Wastes - The Elephant in the Room

[goldenchild]

Any information on sodium borohydride? I posted a few pages back.

 

[seawolf]

I found this, hope it helps.
Sodium borohydride

Sodium tetrahydroborate

NaBH4

NaBH4 Sodium borohydride is so stable in water that a 12% aqueous solution stabilized
with sodium hydroxide is sold commercially. In order to effect decomposition, the solid or
aqueous solution is added to enough water to make the borohydride concentration less than 3%,
and then excess equivalents of dilute aqueous acetic acid are added dropwise with stirring under
nitrogen.

http://www.chemistry.emory.edu/.../ChEmoryWasteDisposal_NEW.pdf

 

[Joeforbes]

im sorry i will wrote in french because ,it is very hard for me right now to explain myself in english on this subject.

ce que je veut dire ,c'est que la solution a notre probleme n'est peu etre pas celle que nous croyons, nous cherchons un moyen de se departir de nos dechet de facon economique et nous finissons par envoyer nos dechet de facon illegal a la poubelle mais si nous cherchions des produits qui sont utilisable a plusieur reprise. a titre dexemple (personnellement je ne lai pas encore utiliser)lacide peroxique reoxigener, qui selon plusieur ici est utilisable a repetition avec lajout dun bulleur a poisson.il en revien donc beaucoup moin cher de sens departir legalement etant donner que les cout sont amortis sur plusieur batch.
peu etre devrions nous chercher a rentabiliser nos produit plutot que de sens departir a moindre cout.

sinon il y a la posssibiliter de changer nos produit pour finir avec des truc bon pour lenvironnement ex: le sulfate de cuivre
si au lieu dutiliser de lacide peroxique pour retirer les doigt de carte nous utilisons de lacide nitric ,le residue qui se fais est du nitrate de cuivre, ce meme nitrate de cuivre peut etre reconvertit en acide nitric avec comme produit residuel du sulfate de cuivre qui si je ne me trompe pas est un engrais courant...

Hi - is their anyone here know french and possibly translate, or at least a summery pretty please

Thanks

Deano

Deano, here is a rough translation -

"what I mean is that the solution to our problem is not that just be that we believe, we seek a way to dispose of our waste in an economical and we end up sending our waste is illegally the trash but if we were looking for products that are using several times. a reference only (I personally do not use lai) lacide Perox reoxigener, which some here are used repeatedly with a bubbler lajout dun poisson.il in return, therefore, much cheaper to dispose lawfully meaning being given that the costs are amortized over batch number.
should be little we seek to return our product rather than dispose of meaning a lower cost.

otherwise there is the possibility of the change our product to end up with something good for the environment eg copper sulphate
if instead USE OR lacide Perox to remove finger card we use nitric lacide, the residue that is doing is copper nitrate, copper nitrate, the same can be converted into nitric acid as a product with residual copper sulfate if I'm not mistaken is a common fertilizer ..."

You can get the jist of what he's saying..

 

[ericrm]

just tought it has been a long time since i read this topic and i just discover it havent moved much..
does anyone in the end have come with any idea to reduce the garbadge probleme?

 

[ericrm]

here are my latest find with will need aproval from more experience poeple...

potassium sulfate and zinc nitrate are two left over that i got (if i choose to pay a bigger price to run)

potassium sulfate
The principal use of potassium sulfate is as a fertilizer. K2SO4 does not contain chloride, which can be harmful to some crops. Potassium sulfate is preferred for these crops, which include tobacco and some fruits and vegetables. Crops that are less sensitive may still require potassium sulfate for optimal growth if the soil accumulates chloride from irrigation water.[5]

zinc nitrate
Zinc Nitrate Solution is an easily adsorbed liquid fertilizer with zinc and nitrogen compounds which further increase absorption efficiency. Zinc Nitrate Solution stimulates cell formation, increasing leaf size and encouraging good root development and plant growth. Disease and stress tolerance is enhanced. With higher zinc levels in the plant, there is greater uptake and utilization of fertilizer and soil nutrients for significantly higher yields and crop quality.

could i put this on my grass ,fruit, and vegetables and dont worry anymore

 

[qst42know]

Where do you get zinc nitrate from?

