Got a new load to play with today consisting of the wires from large amounts of carat gold melts.Most of these i think will be stainless steel but have a coating of carat gold from the melts they were taken from and im thinking that cutting them into smaller lengths and then putting in AP might be the way to go the alternative is just Hcl but that i feel might be slow.If anyone has any comments or ideas i would be pleased to hear them. Thanks Nick.
Steel wires from carat melting.
- Thread starter nickvc
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nickvc said:
AP is not real effective with steel, perhaps hot dilute sulfuric acid would be a better choice?
Steve
will the sulphuric attack the stainless steel Steve if so i,ll give it a try. Thanks.
Another alternative is to melt with phosphorus copper, the high heat of the melt helps bring the steel into the bar. In the process you will collect the gold. Assay it and use it to cement your waste acid and you will eventually recover the gold in there.
Thanks 4Metals, will the phosphorus copper need more heat to melt into a homogeneous bar or will it self generate the heat? The thought of using AP was that it might work on the copper in the carat gold and also attack the stainless steel but not sure of the chemistry here 
The phos copper generates the extra heat itself and, while I don't know this for a fact, I believe the phosphorus burns off.
