Thank you for showing me why you hate the simple route, your method is clearly the best and I appreciate the tons of work you do to show us why your method is so amazing
@@sreetips advanced beginner is an understatement. i need a proper vent hood and some more glassware to endeavor anything like you have taught me. cheers
The white stuff is a mix of silver chloride and copper(I) chloride, and the smoke is a mix of silver and copper(i) chlorides evaporating since they both have significant vapor pressures at molten-gold temperatures. Some of the silver chloride followed you all the way through because silver chloride is fairly soluble in concentrated HCl but almost insoluble in distilled water, so each time you diluted your solution some of it fell out, while leaving some more behind. The color change with time is just because of the silver chloride being reduced by light. The copper(I) chloride formed because you used an excess of SMB, reducing some of the Cu(II) to Cu(I). It has the same solubility/insolubility behavior as AgCl. Rinsing the mixed precipitate (Au+AgCl+CuCl) repeatedly with concentrated HCl and filtering would probably have gotten rid of most of it. Ammonia solution would have been even more effective and the CuCl would have given you a beautiful deep blue color, but be sure to filter off your gold and then acidify the ammonia filtrate after you filtered off your gold so that none of the silver would have time to form the explosive silver nitride.
Good info, thank you. I don’t use ammonia. And I didn’t want that “devils dandruff” to find its way into my waste container. Someone said, “when in doubt, burn it out”
I was worried about that stuff. Like breathing that smoke is no bueno. BTW, don't Copper and Ammonia form a toxic or explosive compound? That blue color...
Fits with me too. When he put it all in the crucible and it gave off green ions, it was a dead givaway. I was surprised he didn't do the HCl rinse automatically, since that's what he often does to clean gold precipitates anyway. Would have solved the problem by accident, but he ended up committing to a 96% pure product instead of the 99.9% he would have gotten otherwise.
I didn’t want that “Devil’s dandruff” going into my waste container, which is what would have happened if I dissolved it in HCl. I’ve seen stuff like this before, some unknown compound, and chasing it around trying to refine it out is a futile exercise. So I immediately decided to burn it out, get rid of it, promptly, and without regret. I think I made the right decision, and I stand by it.
Not this time. I knew by looking at that “Devil’s Dandruff” that it would be futile to attempt to any further refining. Fire is the only answer for compounds like that.
I've been watching your videos for years. This is something new. You're a master of your craft. You'll get it fixed. Keep up the great content. Very entertaining.
Fascinating video! While this is pretty much the result I expected, negative experimental results are just as important as positive results, and often neglected! It's good to see a presentation like this demonstrating why we do things the way we do them, instead of just falling back on "well that's the way it's done." Great video.
I'm no chemist, but I do some metal melting in mybspare time and the only time I get a bright green flame likenthat is when melting scrap copper, so I'd guess those crystals were copper something something. Thank you for all the awesome vids and how you explain what you do. I have a small but growing scrap gold collection and hope to work myself up to refining it pure like this someday!
@@slim-yin Zinc from brass makes real good sense, and I have to agree completely about the copper flame. Those "floaters" after the burn-off make me think of several different kinds of plastic (Particularly styrene/styrofoam), or even raw acetylene, but in my experience, those are nearly always at least "dark", if not jet black, not pale like these seemed to be... The only time I've "burned" zinc, I got similar pale floaters, though not as "chunky" as these looked. Maybe the floaters were/are zinc oxides, and the crystals were some sort of zinc salt?
Well sir that was almost a disaster but once again you saved it to continue another day thank you for sharing this wonderful video with us six stars sir
20:01 probably copper (I) chloride cristals, SMB reduces copper (II) chloride in solution to copper (I) chloride and it precipitates. Happened a lot to me when handling gold solutions that contain a lot of copper. Conc HCl will dissolve them
Iʼd recommend doing first precipitation by FeSO4. Especially from dirty solutions. FeCl3 which is a byproduct of this reaction will prevent other metals reduction
In the AgCl reduction, your byproducts are Ag0, NaCl and CO2. You are swapping the Cl with the Na and getting silver oxide which is then heated and the O2 is given off. You did this in one of your old videos and I really enjoyed watching the process. You have to be sure to pour off the molten NaCl and keep it away from water, or the Na will explode when it comes in contact.
You will not get sodium this way. There's an exchange between silver chloride and sodium carbonate to give silver carbonate and sodium chloride. The silver carbonate decomposes to give carbon dioxide, oxygen and silver. The borax lowers the melting point of the sodium carbonate.
Thank you for these experimentation videos. "What not to do" is at least as useful as "what to do", and I'm sure you learn right along with us as you try these things out.
Hi Sreetips, I saw you adding borax to the sodium carbonate on top of the silver, which in my opinion is the main reason why your silver button looks ugly. Sodium Carbonate is also a flux, which works much better than borax because it's water soluble and you can clean your melt dish with just water afterwards. The borax gets stuck, but it's less expensive and it's the only reason why I would use it instead of Sodium Carbonate. The Egyptians used Sodium Carbonate extensively, it's ancient name is Natron. It reduces salts into metal very easily, takes impure metals with it, works as a flux and gets washed well with water.
Here’s our button… definitely not pure lol 😂 I was like yeah that boy there’s like .985 at best ;) thanks for always showing everything. That’s how we learn!!
We dont need to talk about the last video. 😂 Really enjoy watching you test out new ways to make the refining process more efficient. Thx for your content!
The reaction replaces the chloride ion in silver chloride with carbonate, forming solid silver metal, Sodium Chloride, and releasing carbon dioxide gas, along with a little oxygen, as a byproduct.
What stands out to me, is that often your gold ends up significantly short, and with enough variance from the original Calc value such that the only conclusion is oftentimes these lower purity values are exaggerated. .
There pribably is a bit of that going on. But don't forget to include a portion of the gold recovered from the filter papers and gold refining waste which comes from these experiments....
Hello Mrs and Mr Sreetips. The sound of the fume hood is nice and relaxing 😂 I mean it. Nice clip Sir. I see forward to clip nr 2. You going to get that gold shine🔥 God bless you 🙂🙏🙂
We had snow, 4 inches (10 cm) on Tuesday night. It’s Sunday evening and there’s still patches of snow left. That’s very unusual for our area (semi tropical).
Hi Sreetips, I asked in the last video about about dissolving the carat scrap directly to aqua regia. I really appreciate you trying this, it was fascinating. One thing that I wondered about as you were burning off that white stuff was if it was some sort of copper by product, because it fluoresced green as it burned off. When I solder copper pipes the flame will turn green as it heats up.
