Dear Sir: Your product most likely contains hydrazine hydrate 64 or 85%(liquid) or hydrazine 2HCl (solid).

It works well with acid gold plating baths, but does not work well with alkaline CN based baths. Please be careful, despite smelling like ammonia, it is carcinogenic and toxic to fish and people. It will also reduce platinum salts to Pt metal in highly alkaline media (pH>10). I have done a small research about precipitating gold out of Aqua Regia solution. I use 3 HCL+1 Nitric Acid to make Aqua Regia. Let it work 1 night or simply heat it up for a while to shortened the process. Filter the solution and neutralized it with Urea or just heat it up until all of the nitric vaporized. Watch out not to loose any precious metal during the heating. Test the pH. Precipitate gold using sodium metabisulfite/ zinc. You can use above method for any kind of source which contains gold. To drop a larger % you must slowly heat solution to simmering, just below 200 f /93 c (do not boil). Wait at least 1 hour before filtering, refilter. If Pt is in solution you want to drop that first, same way with NH4CL. Hope this helps. Two other things, 1) Na2SO4 is better for dropping the gold (free electrons greater reactivity) 2) Rest solution 24 hours after dropping last of Pt It falls out on its own, filter and save up. It will help pay for your chems. If you are selling your Pt bring the It with you some buyers will try to tell you your Pt is 10% It This way you can say this is Pt and this is It and get full value forVivid almost neon green is the norm color of a used up (or near empty) solution. I test with with aqua ammonia test liquid to see if I missed anything, but do that, to the side in a test dish. If gold is still present it will turn blue. It could be possible you are getting some cross comtam. with ammonia turning your solution blue. Pt group metals normally just make the solution look muddy till dropped. Anybody else have any other ideas? BTW Aqua Regia should be filtered before adj the pH and just after. If silver and/or a couple other nasty insoluble alloys get in the further process you run the risk of creating silver fulminate (bad stuff, highly unstable sim. to nitro when dry or dry heated) 2 simple filterings may save a lot of grief. your Pt.

Just some quick info. I know the owner/ops really dislike "gold recycling" :) I see their point its finishing, not financing. I will say that you are using a form of Hydrazine or more likely Hydroxyl Amine- HCL. The HCL is usually neutralized with KOH or NaOH to a pH of 7. Hydrazine is rocket fuel. 3 factory explosions have been attributed to it spontaneously. It is not a contaminant. Hydrazine is N2H4 with a sulfate or HCl Hydroxyl Amine - is NH2OH-HCl. For my application their is no comparison. I have tried, every cementing and reducing agent. NH2OH wins hands down. It rains sand. There is a bit of chem needed to use it. I strip gold based on ammonium iodine/Iodine. Don't try it unless you have a degree. screw up just a little and u made a touch sensitive explosive! I will say it strips all precious metals including rhodium. 3 minutes to strip MilSpec gold plate. The solution is regenerated and reused with H202. 1 Gallon -(3.7 L) strips about 4 ounces troy vs cyanide which is 0.7 ozt. it is done in the presence of a buffer. PH is neutral to slightly basic. Doesn't burn, isn't toxic, and does not "REQUIRE" a fume hood. the best part is that the attack of base metals is virtually none. Till using this I hated all that was nickel and copper. :) Just remember be safe, Find the right forum to join,

