Wohlwill cell use

[Paige]

I was wondering if you wanted to try a wohlwill set up, could you use one of those 2 gram gold "cards" sold under scrap gold made up with famous people on them.

They sell 22K and 23K.

I was wondering is the 23k pure enough to use to attrack only pure gold? Would you be better off using a 1 gram 24K ingot, and flatten it to use as your anode (or cathode)?

Did we decide that ammonium chloride was a good liquid agent to use combined with some gold chloride?

Paige

 

[toadiesop]

Paige, those "cards" are just gold leaf on cardboard. Not even worth 99 cents I wouldn't think.

 

[goldsilverpro]

Let's define some terms to avoid confusion.

The Wohlwill cell is a specific type of gold purification cell, using a specific type of solution and originally invented and patented by Emil Wohlwill. Every Wohlwill cell solution is made up of gold chloride and HCl. The starting gold content of the solution is about 1 to 1.5 troy ozs. of gold per liter and the free HCl runs about 5% to 7%. The anode is the impure gold, which is bagged. The starter cathode is thick pure gold foil. That is a Wohlwill cell. Including the pure silver bussing that is used, the precious metals needed to set up a 1 gallon cell would cost about $5000. This doesn't include the cell and the rectifier.

All electrolytic cells based on ammonium chloride, that I know of, are covered in the patents of Peter Shor. He has 5 patents, 3 of which has been offered as pdf's somewhere, recently, on this forum. One of the patents dissolves only the base metals and the silver, but not the gold. Another dissolves the gold also. In the latter, a membrane is needed to prevent the dissolved gold from plating onto the cathode. The Shor Simplicity machine is an example of the latter, I think.

The modified ammonium chloride solution, covered in the latter patent, is about the perfect electrolyte. It dissolves the gold, silver, and base metals. The platinum group metals and all the dirt are left as a sludge inside of the anode bag.

I would suggest that, if you want to use ammonium chloride, you either download and study these patents or spend $600 for a Simplicity Cell. One of these days, I'll do a study of Shor's patents and his cell.