Trouble reading posts - Chemistry is all mixed up -

[Shark]

For Nitric I have used calcium nitrate, sodium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate.
I found the calcium nitrate as a fertilizer especially for tomatoes.
The potassium Nitrate from Spectracide Stump Remover.
Both the ammonium nitrate and calcium nitrate were just fertilizers. I no longer use either of these just based on cost alone. There are other reasons as well, but cost and travel time to get them was enough of a reason for me.

For sulfamic acid I use TILELabs Sulfamic Acid Cleaner, from the plumbing section of Home Depot.
Copperas from HiYield brand garden supplies. Local farm store.
Spectracide Stump Remover from Lowe's for potassium nitrate.
Hydrocloric acid comes from several places, depending on who has it on sale. Lowe's or Home Depot. Occasionally from local hardware stores.
Copper Sulfate from Lowe's, in the plumbing section, source Zep Root Kill.
Sodium Metabisulfite comes from Home Depot, source Bonide Stump Out.
Sulfuric acid comes from various brands of drain cleaners, I prefer the Rooto or Liquid Fire brands. Can be found in most hardware stores, or Lowe's carries a drain cleaner called Clean Shot, it works but a bit heavy on the inhibitors.
Battery acid comes from various auto parts stores, prices can be all of the charts here, but a local, non chain store has been my best source.
Bleach can be found in almost any store.
3% Peroxide from the Dollar General store. Cheapest price but Dollar Tree is real close second.

I prefer to shop local when possible for several reasons. I like to help the local economy when I can but it also provides contacts locally for materials. Often the new contacts alone makes the local shopping worth while.

Now for the chemistry involved. I have worked hard to understand as much of it as I could, but I found that often my recovery of metals fell behind. No gold recovered means no payday for several people on the forum. And that is just bad business. I try to study enough of the chemistry to not hurt myself or those around me. I like to have a good understanding of what is going on but I don't feel the need to go to the depth that others do. I am also glad there are those here who do and they are willing to share their knowledge with us who don't have that understanding. There is the reference manual for those of us who lack that in depth understanding.

One other thing, I don't have the urge to invent some new process. I have all I can do to learn those provided on the forum without trying to reinvent them. At times I will tweak a few minor things, but I would not call them a new process.

 

[snoman701]

See, that's just my problem...I do have the desire to understand exactly what I'm doing and what's happening. It's a curse...ultimately the result of a brain that's too smart for the dumbass that carries it around.

I could just sell my scrap on Ebay and collect the check as well...then in the time you spend processing, list more crap on Ebay. Unless you are processing pretty large batches, it's likely I'd make more...but I'd be bored out of my mind. See above.

I think the best thing I've done thus far is start paying attention to who is posting what. And yes, some posters are very good at listing the fundamentals of what's happening. There are certain principles that I'm lacking, just because it's been so long since I've read anything related to physical chemistry...my passion for the last 8 years has been anesthesia.

I started reading chemistry again when I got interested in plants. Tissue culture, mineral & nutrient balance, etc....then when I started moving, I found the bucket of electrical contacts I collected a long time ago. Distracted by something shiny.

Guess I need to go to the thrift store and get a chem 1 book.

 

[samuel-a]

Guess I need to go to the thrift store and get a chem 1 book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPHzzYuWy6fYEaX9mQQ8oGr

enjoy

 

[jason_recliner]

Numbers!

"We don't need no stinkin' numbers!" :lol:

If it's just to say "see, I know more than you", I will be far from impressed.

As would I. We've had several elitist members who only appear to gloat about their comprehension and mastery of chemistry, while having no experience in real world. Few have lasted long before the door hit them on the R's.

But I don't believe that's the case here. I can understand why someone accustomed to 'stoichio' would be dumbfounded that a forum loaded with professional knowledge and skill has no apparent measurements. Particularly the "Not done yet? Give it some more" concept of incremental nitric.