and to all those of you get rich quick-start a lab in the garage types -got 50 beakers of witches brew and are stuck...It's not your fault. The GOOD lack of information is absurd. the first thing a person does is googles gold. Aqua regia comes up they run to the lab supply and are knee deep in it. While it is not your desire to provide info on the topic, I do feel it is your responsibility to give better redirection. I have Hoke's book. and cottons, and every other one. They all read fine, if you have done it before... The point is that no one is going to buy the book. They want to use the internet. They want to interact with others. why,what, how? Hoke is most likely dead and rendering him unavailable to email... Please find a responsible refining forum to represent as a service to yourself and others. Sorry if i stepped on t I usually work with materials left at old mine sites. I have worked with boards. I mesh and grind the mine site materials,then table these on a Wilfley to acquire a concentrate for either furnacing or leaching. After furnacing I granulate the metals to increase the surface area then do a dissolution in Aqua Regia. Using Nitric first on your granulated metal enables you to recover your silver by precipitation with either salt water or Hydrochloric Acid. You will also dissolve your Palladium in this process which can be recovered later. However Dimethylgloxime is expensive and possibly just using the aluminium method that follows will enable you to recover a metal for assay and sale. If no silver is present I go to Aqua Regia (weak or strong),boil it down,add urea to remove any remaining Nitric and then adjust my pH to 7. I then add Sodium Metabilsulphite to drop the metals,filter and dry. I then clean the powder with weak ammonia to remove any possible co- precipitated silver. Again filter and dry and clean with hydrochloric or just boil in water to lump it together. You should be able to furnace this directly using just borax [link is to product info]. Also add a small pinch of saltpeter to the charge before pouring into a suitable mould. Clay crucibles are good to use with this method. The gold should be 99.99% or four nines as they say. If you had Platinum in your solution and after gold recovery using Sodium Metabilsulphite (used for sterilizing bottles etc) you can use Ammonium Chloride or simply add aluminium foil(within the periodic table and reactive series) and let it do an exchange. This will drop all metals as either a brown or fine black powder which could also include any gold you have missed. Also if anything goes wrong during the initial precipitation process and you think you have lost metals simply dilute your solution with 50% hot water water and add a small amount of hydrochloric acid and add aluminium. Ensure there is enough hydrochloric to maintain a pH for the aluminium to work. Undertake your dissolution again with your Aqua Regia on your dry powders and follow the precipitation process/recovery process. Never throw or discard solutions until these are finally tested with aluminium. A further method to recover all metals from solution is to add Soda Ash slowly to a boiling solution. It will slowly neutralize. This will drop all of your metals as a black powder. I would like to see more information on the precipitate Hydrazine Hydrate as I have never used it before. What is its industrial use? Can someone advise? I am presently developing a leaching process suited for the materials I am interested in locally. If you are using aqua regia to dissolve boards etc, aluminium will recover your gold which you will see coming to the top as yellow gold powder or flake. Tin solder should be cleaned from pins and points using something like hydrochloric before Aqua Regia. This can cause problems later as it will also bring down your metals. To be sure simply filter the powders and dry. Then boil in Sodium Hydroxide at a pH of 12 for about two hours to covert the metals to an oxide. Again filter and dry. Then place in an oven at 400 C for about two hours to convert this from an oxide to metal. I hope the above helps or that it can at least can rectify or get you out of trouble if something goes wrongoes...

No other subject has received so much attention, been so investigated, caused so much havoc to the environment, and been so misunderstood. Today you will find many who claim to posses a magic potion or "Supreme Leach" often offered at astronomical prices, or contain some mystical ingredient that no one else on earth has. Granted there are a variety of common leaches, some alkaline, some acidic-based, but none more active than the Halogen family, which includes Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, and other oxidizing agents. Checking them off the list, none is as cheap or plentiful, which works over as wide a range of ore types as Chlorine. Halox is newly-born Chlorine, generated generally by electrolysis, which actually takes place quite naturally when you get Sodium Chloride and Hydrochloric Acid together, in water...the donor for all of the oxygen and hydrogen required in the process of creating Gold Chlorides from this mix. In practical terms; To make your own "Homemade Halox".... Per gallon of HOT water, add 1/2 cup Iodized Salt, 1/2 cup Calcium Hypochlorite powder, and 1/4 cup of HCL. Do all of this outdoors, as chlorine gases are generated, and stay UPWIND... Don't try it indoors, or it will choke you and everyone else out. An ORP and PH meter, will help you keep track of what is happening in the Leach you just made. As the leach goes to work on the ores..it loses it's capacity to leach, requiring you to add small amounts of HCL (Muriatic acid) to keep the leach potent. If you have an ORP meter, keep it near or above 1000 mv. Below 400, it stops leaching. The chlorine, as formed, leaches a molecule of gold at a time, so it is not instantaneous, and often takes hours or even days, depending what else is in the mix to interfere with it while leaching. As iron is one of the biggest robbers of the chlorine, it gets leached as well. Two things will help that; First, don't add too much HCL at a time...keep the leach from fizzing, boiling and outgassing chlorine fumes. Secondly, you can pre-wash the ores with our Citric Acid Wash. It does a good job of removing iron and other base metals first, keeping the leach at full strength. You can pour the leach in and let it sit, or put it into a small plastic-tubbed cement mixer, sold at Home Depot, etc.........and rotate it. Other methods like a small poly propeller on a long stainless steel shaft, motor-driven, in a plastic garbage can works too, for small batches. Agitation insures all parts of the ore, sediments or black sands get treated completely. When adding more HCL produces no more gold (ORP does not rise,) then mixture is allowed to rest, till the sediments settle. The "pregnant Lixiviant" is drawn off and ready to be extracted, or, "Stripped" of the Gold and Precious metals, from the leach. MEGA LEACHING We have outlined the basics of "Halox" leaching for those just beginning to recover gold and emphasize a healthy respect for stuff that can melt flesh and eat lung tissue if inhaled. As most of us have limited facilities, we encourage you to work outdoors, where breezes blow away the corrosive fumes and spills don't create household panics. Even at that, please familiarize yourself with standard lab procedures, don't mix chemicals you are unfamiliar with, and wear protective clothing, covering eyes, breath and hands at the very least. Not all ores respond to the "Halox" methods, nor can they, owing to "Complexing" agents, like carbonates, excessive iron or sulfides/sulfates. These and other type ores may require specialized treatment, pre-treatments or other

