the dried mess i had forgotten about (how to test)

[necromancer]

Hi All !

i have this dried up disaster that i had put away about 6 years ago & have no idea what to do with it.

if i remember correctly it is either:

#1 - the solid leftovers from a large batch of dissolving MLCC's in HCL
or
#2 the solid leftovers from dissolving a large batch of ceramic CPU's in AR & i do think i have removed the gold already (or most of the gold) it was my first try at ceramic CPU's.

is there any way i could test this to find out what's inside of this 6 year old powered absolute disaster ?

btw, it's been 6 years since i have done anything complicated with my recovery knowledge & i'm very rusty !

Thanks,
Dave

the bag of unknown powder


up close shot of the unknown disaster.

 

[anachronism]

Sure

Dissolve a small amount in HCl and test test test 8) 8)

Jon

 

[Geo]

I agree with Jon. Dissolve a weighed batch and test the solution and then see what kinds of solids is left. Any metallics should be dissolved and tested as well.

 

[necromancer]

thanks !

just need to make a new batch of stannous chloride & i'll be on my way, i don't think 6 year old stannous will work.

 

[necromancer]

i've dissolved about 10 grams powder in about 80ml 31% HCL, stirred and let settle many times.
(my small scale is broken so couldn't weigh it up)
i get a negative result with a stannous test.
just a green (copper) acid solution w/ the white sediment, i've decanted into a waste bucket and have added my second amount of HCL.

remaining sediment is a white super fine particulate

if it was dried silver chloride how would i test ?

could i simply wash it in distilled water add lie, add sugar, wash with hot water and melt to get results ?

i'm not sure what it originally was, could have been dried metastannic acid / silver / palladium sediment for all i know.

 

[necromancer]

i think metastannic acid would go into solution with additions of HCL.
so that takes Tin out of the calculation.

 

[necromancer]

finished the second HCL wash, rinsed it 3 times with distilled water, boiled it in distilled water and no change from the white precipitate, it's still a very fine powdered solid.
i'm at a loss.

 

[nickvc]

If you suspect silver take a small sample and dry it and it should change color as the light reacts with it.

 

[archeonist]

If you suspect silver take a small sample and dry it and it should change color as the light reacts with it.

Or you could take a small sample and mix with lye, it should turn Black (AgO). And with some table sugar it should turn grey (Ag).

 

[Geo]

Expose white powder to sunlight. If it's silver, it will start to darken quickly. Within an hour and it should be very dark if it's silver chloride.

 

[necromancer]

the sunlight test is negative.

the lye test is also negative, it turned into a light coffee colour as if there was milk in the coffee.
when i added the lye the small sample (10g) turned into a crystalline substance that fused to the bottom of my pyrex dish, when it started to warm up it turned into yellowy brown loose fine powder.

next test i'm going to try a new 10g sample, hit it with dilute nitric & test with stannous.
may try AR after that, if that fails i know i've been saving 1.6 lbs of trash for about 6 years

was really hoping it was Ag / Pd leftovers......

if anyone thinks its worth saving please let me know.

thanks all !!