washing pins after ap with water turnd a weird yellow/orange

[Jaydak]

hi my first time doing pins in ap (i need to get a cell) and i was washing the foils out with water and filtering (after acid was filtered off) first few washes normal clear water with flakes and black powder floating about, then my water hose heated the water in the sun didnt think it would hurt poured it on my pins and changed a weird yellow. What in the world happened?

 

[Jaydak]

seems to be settling with a red powder on bottom and yellow on top

 

[solar_plasma]

Looks like iron, though also white/grey CuCl precipitates when you dillute AP with water,but that's not the point. You should let the AP do its work until ALL pins are completely dissolved. Don't wash with water before you only have gold in the filters and all AP is washed off with HCl. Filter off and put the solids back in AP. Hope this helps.

 

[solar_plasma]

And while your AP is doing its work, use the advanced search and search for "AP" or "CuCl2" combined with author "Butcher". I think this is the fastest way to get an understanding and practical skills for using AP.

 

[butcher]

Yes I would say there is Iron in solution and it is cementing copper...

I may have some posts that can help to understand the process, but I think the best place to learn it is where I learned it.


Laser Steve has a document on his website that explains the copper II chloride leach (misnamed the acid peroxide process), reading this document is the best way to begin the understanding of its use, Laser Steve's earlier posts are a great resource for not only this process but others dealing with electronic scrap materials.

Reading the forum from the beginning where the forum was new, you can get a good understanding of many of the processes, where many methods were discussed in detail. another great source is to take the forums guided tour where many of these processes are included in the tour to introduce readers to them, giving them a place to begin their study on these processes, the forum handbook, and the search button are great tools, using this to begin your study and then just keep learning how these metals react with acids, as you observe what happens as you practice what you are learning...

 

[Jaydak]

yea i understand what im doing with ap researched alot, just most of the gold had come away from pins and seemed my ap wasnt working any more(fresh ap time) so i filtered off ap then washed more gold out with water seemed to work well(filter full of black powder and gold flakes) i was just surprised at the fast colorful reaction warm water had even after i had put 3 lots of cold water before that(no acid left clearish water), a week later now it has a skin layer on surface(shiny yellow) then yellow orange goo on top on pins then shiny red particles on the bottom. :shock:

 

[g_axelsson]

a week later now it has a skin layer on surface(shiny yellow) then yellow orange goo on top on pins then shiny red particles on the bottom. :shock:

That skin effect just screams iron, rusting from the oxygen in the water.
Add a bit of HCl and see if it doesn't go into solution. I see this in my copper cementing bucket all the time.

Göran

 

[Jaydak]

a week later now it has a skin layer on surface(shiny yellow) then yellow orange goo on top on pins then shiny red particles on the bottom. :shock:

That skin effect just screams iron, rusting from the oxygen in the water.
Add a bit of HCl and see if it doesn't go into solution. I see this in my copper cementing bucket all the time.

Göran

il try that when i get some more HCl could be good thing it seemed to have stripped all the black gold cementing on the pins

 

[patnor1011]

There are no shortcuts.
You will never recover all gold unless you dissolve all metals present.
Some will always be lost when you wash in the middle of process and some will stay on undissolved pins.
Poor choice of processing pins mainly if you do not follow process and trying to introduce strange steps in it.