open air. It's a different matter when you start processing quantities of material.

I did see mention in a couple of the posts you linked of some forum handbooks? I didn't see links to them, unlike the Hoke book. Was wondering if they're still a thing.

Look for any post by Palladium. He put them together and he has links in his signature line. Be aware that, somewhat like Hoke's book, some of the information is a little dated. They're collections of posts made in the early days of the forum, and in some cases, better methods have emerged.

As for my experiment today; didn't do much aside from heating a sample to try and determine what it is. I spoke to my friend's mom (chemist at 3M for something like 15 years) to see if she'd help me figure this out. Hopefully I can get some help.

As long as you're "experimenting" without understanding, you're endangering yourself and those around you.

Dave

 

[jason_recliner]

Advocate, I'm baffled.

You asked what you could do about your unexpected solids and I gave you a simple test that you could run on a very small sample, a test which would help you determine what you have and how you might be able to recover it. Maybe it was naïve of me to hand you a test before you are ready. I think a small test is rarely a bad idea.

But then you did something totally different. That's entirely your prerogative. But also your responsibility, should you hurt yourself or your neighbours.
Where on earth did you get the idea to boil your solution dry? I can't conceive what you expected to result, but I doubt you found instructions on this forum to splatter your values all over the place.

Yet another hunch of randomness? I'm losing count of them. Stop it. Stop it now.
You must understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and your expected outcome.

Please do heed the other refiners' advice; for they are far more experienced than I am, and they too are trying to help you for the long term. Truly.

 

[BaalAdvocate]

I found this post (http://tinyurl.com/jl6tgy7) is fairly close to my own situation.

Jason: The boiled waste solution (I know it doesn't contain any value; it was all scooped from the top of the settled pot, and I had not used any strong oxidizers or nitric) was to try and force the solution to crystalize; if it was a large amount of lead chloride it should have formed white crystals. Instead it formed a brownish dust, and I admit I didn't catch it when it stopped boiling immediately but to me this would indicate that the suspended particles are something that can burn at relatively low temps: plastic. The volumes I mentioned are simply a result of massive dilution, so I had to have a large volume just to get enough to test.

I'm not sure if PbCl would be carried into steam or not from boiling, but the hotplate I use is rather anemic, temp maxes out around 250 degrees. As this MSDS (http://tinyurl.com/j4mrgrg) states, PbCl is not flammable, but at high enough temperatures (ie, fire) produces Lead oxides and hydrogen chloride gas.

To further determine if it's PbCl I did set aside a much smaller volume with a higher concentration of the muck to dry, but because it has rained almost continuously the last week it has yet to evaporate. If this volume fails to crystallize (and since it's evaporating at a slower pace the crystals should be larger), it would also show that the crap is plastic.

My last beaker is the muck with additional HCL to soak and see what happens there.

As always, thank you guys for the posts!

 

[nickvc]

You need to stop cherry picking the responses you are getting and realise you have one big mess that few can advise how to put right unless they have been there.
Put the damn stuff away and start reading.
I will not post on this again until I see some attempt to learn.

 

[upcyclist]

The boiled waste solution (I know it doesn't contain any value; it was all scooped from the top of the settled pot, and I had not used any strong oxidizers or nitric) was to try and force the solution to crystalize;

The underlined statement may not be true. I was just soaking some gold filled wire in nitric last week--as the nitric dissolved the basemetal core of the bits of wire, gas bubbles would form. Many of these pieces floated to the top and did not sink to the bottom of their own volition.

In other words, check your assumptions. It is possible for gold, when attached to or carried by other things, to float. A one-pound ingot of gold floats when it's in a boat, right?

 

[kernels]

Yup, I'm processing some kovar pins now, I guess it's the hydrogen released by the reaction of the HCl with the base metal, but I have quite a lot of floating tiny bits of gold at the moment. Has anyone/everyone noticed how they seem to clump in crystal like patterns when they float ? Very cool

 

[patnor1011]

OP need to realize that he is wasting his and our time. Sometime it is better to abandon "pet project" mainly if it lead you to nowhere and to financial loss. It does not look like pet project, it look more like gold fever. Whatever you did spent on chemicals, energy and time up to this moment will surpass any potential yield many times over. Like hundred times over. Everything you did so far cant be even taken as a learning as you simply do not learn, you jump from one thing to another without any logical sequence. I get it - you are trying things but with your limited knowledge on subject you are trying wrong things and in wrong order which make problem even more complicated.
Amount of material you are trying to "process" - pound of ram sticks and couple of motherboards is way too small and way too complicated for beginner to even try.

One does not do research on youtube. Youtube is for entertainment not for learning. Do yourself a favor and find another hobby.

 

[BaalAdvocate]

:roll:

Well, despite some rather discouraging posts here, believe it or not I did research. For a forum dedicated to helping people try this, it's been very, negative. I'll just lurk around and use posts as a reference, but now I know better than to ask for help.