routes of leaching not disclosed here. We do not sell these leach mixtures, as they involve Haz-Mat chemicals (available everywhere), and we do not ship them, owing to the paperwork and special handling charges. We do provide key ingredients, and the formulas however. These more powerful leach mixes are superior to anything offered by any company, are used by commercial mining operations, laboratories and select individuals. These formulas describe step-by-step methods for preparing, extracting Gold, Silver and Platinums from common and un-common ores, waters, and other samples. All of these procedures are done at normal atmospheric temperatures and pressures. Halogen Leaching procedures This is an all-round leach, to be used in conjunction with an ORP Meter, (OxygenReduction_Potential) to govern the amount of time necessary to oxidize the precious metals into solution. *Note: This formulation was developed over 45 years ago, commonly used in the mining industry, but seldom revealed to outsiders, recorded in the Mine offices of Santa Gertrudes, Baja Norte, B.C., Mexico, "Alluvias de Oro" With your ORP meter, keep this mixture between 400mv and 900 mv to avoid coextracting iron and other base metals. If you wish to run your mixture hotter to speed and enhance extraction, say above 1200 mv., it is perfectly permissible, but if you have iron, pre-treat, as below: Removing Iron To remove Iron, pre-wash the ground-up ore with Citric acid...a relatively cheap chemical available in bulk that is bio-degradable. Make up a mixture of up to 33% citric acid crystals, and the balance hot water. This mix can be poured over the ground ore in filters, mixed with ore in a container or used in your ball mill while grinding. The liquid mixture is then filtered to recover the solids..the liquid now contains dissolved iron. Iron can be recovered by pouring the liquid filtrate through "Greensand", or discarding both into the environment, after diluting it, as it is good for iron-loving, and acid-loving plants. Leach Mix Returning to your ore, now make up the leach mix, following this formula; To each 2 gallons of de-ionized water, or softened (if you have it), heat it to near boiling, adding as much common salt (rock salt is OK) as it will absorb. Allow it to cool. Draw off 7/8 of the salt-saturated water. This is the basis of the leach. Now add 1 to 4 ounces of 7% Iodine to the salt water, depending on how strong you want it. It will turn the leach purple to red color. Add 1/2 to 1 pint of Nitric acid...again, depending on strength desired. This then, is your own private "Super Leach". This leach will dissolve all precious metals as rapidly as cyanide, as long as you keep the ORP high, as I outlined above. Not all ores are the same, like snowflakes, so each one must be tested with varying degrees of the leach. Ore Preparation The ore you are using must be ground fine enough to allow the leach to penetrate and contact all parts of the gold and precious metals, in order to dissolve them. This may require a fine grind to 200 mesh or more to release all values. A very reasonable "Ball Mill" can be made from a polybarrel cement mixer. Northern Tools has one for about $250. Add a couple of gallons of smooth river rock or quartz to do the grinding, toss in 10-15 lbs. ore, and "Voil"...A Ball Mill! If using a mixer, the leach can actually be added at this point while grinding it down, if you are satisfied with prior tests.

