White stuff in Auric Chloride ?

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wop1969

wop1969

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 26, 2008
Messages
177
Location
North Carolina
After filtering and letting the Auric Chloride stand over night the I knowticed a white substance in the bottom of the container, looks like undesolved powder? any suggestions?

Thanks
 
You need to siphon off the clear part of the liquid and filter the remaining liquid through a filter that is fine enough to catch the sediment. Harold has mentioned sharkskin filters, GSP has mentioned various filter methods, and I have posted about using a Charmin plug to catch the fine sediment.

Bottom line is you do not want any sediment in your solution before adding SMB. The solution should be 100% transparent before adding SMB also.

Steve
 
Will do :) I wil filter it to death

Do you know what that white stuff is ?
I dont want to make any silver powder :( I forgot the tech name for it


Im glad no one ever said this would be easy LOL
 
lazersteve said:
Harold has mentioned sharkskin filters,
Click to expand...
Not for filtering gold chloride solutions that are ready for precipitation. Sharkskin is a rather fast paper, but tough. It allows fine particles to pass. I used it to separate dissolved values from the mud from jeweler's polishing wastes. My choice for filtering solutions ready for precipitation was Whatman #2. It removes all but the finest of particles at a respectable speed, and it's surprisingly tough. Whatman #5 was my choice for re-refined gold. It is slow, but not with clean solutions. Rarely, if ever, did anything get past a #5. I do not recommend it for filtering solutions from a first refining----it plugs all too easily and can slow filtration to a crawl.

Regardless of the paper choice, if any tin is included, filtration is troublesome. The same would apply for any aluminum in solution. Both should be avoided like the plague.

When I'd filter my solutions, it wasn't uncommon for a tiny amount of particulate matter to get through a #2 Whatman when it was first put in service. I found that by re-filtering the first small amount, the contaminants would get caught in the filter on the second trip through. By then, the larger openings in the paper were sealed by trapped particles, preventing the small bits from getting through. Truth be known, filters work very best when they have been used a little, so the trapped material becomes the filtering medium.

Small bits that get through the filter that are white can be silver chloride, but they can also be lead sulfate. It's a good idea to insure you have no sediment of any description when you precipitate.

Harold
 
well I filtered it 3 times with 4 filters using the same 4 filters, like harold said once they get clogged they workl good.

Here is the end result, does this look promising?


[img:700:525]http://wopworks.x10hosting.com/images/scraping/7.jpg[/img]
 
well I will just keep desolving and adding to it I need.
Befor I precip it I need to get the stannus chloride made and tested just to make sure I can get it right and Then on to perfecting SMB.
Man this is fun, I have always had an interest in chemistry in the back of my mind (I left school early) but now I know I love it, Im hooked...
 
I did exactly what Harold did. I filtered until the drips coming through the funnel ran clear. Then I re-filtered the already filtered solution through the same paper.

One of the most difficult things to filter is large amounts of silver chloride that has been sitting around for a few days. It filters very slowly and can take a day to empty the funnel. It's can be just as bad, or worse, when using a vacuum filter. We solved the problem by making fresh silver chloride and then filtering it through a new paper. We then filtered the old AgCl on top of the fresh AgCl.
 
Noxx said:
It's hard to tell... Only a little gold can be able to colour a solution like that...
Click to expand...
Yep, absolutely true, but the important thing is the solution is absent particulate matter, which was the objective. Looks real good to me.

Harold
 
goldsilverpro said:
One of the most difficult things to filter is large amounts of silver chloride that has been sitting around for a few days. It filters very slowly and can take a day to empty the funnel. It's can be just as bad, or worse, when using a vacuum filter. We solved the problem by making fresh silver chloride and then filtering it through a new paper. We then filtered the old AgCl on top of the fresh AgCl.
Click to expand...
That's a good trick to remember when you're having trouble.

Curious, Chris. What were you doing with the silver chloride that it required filtration? All I ever did with mine was rinse it until the rinse was clear, siphon off the solution, then convert to elemental silver with aluminum. That, in turn, had to be rinsed several times to eliminate the aluminum, which was impossible to filter. The resulting cement silver would filter readily in a Buchner, but only after being rinsed several times first, siphoning off the rinse water.

Harold
 
Curious, Chris. What were you doing with the silver chloride that it required filtration? All I ever did with mine was rinse it until the rinse was clear, siphon off the solution, then convert to elemental silver with aluminum. That, in turn, had to be rinsed several times to eliminate the aluminum, which was impossible to filter. The resulting cement silver would filter readily in a Buchner, but only after being rinsed several times first, siphoning off the rinse water.
Click to expand...

We were doing several 1000s of ounces in a batch. It had a lot of copper solution in it - all of which had to be removed. It was much faster, and more efficient, to filter and rinse it using the method I prescribed. We had several big 18" Bel-Art plastic vacuum filter funnels. After filtering and rinsing, we used formaldehyde and NaOH in a large vessel with a big Lightin' mixer to convert it to silver. We continually tested for complete conversion by dissolving a small amount of well rinsed converted silver in nitric acid and looking for milkiness (silver chloride).

With smaller or less critical batches, I did it your way.
 
Thanks. Considering your experience and knowledge, I figured there had to be something out of the ordinary going on.

Harold
 
while I have a topic on AuCl3, at what ambient tempature will SMB not precid the gold out of it ?

I.E its cold outside in my shop
 
The pic of your current solution looks identical to the one by your name, have you been working on this batch a while?

John
 
jamthe3 said:
The pic of your current solution looks identical to the one by your name, have you been working on this batch a while?

John
Click to expand...

It is the same picture, It tokk me about 2 days to make that batch.
 

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