Whats in this solution?

[butcher]

The ammonium metal powders are dangerous when dry, especially with certain metals involved.
The ammonia solution is fairly safe as long as it does not dry to salt, but because we may pour this solution into waste buckets (thus making ammonium salt there, we can inadvertently create a dangerous mix for ourselves at a later date without realizing it) for this reason I would acidify all ammonium metal solutions as soon as possible when done with them, also it is not a good idea to store them sometimes we get things mixed up often, forget what the used solution is was, labeling helps, but label sometimes deteriorate.

(Since I have not, and do not want to learn this first hand (not fond of the idea of a glass jar exploding in my face), this information comes from me studying not from experience).

Some metal ammonia solutions (concentrated) can even be dangerous when heated strongly.

Some valuable metals can get trapped in solutions as colloids; this may be why you see gold show up in solutions later on.

Pretreatments of removing oils and other trash, removal of base metals and problem metals like tin or aluminum can help tremendously to solving this trouble.
Also the stockpot can collect trace amounts you miss.

Some people get so concerned with learning how to dissolve gold and make it come back out of solution, that they forget to study the more important steps of pretreatment (then they wonder or will never know how much gold they are losing), also testing for values in solution should be a top thing on your list to learn and practice.

Remember keep your stockpot for those trace metals you may miss.

 

[adam_mizer]

Butcher thank you so much, can't put that into a few short words. (Huge Praise).

Back to my cornfusing solutions.
1) Removing the powders from the bottom of the blue ammonia solution.
When the salts were removed from the blue they were white peppered.
Addition of HCl turned maybe yellow brown like they were copper salts just as suggested. (Funny I must have missed this going right to ammonia).
Residual pepper appeared like my dirty gold powder.

2) Several tests on the solutions. DMG, Stannous, test-tube ammonia.
Don't think I should disgard the original blue solution, but almost appears as nothing there now.
Also notice what the ammonia dropped on the bottom of the test-tube, thinking its copper but still not sure.

3) Gold powder shown in PIC next to near final gold powder from 2nd solution. Shows that First solution gold powder mixed with other metal.
Because of this I don't know any other approach but to re-cook the powder. This powder was cleaned multiple times HCl,ammonia,sulphuric and still has the wrong appearance in color. Just can't melt it in the unpure state after all this work.
Solution now in second round of PoorMans in PIC.

Wanted to add this cleaning solution, its the best stuff I ever used.
Watch materials and jewelry's are filthy with body oils and dirt and this stuff is great.
Its called Super Clean, contains: 2-Butoxyethanol, Nonyl PhenolPolyethoxylate, Sodium Xylele Sulphonate, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Metasilicate.
Its purple and works great and cleans away real easy, you can see the dirt crud oils wash away.
Can be purchased at Graingers. 1gal, 2.5gal, or 5gal. 2.5gal is about $31

Only other thing I don't do often is cook away the tin and solder first. I have done this and it just seems that on the first cook of PoorMans it does pretty much the same job taking away the preliminary base metals first. My rinses in between PoorMans cooking help alot, also it gives me a huge amount of waste but I make sure that the cooking pot always starts clean and clear of base-metal color. Sometimes but not always I incinerate first, maybe I'm just too much in a rush mode because there is not enough time in a day for me. This seems to be working well on my final product.

 

[adam_mizer]

Its coming along!

Second poormans shows the contaminant metal undisolved in filter and bottom of beaker.
This undisolved metal definately would bring the purity down a notch.
SMB just added and now maybe the gold will be at a more desirable purity.

This is a problem I'm not to good with, when the color is off so far that I know is contaminated and can't clean out the contaminant with conventional cleaning methods.
The DMG and Stannous tests are weak looking for anything precious to me, but something is there to learn about.

From the previous post the final cleanout of the second cooking, for information purposes was 9.2g super dried and very pure gold powder.
My expectation's were 10 grams from this and maybe a bonus from the dental retainers.
Looks like I got both coming.
Still yet to finish precipitating that final auric solution.

Also not happy that the first drop with SMB took the contaminant metal with it that could not be rinsed away easily.
Don't know what the contaminant is but guessing its a PMG from the dental scrap retainers.

I'm thinking of adding the possible PMG waste solution to an existing storage pot thats copper cementing right now. (It won't hurt).
Learning to analyze the tests and figuring metals is very tough to find answers with the weak colors of the indication swabs.
These solutions add up to grammage of PM after a while.
Just got to keep after it, eventually all the answers will show up.

In my case Butcher you helped quite a bit.

 

[adam_mizer]

Last pictures.

Washed and dried much more desirable color instead of dark chocolate.

Still don't know the metal in solution that was most likely from the dental retainers.
Further tests of Stannous and DMG done. Stannous really does not show anything, the fine crystal stays white in stannous.
The only thing I can see is a clean white salt, and I don't think its the DMG because its not cottage-cheese like.
It's very fine, would have to dry it and put it under the microscope to see its structure better.

The final powder adds another 3.4g.

 

[butcher]

adam_mizer,

I am tired and having a hard time focusing on the discussion here, but from the pictures it looks like your doing a very good job.

Once these metals form salts, or powders, it becomes very difficult to wash out other metal contaminants, we can wash out some but about the only way to get the majority is to put the powders back into solution (a second refining).

Eliminating as much base metals in pretreatments as possible, before putting your gold into solutions, may seem to be a lot of work for some, but they do not realize how much more work they are causing themselves later.

 

[adam_mizer]

Thanks Butcher,
I tried to make this ledgable, but as you can see I'm still cornfused but can see the second time around helped tremondously to rid these contaminants.

The contaminants are super hard for me to judge whether they are PM or not because of the faint test color (with stannous) I have not much interest in them.
I am saving most solutions and slightly acidfy them and drop in copper metal crystal material, date it and leave it be.
Have pulled a bunch of cemented blast white powder. Deal with it later.

 

[butcher]

If these salts of metals are valueable, and in small traces the stock pot will hold them, until you accumulate enough to process, as long as you keep your stock pot healthy, I normally do not cement values from my stock pot soulution untill I am ready to process it, as I want it to try and dissolve some of the other small pieces of metal I may add to it at times, If I cemented my stock pot beforehand and then I could not dissolve the copper from a piece of metal I dropped in the stock pot.

adam_mizer, from what I can tell your on the right track, and some of this will get clearer as you gain more expierience.

 

[Lino1406]

My booklet may be of help.
A problem now with PM's.
An e-mail address needed.
Lino1406 "25 recovery
procedures..."