What's happening here?

[qst42know]

Can you trust a stannous test when working backwards like this?

Have you tried a drop with copper on some of this left over solution?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

we are precipitating gold chloride not gold nitrate. the nitric just oxidizes the gold so it will form a chloride gold salt, as far as I know the gold does not form nitrate salts, as long as the oxidizer (nitric or Hno2 in this instance) is present it will keep gold chloride in solution.

if I had that bowl of chips, I would grind them to powder and get the last drop.

When I get my ball mill built I will rum the chips thru it.

Someone decided thay wanted my 3 water heater tanks I had in front of my shop more than I did and stole them about 6 weeks ago :evil: .

I get what you are saying about precipitating the chloride vs the nitrate. And I understand that it is not supposed to form a nitrate salt. As far as I know there is no Hno2 in the solution. I have let the solution set with gold bearing chip to make sure no rection or disolving took place bofore adding any more HCL. But I'm pretty sure that there is nitric in the solution, the solution was gently heated to around 120-140F for a couple of days at the end with the top on it. And I did get some brown fumes.

I'm trying to possibly find out why I was able to do this. I have had this happen a couple of other times and dropped gold out of the solution.

 

[qst42know]

It would seen there is a gold nitrate. I found this formula on the web.

H[Au(NO3)3)4]

However I cannot confirm you can form a gold nitrate by your method.

I suspect you still formed the more familliar gold chloride but didn't free any chlorides from the base metals with the addition of SMB in this case. It may not be the case with all base metals.

Anything of value cement with copper from your solution?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Does it tell you how to drop the gold in that information?

There were very little base metals in the solution before I added some of the Pentium Pro's I had laying around. The color was a bright yellow till then and tested positive for gold with stannous. There were no pins on any of this material this was done as a cleanup solution.

I haven't put any copper in it yet. That was my next step. I have a 12' piece of 4" K pipe that I have been meaning to cut up for plates to use but haven't gotten around to it. I will get it done tomorrow possibly and get it in the solution and see what it pulls out and post about it this weekend or before if anything is determined.

 

[qst42know]

Does it tell you how to drop the gold in that information?

No, it wasn't a how to sort of post. It was a question of what the proper formula was for gold nitrate. I just googled enough to see the compound existed. I do know not all chemical compounds can be made by wet methods or by simple direct combining of elements. True chemistry is well above my pay grade.

Perhaps one of the real chemists on the forum will shed some light?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Thank for the help we will see what others can contribute and maybe get something more concrete.

 

[butcher]

Barren, I believe you already know this, if you had acidic liquid and nitric in solution you will have HNO2 nitrous acid, but if you did not have liquid, you are correct you could not have nitrous, as far as I understand it only exists in solution,
Remember acid plus metals equal salts of that metal and acid.
You can form nitrate salts from nitric acid and a base metal,
the salts from the nitrous acid are nitrites, say you have copper nitrate dry powder, adding any hydrogen from an acid like HCL will revive these salts, and with chloride you can form aqua regia, even if the aqua regia is not the same formula we normally use 4:1 ratio, it will still attack gold and other metals, sometimes they make an aqua regia with mostly nitric as oxidizer for etching metals that passivate easily, as the high nitric content helps to bubble off the passivated layer.
Salts of metals can also form from chlorides from the hydrochloric acid.
also I know you understand most all of this, but for others here is why incineration when say using a chloride to recover then drying the material, and wanting to remove base metal with nitric and not dissolve gold, incineration will decompose the chloride salt, driving off the chlorine as gas (and oxidize base metals and burn off carbon-ous materials and oils), so when nitric is added the gold will not dissolve as we have no chlorides from the salts in with our nitric.
But then again I may not be following or understanding what you are asking very well?

 

[g_axelsson]

This is an interesting thread. I've never thought really hard on how to make gold nitrate before but this thread made me think about it.

