smb problem

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ovidiuanghel

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2012
Messages
111
Location
Romania
Hello great forum,

I have a problem with droping gold from solution. I put in AP all golden pins from two old amstrad laptops, after that the gold foil go to Hcl/Cl. It was a nice gold-orange color but when i try to precipitate gold the colour change to a light green and no powder drop. The test is positive for gold after the smb.
 
Or maybe you overestimate the amount of gold from two laptops and put too much SMB into your solution.
Too much SMB can give a false positive on the stannous test.

/Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
Or maybe you overestimate the amount of gold from two laptops and put too much SMB into your solution.
Too much SMB can give a false positive on the stannous test.

/Göran

Goran if is too much SMB what can i do?
 
Seems like the most common problem people run up against trying to precipitate Au from HCl/Cl solutions is driving off the excess chlorine before attempting to precipitate...

You solution is a pretty yellow, but I suspect Butcher is right, you should try driving off the chlorine by putting your solution on heat. Otherwise each time you try to precipitate, it will dissolve right back into solution.

Scott
 
ovidiuanghel said:
maynman1751 said:
Do as Butcher suggested!


I did and nothing hapend here is some photos
How long and how hot did you make the solution? Heat to steaming. Don't boil. This should allow any residual chlorine to escape. Let it cool and test. If still positive for gold (purple to black stain) add a small amount of SMB and let us know what happens.
From the color of the q-tip (brown) it shows excess of SMB.
 
Ok, i heat once again the solution, not boil. I let it to cool down and then tested and the solution is free of gold but nothing precipitate. I made a new SnCl solution and the test once again negative, and now i thing i ask myself where is the gold?
 
Put a piece of clean copper in the solution, just in case, anything of value would cement out as a black powder.

If these were gold foils from pins dissolved in HCl/NaClO, did all of the material dissolve into solution?
If not then check the material that did not dissolve in the previous reactions for your gold.

The solution in your picture was pretty green; this could be from either copper or iron in solution, if the gold foils were cleaned well before dissolving your solution would have been more of a yellow color.

You really have not given us much detail of what you have done to this point, did you dissolve all of the copper or iron from your pins into solution, what strength of peroxide did you use in that process (could you have put gold in solution when dissolving the pins), what was left after reactions, how many pounds of gold pins and if these were heavy gold plated or just flash plated, were these pins copper or iron based, what was left in reactions, how much gold foils were dissolved and what amount of chemicals were used in the process.

Without us being there watching what goes into the pot, it is very hard for us to tell what kind of soup you have, and when you ask what do I need to put into my soup to make it taste better.
 
All the pins from two lap tops?

All your gold may be on the bottom already. Stir your beaker vigorously and see if a small amount of brown dust collects in the middle.

It takes pounds of pins to collect grams of gold.
 
butcher said:
Put a piece of clean copper in the solution, just in case, anything of value would cement out as a black powder.

If these were gold foils from pins dissolved in HCl/NaClO, did all of the material dissolve into solution?
If not then check the material that did not dissolve in the previous reactions for your gold.

The solution in your picture was pretty green; this could be from either copper or iron in solution, if the gold foils were cleaned well before dissolving your solution would have been more of a yellow color.

You really have not given us much detail of what you have done to this point, did you dissolve all of the copper or iron from your pins into solution, what strength of peroxide did you use in that process (could you have put gold in solution when dissolving the pins), what was left after reactions, how many pounds of gold pins and if these were heavy gold plated or just flash plated, were these pins copper or iron based, what was left in reactions, how much gold foils were dissolved and what amount of chemicals were used in the process.

Without us being there watching what goes into the pot, it is very hard for us to tell what kind of soup you have, and when you ask what do I need to put into my soup to make it taste better.



Ok i will explain all my work. First i depopulate all boards from 2 amstrad lt286 laptops, then i incinerate all the chips, run a magnet on them to get rid of iron. After that i put in AP pins, ram boards, the non ferrous from chips and all pieces that it has gold on them to test how much is from 2 laptops. After all the base metal was consumed i go whit HCL/CL. After filtration was a bright orange color but the next day when i try to precipitate the color change in light green and no gold was down the test whit SnCl was positive. i heated the solution and after that the test was negative for gold.
 

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Your swab looks brown, a positive test would be purple. Did you test and get a purple stain before you added the SMB?

Those boards you show are multi layer boards, the edges and in the holes would still have base metal exposed to acid and may have cemented the tiny amount of gold present.

Your beaker looks to have a slight dust on the bottom I suspect if any was in solution this is your gold.

You may be expecting too much from two little computers.
 
I have to agree with qst42. Your slight amount of values may still be locked up in your base metals or there just isn't enough materials to show any appreciable amount of pm's.
 
ovidiuanghel,

I have to agree that the tiny amount of values from that material most likely cemented out of your leach onto those circuit boards, and this solution may not have much gold if any.

I suggest, after recovering any solids from the cementing process, save the rinsed powder and store in a small container, treat this solution for waste using the instructions found in the post dealing with waste found in the safety section.

Start spending time collecting scrap as you study, collect enough scrap to work with (large batches), spend time separating the scrap by type of material, preparing it to be processed (like cutting fingers off of computer memory), read and study Hokes book, work with the experiments in her book to get a good understanding of how the different metals react with acids.

Do small experiments testing for values in solution, prepare and teach yourself what to expect and how to recognize what is going on in these solutions.

Reading the forum you will see how to prepare your scrap material to get the best yield from what you process, what process works best for what type of materials you are dealing with, you will also see that the materials are processed separately, and how they are prepared before the see the acids, how whole circuit boards are just a way to lose values, or how solder and tin can trap your gold taking it away from you, and so on.

I suggest start out learning with memory fingers, these have the least variables for mistakes, or lose of value's, like when you work with several different kinds of base metals, or working with large pieces of hard to dissolve metals where you may leave gold on undissolved base metals that would cement your gold out onto them, or hidden copper or other base metals that can cement out your gold in the leaching process like the copper traces under layers of solder mask or in the center of circuit boards under the fiberglass layers, or from solder and the gold being stolen from you by the tin in solutions.

Work with these memory fingers like a scientist would work with his controlled experiments, where working with a more pure metals will not give much trouble, and you can learn what to expect, and get an understanding of the chemistry involved, before working on the materials which would give many variables in the process.

Working with the finger foils you can learn the basics easier as there are not as many thing that can mess it up you can also get an idea of how much of these gold foils it takes to make a little bit of bold precipitated powders, or a tiny button of gold, learning and experimenting with fairly clean materials and metals in these acids will help you understand, what to expect, and what is going on when the recovery process is not full of variables, work with this material and study until it becomes easy, by then you will have more material that may require a different recovery procedure but with the same basic idea, then study what you need to and you will have some experience on what to expect while recovering values from the scrap.

Do not worry about getting gold just yet, spend your time on educating yourself, the gold will come and your education will prepare you to know how to deal with it when it does come your way, the education will also teach you where to find that valuable scrap, and how to keep it coming your way.
 
Well i had success with pins, fingers, different types of boards but now when i mixt this(chips, boards and pins) i ruined all.


Thank you all for your help, in the future i need to be more carefully!
 
I think I know why!! Take your solution, heat it for a half hour or so, then put it in a jar and wait. If nothing happens add SMB but in liquid form, not dry. Mix the SMB with 20ml or however much you need and add that. Watch and see if it doesn't look like a snow globe full of gold inside your container...
 

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