http://www.northerntool.com/ Leaching Having mixed 1 part ore and 6 parts leach together, the Nitric acid in the leach will be consumed and lose some potency. You can raise the ORP several points, adding HCL (Muriatic) acid in small amounts as this happens, replacing the Nitric Acid loss, and adding a new dimension to the leach power, helping the high end of the ORP scale, as the lower end at 400 mv is covered by the Iodine. Do not add too much HCL, or you will make Aqua Regia, dragging other, unwanted metals out into solution. When additions of acid in the leaching process no longer extract any more Gold or Precious metals... It is finished (we will cover that testing in the Leaching manual) it is time to stop, and drain off the Pregnant liquor, containing the metal values. *Don't leave the leach too long, or it may re-precipitate back onto the ore.--------although this is less likely to happen using this leach formulation, owing to the iodine. This leach will rapidly extract Precious Metals from prepared ores, slimes and sediments. Gold, Platinums, Silver and rare earth metals will dissolve in a fashion known as the "Electrical Ladder"..The native charge that all metals possess ...Gold heading the list at + 1.36 volts. Chemical dissolution is the act of this electro-motive force, temporarily applied to put all particles into solution, from which we select what we want through precipitation. Negatively-Charged Metallic Salts Aluminum Zinc Iron Cadmium Indium Cobalt Nickel Tin lead Hydrogen -1.71 -0.76 -0.44 -0.40 -0.34 -0.28 -0.23 -0.14 -0.12 -0.00 volts volts volts volts volts volts volts volts volts volts

Positively-Charged Metallic Salts Copper + 0.52 volts Ruthenium +0.49 volts Palladium +0.62 volts Rhodium +0.68 volts Mercury +0.78 volts Silver +0.80 volts Platinum +0.90 volts Uranium +1.01 volts Iridium +1.02 volts Gold +1.36 volts How do you know when the Leaching is done? It can take 2 hours or 2 days, depending on the ore... If you have the time, most of us do a "Roll-test" or extract samples of the ore in question first...so we know fairly well, in advance. Remember, below 400mv ORP, your leach stops working. To a great degree, the iodine will prevent this total collapse of the process, but it may not move forward, gathering more PM's. try to keep the ORP as high as possible, without exceeding 900mv if it contains iron, higher if not. The 400 to 900 range will extract the higher valence metals (precious), but little else. This methodology applies to most un-complicated quartz-based ores. Complexed ores, containing sulfates, carbonates and other difficult elements may require pre-treatment and another type of leaching formulation. This formula is PERFECT however, for all of the sediment collection that our units perform, and extracts and reduces it easily to 999.9 Fine Gold, ready for smelting.