I am not a chemist, nor would I likely succeed pretending to be one for more than 20 minutes in a bar scam. I left school at the ripe old age of fourteen and became a tradesman in a factory. Not the fluoro variety, but Radio Trades (Electronics) by trade. I once dealt daily with engineers wielding some of the most elaborate, harebrained, theoretical ideas one could imagine; great on paper but not worth a pinch of spit in the real world. (In contrast, these days I work with engineers - more intelligent and educated than myself - to provide the simplest solutions for other tradesmen!) So I can appreciate that many members consider numbers meaningless.

I owe much to this site but as a hobbyist I freely admit my lack of comprehension in refining as a business. Though it must be obvious that proper yields would (or should) be secrets guarded jealously, so it is only fair that they would generally go unpublished. And of course as it has been said, if you will pardon the missing attribution, the only yield worth anything anyway is your own.

We, collectively, are those who come up with answers to problems such as this: http://i.imgur.com/0HMuaPx.jpg. Brilliant. But not very "stoichio", is it? And so it is with refining. One doing it for a PhD wants Ph to d' finest detail. But one doing it for a living does what is necessary to get the job done in the shortest time with the least fuss and bank that sucker. Some of us are in between.

 

[g_axelsson]

I read a lot of animosity against numbers here and I don't like it. Numbers are cool! :mrgreen:

I'm one of those at the forum that loves equations. It gives a deeper understanding to what happens in our reactions. But for a practical standpoint it is not really needed, or as Harold used to say : "I can teach a monkey to refine."

The good thing with stoichiometry is that we can calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction. But when that math is done once we can all go by a simple rule as "use 1.2 g potassium nitrate and two ml hydrochloric acid instead of nitric acid making poor mans AR" (not the real formula, just fantasy numbers).

There are actually more reactions written out among the earlier posts and Lasersteve made a great post with a collection of chemical reactions we use.

In the end I would love to see more reactions among the posts, it is a great tool to use and it would help people to reach a higher understanding of what we are doing here. It also might attract some of the more advanced refiners out there and not only the home refiners that think the greatest way to get the gold from electronics is to drop everything into aqua regia and then just get the gold back.

But the reality is that the inorganic chemistry we are doing on a daily basis is just messy. There are so many side reactions and competing reactions going on. If you have a well defined source stream then you can trim a plant to great efficiency. But given a batch system where every batch is different then it becomes more important to learn to read the signs of the reactions and adjust the amount of reagents we use on the fly.

In the mean time, I'll just add equations to my wiki, like on
http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Copper
Not because I want to brag and feel better than others, just because I'm curious and always want to learn more.

Göran

 

[4metals]

Thank you Jason for summing up the the combined personalities of all members of the forum who can successfully refine with a picture of that red wire! In the end, it comes down to what works.

 

[snoman701]

No...the elitist version doesn't do much for me. What it does do is fulfill the autistic tendencies I have to do things the "right way"....and by right way, I just mean the fundamental understanding of what's happening. If I'm just going to pour acid on things, I might as well be cooking. At least then I can eat the end product. That's just me though, it shouldn't be misinterpreted as elitist, though I can see how it would.

I grew up in a family of railroad men three generations deep. I went to college to become an engineer then dropped / transferred out as a senior to go in to physical chemistry / physics. Then I had an emotional break, spent time as an art major and ultimately ended up a vet tech at a university level hospital. The relevancy here....vet tech, art major, engineer....I always fit in with the grad students or young vets / students. I was assumed to be one by many. With all of that, I was their real world mentor. I taught Indian grad students how to use hand tools . I taught young vets how to perform procedures they had never seen...and I taught artists to weld and use tools they had never seen. I am a hands on guy that can get stuff done...and I fully understand the frustrations with theory based learning. With that said, I have found that if you can understand both sides....the theory and the practice, you can do some pretty amazing things. From a practicality standpoint....I'm a fabricator/welder/machinist, artist, inventor, vet tech and general lab tech and aspiring farmer. There's not much I can't do...unless it involves athleticism or social tact. My passion is, and always will be teaching however. I desperately miss coaching grad students and interns.