 

[ericrm]

i think that i could ciment copper out from copper nitrate with zinc ending with zinc nitrate...

 

[qst42know]

Lazersteve posted how to recover the nitric acid from copper nitrate electrolytically. Recovering copper powder to cement with.

 

[ericrm]

i didnt try to electrolyse nitric acid ,do you keep a strong enuf nitric acid after recovery of the copper to work with,or does it weeken?

 

[ikielee]

hello my name is Ike
I am new to this and am open to any and all criticism
i would much rather ask a dumb question and get ridiculed, than guess and get dead.So with that said i would like some advice on this . i started trying to smelt my material for the gold and found that this process is not as easy as people would make you think , please note that i am working with gold filled items and not pure gold items , so what i keep ending up with is a diferent ball of the same stuff i started with, then i went on to trying to cupleate the stuff (well some of the stuff) amagemite process. built the furnace and all and after 2 hours of fire ended up with a ball of gold but not pure gold. So here i am it is obvious the reason 90 plus percent of gold is processed using chemicals, is it simply works the best. now i am learning any and all i can to begin this process and my biggest concern is what to do with what is left over. so now for the real guestion (sorry). the cuplation process worked in the fact that the plated items i put in it were stripped of the gold and i was able to scrape off the non precious material and simply discard. the cuple process however was far to lengthy and in my opinion non productive , however what if one was to at this point use the chemicle process on the gold / silver rich amalgamite, would this lesson the amount of other metal contaminants in the solution and make for easier recycling and or desposing. again please fire away as i am new and may very well be way of base with this but it just seems to me that a combination of these 2 processes may have some benefits. i apologize for the length of this post and the obvious lack of grammer on my part
thanks

 

[butcher]

Ike,
My rehearsed answer is to study Hoke's book. go to general chat and read the welcome in post for new members, pay attention to general reaction list, see Laser Steve’s web site, and read the forum.

Reason for this answer is it is the best way to begin to learn all of this.

Since you posted here I see you are already concerned with safety and dealing with waste, great start, keep it up.

Melting a material that is majority base metals and a gold plating or gold fill, is a big mistake, the gold was all together, on the outside of the object, by melting you just mixed all of these metals up in the melt to an amalgam of metals, making it harder to separate the values, the techniques your using are wrong application for the materials involved, these techniques work great when used for their intended purpose.

In recovery or refining is just like other trades, the craftsman needs to learn which tool to use for the job, and how to use it, we do not want the surgeon using a chainsaw on our operation when he should be using a scalpel, we also want him to study and learn how to do the operation before he starts cutting us up.

When we discuss things the words we use are important you did not smelt ore, you melted the metal, and basically all you did in the cupel is melt the metal again, the base metal content was so high, melting it in the cupel in my mind was just wasting a good cupel, and not getting nowhere.

I will not go into any specific's on a process here, You could not learn it all from a hundred posts, but you can learn it if you take my advice and study, welcome to the forum if you like to study a very interesting subject you will like it here.

 

[Harold_V]

I am new to this and am open to any and all criticism

Good!
Start with discarding all of the nonsense you posted here. Most of it is not a requirement for achieving success. That would include melting gold filled items to recover the values. I recommend they NEVER be melted, so you can limit the potential problems of dealing with the low percentage of gold that is present.

No, I'm not trying to be rude. What I'm attempting to do is have you see that there are far better approaches to refining. You can learn these methods by reading Hoke's book, which is available by clicking a link found in the sig line of several of the readers of the board. One in particular is Palladium.

My advise to you is to put everything on the back burner and read the book until you understand what it teaches, and why. If you attempt to refine before you have a firm understanding, you will have no end to questions, proving to seasoned readers that you are not willing to pay dues that are required of readers in order for those with experience to spend their valuable time trying to help you when you are in a corner.

