lazersteve said:
Your precipitate looks to be a mix of copper one chloride, miscellaneous salts, and gold. This happens when you have dissolved copper two chloride mixed with your dissolved gold solution and add too much SMB as mentioned above. The problem of CuCl mixed with gold powder is very easy to fix.
1) Filter out the solids.
2) Flush the solids with lots of hot water.
3) Treat the solids with an excess of full strength 31%+ HCl with lots of stirring. This dissolves the copper I chloride into the acid coloring it dark brown to black.
4) Allow to settle and decant or filter the solids out again, the solids contain your gold powder.
5) Incinerate to red heat if desired.
6) Dissolve the dirty gold powder again (straw yellow to orange solution this time ), filter until 100% transparent, and precipitate with the proper amount of SMB.
7) Left over solutions should all be gently heated until the smell of SO2 is gone, then tested for dissolved Au.
Steve
First of all, I want to thank all of you that have helped me out and have given me guidance. It was worth its weight in gold.
Steve, you're the man. WOW. I was feeling so down when I thought I screwed up my stuff, but when you said,
lazersteve said:
The problem of CuCl mixed with gold powder is very easy to fix.
that there, gave me all the hope I was needing, and I'm thankful for it too.
I managed to follow your steps, along with the post here by kadriver in the thread:
Recovering Black Powder from the Cell
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=7093&start=80
and have completed my tasks.
Yes, I have officially refined and have recovered gold from escrap. I will make a thread with the pictures of the gold button I've made, all thanks to this forum. I was too determined to let my hard work go to waste, and I wasn't going to give up either. I've been reading, studying, reading and studying like there was no tomorrow. I've gained so much information and knowledge from all of this, and more as I completed each step. Now I understand more than just last week.
There are also a few concerns that I have.....
1. When I thought I botched my gold, Butcher said that (I think, the last resort) to place a piece of copper in the solution and it may/should collect the gold. I've done that first, before reading Lazersteve's post. Now, the copper has black on it, and has what looks like mildew on it. Below is the photo.
My question is, is there any gold on it? or should I scrape the copper pipe and process the scraping with the acid?
2. Because I thought, again, I was adding too much SMB to the solution, I kept testing it with the stannous and it keeps on testing positive. I added SMB, tested, added SMB, tested, on and on, yet it still tests positive for gold. So, to not mess this up, I simply filtered the solution and recovered the solids, and rinsed the filter till it turned from yellow to white.
My question is, since I've already recovered gold so far and separated it, should I add more SMB to the golden yellow solution that's left to see if more gold will drop? and should I heat it a bit if it's below 50F outside?
3. When I added SMB the first time I thought I messed up my solution, I'm sure gold did drop. Now, when I redid everything as Steve suggested, and reading the other thread I mention above, it appears that after I made the aqua regia and then added the 10 drops of sulfuric acid to the solution, more gold, or something dropped out. I also have pictures of the dropped substance, and comparing it side-by-side with my washed and dried gold powders, they appear to look alike, in color and texture. Picture below.
My question is, should I dissolve that powder and see what happens? or should I melt it and see what happens? and should I scrape the copper pipe and put it with the substance?
Once again, thanks for all the help and guidance. It really helped, and especially when I needed it. The weather has not been good here at all and it's gong to stay in the 40's this week and rain/snow is in the forecast. I simply couldn't do much outside these last few days to almost a week.
I'm still gazing at this gold button. It's very shiny too. :lol: I'll put that picture in the Gallery.
Kevin