What you'll find is that a majority of the "math people" are actually pretty jealous of your knowledge and your ability to think with your hands. With that, their knowledge is actually very powerful, and if you learn to work with them, you can become a pretty amazing team. I can't tell you how many times I heard a doctor (DVM, MD or PhD) say "I wish I could figure out how to do this"...and immediately hear from me, "try this". The hands on knowledge and practicality can feed the theory to amazing potential. Invention is 1% inspiration / 99% perspiration....well, that 1% is really hard to the mechanic, and the perspiration is really hard for a guy that is accustomed to wearing a suit....so work together.

If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done".


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[nickvc]

Snoman I hear you loud and clear there is nothing wrong with learning the chemistry behind what we all do but the problem is usually those that have the book work done and dusted but with no practical experience find it hard to be corrected by what they see as uneducated amateurs, we have had many examples over the years.
We have members here who are both chemists and refiners and we have members who struggle to put into words what they know and that is the whole purpose of the forum, we help each other get better at what we all do, we have members whose first language is not English so we all strive to be accurate and correct in what we post and advise, most members never post or rarely post so the active membership takes up the slack and tries to help where they can but few of them are chemists just excellent recovery and refining technicians.
Read and research all the knowledge you are ever going to need to be successful is here, it might not be in standard chemistry textbook form but it's here and it works.

 

[kurtak]

I read a lot of animosity against numbers here and I don't like it. Numbers are cool! :mrgreen:

I'm one of those at the forum that loves equations. It gives a deeper understanding to what happens in our reactions. But for a practical standpoint it is not really needed, or as Harold used to say : "I can teach a monkey to refine."

Goran

I don't think anyone (posting to this thread) has "animosity" against numbers --- numbers play a big & important roll in what we do & we use them everyday in our refining

The good thing with stoichiometry is that we can calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction

Per the underlined - this is the problem (& it is what snowman701 is looking for) & as you should know - in refining PMs there is no such thing as "calculate the exact amount of a chemical needed for a reaction" --- there are just flat out to many variables --- & not just in the fact that when refining (taking impure metals & making them pure) a host of "other" metals are involved which changes reaction parameters - but also the conditions under which you preform the reaction will change reaction parameters

Soooo - this is NOT an "exact" science --- which is what every post I have read in this thread is trying to tell snowman701 --- but - he doesn't "seem" to be able to get that though his thick educated head --- (sorry if that sounds rude - its not meant to be - but - rather its a wake up call for snowman701 - to wake up & listen to those of us that may not have the level of education he has - but - have a great deal more experience then him)

Examples - alloys - white gold - is the alloy Au/Pd - Au/Pd/Pt - Au/Ni - Au/Pd/Ag - Au/Ni/Ag/Zn etc. & in what percentages of each metal - & the WIDE range of other Au &/or Ag alloys --- plated pins - are they copper - brass - bronze - kovar &/or a mix of those alloys --- then what about other contaminates - solder - Ni under plating etc. etc. etc. ------ all of which changes the reaction parameters

Then there are the conditions under which you preform the reaction(s)

Examples - are you dissolving solid metals - or powders because this will change reaction parameters - AND - are you preforming the reaction in an open reaction vessel - or a closed reaction vessel - or a vessel under vacuum - again - all of which will change reaction parameters

Here you go snowman701 --- you want numbers - I will give you "some" (but right out the gate I am going to tell you these numbers are only "in theory" - due to the above)

pure silver --- to dissolve 1 gram it takes 1.17 ml 70% nitric & 1.17 ml distilled H20

pure gold --- to dissolve 1 gram it takes 1 ml 70% nitric & 4 mil 30% HCl

BUT - here is a good example of how that just does not hold up :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=22286&p=233294&hilit=electrolyte#p233294

following quote from snowman701

If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done".

How about this --- you show me (first) that you have enough respect for the fact that I have no where near the formal education that you have - BUT - that I have a great deal more "experience" when it comes to refining then you --- AND THEN - you may just EARN enough of my respect to help you learn something about refining

You can start by reading Hokes (like I told you) as well as researching here on the forum

And don't get me wrong - because I am sure that due to your education - you likely have much of value to share with us here - BUT - you need to get rid of this attitude that those of us with less formal education - need to "first" respect you because of your education --- in other words - keep in mind - you have come to "our" house to learn --- we DID NOT come to your house

Kurt

 

[anachronism]

If you give them a chance, most of the book jockeys come around pretty quickly and will value the skills they can learn from your hands on knowledge...but respect is a two way street as well. If you never respect that a lot of these people spent at least eight years at the college level committed to just learning the field so that they can get a job, you shouldn't expect them to respect the fact that you can "get it done".