Harold

 

[TheGoldenChild]

hello my name is Ike
I am new to this and am open to any and all criticism
i would much rather ask a dumb question and get ridiculed, than guess and get dead.So with that said i would like some advice on this . i started trying to smelt my material for the gold and found that this process is not as easy as people would make you think , please note that i am working with gold filled items and not pure gold items , so what i keep ending up with is a diferent ball of the same stuff i started with, then i went on to trying to cupleate the stuff (well some of the stuff) amagemite process. built the furnace and all and after 2 hours of fire ended up with a ball of gold but not pure gold. So here i am it is obvious the reason 90 plus percent of gold is processed using chemicals, is it simply works the best. now i am learning any and all i can to begin this process and my biggest concern is what to do with what is left over. so now for the real guestion (sorry). the cuplation process worked in the fact that the plated items i put in it were stripped of the gold and i was able to scrape off the non precious material and simply discard. the cuple process however was far to lengthy and in my opinion non productive , however what if one was to at this point use the chemicle process on the gold / silver rich amalgamite, would this lesson the amount of other metal contaminants in the solution and make for easier recycling and or desposing. again please fire away as i am new and may very well be way of base with this but it just seems to me that a combination of these 2 processes may have some benefits. i apologize for the length of this post and the obvious lack of grammer on my part
thanks

I recycled my Aqua Regia when I used the chemical process and used it again and again, You only have to add a little hydrochloric but may need some nitric depending on what your processing.

 

[TheGoldenChild]

If you used right amount of flux and you where at right temperature cupeling you should get 99.9 percent gold. A good flux will remove most non-precious metals before cupeling and you should just have a lead/gold prill when you go to cupel then just gold 99.9 after cupelation. Actually is pretty effecient process for testing how much gold is in precipitants but probally not the best for scrap metal as burning lead is not idea conditions for humans to breath. There are way better ways now not as hazardous to our enviroment. I use a muffle furnace when using lead as most of it goes into your cupel and dosn't burn into the enviroment some people recommend cracking the door on you kiln when cupeling and it does make it faster but burns alot of lead into the air.

 

[TheGoldenChild]

I just looked on ebay and a fella there has 100 grams of it for $42.00 claiming that that is less than half the normal cost of it.... but we all know that ebay is over exaggerated for a lot of things related to recovery of precious metals.....

the chemistry store has boric acid for 90 bux for a 55 pound bag , and 5 bux for a one pound jar..... interesting idea to make it into a useful compound if such can be accomplished inexpensively by the "basement chemist" in our labor-a-tories <----- best Lon Chaney type voice in my head from the bugs bunny cartoons of my misspent youth.

now i have to go crack open a few of those chemistry books that other folks uploaded and ive got on my harddrive as pdf files...... just to figure out how to do such effectively or if it can be....... or find another source for procuring an already made product.....

AS far as handling wastes, I wonder if a carbon arc would reduce the wastes to a small footprint in an economical manner..... such a unit was proposed to be built in Montana in the late 70's to mid 80's and that it would reduce a ton of material to a few grams of ash with virtually no emitted gas [dont know much more about it, I was kid at the time] it sounded to good to be true but it would have stopped a lot of landfills and that would mean less dollars somewhere and the thing was scrapped.... but it may be a viable thing to build even on a small scale......

William

Almost everything we make comes from something right? So given enough time in a landfill it will turn back into what it was before it was put there but that time could be thousands of years or hundreds depending on the waiste. But a landfill by a fault line or encapsulated volcanic area may be better as it would speed up this process.
A carbon arc probally uses alot of energy from the sounds of it and using alot of energy in return creates more waiste so maybe that's why it wasn't used.
These are all just theories and would love to hear someone elses opinion.

 

[butcher]

TheGoldenChild,

I have a few questions and some comments in the above posts.

If you reuse your aqua regia how did you precipitate the gold from the last batch, and what are you reusing it for, or what materials are you reusing it on.

