Electrochemistry Very interesting Gold stripper...

[bswartzwelder]

Harold,

I like your reply. I totally missed the kg in the ratio 170 kwh/kg.

I have won quite a few bets with friends since I joined the forum. Ask someone which weighs more an ounce of sugar or an ounce of gold. Usually they say the an ounce is an ounce and they weigh the same. Most all forum members know an ounce of sugar is 28.3 grams (avoir.), but an ounce of gold is 31.1 grams (troy) making the ounce of gold heavier. I then give the person a chance to "redeem" themselves by asking which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of sugar. Invariably they say the pound of gold weighs more. Then I explain that a pound of sugar is 454 grams (avoir.) but a pound of gold is only 373.2 grams since a troy pound contains only 12 troy ounces. Really a lot of fun, but noone has ever proven me wrong on this one. I haven't tried this with troy tonnes, but I'm sure the numbers would be easy to look up.

 

[Traveller11]

Wow, I guess you can still learn something new every day. I thought the difference ended at the ounce and had never heard of a Troy pound.

This probably has something to do with me never having had enough gold at one time to worry about measuring it in pounds LOL.

P.S. Troy tonnes? Is there such a thing?

 

[bswartzwelder]

I'm not sure, but I would think a large scale refiner may have refined several troy tonnes over the course of a year or two. Just a thought

 

[Wyndham]

Not a lot to add to this other than I have a titanium electrolytic bath setup with a 12v transformer for coloring titanium. different currents give different colors as it creates an oxidized layer on the TI. It uses tri sodium phosphate in a water bath. the anode and cathode are titanium. This might be where they are coming from fake or not I haven't a clue.
Wyndham

 

[Traveller11]

actually, the anode and cathode can be graphite. the oxidizing agent is the sodium hypoclorite - chlorate. as it is electrolysis, the water gets broken down into hydrogen+oxygen while the sodium chloride is decomposed. this is basically the same as HCl/Cl. the problem with this is, it will dissolve almost all the metal present. to get a good clean solution, you would need to remove as many different metal as possible first. in the case of Heap Leaching, the solution is treated with electrolysis and then sprayed onto the heap and then collected and pumped into a collector (electrowinning).

Your right on Geo' I have used the salt water cell because it dissolves all the metal(even platinum). You do have the problem of having to selectively get all the metals out,On a small scale i have found that it only works good if you keep no more than 2 ounces of scrap to about 1/2 gallon of salt water. I have found the salt water solution needs to be a saturated as possible. I would not use sea salt,the other elements can cause havoc in dropping some of the metals, depending on your scrap,of course. I used a flower pot for a membrane. if your going to try this,I would reccomend getting rid of as much base metals beforehand as possible with a clean method like HCL and hydrogen peroxide pretreatment. the good thing is salt is cheap.. Lots of good EDM graphite electrode material on ebay cheap!

I like your idea of using a flower pot as a membrane. How would one plug the hole in the bottom of the flower pot? Any types of flower pots you would use in preference to othes?

 

[bswartzwelder]

The flower pot idea has been discussed previously. You could plug the hole with a rubber stopper. One thing to make note of: The holes (pores) in the flower pot need to be within a certain size range. If they are larger than 0.5 microns, the gold will pass through. By the same token, they must be larger than 0.005 microns or they wont work.

 

[Traveller11]

The flower pot idea has been discussed previously. You could plug the hole with a rubber stopper. One thing to make note of: The holes (pores) in the flower pot need to be within a certain size range. If they are larger than 0.5 microns, the gold will pass through. By the same token, they must be larger than 0.005 microns or they wont work.

Wouldn't I want the gold to pass through and deposit itself in the vicinity of the cathode? I'm trying to separate gold from the sand, black sand and clay it is in.

 

[Traveller11]

The flower pot idea has been discussed previously. You could plug the hole with a rubber stopper. One thing to make note of: The holes (pores) in the flower pot need to be within a certain size range. If they are larger than 0.5 microns, the gold will pass through. By the same token, they must be larger than 0.005 microns or they wont work.

Sorry about that. I looked again at the discussion here and on the Chemical Processes board and remembered that we are discussing the Shor system, as well. That one has the semi-permeable membrane between anode and cathode to stop the migration of the chlorine to the cathode. It also has the anode bag to catch the gold slmes at the anode. I was only thnking of how to keep the gold precipitating at the cathode, in the other system, from re-mixing with the ore it came from.