Hi! In my opinion, the best way to get the best results, is the way you know better. This time you created a good experience, but it give us, to all emotions... Can't wait for next video.
374th! I guess you never stop learning. The safe and effective approach usually wins out. Untried procedures sometimes just doesn’t work out. It was fun to watch though. The crystals surprise me as well. Will be watching the next step in getting pure gold out of this button. Roger in Pierre South Dakota
@sreetips Sir ,You are the leading authority on gold ,in my life anyway 😊. I purchased a 14k Chain from a reputable dealer for a pretty higher end price and it turns out it's actually 13.5K with the gun. I perceived this as really bad business and was wondering what you thought of this practice. I'm not refining it and it's 117 grams so that .5k seems like alot. Thanks in advanced. I really really enjoy learning this hobby from you.
There’s a law, somewhere, that says that 14k gold can be as low as 13.5k and still be stamped 14k. Some rings are stamped 14kp. If you don’t know any better you’d think that the p stands for plated: 14k gold plated. The p actually stands for “plumb” meaning that the piece has the actual correct amount of gold so that it’s really 14k, not 13.5k
@sreetips Thank you very very much for the response. I really enjoy your videos and I appreciate all the very valuable information we gather from your videos.
That was interesting you need someone that can analyse the burning off using light to tell us what elements were burning green is normally copper which I saw but then the white smoke made no sense of its copper It was great to see experiments happening tho and shows why you indeed inquart for ease of processing why the textbooks exist for us all to not use methods that are Laborious and time consuming but instead methods that cut time and effort your video are always so interesting but throwing in these just show why your the no.1 for processing metals on UA-cam
Sorta wondering if silver nitrate is a possibility for the salt that dropped early... also judging by that green hue on the torch and the final ingot, those crystals may have been copper salt of some sort.
Lead my friend is what that white stuff is the sulfuric acid precipitated it if you used just smb with out sulfuric it would of stayed in solution it's definitely lead just like when you drop battery acid on the floor it will leave the white lead stain lol yeah it's harder to do it this way ❤👉👉👉
Im surprised you didn’t follow rule #1 of a dirty solution by using ferrous sulphate to “drop all the gold & only the gold” It appears to be silver chloride. Continuing as per usual with a 2nd aqua regia then chilling with an adequate amount of ice then filtered 2-3x would yield a clean gold precipitation. To avoid this as you said in the video that you should let it settle overnight, would have given time for the silver chloride to recrystallize out of the solution as it does not tend to crash out like it does from a clean gold solution when there are other chlorides present.
I had planned on using ferrous sulfate for the second refining. But then the Devil’s dandruff showed up. Wasn’t soluble, best to burn it out and start over rather than trying to refine it out.
white stuff can be any metal base chloride. it oxidizes easy. 8n this stage you should try hydrogen peroxide to remove it. hcl h2so4 can be used as well
@sreetips thats ok y did it right no doubts. when it happens in my extractiins from ire concentrates i always get this white grey color stuff and i use hydrogen peroxide to disolve it
Sneaking suspicion that flake in with the gold precipitate was copper chloride, probably both lower and higher forms. The green flame when melting it screamed copper and a quick google image search turned up something that looked a lot like it.
@@sreetips Several metal salts can produce thick white, wispy smoke when burned, often due to their decomposition or reaction with atmospheric moisture. Here are some of the most notable ones: 1. Zinc Chloride (ZnCl₂) • Smoke Type: Thick white, wispy, and persistent • Reaction: When burned or heated, zinc chloride vaporizes and reacts with moisture in the air, forming a dense white smoke. • Usage: Historically used in smoke grenades and smoke screens. 2. Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂) • Smoke Type: Dense white clouds, finely dispersed • Reaction: Though not typically burned, titanium dioxide can be aerosolized in high-temperature environments, forming white smoke. • Usage: Used in pyrotechnic compositions for white smoke effects. 3. Magnesium Salts (e.g., Magnesium Carbonate, MgCO₃) • Smoke Type: Light, white smoke • Reaction: Magnesium compounds decompose at high temperatures, releasing fine magnesium oxide (MgO) particles that appear as white smoke. • Usage: Found in some pyrotechnic compositions. 4. Aluminum Chloride (AlCl₃) • Smoke Type: Thick white smoke, highly hygroscopic • Reaction: When heated, it forms fumes that react with moisture in the air to create a white mist. • Usage: Used in some chemical smoke generators. 5. Phosphorus Pentoxide (P₂O₅) • Smoke Type: Dense white, highly hygroscopic • Reaction: Rapidly absorbs water vapor from the air, forming phosphoric acid mist. • Usage: Found in smoke compositions for military and industrial applications. 6. Ammonium Chloride (NH₄Cl) • Smoke Type: Light, white, disperses quickly • Reaction: Sublimates when heated, forming a white smoke as it cools and condenses in air. • Usage: Used in stage effects and science demonstrations. 7. Calcium Oxide (Quicklime, CaO) • Smoke Type: White, wispy fumes when reacting with water • Reaction: Reacts exothermically with water, producing steam and white calcium hydroxide particles. • Usage: Used in old battlefield smoke compositions. 8. Sodium or Potassium Perchlorate with Organic Fuels • Smoke Type: Thick white, especially with added metal oxides • Reaction: When burned, perchlorates produce a lot of combustion byproducts, leading to dense white smoke. • Usage: Found in some pyrotechnic smoke compositions. Key Takeaway: For a thick, persistent white smoke, zinc chloride or phosphorus pentoxide are the best choices. If you need a simple white smoke effect, ammonium chloride or magnesium carbonate will work.