The reason I ask is when you evaporate, or use up the acids dissolving metals you drastically weaken the solution, or in the case of de-NOxing the acid remove the nitric acid, and in this case it is no longer aqua regia (but a solution of gold chloride and HCl, and when you use a chemical to precipitate the gold from this solution you change the chemistry of the once aqua regia (actually it is not aqua regia any more at this point but a gold chloride solution with possible a very little free HCl acid diluted), the product or what is left in solution depends on the chemical you used to precipitate the gold, to name a few , if you used SMB would leave some sodium sulfites in solution, or if using ferrous sulfate to precipitate gold it would leave soluble salts of ferric sulfate and ferric chloride in the solution, your solutions could also contain sulfuric acid, or several other chemicals depending on your process, it will also contain metals from your last batch contaminating your solution, which could cause problems in refining the new batch, but what it would not be any longer is aqua regia.


You could distill some of the cleaner acid from the solution and reuse that, but it may contain gases of other solutions, and would not be that strong in the end, and HCl is cheap anyway.

You can distill the nitric from the aqua regia solution when dissolving metals or evaporating the solution, but if you do not use too much nitric in the first place, and do the processes as the should be done, You will not get much from that method, making going to the trouble almost not worth it.

I do reuse many of my solutions depending on what they are or what they contain or what chemical, or metal I can separate from them.

But all the used aqua regia is good for normally is cleaning up base some base metal salts in a recovery process like when recovering values from your stock pot, or removing base metals from some other process, and in these you need to understand the chemistry of the used chemical you are using and how it can effect what you are trying to recover, like silver and sulfates is not normally a good combination, if you do not wish to make silver sulfate.

Also the in the comment on cupelling, why are you using a flux this makes no sense. When you cupel values, the flux is not needed, and get in the way, of what you are trying to do, also the cracked open furnace door is to oxidize the lead so the cupel can absorb the lead oxide, if the door was closed the furnace would soon be out of oxygen and would not oxidize the lead.

Flux is used in a recovery melt or an assay, or sometime to help remove some metals from others, the flux can or reduce metals in a melt, or it can be used to oxidize metals in a melt, the flux can also form slag for these oxidized metals to absorb into, as glass slag, or they can help the melt become more fluid so the melt mixes better and metal beads join together, or collect a metal, much depends on what you are trying to do and what flux is used.

I think you have confused two separate processes used in assaying or recovery of metals.

Have you been reading Hokes Book?

 

[TheGoldenChild]

TheGoldenChild,

I have a few questions and some comments in the above posts.

If you reuse your aqua regia how did you precipitate the gold from the last batch, and what are you reusing it for, or what materials are you reusing it on.

The reason I ask is when you evaporate, or use up the acids dissolving metals you drastically weaken the solution, or in the case of de-NOxing the acid remove the nitric acid, and in this case it is no longer aqua regia (but a solution of gold chloride and HCl, and when you use a chemical to precipitate the gold from this solution you change the chemistry of the once aqua regia (actually it is not aqua regia any more at this point but a gold chloride solution with possible a very little free HCl acid diluted), the product or what is left in solution depends on the chemical you used to precipitate the gold, to name a few , if you used SMB would leave some sodium sulfites in solution, or if using ferrous sulfate to precipitate gold it would leave soluble salts of ferric sulfate and ferric chloride in the solution, your solutions could also contain sulfuric acid, or several other chemicals depending on your process, it will also contain metals from your last batch contaminating your solution, which could cause problems in refining the new batch, but what it would not be any longer is aqua regia.


You could distill some of the cleaner acid from the solution and reuse that, but it may contain gases of other solutions, and would not be that strong in the end, and HCl is cheap anyway.

You can distill the nitric from the aqua regia solution when dissolving metals or evaporating the solution, but if you do not use too much nitric in the first place, and do the processes as the should be done, You will not get much from that method, making going to the trouble almost not worth it.

I do reuse many of my solutions depending on what they are or what they contain or what chemical, or metal I can separate from them.

But all the used aqua regia is good for normally is cleaning up base some base metal salts in a recovery process like when recovering values from your stock pot, or removing base metals from some other process, and in these you need to understand the chemistry of the used chemical you are using and how it can effect what you are trying to recover, like silver and sulfates is not normally a good combination, if you do not wish to make silver sulfate.

