Yet another noob who needs help - Subzero Method

[megaplow]

Hey All,
This is my 1st foray into gold refining. I have had a bunch gold heavy component free circuit boards for some time. I picked up a Subzero kit from Sears. The kit was missing muriatic acid so I got some of that at Lowes. The kit comes with the following and some testing chemicals.

1 lb. SubZero -Sodium nitrate: soda ash + nitric acid or sodium hydroxide + nitric acid
1 lb. Storm precipitant - Sodium hydrogen sulfite: Sodium bisulfite, not sodium "meta" bisulfite
1 lb. Urea

The instructions were a bit cryptic and I feel they were making some assumptions that I and not privy to.

I add the SubZero in a half gallon of acid.
I then carefully added as many boards that would fit and stay submerged.
A little over an hour later the fizzing stopped and most of the gold had been stripped from the boards.

Since the fizzing stopped and there was still some metal on several boards, I am assuming that I hit the capacity of the SubZero.

I filtered off the fluid with a coffee filter and put the filter in with the remaining partially stripped boards. I am assuming the next round of refining will dissolve any gold caught in the filter.

The instructions for the kit said to keep adding Urea until it doesn't fizz. The Urea never fizzed. To be safe I added a few table spoons of Urea, I am hoping that wasn't a mistake.

Then I added the Storm precipitant. I was expecting something magic to happen and watch it rain down gold. Nothing happened, so I added more. Still nothing so I added the whole pound of Storm precipitant. I left the fluid for the weekend and when I came back there was a tiny bit of mud at the bottom of the container.

How long should the precipitation take?

The acid is still clear and really dark (like the picture above), it also tests positive for gold. My test drops turn purple-black when I test the acid.

If I haven't messed up the acid with the Urea or precipitant, how do I get the rest of the gold out? Do I need more of either of those ingredients?

When do I neutralize the acid with baking soda?

I still have enough boards to do this 1 or 2 more times and have ordered more SubZero and precipitant.
Any insight or clarification would be much appreciated.

Joe

 

[jimdoc]

I picked up a Subzero kit from Sears.
Joe

:shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[megaplow]

I KNOW!
It was mail ordered, but still, its amazing what that place sells.

 

[patnor1011]

I KNOW!
It was mail ordered, but still, its amazing what that place sells.

:roll: Not to sound harsh but....
Nobody on this forum will pay a dime for whatever they sell. It can be bought at any other place for fraction of their price and with proper name not their magic fancy creations like storm or subzero :lol:

 

[patnor1011]

Now to your problem.

Carefully remove all your boards and place them in clean container.
Put solid copper pieces inside shor magical solution and try to cement out as much metal as possible out of that solution. Filter well, keep filters with any solids from there. Test your solution and if test will be positive for gold add more copper and filter again.
Place all solids with filters in another container.
Download Hoke book and read that masterpiece it will tell you what you did wrong and how to get your gold.

 

[jimmydolittle]

Looks like you are in need for lots of help. You need to study what's on the forum before continuing. For starters, your solution needs to be diluted with distilled water, at least 50-50. Your SMB (Storm) should begin to work.

 

[megaplow]

Thanks for the responses!
There was no mention of diluting the solution in the instructions. There was also no mention of adding copper. I will download the book and look around the forum for more info.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress.
Joe

 

[gold4mike]

Since you mentioned that not everything was dissolved I would assume that any gold that had been dissolved was cemented back out of solution by the remaining base metals. Your gold is now brown or black powder stuck to the remaining metal and some of it will have dropped to the bottom of your container.

The urea didn't fizz because all the nitric was already used up.

I suggest you rinse all of the remaining solid items with water, letting it run into your container. Filter the liquid through a tight filter to catch the gold powder. Set everything aside for a few months while you read everything you can on this forum.

When you have a good understanding of what we do and why, get your stuff back out and finish the recovery.

Welcome to the forum - you have much to learn. :shock:

 

[butcher]

megaplow,
Welcome to the forum, what you did was dissolve your gold with base metals and other junk, (base metals are removed before we dissolve gold).

The suggestion to cement your values on copper is good advice, and forgetting the expensive shore product also good advice.

Reading Hoke's book and doing the experiments will teach you all of the basics, this is the best advice given.

The forum and information provided will teach you recovery from electronics, this is a very vast field of study, so starting to learn the basics and the many methods is the best way to start, jumping in and trying something you think you know is a good way to lose your gold.