@@sreetipshere is ChatGPTs take on what happened. Based on your description, a few things could be happening in your Aqua Regia gold precipitation process. The formation of white crystals on the flower gold, the green flame, and the thick white smoke point to the presence of contaminants or unintended chemical reactions. Let’s break this down: 1. Possible White Crystal Formation on the Gold The white crystalline material that formed on your flower gold (fine precipitated gold) suggests the presence of lead chloride (PbCl₂), silver chloride (AgCl), or possibly tin compounds from solder or impurities in the karat scrap. • Silver Chloride (AgCl): • Forms when silver (from lower-karat gold alloys) reacts with Aqua Regia. • Appears as a white, insoluble precipitate. • Can “coat” the gold and make precipitation difficult. • Turns dark purple or gray upon exposure to light. • Lead Chloride (PbCl₂): • Forms from lead impurities in soldered jewelry. • White, crystalline, slightly soluble in hot water. • Can produce thick white smoke when heated. • Tin Compounds (SnCl₂/SnCl₄): • If your scrap had solder (common in gold jewelry), tin can dissolve and form stannic chloride (SnCl₄). • Stannic chloride is hygroscopic and can form a white, wispy smoke when heated. 2. The Green Flame & White Smoke When Melting The green flame strongly indicates the presence of copper chloride (CuCl₂), which is common in lower-karat gold alloys. • Copper Contamination: • If some copper chlorides (CuCl or CuCl₂) remained in the gold, they could vaporize during melting, producing the characteristic green flame. • Copper(II) chloride (CuCl₂) volatilizes easily, creating thick white smoke as it reacts with moisture in the air. • Zinc Impurities (ZnCl₂ or ZnO Formation): • If your scrap contained gold-plated brass (which contains zinc), the zinc may have dissolved in Aqua Regia and later precipitated in your process. • Zinc compounds can cause a greenish flame and thick white smoke when heated. • Zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) is known to produce dense, white, wispy smoke. 3. Why This Happened • Improper precipitation sequence: • If silver or lead were present, they may have formed unwanted precipitates. • Stump Out (sodium metabisulfite, Na₂S₂O₅) works best after filtering out silver chlorides. • Traces of unreacted Aqua Regia or chlorides: • Residual gold chloride (AuCl₄⁻), copper chloride (CuCl₂), or zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) could remain if the solution wasn’t fully neutralized before precipitation. • If not washed properly, these compounds can remain on the gold and vaporize during melting. 4. How to Prevent This Next Time 1. Filter Out Silver & Base Metal Contaminants Before Precipitation • After dissolving the karat scrap in Aqua Regia: • Drop silver first by adding table salt (NaCl) or hydrochloric acid (HCl), forming AgCl. • If lead is suspected, dilute the solution and let PbCl₂ precipitate. • Filter before proceeding. 2. Ensure the Solution is Free of Excess Chlorides • Before using Stump Out (sodium metabisulfite, Na₂S₂O₅): • Boil the solution slightly to drive off excess nitric acid (HNO₃). • Add sulfamic acid (H₃NSO₃) to neutralize excess nitric acid. • Dilute with distilled water. 3. Wash the Precipitated Gold Properly • Rinse the flower gold with: • Hot water • Ammonia (if silver chloride is suspected) • Dilute hydrochloric acid (to remove base metal chlorides) 4. Avoid Soldered or Low-Quality Gold Scrap • If using gold-filled or gold-plated materials, expect lead, tin, and zinc to contaminate the reaction. • Stick to known solid karat gold to reduce issues. Conclusion Your white crystals were likely silver chloride, lead chloride, or tin compounds. The green flame and white smoke were most likely caused by copper chloride (CuCl₂) or zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) impurities. To fix this, make sure to remove silver and base metals before precipitation, properly wash your precipitated gold, and avoid using soldered scrap in your Aqua Regia
No question, the green flame is an absolute dead-giveaway for copper. But copper chlorides are usually blue-ish leaning towards green - I've never seen a white copper chloride.
I have not used any Nitric yet. Instead I use HCl + TCA powder. For 1 Ounce of Gold it only takes about a rounded teaspoon to produce enough Chlorine to do the job, added a little at a time. I saw a video about a machine that uses that mix in a sealed container that holds the pressure. That would work well. The exact amounts needed could be used to avoid waste and overpressure. The Chlorine would get consumed in the reaction, reducing the pressure inside over time. I treat my waste with Calcium or Sodium. If I use Sodium the waste product is salt water. It can go into the ocean. If Nitric is used, and the waste is treated with Calcium, the product is Calcium Nitrate which can be used as fertilizer. On first refine when I start with solid metal, this mix works pretty quickly. On subsequent refines when I start with powder metal, when I add the TCA, the stirring Gold in acid immediately explodes into a beautiful bloom of yellow color that is quite something to see.
TBH, a small part of me wanted to see Sreetips do a miniature recovery on those non-dissolved fragments…like those miniature cooking videos that my kids watch. 9:52
When you was melting the gold the flame turned green which you would get from copper ? But you live and learn from trying different things and we are learning with you thank you mate ❤
Most likely, adding the Sodium Carbonate to your dirty silver chloride mixture was an attempt to get the sodium to go the chloride and the silver to the carbonate. But Sodium Chloride is soluble in "everything" and Silver is probably very weak at grabbing carbonate. So all this is gonna do is make a mess. But even if it worked great, you would still have some residual copper in your mix. Yes, you have truly demonstrated that this method sucks, especially since your inquartation works so perfectly.
Now that was really interesting, and educational. We learn so much more from doing the wrong things, thank you for doing it! I really want to know what that white stuff was, hopefully I'll find it in the comments :)
Good evening Sreetips. Regarding the silver cell that I have just built. I am wondering which route you would take in making your electrolyte and your shot. I am familiar with the process thanks to your videos, but since I'm just starting out, don't have any silver cement accumulated yet so I was wondering what you might do to get up and running until you were able to accumulate cement etc. Thank you so much!
It’s 6am and we are at an estate sale that begins at 8am. We got up at 4:30am. We want to be first in line to get the silver and gold. Any later and the other pickers will get the metals ahead of us. So that what I’d recommend if you want silver for your silver cell. It won’t just fall in your lap. You got to get up early and be there first.
Your final gold button reminds me of some pictures in history where a prospector found a big gold nugget, and it is mixed with the earth from its formation.
This is a perfect example of drawing a conclusion then proceeding to fail to prove you predetermined conclusion. At the very minimum you should’ve redissolved it at least twice to get rid of the obvious zinc and copper but hey call it a fail and keep inquarting congratulations
I didn’t expect it to fail so spectacularly. I figured I’d get some passivation to demonstrate that, and silver chloride and show how to get that, but still end up with pure gold. That devils dandruff really threw me off. Totally unexpected.
Mr S.Tips, please try this... get an iron skillet, put 30% H2SO4 (battery acid) to half way, then add your AgCl (silver chloride) and when the AgCl touches the iron it will immediately turn to silver metal.. try it ❤
@24:00 The green flames indicate copper as a contaminant. One possibility is CuCl (copper I chloride). It could also have silver chloride which would explain the darkening of the white crystals. What a mess. Perhaps you should using Cupros to drop the gold would give a cleaner product.