 

[bswartzwelder]

With electroplating, we are trying to cause a metal to migrate frome one electrode (usually the anode or positive terminal) and to deposit itself on the other electrode (the cathode or negative terminal). With reverse electroplating, (such as in the Shor Simplicity System) we are essentailly doing the same thing. Except that the gold is now the anode and when power is applied, it will migrate to the cathode. I.E. Instead of plating gold ONTO an object, we are selectively plating it OFF of something. One of the biggest problems with this system was that the gold would plate off the anode and back onto the cathode. Now, we still have essentially the same problem. The gold is no longer on the copper, silver, or other metallic substrate, but firmly plated onto the carbon cathode. I can see where this could be a good thing in that you could put a gold plated carbon electrode into a chemicat solution that would dissolve the gold but not attack the carbon (maybe AR or HCl/Chlorox) of possibly find something that would attack the carbon and leave the gold behind (like AP does with circuit boards). The Shor System tries to keep the gold on the anode side of the membrane and not allow it to pass through to the cathode. However, the electrical power MUST pass through the membrane to complete the circuit.

 

[Traveller11]

With electroplating, we are trying to cause a metal to migrate frome one electrode (usually the anode or positive terminal) and to deposit itself on the other electrode (the cathode or negative terminal). With reverse electroplating, (such as in the Shor Simplicity System) we are essentailly doing the same thing. Except that the gold is now the anode and when power is applied, it will migrate to the cathode. I.E. Instead of plating gold ONTO an object, we are selectively plating it OFF of something. One of the biggest problems with this system was that the gold would plate off the anode and back onto the cathode. Now, we still have essentially the same problem. The gold is no longer on the copper, silver, or other metallic substrate, but firmly plated onto the carbon cathode. I can see where this could be a good thing in that you could put a gold plated carbon electrode into a chemicat solution that would dissolve the gold but not attack the carbon (maybe AR or HCl/Chlorox) of possibly find something that would attack the carbon and leave the gold behind (like AP does with circuit boards). The Shor System tries to keep the gold on the anode side of the membrane and not allow it to pass through to the cathode. However, the electrical power MUST pass through the membrane to complete the circuit.

Old thread but I am still having difficulty understanding something here. As you said, in reverse electroplating, the gold chloride migrates to the cathode, where it separates into gold and chloride, with the gold depositing on the cathode in a rather sticky fashion. However, will it always be true that the gold will adhere to the cathode? Read this article on electrolysis from the 1890's, specifically the last sentence of the first paragraph, in which it claims "the gold chloride was decomposed and fell like a shower of fine spangles to the bottom...". This does not sound like they had a problem with gold adhering to the cathode.

http://www.miningandmetallurgy.com/metallurgy/electrolytic-precipitation-gold

If this is true, how many microns in size must the membrane be to allow the passage of gold chloride to the cathode and still prevent ultrafine clay particles from entering the cathode chamber, if one were to use the CETEM salt water electrolytic cell I mentioned earlier in this thread? That design also had the gold depositing at the graphite cathode.

 

[Fausto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTG74ixGSiE

 

[hatemelborai]

just because some one pokes HIS fingers in some proprietary solution without it taking the skin off doesnt mean that its harmless.if i could become a millionaire by exposing my hand to a dangerous chemical a couple of times to make a video, thats the price you pay to be wealthy.

I have contacted this company, for Tin stripper and Au stripper, I have to add nitric acid 1:1 to the solution
the price 10 $/liter
please read the attached file

 

[butcher]

Looks like you may be paying 10 dollars a liter for salt water.

 

[hatemelborai]

Looks like you may be paying 10 dollars a liter for salt water.

yes, UW-860 consists of 20 % monohydrate citric acid + 80% water, and you have to add 50% NHO3

 

[stardust18]

Looks like you may be paying 10 dollars a liter for salt water.

yes, UW-860 consists of 20 % monohydrate citric acid + 80% water, and you have to add 50% NHO3

Greetings to all. My two cents into the discussion.
I can understand the use of citric acid, conducted experiments, but not successful.
But the use of nitric acid 50% will result in the dissolution of base metal.

 

[alexius]

I have found UW-700, 860 etc. patent US20120292201

 

[solar_plasma]

Maybe I am having an overload, just coming from work, but electrolizing NaCl there will develop chlorine at the anode which will dissolve gold. At the cathode we are forming NaOH, which would precipitate gold hydroxide, wouldn't it? This is insoluble and then out of the system. As soon as basemetals are exposed, they will be more willing to dissolve and form hydroxides and complexes depending on the pH.

In the end we can filter off blended hydroxides. Dirty method, just like the tap water silver stripping cell, but it should work more or less. More less, because of the the known limits and disadvantages of most electrolytic stripping approaches.

 

[Elektrikis]

I hacked UW700.

https://youtu.be/0kU-VIsk54A

 

[rickbb]

Hacked?

How can you "hack" public knowledge? It's citric acid many members here have experimented with it and salt water, etc.

 

[jeweler1]

It's called ContrAul Gold stripper 11 From Advanced Chemicals Providance RI The chemical is Potassium hydroxide
http://advchem.com/products