Selling Gold Foils That Have Been Melted Into A Nugget

[Jakes.vdv]

Hi Everyone.

Is it advisable to sell gold that’s been melted down from gold foils recovered from electronic circuit boards and gold plated jewellery?

My recovery method for circuit boards has been to depopulate the boards using a NaHO solution with a bubbler, and then a HCl solution with a bubbler, leaving me with recovered gold foils.

While my recovery method for gold plated jewellery has been dissolving silver base metals in HNO3 to recover silver, leaving me with gold foils.

So I’m aiming to melt the foils into nuggets and sell them on auction as is, explaining the recovery methods. However I can’t really determine the purity of the gold.

I’m trying to avoid having to refine using the AR method, but still earn something for the recovered gold.

What do you guys think?

Thanks so much, I appreciate your input.

Jacques.

 

[patnor1011]

Dont. If you do not know what you sell how do you set the price? It will result in one person being burned instead of both being happy.
Foils from what we call AP are generally dirty even though they appear clean. They need to be refined further. That way you will know what you have and what you are selling.

Another point worth to mention is that it is much easier and much faster to refine foils that to do that when they are melted. If you cant refine them then just dry them and sell them as they are. Melting will complicate and prolong further recovery.

 

[nickvc]

If you have foils you do not need to use AR , you can use HCl and peroxide or HCl and bleach to dissolve your foils both will work well and then you can filter and precipitate your gold out and have a decent product to melt.

 

[Jakes.vdv]

Thanks guys. I really appreciate your input.
I’ve become quite familiar and capable with recovering and refining Silver, but I still have much to learn about Gold.

I think my hang up is precipitation. I much rather prefer cementing silver out of a solution, than precipitating it out with chloride - I feel that cementing is simpler and produces less waste for me to process.

I also have an issue finding, and stannous chloride is very expensive in my area. I was thinking to attempt the copperas method detailed in Hoke’s book. It’s basically iron sulphate if I’m correct?

I don’t see it being mentioned often on the forum though, so I assume it’s not the easiest method for recovering gold out of solution.

I know cementing with copper is also an option, so maybe I’ll try that on a small scale and see it.

I’ll definitely look into using bleach or peroxide. Thank you. Aqua regia gives me the creeps…but I guess, so does most of the things we deal with when it comes to refining precious metals.

 

[nickvc]

Ferrous sulphate/ copperas works very well and is usually easy to find and use it’s well covered here on the forum.
You can make stannous easily too you just need to find some tin metal , I believe many use solder wire and just add to some HCl.

 

[Shark]

Ferrous sulfate is a very good precipitant. Many learn with sodium metabisulfite and are happy with just that one method. From a dirty solution, such as ewaste often is, ferrous sulfate is often a better choice. There is also several others that work just as easily, and may be a better choice for some people based on availability.

 

[Jakes.vdv]

Ferrous sulphate/ copperas works very well and is usually easy to find and use it’s well covered here on the forum.
You can make stannous easily too you just need to find some tin metal , I believe many use solder wire and just add to some HCl.

Thanks Nick. You’ve given me some good pointers. Wow, I didn’t know you can use solder wire! It’s so simple…thank you, I’m definitely going to give it a try.

 

[goldshark]

Thanks Nick. You’ve given me some good pointers. Wow, I didn’t know you can use solder wire! It’s so simple…thank you, I’m definitely going to give it a try.

Make sure you get the "Lead free" type.

 

[Alondro]

Thanks Nick. You’ve given me some good pointers. Wow, I didn’t know you can use solder wire! It’s so simple…thank you, I’m definitely going to give it a try.

I bought a little 99% pure tin bar from Ebay for $10. Stannous chloride goes bad after a while, and unless you're refining A LOT, you only need a few mls at a time.

I can make tiny quantities by just shaving off some tin flakes with a household knife and dissolving in a couple mls of HCl.

That little bar I have will last me for many years!

 

[Golddigger76]

I have been using the same stannous chloride that I made a year or more ago.
I made my stannous chloride with hydrochloric acid and tin solder.

I actually boiled the hydrochloric acid with the solder until it was fully saturated and would not dissolve any more of the solder.

When I reached the fully saturated point I left it to cool over night with the solder in the solution and filtered it the next day.

Well over a year later, maybe a couple of years it still shows up gold or PGM's loud and clear.

If I recall correctly I made about 50 mls of stannous and I test almost every single day of the year and I still have enough to go another year lol.

You certainly do not need to have that much on hand unless you have a major refining operation in place.

If you are just getting started in refining I would suggest that you only make enough to last you 4 or 5 months ( 5- 10 milliliters) you will be using quite a bit of stannous as you are getting familiar with testing for precious metals.

 

[Jakes.vdv]

Thanks Everyone for the very sound advice shared from your experiences.

I do a fair amount of electronic soldering, so I have solder…I’ll just make sure it’s lead free (thanks Shark).

The only stannous chloride I could find in my country comes in a minimum of 500 gram quantities, and costs well over $100 in our currency. So you have all helped me a great deal.