Take your vitamins

[anachronism]

For those using SMB.

Instead of that smelly nasty horrible stuff, you might want to look into using Vitamin C instead. No odour, fast drops and less fumes from your waste. If you use Ferrous Sulphate for recovery drops and Vit C for refines you'll never need to use SMB ever again.

Vit C is Ascorbic acid. Available in large bags for a very similar price to SMB.

 

[samuelbaldwin010]

For those using SMB.

Instead of that smelly nasty horrible stuff, you might want to look into using Vitamin C instead. No odour, fast drops and less fumes from your waste. If you use Ferrous Sulphate for recovery drops and Vit C for refines you'll never need to use SMB ever again.

Vit C is Ascorbic acid. Available in large bags for a very similar price to SMB.

Is this a fact? Can you or any of our other members verify this or can anyone elaborate on this a bit?
This is the first time I have ever heard of using vitamin c to drop gold in place of using SMB (sodium metabisulfite).

I am aware that there are a wide range of different substances that can be used to precipitate gold, many ways to skin a cat, so-to-speak.. although, I have not heard of vitamin c being one of them before.

Does it only work on gold or does it work for other metals as well? Also, is there any kind of special process to use it? (I.e. temperature, other special conditions, etc.) I for one reason, am very curious about this and am surprised nobody else has replied to this thread.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Is this a fact? Can you or any of our other members verify this or can anyone elaborate on this a bit?
This is the first time I have ever heard of using vitamin c to drop gold in place of using SMB (sodium metabisulfite).

I am aware that there are a wide range of different substances that can be used to precipitate gold, many ways to skin a cat, so-to-speak.. although, I have not heard of vitamin c being one of them before.

Does it only work on gold or does it work for other metals as well? Also, is there any kind of special process to use it? (I.e. temperature, other special conditions, etc.) I for one reason, am very curious about this and am surprised nobody else has replied to this thread.

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and Oxcalic acid works well. I have not used it myself but has seen videos.

 

[BGDOCK]

Gotta try this
I’m a big fan of ferrous sulfate

 

[Shark]

There are many ways to drop gold from AR. Yes, vitamin C works well.

As well as ferrous sulfate, you can use sodium nitrite, not to be confused with sodium nitrate. With a bit of research one can find a few others as well.

 

[snoman701]

Does it have to be completely denoxxed? I rarely denox, just keep track of my additions...and am rarely off by more than a couple percent. In the very worst case, I'll have a redox reaction, which quickly uses up the last of the nitric. This is primarily karat scrap though, so not low tenor solutions.

 

[nickvc]

I always used ferrous and ascorbic as I hated the smell from smb.
I believe that ascorbic can precipitate some Pd if present so I would use ferrous first and use ascorbic for final refining or for very clean solutions.

 

[kurtak]

I believe that ascorbic can precipitate some Pd

This is correct - though ascorbic (vitamin C) is not really good at precipitating Pd if it is in solution with gold it can/will cause some Pd to co-deposit with the gold - so it is best used on solutions of gold only

in other words - ascorbic is not as selective as other precipitants

Ascorbic also precipitates the gold as VERY fine powder so takes more time for settling as well as more care when decanting

Ascorbic also works for precipitating silver from silver nitrate & again does so as a VERY fine power (micron size particles)

Because ascorbic precipitates VERY fine powder people that like to make "metal casting clay" like to use it for making their metal casting clay as the clay/metal mixes more homogenies resulting in better casting results

Kurt

 

[Slochteren]

For those using SMB.

Instead of that smelly nasty horrible stuff, you might want to look into using Vitamin C instead. No odour, fast drops and less fumes from your waste. If you use Ferrous Sulphate for recovery drops and Vit C for refines you'll never need to use SMB ever again.

Vit C is Ascorbic acid. Available in large bags for a very similar price to SMB.

For smb it is more or less 1 gram for 1 gram expected gold, how is the ratio vitamine C to the expected amount gold?

 

[anachronism]

This is correct - though ascorbic (vitamin C) is not really good at precipitating Pd if it is in solution with gold it can/will cause some Pd to co-deposit with the gold - so it is best used on solutions of gold only

in other words - ascorbic is not as selective as other precipitants

Ascorbic also precipitates the gold as VERY fine powder so takes more time for settling as well as more care when decanting

Ascorbic also works for precipitating silver from silver nitrate & again does so as a VERY fine power (micron size particles)

Because ascorbic precipitates VERY fine powder people that like to make "metal casting clay" like to use it for making their metal casting clay as the clay/metal mixes more homogenies resulting in better casting results

Kurt

That's not the case when you are using it on a refine as opposed to a recovery Kurt. Also, I do the same as Nick - Ferrous Sulphate for recoveries and Ascorbic for refines.

 

[anachronism]

For smb it is more or less 1 gram for 1 gram expected gold, how is the ratio vitamine C to the expected amount gold?

This is a classic case of how some chemistry has morphed into an urban myth Slochteren. It takes as much SMB to drop your gold as it takes for your Stannous test to become clear it really is as simple as that because temperature and other factors determine how much is required.

It really does need someone to put that one to bed because I know firsthand of people who have quite literally used 10g of SMB to drop an expected 10g of gold, and have thrown the rest of the solution away because they have read this comment so many times and have taken it as scripture.

 

[minero74]

Good morning guys

I never use it Vitamin C before
I will try it.

searching in the forum
I read an old post that
SMB won’t precipitate all the gold from the solution.

i look for answer searching in the forum
I learn to add Zinc powder to the solution after SMB precipitate most gold.
and by adding Zinc Powder get gold from the Solution.
after that , I decant the solution to the stock pot,then I add copper to cement out any value that can be still in solution.

 

[anachronism]

Minero

Zinc powder will precipitate all metals below Zinc on the reactivity table.

 

[Martijn]

Does it have to be completely denoxxed?

I don't think so, just like with SMB, the precipitated gold will use up those traces of HNO3.

 

[minero74]

Minero

Zinc powder will precipitate all metals below Zinc on the reactivity table.

Thank You

Perhaps members of the forum can use
Zinc powder after Vitamin C and SMB precipitate.
maybe can benefit their gold recovering

I’m using Zinc Powder after SMB precipitate
and work great to get the gold out
SMB don’t precipitate all the gold in my AR solution.
after that ,the solution goes to the stock pot.
Edited .

 

[adam mizer]

I like using zinc powder.
It precipitates metals in solution fast and the waste liquid clears up quickly.
Maybe more costly than iron but I accept that.
However I'm a small hobby guy and like to deal with my wastes right away.