I'm old fashioned. Respect has to be earned, and results talk. Remember that Kurt, myself, and many of the other members do understand the chemistry, albeit with a working knowledge rather than a formal qualification. People like Lou and I believe GSP (amongst others) are chemists, but more importantly, the salient point here in this thread is that all of us can actually refine.

You do what you will, and I look forward to seeing your results. To start a journey you have to take a step otherwise you're going nowhere.

 

[Palladium]

My beakers the same size as yours!

 

[kurtak]

My beakers the same size as yours!

:lol: :lol: :lol: --- ya but - is it half full - or - half empty :mrgreen:

Kurt

 

[anachronism]

My beakers the same size as yours!

:lol: :lol: :lol: --- ya but - is it half full - or - half empty :mrgreen:

Kurt

Yes but whose is fullerer? Haha is there such a word?

 

[Geo]

snoman701, please don't think that I or these guys are attacking you or your beliefs. The forum is full of balanced equations for the hunting. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know exact formulas. The majority of processes people post about now days are electronics. Karat scrap is more predictable and the reactions are basically textbook. Electronics contain mostly copper as the base metal. There is also percentages of almost every other metal in the chart in electronics. That's why you are more likely to read processes as a dash of this or a pinch of that. It is very much like baking a cake and just like baking a cake, there are thousands of varieties and each with their own ingredients.

 

[snoman701]

I think if anything, I was afraid it was the other way around...that it was taken as I was attacking the experienced folk for not having a PhD in chemistry.

When I was a mechanic, I worked with a guy that "hate engineers" because of the backwards ways things were designed. It was while working with him that I got accepted to engineering school. I had my rear end handed to me a couple of times by tool makers because I was arrogant. One of those times I was lucky he had bad aim. After that, I figured out that I could get a lot more done working along side or beneath them, utilizing their experience, than standing above supervising or managing.

 

[anachronism]

I think if anything, I was afraid it was the other way around...that it was taken as I was attacking the experienced folk for not having a PhD in chemistry.

When I was a mechanic, I worked with a guy that "hate engineers" because of the backwards ways things were designed. It was while working with him that I got accepted to engineering school. I had my rear end handed to me a couple of times by tool makers because I was arrogant. One of those times I was lucky he had bad aim. After that, I figured out that I could get a lot more done working along side or beneath them, utilizing their experience, than standing above supervising or managing.

Hehe even though I've got broad shoulders and I never took it as an attack, I'll take that as a back handed apology. It's also accepted.

Look, the bottom line is this. You need to get your hands dirty as I said before. Well, whilst wearing gloves but you get my drift. You really will see what we're all saying when you do. Trust me on this.

Jon

 

[snoman701]

I've been busy...trying to find my lab glass. Unfortunately, I think I threw it out. Had all kinds of stuff too....triple neck flasks, distillation columns, etc. making nitric tomorrow though. I've got a peanut butter jar and some hose....lol


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[Shark]

I've got a peanut butter jar and some hose....lol

Peanut butter comes in plastic jars these days, be very careful when heating them as the temper isn't that good. :lol:

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I hate to have to be so serious sometimes, but please, let's not make jokes about dangerous processes like making nitric acid. I assume both of you understand the dangers, but a new member with no chemistry background may not. I would hate to think that a post on this forum would ever be the cause of someone getting hurt or worse because we relaxed our standards.

To anyone who may read this thread in the future, do NOT try making nitric in a plastic peanut butter jar.

Dave

 

[Refining Rick]

To anyone who may read this thread in the future, do NOT try making nitric in a plastic peanut butter jar.

HAHAHA!! :lol: That's some funny stuff. Might have to fit that into my sig. line. Just made me laugh out loud when I read it. Not that that it is not good advice.