I don't just 'jump from one thing to another'. I was trying to solve for an unknown but conducting :gasp: experiments. Dehydration should have produced crystals if it was a salt; it didn't. Heating a sample of the stuff showed that the contents are heat sensitive; salts are not. Leaving the stuff stand for a few days, it separated; aqueous from non-aqueous. What does this show? That the crap left in the pot is plastic. How do you deal with polymers? You break them into smaller hydrocarbon chains. How? Heat it. Not that anyone here actually offered any real advice, just alot of 'read Hoke'; who aside from two brief paragraphs regarding plastic's merits in use as containers, did not encounter polymers in her work.

I didn't set out with this trying to make money, I wanted to learn. To learn, I asked you lot questions, which were more or less shouted down. I mean, unless you guys simply want to drive off potential competitors, you might want to, I dunno, be friendlier.

Edit 2: You might want to consult this: http://periodic-table-of-elements.org/SOLUBILITY I found it helpful...

 

[Geo]

I found that evaporation tends to create crystals when it's not forced. Stuff like copper(II) chloride makes beautiful green crystals when allowed to sit undisturbed and evaporate at ambient temps. On the other hand, if you force dry copper(II) chloride on heat, it will create a black, syrupy goop and then a black/green crust. So temperature is a factor in all aspects of chemistry. Every solid that you see around you will become a liquid and then a gas if you increase the temperature enough. So the state of any given material is subjective. All matter acts differently at different temps.

Salts and metals can be reactive to acids or caustics. what may not react to acid may react to a base. Aluminum is fairly inert in nitric acid but reacts violently to sodium hydroxide.

Try not to take offense to members that post replies that seem mean spirited. They are only concerned for your safety. You can imagine the people that comes here with all sorts of dangerous things they are trying to do without the slightest bit of knowledge about what they are doing. They are immediately advised to stop and study just as you were. No one here is picking on you personally because no one here knows you personally.

 

[g_axelsson]

Well, despite some rather discouraging posts here, believe it or not I did research. For a forum dedicated to helping people try this, it's been very, negative. I'll just lurk around and use posts as a reference, but now I know better than to ask for help.

We get people like you all the time, the gold fever hits and they think they are doing experiments to learn but for us with some experience we see that it is both random and dangerous. A little over a month ago Toddntucson7 joined the forum. He never stopped to listen on the advice we gave him and made all kind of wild experiments spread over several threads. This is one.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=23825
Your attitude and wild experimentation reminds me a lot of Todd. The situation got worse and we finally banned him.

Three weeks later he returned under a new name with a sad story of how he got poisoned to the point of needing dialysis.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=23926

The sad thing is he's not the first member that's gotten poisoned while refining and I'm afraid that he's not the last one.

I don't just 'jump from one thing to another'. I was trying to solve for an unknown but conducting :gasp: experiments. Dehydration should have produced crystals if it was a salt; it didn't. Heating a sample of the stuff showed that the contents are heat sensitive; salts are not. Leaving the stuff stand for a few days, it separated; aqueous from non-aqueous. What does this show? That the crap left in the pot is plastic. How do you deal with polymers? You break them into smaller hydrocarbon chains. How? Heat it. Not that anyone here actually offered any real advice, just alot of 'read Hoke'; who aside from two brief paragraphs regarding plastic's merits in use as containers, did not encounter polymers in her work.

I didn't set out with this trying to make money, I wanted to learn. To learn, I asked you lot questions, which were more or less shouted down. I mean, unless you guys simply want to drive off potential competitors, you might want to, I dunno, be friendlier.

Maybe Hoke didn't encounter plastics in her time, but she saw a lot of wood, leather, fabric and wax, and it is dealt with the same way as plastics. Incineration. She writes about it and there are tons of information about it on the forum.

But why would I want to spend time writing it all over again when I can point you in the right direction and let you read it yourself?
After a while, when I see that a new member isn't listening to advice or just what he want's to hear, then I don't want to waste any time even giving pointers. I rather work with my own scrap and refine some gold on my spare time.

And for your information, a lot of salts are heat sensitive and most solids are crystal in nature even if you can't see it with your eyes.

Göran

 

[patnor1011]

People need to realize that precious metals recovery and refining is here for thousands of years already. Most of the shortcuts if not all of them were already found.
You are hardly going to find one and "garbage in = garbage out" applies to most of your attempts.
Different acids are used to deal with plastics but you are not qualified nor equipped to even think about this kind of refining - no offense intended. 99% of members here are not equipped for that one, including me.

You either remove plastic from your feed stock or incinerate it thoroughly. If you are not set up for incineration of plastic you do have only one option - elbow grease.

 

[Shark]

People need to realize that precious metals recovery and refining is here for thousands of years already. Most of the shortcuts if not all of them were already found.

I really like that qoute.

If you need to experiment to learn, follow the experiments in Hoke's book. Believe me, they can and will teach you much. There is so much to learning just the things that have already been time proven that I am short on time for experimenting out in the fringe areas. I like to leave that to those who are more experienced and I hope they can pass it on to us newer folks later. When I run a process I am after something specific, usually gold...sometimes silver. I prefer to follow a known standard because it produces quicker results. At my age, with my health, I don't have much confidence in the "hit or miss" methods.

 

[lakeraider]

:roll:


Edit 2: You might want to consult this: http://periodic-table-of-elements.org/SOLUBILITY I found it helpful...

Nice table of info, thanks for the link. Much appreciated.