So basically you can just melt silver chloride directly using sodium carbonate and borax didn't know that thank you for the info❤❤ also I think I encountered passivation as the button refuses to be dissolved in aqua regia and I don't know what to do
I was wondering if you could Refine the Progress this new way. What would the Yield of Gold be Example ,9994 Vs .9999? Would that extra .0005 be worth it??
You made miners flux. But you needed a cupola and a reductive furnace but yea thats a good way to deal with silver chloride. Well done. There is another way. Pour it into a steel mold, upside down pyramid the metal will drop to the bottom. Usually done in mining.
I got pissed the other day. I refined some gold lapel pins, dissolved them with aqua then brought them back with SMB. Then took the powder and started melting it and all of it just evaporated into thin air. I don’t know how that happened.
a couple of hydrochloric boils followed by the water boils would have cleaned up the salts, refine again and you would have had a clean button. I am curious to see how much gold was in the silver button.
Very interesting! Next time you could pick up one of those flakes and make a (dark) flame test, to see its flame color (more advanced you would use a spectrometer) to get a clue of the elements included.
I remember doing this in my early days of refining. I did my research, but the explanations didn't make a ton of sense to me as to why this is a bad idea. I thought I knew better and could make it work. I burned the gold to melt the solder off, but I didn't do a very good job. I then went straight to aqua regia and ended up with a thick soupy mess that clogged everything. It was like a mix of silver chloride and tin paste or something. Not really sure, but it was horrible. When I finally got it to a point where I could precipitate the gold out with smb, I ended up with the finest colloidal gold suspension I've ever seen which made rinsing almost impossible. It took days to rinse it. The whole process was a complete nightmare and I'm pretty sure I lost at least half of my yield. That was the one and only time I ever skipped the initial nitric boils. I didn't end up with with that white crystal stuff, but I did end up with that pasty crap that you didn't have here. Looks like you never know what you're gonna get doing this lol.
Looking at the color of the flames when you made the button makes me think of zinc and calcium cloride also from doing some foundry work those white floaters in the air really look like zinc oxide
I think the only other test would be direct dissolving in the case of gold foils, since they always end up taking so much acid to dissolve away the base metal for such a small foil weight. Nice to see some experiments
You need an XRF gun so you can determine the purity or impurity of your products. My guess on the white crystals that changed color is copper sulfate. The sulfate would explain the dense smoke and of course copper in the button would be another clue.
Thank you for showing me why you hate the simple route, your method is clearly the best and I appreciate the tons of work you do to show us why your method is so amazing
I really love how you show your work and explain things to everyone. That will definitely help new people, like I was at one point.
each time i watch your work i gain chemical metallurgy knowledge and skills. you inspire me sir
Excellent! Just remember, I’m learning new things too. I’m just an advanced beginner.
@@sreetips advanced beginner is an understatement. i need a proper vent hood and some more glassware to endeavor anything like you have taught me. cheers
The white stuff is a mix of silver chloride and copper(I) chloride, and the smoke is a mix of silver and copper(i) chlorides evaporating since they both have significant vapor pressures at molten-gold temperatures. Some of the silver chloride followed you all the way through because silver chloride is fairly soluble in concentrated HCl but almost insoluble in distilled water, so each time you diluted your solution some of it fell out, while leaving some more behind. The color change with time is just because of the silver chloride being reduced by light. The copper(I) chloride formed because you used an excess of SMB, reducing some of the Cu(II) to Cu(I). It has the same solubility/insolubility behavior as AgCl.
Rinsing the mixed precipitate (Au+AgCl+CuCl) repeatedly with concentrated HCl and filtering would probably have gotten rid of most of it. Ammonia solution would have been even more effective and the CuCl would have given you a beautiful deep blue color, but be sure to filter off your gold and then acidify the ammonia filtrate after you filtered off your gold so that none of the silver would have time to form the explosive silver nitride.
Good info, thank you. I don’t use ammonia. And I didn’t want that “devils dandruff” to find its way into my waste container. Someone said, “when in doubt, burn it out”
I was worried about that stuff. Like breathing that smoke is no bueno. BTW, don't Copper and Ammonia form a toxic or explosive compound? That blue color...
Indeed burn it off @@sreetips
Fits with me too. When he put it all in the crucible and it gave off green ions, it was a dead givaway. I was surprised he didn't do the HCl rinse automatically, since that's what he often does to clean gold precipitates anyway. Would have solved the problem by accident, but he ended up committing to a 96% pure product instead of the 99.9% he would have gotten otherwise.
I didn’t want that “Devil’s dandruff” going into my waste container, which is what would have happened if I dissolved it in HCl. I’ve seen stuff like this before, some unknown compound, and chasing it around trying to refine it out is a futile exercise. So I immediately decided to burn it out, get rid of it, promptly, and without regret. I think I made the right decision, and I stand by it.
Ooh sreetips is trying something new! I can't wait for 10 videos of him trying to make it all right!
Not this time. I knew by looking at that “Devil’s Dandruff” that it would be futile to attempt to any further refining. Fire is the only answer for compounds like that.
A great video showing why inquarting the gold is the best way ahead. The silver chloride melt was fascinating. Looking forward to part 2. 👍🏻
Thanks Arielle.
Always a thumbs up for you Sreetips 👍💯 Cheers for all the great content you provide!
Thank you
As a visual learner I really appreciate the experiments that show me all the things that will occur. Great job sreetips!
I've been watching your videos for years. This is something new. You're a master of your craft. You'll get it fixed. Keep up the great content. Very entertaining.
Fascinating video! While this is pretty much the result I expected, negative experimental results are just as important as positive results, and often neglected! It's good to see a presentation like this demonstrating why we do things the way we do them, instead of just falling back on "well that's the way it's done." Great video.
I'm no chemist, but I do some metal melting in mybspare time and the only time I get a bright green flame likenthat is when melting scrap copper, so I'd guess those crystals were copper something something.
Thank you for all the awesome vids and how you explain what you do. I have a small but growing scrap gold collection and hope to work myself up to refining it pure like this someday!
with all the whispy floaters in the air and the smokey burn there was zinc in it , probably from brass .
@@slim-yin Thank goodness he had on a mask. That crap is no fun to breath.
@@slim-yin Zinc from brass makes real good sense, and I have to agree completely about the copper flame. Those "floaters" after the burn-off make me think of several different kinds of plastic (Particularly styrene/styrofoam), or even raw acetylene, but in my experience, those are nearly always at least "dark", if not jet black, not pale like these seemed to be... The only time I've "burned" zinc, I got similar pale floaters, though not as "chunky" as these looked. Maybe the floaters were/are zinc oxides, and the crystals were some sort of zinc salt?