Complexed Ores Sulfurous, Pyrites, Black sands, etc. are Complexed Ores, and MUST be treated first, otherwise the sulfur/iron will eat the leach faster than you can renew it, making it very difficult to extract anything! If Black sands are the issue, read our Black Sands section on the website at: www.goldmineworld.net Take your ore outside, fire up the family BBQ, and place the ore powder into a large iron frypan or container. Crank up the heat, stand upwind, and it will drive off the sulfur, arsenic and mercury and organic contaminants. DO NOT DO THIS INDOORS! Iron oxide coatings, plant oils and other garbage can and does interfere with the leaching. For tough cases, tumble with citric or other weak acid to remove these in our poly mixer. Be sure to neutralize all leach solutions and washes before returning them to the environment. For those working indoors, please observe standard laboratory procedures, use fume hoods, etc. For the rest of us Yahoos...do this outdoors, for heaven's sake, where it wont' bother anyone. Keep all chemicals locked up when not in use...and don't pollute, please. Respect your Mother (Earth) *NOTE: Carbonaceous ores require specialized leach formulas. Please contact us for information concerning them. THIS LEACH WILL NOT WORK ON CARBON ORES ok, we have our "Pregnant Leach". It has the precious metals now in solution. What now? It is still very acid. We need to bring up the PH to near 7.0 To get the gold out of the leach solution, the Nitric Acid must be eliminated. The little-known shortcut to that is to add prilled Urea, which will neutralize the Nitric Acid, by degrees. As you slowly add it, it will fizz and off-gas. Stir it in well, until the PH nears 7.0 You can additionally use Ammonia, to fine tune or bring the PH up, but DO NOT USE AMMONIA if silver was in the ore. When it dries, it becomes Fulminate of Silver, an explosive powder as tempermental as Nitro Glycerin! start to gel in the liquid. Precipitants Some of the common precipitants are: 1. Ferrosulfate 2. Oxalic acid 3. "Storm" 4. Sodium Nitrite 5. Stannous Chloride 6. Sodium Metabisulfite 7. Zinc (bars-chunks-powder) Now add your precipitant With slow additions of the selected precipitant...try to match it to the amount of gold you think it contains... As the precipitant is stirred in, the magic begins...As the gold starts to clump together in larger and larger masses. Keep swirling it every few minutes, until the darker portion starts to descend. Now leave it alone to separate out on its own...the brown powdery layer will consolidate on the bottom, leaving the empty, clear leach on the top; containing the iodine, salt and water...as ready to use again, with new Nitric Acid

Separation may take overnight to cleanly separate the precious metals out as the dark layer on the bottom. Pour off the clear layer into a carboy or plastic bucket, and cover. Save this "Clear" water...It becomes your new leach base. Now take the dark potion you saved, and pour it through 3 to 4 , 12" coffee filters, prewetted, in a 12", plastic funnel, set over a clean glass jar. The Gold will be caught in the filter, the cleaned leach pass through. If it is a bit cloudy below...re-run it through the same filters to recover the remaining fine Gold. Leave the filters to drip to relative dry, then place them carefully into an electric fry pan and turn the thermostat down to dry the whole filter and powder. This may take hours....Or place into a windproof area in a sunny spot. The dried filter now contains Pure Gold! This filter weighed (minus a clean filter weight) will give you a "How many Ounces of Gold per Ton" figure Here, ground up ore has been placed into the jar, and 6 volumes attacks the precious metals, extracting them at room temperature. This particular leach was allowed to sit for 4 hours, with occasional swirling of the contents, at the end of which; we poured the entire goey soup into a prepared 6" funnel, with 4 pre-wetted coffee filters, to drain it of the pregnant leach. This was repeated into the same filter, to remove all traces of the solids (ore). *Keep track of the ORP as you go. The funnel on the left has the ore in it, draining out the gold leach, seen below. The funnel on the right is catching precipitated gold from leach like that seen on the bottom of the left glassware. after it had a precipitating agent added to it. Each funnel has 4 clean, 12" coffee filters, pre-wetted before use in the 12" plastic funnels. The brown goo in the right hand filter is pure gold powder!The whole process is quite simple, once you learn. Here we place the fiters into a simple electric frypan to dry out the filtrate. Turn up the heat ubtil it starts drying, then remove the extra filters underneath, as it dries, till you are left with a single filter. the volumes will reduce until it is roughly 1/10th of the original mass. All of these steps can be done with quality labware..but this is intentionally done with onhand materials to demonstrate "nothing fancy" is required. In the picture above..you can see the net result of the Gold precipitate, resting in triumph in the filter papers. Each of those 12" coffee filters holds about 25 grams of relatively pure Gold, ready to be put into the crucible, to be smelted. Look closely, and you will see the central, darker portions, containing Platinum group metals, as well. This extraction took about 2 days to complete, front to back....as Time is an element of reality, as well. Consider we have accomplished what took Mother Nature millions of years to accomplish, in a very short space. As you can see, I have accomplished this with what most people consider garbage, and utilized the simplest of tools and common chemicals. The results above came from a very tough, objectionable, complexed ore. So, don't say it can't be done. If you are confused...go back over the basic steps you have seen here and follow the formula. Practice, over and over, reveals the path....soon you will be Master of the way, as well. OK, on the right......(the black stuff) is the original ore........it was a Manganese-laden, iron-choked, sulfide-based swamp sludge..(they don't get any worse!) And after pre-treatment, as described earlier, it was subjected to the leach formula posted on previous page. Lo and behold.... out of this muck came Gold and Platinum.

