SIM cards with Clorox Method

[kreatur]

I don't believe I'll be able to get my hands on nitric acid, and with sodium nitrate I'm worried about warming up the solution, reading about different methods I ran in to:

HCl-Cl= Clorox Method = 4 Parts Muriatic, 1 Part Clorox (added in small increments).
Used to dissolve gold foils and powder. Drop gold with SMB, NO urea needed.

I've burned my SIM cards and now they're ash with some leftover brittled plastic, I could make it dust. I'd like to know if the clorox method would suffice to get out all of the gold.

 

[rickbb]

I would instead look at "poor man's AR".

HCL/CL is ok for gold foils that had the copper dissolved from under them. You still have that copper and it would consume the bleach before you get the gold in solution. It's not as robust or as long acting a method with using on material mixed with base metals.

Poor man's AR uses HCL and a potassium nitrate. Commonly sold as Stump Out in this area. A chemical you pour into stumps to speed up the rot process. It's usually 100% potassium nitrate.

Use the search function, it's been discussed in great detail here.

 

[Shark]

Bonide brand Stump Out is sodium metabisulfite. Spectracide brand Stump Remover is potassium nitrate. I still have to stop and think twice to get that right at times.

 

[kreatur]

What I didn't understand before is why I would want all the metals dissolved, when you watch youtube you don't get such details

Thanks guys, I'll study on the "poor man's AR", I live in Romania but I should be able to find the stuff under different names.

The PDF I got from this forum lists the recipe as:

Poor Man's AR = 8 oz Sodium Nitrate, 480 ml water, 960 ml Muriatic
Acid plus heat. Used to dissolve high karat gold, gold powder, gold foils, dissolves
Platinum when hot. Excess nitric must be neutralized with Urea to pH 1 +/- 0.4, then
drop gold with SMB.

So sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate, the same effect with HCL?

 

[kurtak]

Bonide brand Stump Out is sodium metabisulfite. Spectracide brand Stump Remover is potassium nitrate. I still have to stop and think twice to get that right at times.

Yes - it's important to get that one right

Stump OUT is SMB which we use to drop dissolved gold from solution

Stump REMOVER is potassium nitrate which works for making poor man AR

Dissolving gold with poor mans AR will likely require de-noxing the AR before the gold will drop

Kurt

 

[Shark]

Kurt is right, poorman's AR almost always has an excess of nitric acid. I have never used urea, so I can't speak for using it, Most here use sulfamic (may be spelled diffrently there) acid in the place of urea. If you find sulfamic acid, use it carefully as it will foam up very fast and spill over your beaker very easily. We can find sulfamic acid here listed as a tile and grout cleaner.