@@Ferd414 agreed
@@Ferd414 he was blowing tons of soda and borox up out of the dish so it might be particulate from that as well.
Well sir that was almost a disaster but once again you saved it to continue another day thank you for sharing this wonderful video with us six stars sir
Thank you
20:01 probably copper (I) chloride cristals, SMB reduces copper (II) chloride in solution to copper (I) chloride and it precipitates. Happened a lot to me when handling gold solutions that contain a lot of copper. Conc HCl will dissolve them
Good to know if I ever have another encounter with those
Huh, I noted the green flames and was wondering if copper was involved.
Agreed copper.
Yes. Copper.
Iʼd recommend doing first precipitation by FeSO4. Especially from dirty solutions. FeCl3 which is a byproduct of this reaction will prevent other metals reduction
In the AgCl reduction, your byproducts are Ag0, NaCl and CO2. You are swapping the Cl with the Na and getting silver oxide which is then heated and the O2 is given off. You did this in one of your old videos and I really enjoyed watching the process. You have to be sure to pour off the molten NaCl and keep it away from water, or the Na will explode when it comes in contact.
Good explanation, thank you.
You will not get sodium this way.
There's an exchange between silver chloride and sodium carbonate to give silver carbonate and sodium chloride.
The silver carbonate decomposes to give carbon dioxide, oxygen and silver.
The borax lowers the melting point of the sodium carbonate.
@@johncuthbert1888 You are right. The explosion that is caused by pouring liquid NaCl into water is a thermal one, not a chemical one.
Thank you Mr Sreetips! I just learned a hard lesson the easy way. 👍
Excellent!
I like the inquartation method you use it looks a lot cleaner . But I could see how you could get bored . Thanks for the videos
Thank you for these experimentation videos. "What not to do" is at least as useful as "what to do", and I'm sure you learn right along with us as you try these things out.
Thank you for the mistakes you deliberately make so that we can learn from them. You are always the best. Thank you again.❤
Glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
@sreetips Everything about your content is enjoyable. Looking forward to part 2.
Hi Sreetips,
I saw you adding borax to the sodium carbonate on top of the silver, which in my opinion is the main reason why your silver button looks ugly.
Sodium Carbonate is also a flux, which works much better than borax because it's water soluble and you can clean your melt dish with just water afterwards. The borax gets stuck, but it's less expensive and it's the only reason why I would use it instead of Sodium Carbonate.
The Egyptians used Sodium Carbonate extensively, it's ancient name is Natron. It reduces salts into metal very easily, takes impure metals with it, works as a flux and gets washed well with water.
Good to know, thank you.
Here’s our button… definitely not pure lol 😂 I was like yeah that boy there’s like .985 at best ;) thanks for always showing everything. That’s how we learn!!
I called it 950 and nailed it.
Really enjoy when you try a new technique. You just dive straight in but you also explain what you're doing. Thank you and keep em coming 👍👍
As a person who uses torches regularly it's always amazing to watch you heat jewelry to a red heat and it doesn't turn colors.
We dont need to talk about the last video. 😂 Really enjoy watching you test out new ways to make the refining process more efficient. Thx for your content!
The experiment is super interesting. Keep the videos coming!
Thanks for the example of converting small amounts of waste silver chloride back to silver metal.
You're a trooper Sreetips, good show.
The reaction replaces the chloride ion in silver chloride with carbonate, forming solid silver metal, Sodium Chloride, and releasing carbon dioxide gas, along with a little oxygen, as a byproduct.
Excellent, thank you.
You are welcome. Another great demonstration! Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
Good camera work…👍
Thank you
What stands out to me, is that often your gold ends up significantly short, and with enough variance from the original Calc value such that the only conclusion is oftentimes these lower purity values are exaggerated. .
There pribably is a bit of that going on. But don't forget to include a portion of the gold recovered from the filter papers and gold refining waste which comes from these experiments....
We use an XRF in our shop when purchasing scrap gold for evaluation. You would be surprised how much jewellery is under by a half karat or more.
@ oh yes, those are very interesting clips. Literally pulling gold out of the trash.
14k can be as low as 13.5k and still legally be stamped 14k
Hello Mrs and Mr Sreetips. The sound of the fume hood is nice and relaxing 😂
I mean it. Nice clip Sir. I see forward to clip nr 2. You going to get that gold shine🔥
God bless you 🙂🙏🙂
Good morning Arne. It’s 6:40 am here. Mrs sreetips and I are waiting for another estate sale. It’s 24 degrees F (-4.4 C)
@@sreetipsBrrr. Kold here to my friend..and much snow🙂
We had snow, 4 inches (10 cm) on Tuesday night. It’s Sunday evening and there’s still patches of snow left. That’s very unusual for our area (semi tropical).
Pure teaching session. I Love it , I promise, hand on heart that I will never try to bypass inquartation. thank you sir.
I don’t blame you!
Well, that was a very unexpected development! White crystals growing on gold powder? Never cease to amaze!
Hi Sreetips, I asked in the last video about about dissolving the carat scrap directly to aqua regia. I really appreciate you trying this, it was fascinating. One thing that I wondered about as you were burning off that white stuff was if it was some sort of copper by product, because it fluoresced green as it burned off. When I solder copper pipes the flame will turn green as it heats up.
I seen green. Green is copper.
Hi!
In my opinion, the best way to get the best results, is the way you know better.
This time you created a good experience, but it give us, to all emotions...
Can't wait for next video.
374th! I guess you never stop learning. The safe and effective approach usually wins out. Untried procedures sometimes just doesn’t work out. It was fun to watch though. The crystals surprise me as well. Will be watching the next step in getting pure gold out of this button. Roger in Pierre South Dakota
Video uploading as I type this comment.
amazing how that mess still ends up a nice heavy blob of gold!
You were right with the need for inquarting and what happens when not done or done incorrectly 😱😱hope your able to fix it 🙏
I wish you kept a sample of that white crystal stuff for further research... I'm dying to know what it was.
Devils Dandruff
@sreetips Sir ,You are the leading authority on gold ,in my life anyway 😊. I purchased a 14k Chain from a reputable dealer for a pretty higher end price and it turns out it's actually 13.5K with the gun. I perceived this as really bad business and was wondering what you thought of this practice. I'm not refining it and it's 117 grams so that .5k seems like alot. Thanks in advanced. I really really enjoy learning this hobby from you.
