Tried to recover gold and siver with nitric acid

[Shark]

No. Filter the gold out. Cement the silver on copper. It is a bit more complicated than just adding copper to it so you need to study the information in the link.

 

[Lexiecurl23]

How does he cement the silver out of the solution he has right now? The green solution he has he put a silver plated copper ring in it and it's eating the silver off of it if he leaves the now exposed copper in it would it cement the silver out of the solution

 

[Shark]

Yes, but it depends on how much silver and copper. It trades the copper into solution while taking the silver out of solution. Not enough copper you don’t get all the silver. Another piece of copper will let you know if all your silver is out of solution. Or a hydrochloric test can tell as well.

There is a lot more to this and it takes a lot of study to get it right. Start with throughly understanding the post Dave gave you. Then study on cleaning up your left over waste solution. You can’t just pour it out on the ground or down the drain.

 

[Lexiecurl23]

Is it safe to be breathing it in while it is in this process?

 

[Shark]

I wouldn’t do it inside, or even near anything metal of value. A fume hood would be good, even a basic hood to keep fumes away from you is better than none at all. If no hood, work outside where the average breeze will blow from one side to another. You don’t want to do it from front to back or back to front, this will cause it to blow in your face or linger longer in your face.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

You should never have started until you understood what you were doing and why you were doing it.

 

[BlackLabel]

Davomaiden, Lexiecurl23,

You both have to understand what you did and learn what to do now.
Are you friends? Did you work together on this project?

The silver and the gold are still in the solution as long you don't toss it.

The nitric acid dissolved the silver.
This will make a colorless solution.

The nitric acid dissolved the copper.
This will make a blue solution.

If you dilute the nitric acid with tab water, you bring in a little bit of chlorine.
This chlorine and the nitric acid forms a little bit of aqua regia and dissolve the little amount of gold.
The dissolved gold makes a yellow solution.

Blue + yellow = green.

Read and understand the given link about cementing out.
Your not in hurry, be careful about the fumes.
Good luck!

 

[manorman]

I wouldn’t do it inside, or even near anything metal of value. A fume hood would be good, even a basic hood to keep fumes away from you is better than none at all. If no hood, work outside where the average breeze will blow from one side to another. You don’t want to do it from front to back or back to front, this will cause it to blow in your face or linger longer in your face.

 

[Lexiecurl23]

You should never have started until you understood what you were doing and why you were doing it.

We have been doing this for about a few months now

 

[Lexiecurl23]

Davomaiden, Lexiecurl23,

You both have to understand what you did and learn what to do now.
Are you friends? Did you work together on this project?

The silver and the gold are still in the solution as long you don't toss it.

The nitric acid dissolved the silver.
This will make a colorless solution.

The nitric acid dissolved the copper.
This will make a blue solution.

If you dilute the nitric acid with tab water, you bring in a little bit of chlorine.
This chlorine and the nitric acid forms a little bit of aqua regia and dissolve the little amount of gold.
The dissolved gold makes a yellow solution.

Blue + yellow = green.

Read and understand the given link about cementing out.
Your not in hurry, be careful about the fumes.
Good luck!

We are dating. And that makes more sense to me thank you do you know what chemicals we could use to remove the chlorine and get the silver and the gold out?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I already answered your question. Look back at post #15 on the first page of this thread.

Dave

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

We have been doing this for about a few months now

But apparently without the necessary understanding of of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. That’s not meant to be an insult. Rather, constructive criticism. I would suggest that you read Hoke at least twice and watch Sreetips for a couple of hours a day for the next couple of months. If you do that, you’ll probably never need to ask these questions again.

 

[Martijn]

But apparently without the necessary understanding of of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. That’s not meant to be an insult. Rather, constructive criticism. I would suggest that you read Hoke at least twice and watch Sreetips for a couple of hours a day for the next couple of months. If you do that, you’ll probably never need to ask these questions again.

I blame You tube. looks way too easy, no warnings or proper and safe methods displayed, processes half explained and the most important stuff left out. I have recently started to comment on You tube video's and refer to this forum. Overuse of nitric in AR and trying to neutralize with urea e.g.

There are many things to consider when performing a chemical reaction: e.g.:

Or a hydrochloric test can tell as well

Now most of us understand how to perform this test, but some 'test' by throwing half a liter of HCl in the entire solution, most of us take a drop or a couple of ml in a separate beaker and add a dash of HCl.
Until you have learned or experienced it's not the right way, you don't know. you can't know. So it's a path of trail and error alongside learning and investigating.
It depends on the person who does it how deep they take this.
Some work out a complete plan with risk assessment of the tiniest task, some start testing small scale after reading a bit, some dive in head first and don't think at all.
You can't save them all. We should keep trying though.

Martijn.