On 1. 2. 3.

the filter at the left you can see; White powder = salt from the leach, crystallized out Brown powder = Gold Dark brown-to-black = Platinum group

Lesson? Test, Test, Test. Learn to test samples, just like this, and you too may discover incredibly rich finds, despite public opinions. lesson 2; This is not that difficult to do....as you can see. Above you see about 1/2 ounce of Gold, accumulated over the last year, as I work on samples. Eventually, these folks! Those tiny bits add up quick, when there is a contant supply of them. HOW TO USE AQUA REGIA TO PURIFY GOLD by Tom Ashworth LEGAL NOTICE Tom Ashworth (the author) shall not be liable for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the furnishing or use of this material. I have no control over how you do these procedures. This procedure works for me and if something gets messed up it is your problem, not mine! WARNING The processes contained herein entail the use of high heat, and very dangerous acids, and must be performed in a well ventilated area. Always use mercury, sulfuric acid, Hydrochloric and nitric acid in a well-ventilated area. DO NOT breathe the fumes. Fumes from many ores are deadly when heated. Nitric acid can be absorbed through the skin causing nitric acid poisoning. WEAR RUBBER ACID GLOVES. Always add acid to water, NEVER ADD WATER TO ACID! Aqua regia, Hydrochloric and nitric acid can kill if swallowed. Nitric acid can ruin your clothes and shoes. Always wear rubber gloves, plastic safety glasses and a plastic or rubber apron. When adding aqua regia to ore, there can be a red gas given off; THIS RED GAS WILL KILL! Sometimes the ore will bubble over, so watch it carefully. Use the aqua regia in an open area and add it to the ore very slowly. Aqua regia cannot be boiled or simmered in the house or where it is not well ventilated. This can cause serious illness or KILL YOU! Use a vent hood with an exhaust fan or simmer in the open. Hydrochloric acid is very dangerous. It can burn to the bone and is extremely painful. In most cases, it has burned before you know it. Aqua regia can ruin your clothes and shoes. IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ALL OF THE ABOVE WARNINGS, DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER! EQUIPMENT USED Pyrex Beaker container

Hot plate Plastic spoon for stirring or a glass rod can be used Squeeze bottle, such as a soap bottle, containing distilled spring water for washing the beaker Ash-free or a coffee filter (An ash-free filter best, but it costs more and is harder to find) A plastic funnel with strainer to use to filter the bottle or beaker INGREDIENTS USED Gold or finely powdered ore (100 mesh crushed black sand, ore, etc.) Hydrochloric acid Nitric acid Formic acid Sodium sulfite Distilled water Uniodized salt HOW TO USE AQUA REGIA TO PURIFY GOLD 1. Place your gold or finely powdered ore in a Pyrex container or beaker. 2. Mix 1 part nitric acid to 3 parts hydrochloric acid in a separate glass or plastic container. When mixing the acids together, use great caution! 3. Add the acid mixture, very slowly, to the Pyrex container or beaker containing the ore. 4. On a stove or hot plate, simmer until the gold is in solution and the nitric acid is boiled off. It Will look like maple syrup and be a yellowish to orange color. 5. To make sure all the nitric acid has been boiled off, add a small amount of formic acid. If nitric acid is present, a reddish brown gas will be given off. Add hydrochloric acid, if necessary, to keep the material covered with liquid. Continue simmering until the nitric acid is gone. 6. Filter off any solids that are not in solution through a plastic strainer or funnel lined with a filter. Neutralize this material with lime juice and discard. 7. Add to the liquid solution an equal amount of water. 8. Drop a small amount of uniodized table salt into the mixture to check for silver. If silver is present, a white substance will fall to the bottom of the container. This is silver chloride. Continue dropper small amounts of salt in until the silver chloride stops falling. 9. Filter off the silver chloride through a plastic. 10. strainer or funnel lined with an ash-free or coffee filter. DO NOT DISPOSE OF THE ACID SOLUTION, SET IT ASIDE! 11. Rinse the filter containing silver chloride with water. 12. Dry the filter and silver chloride. 13. Place the filter and silver chloride in a clay crucible and burn the filter by lighting a match to it. 14. Cover the silver chloride and burned filter with soda ash. 15. Place the crucible in a furnace or oven and heat to a temperature of 2100 degrees F until the silver is a smooth honey-like liquid with no lumps in it. 16. Immediately pour the silver into a mold or let it set in the crucible until it is cool. 17. Remove the silver and wash with soap and water. 18. Take the solution that you had set aside (see step 9) and add a little sodium sulfite. The gold will start to fall. Continue to add the sodium sulfite until the gold stops falling. You should see black specks that look like pepper. This is gold sulfide. 19. Filter off the gold sulfide through a plastic strainer or funnel lined with a filter. 20. Rinse the filter containing gold sulfide with water. 21. Dry the filter containing gold sulfide. 22. Put the filter and gold sulfide into a clay crucible and burn the filter by lighting a match to it. 23. Cover the gold sulfide and burned filter with borax and place the crucible in a furnace