There’s a law, somewhere, that says that 14k gold can be as low as 13.5k and still be stamped 14k. Some rings are stamped 14kp. If you don’t know any better you’d think that the p stands for plated: 14k gold plated. The p actually stands for “plumb” meaning that the piece has the actual correct amount of gold so that it’s really 14k, not 13.5k
@sreetips Thank you very very much for the response. I really enjoy your videos and I appreciate all the very valuable information we gather from your videos.
@@KingMeGG4 you’re welcome, thank you for watching my videos.
That was interesting you need someone that can analyse the burning off using light to tell us what elements were burning green is normally copper which I saw but then the white smoke made no sense of its copper It was great to see experiments happening tho and shows why you indeed inquart for ease of processing why the textbooks exist for us all to not use methods that are Laborious and time consuming but instead methods that cut time and effort your video are always so interesting but throwing in these just show why your the no.1 for processing metals on UA-cam
Excellent, thank you!
Sorta wondering if silver nitrate is a possibility for the salt that dropped early... also judging by that green hue on the torch and the final ingot, those crystals may have been copper salt of some sort.
My thoughts as well
Nope Silver Nitrate is soluble in water and would have dissolved away.
Great show.
Thank you
Lead my friend is what that white stuff is the sulfuric acid precipitated it if you used just smb with out sulfuric it would of stayed in solution it's definitely lead just like when you drop battery acid on the floor it will leave the white lead stain lol yeah it's harder to do it this way ❤👉👉👉
Great video that's weird that white stuff was can't wait for next video thanks for sharing sreetips
Im surprised you didn’t follow rule #1 of a dirty solution by using ferrous sulphate to “drop all the gold & only the gold”
It appears to be silver chloride. Continuing as per usual with a 2nd aqua regia then chilling with an adequate amount of ice then filtered 2-3x would yield a clean gold precipitation.
To avoid this as you said in the video that you should let it settle overnight, would have given time for the silver chloride to recrystallize out of the solution as it does not tend to crash out like it does from a clean gold solution when there are other chlorides present.
I had planned on using ferrous sulfate for the second refining. But then the Devil’s dandruff showed up. Wasn’t soluble, best to burn it out and start over rather than trying to refine it out.
I wish you continuity, my brother
Thank you
white stuff can be any metal base chloride. it oxidizes easy. 8n this stage you should try hydrogen peroxide to remove it. hcl h2so4 can be used as well
Once I seen that it wasn’t soluble in hot water, I quickly decided to put it under a flame. Didn’t want it in my waste container.
@sreetips thats ok y did it right no doubts. when it happens in my extractiins from ire concentrates i always get this white grey color stuff and i use hydrogen peroxide to disolve it
Good to know, thank you.
Sneaking suspicion that flake in with the gold precipitate was copper chloride, probably both lower and higher forms. The green flame when melting it screamed copper and a quick google image search turned up something that looked a lot like it.
How about the smoke? I’ve never seen it that thick
@@sreetips Several metal salts can produce thick white, wispy smoke when burned, often due to their decomposition or reaction with atmospheric moisture. Here are some of the most notable ones:
1. Zinc Chloride (ZnCl₂)
• Smoke Type: Thick white, wispy, and persistent
• Reaction: When burned or heated, zinc chloride vaporizes and reacts with moisture in the air, forming a dense white smoke.
• Usage: Historically used in smoke grenades and smoke screens.
2. Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂)
• Smoke Type: Dense white clouds, finely dispersed
• Reaction: Though not typically burned, titanium dioxide can be aerosolized in high-temperature environments, forming white smoke.
• Usage: Used in pyrotechnic compositions for white smoke effects.
3. Magnesium Salts (e.g., Magnesium Carbonate, MgCO₃)
• Smoke Type: Light, white smoke
• Reaction: Magnesium compounds decompose at high temperatures, releasing fine magnesium oxide (MgO) particles that appear as white smoke.
• Usage: Found in some pyrotechnic compositions.
4. Aluminum Chloride (AlCl₃)
• Smoke Type: Thick white smoke, highly hygroscopic
• Reaction: When heated, it forms fumes that react with moisture in the air to create a white mist.
• Usage: Used in some chemical smoke generators.
5. Phosphorus Pentoxide (P₂O₅)
• Smoke Type: Dense white, highly hygroscopic
• Reaction: Rapidly absorbs water vapor from the air, forming phosphoric acid mist.
• Usage: Found in smoke compositions for military and industrial applications.
6. Ammonium Chloride (NH₄Cl)
• Smoke Type: Light, white, disperses quickly
• Reaction: Sublimates when heated, forming a white smoke as it cools and condenses in air.
• Usage: Used in stage effects and science demonstrations.
7. Calcium Oxide (Quicklime, CaO)
• Smoke Type: White, wispy fumes when reacting with water
• Reaction: Reacts exothermically with water, producing steam and white calcium hydroxide particles.
• Usage: Used in old battlefield smoke compositions.
8. Sodium or Potassium Perchlorate with Organic Fuels
• Smoke Type: Thick white, especially with added metal oxides
• Reaction: When burned, perchlorates produce a lot of combustion byproducts, leading to dense white smoke.
• Usage: Found in some pyrotechnic smoke compositions.
Key Takeaway:
For a thick, persistent white smoke, zinc chloride or phosphorus pentoxide are the best choices. If you need a simple white smoke effect, ammonium chloride or magnesium carbonate will work.
@@sreetipshere is ChatGPTs take on what happened. Based on your description, a few things could be happening in your Aqua Regia gold precipitation process. The formation of white crystals on the flower gold, the green flame, and the thick white smoke point to the presence of contaminants or unintended chemical reactions. Let’s break this down:
1. Possible White Crystal Formation on the Gold
The white crystalline material that formed on your flower gold (fine precipitated gold) suggests the presence of lead chloride (PbCl₂), silver chloride (AgCl), or possibly tin compounds from solder or impurities in the karat scrap.
• Silver Chloride (AgCl):
• Forms when silver (from lower-karat gold alloys) reacts with Aqua Regia.
• Appears as a white, insoluble precipitate.
• Can “coat” the gold and make precipitation difficult.
• Turns dark purple or gray upon exposure to light.
• Lead Chloride (PbCl₂):
• Forms from lead impurities in soldered jewelry.
• White, crystalline, slightly soluble in hot water.
• Can produce thick white smoke when heated.
• Tin Compounds (SnCl₂/SnCl₄):
• If your scrap had solder (common in gold jewelry), tin can dissolve and form stannic chloride (SnCl₄).
• Stannic chloride is hygroscopic and can form a white, wispy smoke when heated.