I guess that one way to make gold nitrate is to mix the right amounts of gold chloride and silver nitrate in water. The AgCl will drop out of solution and it would be easy to filter out a very pure gold nitrate water solution.

I don't have the time to work out the chemical formula and procedure right now so I leave it as an idea on the forum.
(Gold + AR -> heat to drive off HCl and create Au2Cl6 -> mix with water and silver nitrate -> filter -> solution ready)

Lou or someone else who is a chemist, is there any reason why this wouldn't work?

/Göran

 

[Barren Realms 007]

New picture.
I forgot the one that was 42.3g oh well.

This one is 80.7g

Hope you enjoy.

 

[qst42know]

Is this from your backwards nitric drop?

I haven't melted enough gold to say with certainty but this doesn't have the look of high purity. Is it possible some silver followed the gold?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

4.7g of it was from that drop. I melted it by itself and it had a silvery top on it. I had used some sodium nitrate with it when I melted it along with some flux. When I melted them together there was a brown top that formed. I boiled it in sulfuric for a while and then rubbed off the top coat. It is going to be dirty It was only refined once.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Barren, I believe you already know this, if you had acidic liquid and nitric in solution you will have HNO2 nitrous acid, but if you did not have liquid, you are correct you could not have nitrous, as far as I understand it only exists in solution,
Remember acid plus metals equal salts of that metal and acid.
You can form nitrate salts from nitric acid and a base metal,
the salts from the nitrous acid are nitrites, say you have copper nitrate dry powder, adding any hydrogen from an acid like HCL will revive these salts, and with chloride you can form aqua regia, even if the aqua regia is not the same formula we normally use 4:1 ratio, it will still attack gold and other metals, sometimes they make an aqua regia with mostly nitric as oxidizer for etching metals that passivate easily, as the high nitric content helps to bubble off the passivated layer.
Salts of metals can also form from chlorides from the hydrochloric acid.
also I know you understand most all of this, but for others here is why incineration when say using a chloride to recover then drying the material, and wanting to remove base metal with nitric and not dissolve gold, incineration will decompose the chloride salt, driving off the chlorine as gas (and oxidize base metals and burn off carbon-ous materials and oils), so when nitric is added the gold will not dissolve as we have no chlorides from the salts in with our nitric.
But then again I may not be following or understanding what you are asking very well?

Hi butcher,

Yep I understand what you are saying.

It had started as a home made nitric solution. There just happen to be enough HCL in the crevices of the chips to form AR. I was just trying to remove traces of silver and what base metal might be under some caps where small areas of gold had been left. It didn't bother me that it had formed AR and dissolved the remining gold. That was the path I was headed towards any way. I added a couple of chips a the end and made sure no more gold dissolved. That way I made sure that my HCL was used up but I still had a nitric rich solution. I had this happen before and was able to drop the gold, that was why I continued down the path.

I'm trying to understand why this can be accomplished when it goes aginst what is recomended here on the forum.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

New picture.
I forgot the one that was 42.3g oh well.

This one is 80.7g

Hope you enjoy.

.9723 Fine

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Here is 67.65g

Above .9900 fine

 

[Barren Realms 007]

More fun. 8)

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Paitence has it's place in the scheme of life.
These were all produced using poor mans AR. Then boiled in water a couple of times and a shorth wash in HCL then water again and then melted. Purity runs .9915 or higher on all the buttons. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

 

[dtectr]

BR007 - how long did it take to accumulate that pile? :mrgreen: :twisted:

 

[Anonymous]

Just a few weeks,he has a supplier.However he does have a large collection of computers to dismantle and process still.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

BR007 - how long did it take to accumulate that pile? :mrgreen: :twisted:

Each picture or set of pictures showing material is a load of material that was delivered to be processed.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I have a question, I went to a class on lead safety today and they had a vial with a liquid on one side and a powder on the other side. When you crush the vial the 2 items mix and you swab the painted area. I was told if there is lead present the color will turn pink or red. I am wanting to know what the fluid and the powder might be. Any ideas on what this test kit contains?