Also the in the comment on cupelling, why are you using a flux this makes no sense. When you cupel values, the flux is not needed, and get in the way, of what you are trying to do, also the cracked open furnace door is to oxidize the lead so the cupel can absorb the lead oxide, if the door was closed the furnace would soon be out of oxygen and would not oxidize the lead.

Flux is used in a recovery melt or an assay, or sometime to help remove some metals from others, the flux can or reduce metals in a melt, or it can be used to oxidize metals in a melt, the flux can also form slag for these oxidized metals to absorb into, as glass slag, or they can help the melt become more fluid so the melt mixes better and metal beads join together, or collect a metal, much depends on what you are trying to do and what flux is used.

I think you have confused two separate processes used in assaying or recovery of metals.

Have you been reading Hokes Book?

I happened to of been processing Sulphides, if you know what Sulphides do in Aqua Regia you would know what i'm talking about.
I am just a newbie but it worked well for me when I was learning how to do Aqua Regia and yes I used it over and over and dropped gold everytime out of my solution.

As far as assaying I think the reason you would use flux when you assay is to avoid getting copper,iron and other stuff in your smelt as your just trying to get your lead oxide to attach to your gold and silver if that's what your processing. I don't know seemed to work well for me . Remember I am just a newbie but there is more than one way to skin a cat and there are alot of different methods of Aqua Regia and Assaying I just tried to be the most effecient I could when processing stuff as I am only a hobbyist and worked a regular job and didn't have much time for processing. You would probally have a fit when you heard how I removed the silver from my Aqua Regia I just used tap water and it turned into silver chloride and then I filtered off then melted. Then would proceed back to the gold chloride and drop that with a mystery metal. Actually worked pretty well considering I was processing gold sulphide ore and would get around 10 grams ( 2 grams gold 8 grams silver) of precious metal out of 200 or so grams of ore. There was alot of copper and nickel in the ore and was able to remove in Aqua Regia and just filter off then drop my silver and gold chloride. How do you do it?

 

[butcher]

If you process sulfide ore, you need to remove the sulfide before processing, a good roasting procedure, will break down the sulfide to SO2 gas and sulfur, the sulfur will help fuel the roast, (sometimes adding free iron to the roast can also help to break the sulfide bond), leaching the sulfide ore without roasting the ore much of your gold would be locked up in the sulfide bond, and then leach would not get to the values, roasting the ore you will not have the sulfide to deal with.

I would not use aqua regia on sulfide ore, even after roasting, there are cheaper leaches that would work just as well to remove base metals from the ore, as most of what you would leach primarily from the ore would be base metals, like iron or copper depending on the ore, the iron and base metals would have to be leached out first (the gold would primarily be last be leached as the base metals replaced gold in solution), (unless your leach was more specific for gold), if leaching tons of ore for a very small amount of gold per ton of ore, using gold aqua regia would be a terribly expensive way to leach iron from your ore.

Free gold concentrate, or placer gold is a little different story where the gold is much higher percentage of material, but even these I would consider what they consisted of before choosing a pretreatment, leach or other process to recover the gold, before using aqua regia to refine the gold.

 

[TheGoldenChild]

if you process sulfide ore, you need to remove the sulfide before processing a good roasting proceedure, will break down the sulfide to SO2 gas ans sulfur, the sulfur will help fuel the roast, without roasting the ore much of your gold would be bound to the sulfide and the leach would not get to it.

Don't like roasting it and is why I used Aqua Regia, The Sulphides in the ore will actually boost your acid level up but takes a long time for it to work in my experience. I just let it sit for a week or so mixing the solution every couple of days. I may be very confused but it all worked for me and I was trying to be the most environmentally friendly as possible.

 

[butcher]

H2S hydrogen sulfide gas (arsenic and other gases) does not sound very enviromentally friendly.

If you wanted to be enviromentally friendly make sulfuric acid from the sulfide roasting process of your ore, use the dilute sulfuric you produce to leach base metals from the ore.