2. The Green Flame & White Smoke When Melting
The green flame strongly indicates the presence of copper chloride (CuCl₂), which is common in lower-karat gold alloys.
• Copper Contamination:
• If some copper chlorides (CuCl or CuCl₂) remained in the gold, they could vaporize during melting, producing the characteristic green flame.
• Copper(II) chloride (CuCl₂) volatilizes easily, creating thick white smoke as it reacts with moisture in the air.
• Zinc Impurities (ZnCl₂ or ZnO Formation):
• If your scrap contained gold-plated brass (which contains zinc), the zinc may have dissolved in Aqua Regia and later precipitated in your process.
• Zinc compounds can cause a greenish flame and thick white smoke when heated.
• Zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) is known to produce dense, white, wispy smoke.
3. Why This Happened
• Improper precipitation sequence:
• If silver or lead were present, they may have formed unwanted precipitates.
• Stump Out (sodium metabisulfite, Na₂S₂O₅) works best after filtering out silver chlorides.
• Traces of unreacted Aqua Regia or chlorides:
• Residual gold chloride (AuCl₄⁻), copper chloride (CuCl₂), or zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) could remain if the solution wasn’t fully neutralized before precipitation.
• If not washed properly, these compounds can remain on the gold and vaporize during melting.
4. How to Prevent This Next Time
1. Filter Out Silver & Base Metal Contaminants Before Precipitation
• After dissolving the karat scrap in Aqua Regia:
• Drop silver first by adding table salt (NaCl) or hydrochloric acid (HCl), forming AgCl.
• If lead is suspected, dilute the solution and let PbCl₂ precipitate.
• Filter before proceeding.
2. Ensure the Solution is Free of Excess Chlorides
• Before using Stump Out (sodium metabisulfite, Na₂S₂O₅):
• Boil the solution slightly to drive off excess nitric acid (HNO₃).
• Add sulfamic acid (H₃NSO₃) to neutralize excess nitric acid.
• Dilute with distilled water.
3. Wash the Precipitated Gold Properly
• Rinse the flower gold with:
• Hot water
• Ammonia (if silver chloride is suspected)
• Dilute hydrochloric acid (to remove base metal chlorides)
4. Avoid Soldered or Low-Quality Gold Scrap
• If using gold-filled or gold-plated materials, expect lead, tin, and zinc to contaminate the reaction.
• Stick to known solid karat gold to reduce issues.
Conclusion
Your white crystals were likely silver chloride, lead chloride, or tin compounds. The green flame and white smoke were most likely caused by copper chloride (CuCl₂) or zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) impurities. To fix this, make sure to remove silver and base metals before precipitation, properly wash your precipitated gold, and avoid using soldered scrap in your Aqua Regia
No question, the green flame is an absolute dead-giveaway for copper. But copper chlorides are usually blue-ish leaning towards green - I've never seen a white copper chloride.
@@sreetips Zinc smokes a lot. was glad to hear you wearing your respirator. Maybe a Zinc or aluminium bronze in there somewhere?
I have not used any Nitric yet. Instead I use HCl + TCA powder. For 1 Ounce of Gold it only takes about a rounded teaspoon to produce enough Chlorine to do the job, added a little at a time. I saw a video about a machine that uses that mix in a sealed container that holds the pressure. That would work well. The exact amounts needed could be used to avoid waste and overpressure. The Chlorine would get consumed in the reaction, reducing the pressure inside over time. I treat my waste with Calcium or Sodium. If I use Sodium the waste product is salt water. It can go into the ocean. If Nitric is used, and the waste is treated with Calcium, the product is Calcium Nitrate which can be used as fertilizer.
On first refine when I start with solid metal, this mix works pretty quickly. On subsequent refines when I start with powder metal, when I add the TCA, the stirring Gold in acid immediately explodes into a beautiful bloom of yellow color that is quite something to see.
Nice! Sounds like you’ve got your technique down.
TBH, a small part of me wanted to see Sreetips do a miniature recovery on those non-dissolved fragments…like those miniature cooking videos that my kids watch. 9:52
When you was melting the gold the flame turned green which you would get from copper ? But you live and learn from trying different things and we are learning with you thank you mate ❤
Transfer of ions and the silver chloride turns into sodium chloride aka salt and pure silver
Most likely, adding the Sodium Carbonate to your dirty silver chloride mixture was an attempt to get the sodium to go the chloride and the silver to the carbonate. But Sodium Chloride is soluble in "everything" and Silver is probably very weak at grabbing carbonate. So all this is gonna do is make a mess. But even if it worked great, you would still have some residual copper in your mix. Yes, you have truly demonstrated that this method sucks, especially since your inquartation works so perfectly.
Hello streetips🙂 may I ask why is the silver precipitates already? is it because of the HCl in the AR? Thank you in advance 🙂
Yes
Thank you very much 🙂❤️ GOD bless 🙂
Now that was really interesting, and educational. We learn so much more from doing the wrong things, thank you for doing it! I really want to know what that white stuff was, hopefully I'll find it in the comments :)
Hi Ya & best wishes. Thanks for work. Be Happy. Sevastopol/Crimea.
Thanks Sevastopol
Good evening Sreetips. Regarding the silver cell that I have just built. I am wondering which route you would take in making your electrolyte and your shot. I am familiar with the process thanks to your videos, but since I'm just starting out, don't have any silver cement accumulated yet so I was wondering what you might do to get up and running until you were able to accumulate cement etc.
Thank you so much!
It’s 6am and we are at an estate sale that begins at 8am. We got up at 4:30am. We want to be first in line to get the silver and gold. Any later and the other pickers will get the metals ahead of us. So that what I’d recommend if you want silver for your silver cell. It won’t just fall in your lap. You got to get up early and be there first.
@@sreetipsSmart advise Sreetips 🔥
I absolutely get that, thank you. So if I have enough sterling I'll be good to. Get underway?
Thank you for your response! Have a great weekend
Ha first viewer yes! Always enjoy your vids thanks for showing us all the chemistry!
wow, that is crazy however, awesome that you ended up with more metal than you calculated.
Probably picked up some contamination.
1:45 remember folks show your work for full credit 🤣
Yeah, as others have mentioned, the white smoke was probably zinc burning off and there was alot of green in the melt indicating copper.
Your final gold button reminds me of some pictures in history where a prospector found a big gold nugget, and it is mixed with the earth from its formation.
