Use more Nitric to skip inquartation?

[Yggdrasil]

Silver source was 9999 Perth mint coins. Au alloy was about 80% Au, rest of the alloy was Ag, Cu, Fe.
I did a boiling Hydrochloric bath on the Au alloy before inquartation.

My apologies, I meant to ask if that was Silver Chloride crystals that had precipitated in the Silver Nitrate ? I haven’t put in any other chemicals. All I can think of is that I didn’t wash the alloy properly after the initial HCL bath and it the HCL has precipitated silver chloride from the Silver Nitrate solution.
I didn’t think Silver chloride formed reflective crystals like the ones photographed though.
This is my first time refining, however so I could be totally wrong about that.

This do not add up.
An 9999 Mint Au coin has 0.0001 parts not Au, it is either 800 or 9999 it can not be both, can it?
This means it will not react what so ever with neither HCl nor Nitric alone.
It will for practical purposes react to only AR and should be dissolved directly inAR.

So how long did you dissolve the "shots" of the coin?
Did you heat it?
If you heated for a prolonged period, sufficient water may have evaporated to saturate the solution.

To test it take a crystal and add a drop of water to it, if it dissolves add a grain of salt to the drop and see what happens.

 

[DSP9]

This do not add up.
An 9999 Mint Au coin has 0.0001 parts not Au, it is either 800 or 9999 it can not be both, can it?
This means it will not react what so ever with neither HCl nor Nitric alone.
It will for practical purposes react to only AR and should be dissolved directly inAR.

So how long did you dissolve the "shots" of the coin?
Did you heat it?
If you heated for a prolonged period, sufficient water may have evaporated to saturate the solution.

To test it take a crystal and add a drop of water to it, if it dissolves add a grain of salt to the drop and see what happens.

The coins used to inquart were silver, not Au.
I could’ve written that more clearly, my apologies.

The shots of the alloy were boiled for a few hours. However, I did have to leave the beaker of the solution outside covered by a watch plate ( in a safe space ) for a few days while I went away for work. When I came back, the amount of solution of was noticeably less.
Could the water in the solution have evaporated ( I live in a very hot, dry climate and the days I was away were 42+ Celsius ) and left the solution highly saturated and precipitated the crystals ?

That would make sense.

I’m currently away for work, but will be home next week and I will update this post with the results for your test.

From what I’ve researched, if it does dissolve back into water, it’s silver nitrate. Then the salt grain would cause it to drop silver chloride.

If it doesn’t dissolve in the drop of water, it’s silver chloride.

Is this correct?

 

[Yggdrasil]

The coins used to inquart were silver, not Au.
I could’ve written that more clearly, my apologies.

The shots of the alloy were boiled for a few hours. However, I did have to leave the beaker of the solution outside covered by a watch plate ( in a safe space ) for a few days while I went away for work. When I came back, the amount of solution of was noticeably less.
Could the water in the solution have evaporated ( I live in a very hot, dry climate and the days I was away were 42+ Celsius ) and left the solution highly saturated and precipitated the crystals ?

That would make sense.

I’m currently away for work, but will be home next week and I will update this post with the results for your test.

From what I’ve researched, if it does dissolve back into water, it’s silver nitrate. Then the salt grain would cause it to drop silver chloride.

If it doesn’t dissolve in the drop of water, it’s silver chloride.

Is this correct?

That is likely.

 

[Martijn]

Is there a way to test if it’s silver chloride or silver nitrate ?
I don’t currently have many serious acids available though, only HCL and Nitric. I can get some Sulphuric from site if required.

Silver Nitrate forms crystals when saturated in solution, and is invisible when in solution, except for a metallic shine to the solution.
Silver Chloride does not form crystals but is a cloudy fluffy cottage cheese like substance, it will not dissolve.

Now the above stated does not exclude other possible metal salt candidates, but as you described, it likely came from the washed alloy in HCl.
Which is something you should not do with an alloy, except for treating a 6K or lower gold alloy with nitric.
HCL will never dissolve any of these metals from the alloy, because they are covered by 80% gold. You might get some surface molecules, but not worth mentioning.
Plus HCL contamination.
Even some 'distilled water' you can buy can show AgCl when adding only silver nitrate to it. (which is a nice way to clean your distilled water of any traces of chlorine before going for the nitric dissolution or a silver cell)

Martijn.

 

[DSP9]

This do not add up.
An 9999 Mint Au coin has 0.0001 parts not Au, it is either 800 or 9999 it can not be both, can it?
This means it will not react what so ever with neither HCl nor Nitric alone.
It will for practical purposes react to only AR and should be dissolved directly inAR.

So how long did you dissolve the "shots" of the coin?
Did you heat it?
If you heated for a prolonged period, sufficient water may have evaporated to saturate the solution.

To test it take a crystal and add a drop of water to it, if it dissolves add a grain of salt to the drop and see what happens.

I’ve completed the test above.

I got a couple of crystals, placed in a test tube.
Dropped a few drops of water on them. The crystals dissolved in the water.
I then used a couple of drops of HCL, a creamy white substance ( silver chloride ) began dropping to the bottom of the tube.

This tells me that you were correct in that the solution had become saturated and began to form crystals of silver nitrate.