Some other places to get started Laser Steve's web site see link in his post.

Welcome to new members (general reaction list) in general chat.

Dealing with waste safety section.

For best results forget trying things before you study them well.

Memory fingers are a great starting material.

We have only said these same things to 20,000 new members so we kind of get tired of saying it, many of these new members give up when the actually find out how much work and trouble it is to get a tiny bit of gold or to purify their gold.

So please forgive us if we are a bit abrupt with this answer to your question.

Welcome study hard and get that gold pure.

 

[megaplow]

All the responses and advice be it sincere, berating or otherwise are more than welcome. Even though the chemicals have me a bit terrified, I am super excited about this process. It has been kinda amazing so far. The yellow/brown vapor that came from the dissolving process in particular. Noobs tend to suck cycles from the community of which I am guilty, sorry for that.

I will definitely do my homework before progressing.

Thanks again,
Joe

 

[butcher]

Joe, Nobody here has any intention of berating, we are genuinly trying to help, once you get further into this you will begin to see what we are saying.

I think the further you dig into this gold mine of information you will see how deep this mine is, and at time feel like it will collapse on top of you, just keep digging there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[megaplow]

Butcher et al,
I never felt attacked or talked down to. I just wanted you all to know how appreciative I am for your responses, they were a world of help.

Joe

 

[megaplow]

Hey All,
Several of you mentioned that I should cement out my gold, it seems like an interesting process, but I didn't do that. After a little reading and taking jimmydolittle's advice. I added some distilled water to my solution. Almost instantly the thing changed color and a big pile of mud formed at the bottom of my bin. The solution is no longer testing positive for gold. I filtered it out the mud and washed it with ammonia. It is looking like it could be gold. Collectively you pointed out that I may have contaminated my process. Now I have to read up and figure out what exactly is in my mud.

Thanks again,
Joe

 

[patnor1011]

Everything is now in your mud.
When you diluted acid everything dissolved just dropped out. Gold alongside with all garbage. I dont see point of washing that with ammonia.
Cementing was advised as it would dissolve copper and push gold out of solution. In that way you would have less garbage to deal with. If I would be in your position right now I would incinerate everything to red hot (do not melt metals to one blob just heat to red hot).
After incineration I would place everything in HCl. That will dissolve tin, with little bit of peroxide (3%strong and only small bit say 1% of volume of your acid) you dissolve copper, lead, iron too. Leave it in HCl while you will be reading.

 

[lazersteve]

If you dilute an acidic solution saturated with copper one chloride you will get the off-white/tan/gray powder seen in the photo.

Copper I Chloride easily dissolves in HCl. If any gold is present in the CuCl it will not dissolve in straight HCl.

Steve

 

[lazersteve]

I would skip using ammonia in your AR refining processes unless you are 100% sure of what you are doing with it. Typically cooling the pregnant solution with ice and proper filtration will remove all of the silver that makes it through via dissolved silver chloride.

Ammonia can create explosive compounds when mixed with a variety of dissolved metals.

Steve

 

[megaplow]

Thanks for the insight.
I can't believe how thorough this forum is. I will go put my mud in HCL and see where it takes me.

Joe

 

[nickvc]

If after you removed the boards there was any base metals left on them do not discard them and again if there was any sludge keep that for later testing, remember you can't lose any values unless you throw them away.

 

[megaplow]

Hey All,
Last night I put my mud into HCL and got back to reading. Unfortunately I am feeling the 1st batch might be a total loss.

I still have enough boards for a few more goes. My boards all started clean and all the traces were the same color. I am hoping its gold. There is a lot of mention of base metal removal prior to salvaging the gold. Can someone point me to a post about removing base metals? Here is a pic of the boards I am working with, do they look like good candidates for salvage?

Reagards,
Joe

 

[butcher]

Joe,
You will not learn by jumping from one failed attempt to the next, and never understanding what direction you are going or how to get there.

Let’s work on that first batch, make sure we get any values from it.

And let’s slow down, read up on Hoke's book and the forum, get a member to give you some guidance’s on your next batch, or start with something like memory fingers study all about them and get some gold while learning some of the basics.

So you added HCl to the white salts, did it turn thick black syrup?
You may not even be able to see that there is still some powder in the bottom copper lead and gold salts. If you wish to learn more about those and how to separate them we can help.

Other wise maybe just hang up the chemistry set for a little while and get some studying done.