It looked like a raw gold nugget (except for the round shape)
7 👍 's up sreetips thank you for sharing 🤗
BEST EXPERIMENT IN AWHILE SREETIPS!!!! ~~~HIT THE LIKE FOLKS!~~~
Thank you!
This is a perfect example of drawing a conclusion then proceeding to fail to prove you predetermined conclusion. At the very minimum you should’ve redissolved it at least twice to get rid of the obvious zinc and copper but hey call it a fail and keep inquarting congratulations
I didn’t expect it to fail so spectacularly. I figured I’d get some passivation to demonstrate that, and silver chloride and show how to get that, but still end up with pure gold. That devils dandruff really threw me off. Totally unexpected.
Evening from San Antonio Texas!
Evening San Antonio
Mr S.Tips, please try this... get an iron skillet, put 30% H2SO4 (battery acid) to half way, then add your AgCl (silver chloride) and when the AgCl touches the iron it will immediately turn to silver metal.. try it ❤
I think lazersteve used aluminum and sulfuric. But I’ve never tried it.
I do this all the time.. use the Iron skillet rather than aluminium, it really works..
I like the when in doubt burn it out strategy
That’s a good way to put it, “when in doubt, burn it out”
Man, that’s such a good slogan. I may use that phrase in some of my future videos. Thank you.
@24:00 The green flames indicate copper as a contaminant. One possibility is CuCl (copper I chloride). It could also have silver chloride which would explain the darkening of the white crystals. What a mess. Perhaps you should using Cupros to drop the gold would give a cleaner product.
I’ll get it nice and clean in part 2
So basically you can just melt silver chloride directly using sodium carbonate and borax didn't know that thank you for the info❤❤ also I think I encountered passivation as the button refuses to be dissolved in aqua regia and I don't know what to do
Heat it up.then hammer it flat.
@SomsackVongsa thank you I was thinking like you
I inquart my scrap gold then part with nitric before going to Aqua Regia. This completely eliminates passivation.
Gooood evening from central Florida! Hope everyone has a great night!
Goooood evening!
@@sreetips 👋
@@DavidDavis-yepDavid.. Sreetips. Have a wonderful weekend and God bless you❤️🙏❤️
@Arne-ns2mw Hello Arne! Great to hear from you. Hope all is well with you and your family!
@@sreetips How about them Chiefs!
I was wondering if you could Refine the Progress this new way. What would the Yield of Gold be Example ,9994
Vs .9999? Would that extra .0005 be worth it??
No
You made miners flux. But you needed a cupola and a reductive furnace but yea thats a good way to deal with silver chloride. Well done. There is another way. Pour it into a steel mold, upside down pyramid the metal will drop to the bottom. Usually done in mining.
This immediately made me thing of mbmmllc’s channel
Can you test at your house to see what the gold alloy os made up of
I don’t have any sophisticated testing equipment. Just a touch stone and some testing acid.
If you ever do this experiment again. I'm curious if the gold will come out with a gas precipitation.
Possibly,
Good work team
Fascinating, Thanks!
Dang, that smoke looked hazardous. I'm with you, don't do that again.
Anyone who has watched you for a while knows that it's always better to inquart first and then refine..
Good video. Wonder if adding nitric to the white crystals and boiling it in nitric and distilled water would’ve cleaned up the crystals
Good afternoon (here), Chief. I think it might be, just going by smoke and flame color, zinc.
sounds right. Zinc sulphide, generally insoluble in water, but it is more soluble in acids. kind of explains why it wouldn't wash out
Omg that bubbling molten ooze is terrifying 😆😆
Molten salt.
I got pissed the other day. I refined some gold lapel pins, dissolved them with aqua then brought them back with SMB. Then took the powder and started melting it and all of it just evaporated into thin air. I don’t know how that happened.
I was a little worried that some of that gold was going to vaporize into thin air, but it didn’t. Sorry to hear of your loss.
@ I’m telling you it was weird. All these times I refined gold and this was the first time this ever happened to me made me scratch my head.
@@goldsilverjunkieI am part-time prospector.this also happened when I do flame test on ores.
Hooray new video
Was wondering if you were going to hit the solution with SMB. With this experiment of yours I would call this a total Gonzo Move.
Nice vid !!!
Serve up a casserole in a dish with sreetips written all over it and see if your guests hang around.
a couple of hydrochloric boils followed by the water boils would have cleaned up the salts, refine again and you would have had a clean button. I am curious to see how much gold was in the silver button.
HCl boils to dissolve the devils dandruff. But I didn’t want any of that in my waste container.
@ yeah definitely
Very interesting! Next time you could pick up one of those flakes and make a (dark) flame test, to see its flame color (more advanced you would use a spectrometer) to get a clue of the elements included.
Dumb question,,,is the ice distilled water?
Tap water
Well it was worth a try..
It made a new and interesting video for my channel.
@sreetips oh definitely..
Another cool vid sreetips..thanks buddy
Im wondering if its giant silver chloride crystals
No, I’ve seen much silver chloride. And it has never looked like this
I remember doing this in my early days of refining. I did my research, but the explanations didn't make a ton of sense to me as to why this is a bad idea. I thought I knew better and could make it work. I burned the gold to melt the solder off, but I didn't do a very good job. I then went straight to aqua regia and ended up with a thick soupy mess that clogged everything. It was like a mix of silver chloride and tin paste or something. Not really sure, but it was horrible. When I finally got it to a point where I could precipitate the gold out with smb, I ended up with the finest colloidal gold suspension I've ever seen which made rinsing almost impossible. It took days to rinse it. The whole process was a complete nightmare and I'm pretty sure I lost at least half of my yield. That was the one and only time I ever skipped the initial nitric boils.
I didn't end up with with that white crystal stuff, but I did end up with that pasty crap that you didn't have here. Looks like you never know what you're gonna get doing this lol.
I’ll probably never attempt this ever again.
the old saying "if its not broken.....dont try to fix it" ;)
This was an excellent demonstration for the new folks.
I would so buy that first silver coin button that looks cool but they both look cool.
Looking at the color of the flames when you made the button makes me think of zinc and calcium cloride also from doing some foundry work those white floaters in the air really look like zinc oxide
I think the only other test would be direct dissolving in the case of gold foils, since they always end up taking so much acid to dissolve away the base metal for such a small foil weight. Nice to see some experiments
You need an XRF gun so you can determine the purity or impurity of your products. My guess on the white crystals that changed color is copper sulfate. The sulfate would explain the dense smoke and of course copper in the button would be another clue.
I think copper sulfate is blue crystals.
Based on the burn color, looks like copper to me.
Me too