or oven and heat to 1950 degrees F until the gold is a smooth, honey-like liquid with no lumps in it. 24. Immediately, pour the gold into a mold or let it set in the crucible until it is cool. 25. Remove the gold and wash with soap and water. 26. Add 1/4 cup lime juice to the acid mixture to neutralize it and dispose of it immediately. hi group-it was the thought of beautiful molten metal that got me through these cold days of February...I'll start w/ the question, and then describe my smelly weekend; fortunately all extractions took place outside in a snowstorm... My question is basically, at what pH should Pt precipitate out of an Aqua Regia solution, using NH4Cl (ammonium chloride), and then the Au? (preferably from the same solution) Here's my 'speriments so far: Over the last weekend I got hold of some HCl and HN, mixed up 2 liters in a 3:1 ratio, and cooked 2 pounds of crushed electronic chips in a crock pot (out-of-doors). Beautiful elmerald-green liquid was the result. Then decanted, filtered, and cooled. Drawing off 250ml of the liquid, I tried extracting Pt directly by precipitating w/ some HN4Cl (anhydrous ammonium chloride), at @50C. While there was some fizzing, the solution woujld briefly turn to reddish brown, then return to green, w/ no precipitant remaining. Next I added some beads of NaOH (sodium hydroxide anhydrous), which instantly caused some red precip to appear, but then disappear after another minute. And then during filtering through a very slow whatman paper, no precip remained. It's like for an instant I had Pt., and then it disappeared. Finally, for the heck of it, I clobbered it w/ NaOH, until a cloud of red precip appeared and settled into sludge. Drat. Likely this mud contains ALL of the metal values, but unrefined. So my thinking is, there must be an optimal addition of NaOH for extraction of Pt (using NH4Cl) and Au (using Sodium Metabisulfite), before I get carried away, and turn the whole mess to sludge. Well it sounds like you didn't go thru the evaporation protocals. You need to evaporate the solution down to a sludge 3 times. The first 2 times reconstitute the solution with HCl. The third time reconstitute it with distilled water. This is to drive off the nitric acid. If you don't, the precious metals will not precipitate out of solution. Once the nitric is gone, then drop the precious metals in the methods you've already done. Drop in this order, Pt, Pd, Au, then Ag. I hate to tell you this, but the addition of NaOH has more than likely screwed the whole thing into a witches brew. It'd probably be better to evaporate the solution to dry, then start over. Most of the PM's will be in that reddish sludge, but a good portion will be locked into solution. Frankly, it'd be best to evaporate it down and start over Scrapman, It has been my experience that the nitric needs to be dealt with before you can recover Pt or Pd from an AR solution. If you read scwiers post, the solution turned reddish brown upon the addition of ammonium chloride to solution, then back to the original color. By my experience, this means that there is enough nitric available to prevent the Pt from precipitating from solution. Re-read Ammen. A small amount of AgCl will go into a AR solution. Is it enough to bother recovering, that's up to you. Simply add salt in a warm solution and if there is any it will fall out as a curdy looking white powder,chunks. Wash it with warm water, any PbCl will dissolve. The AgCl will darken in direct sunlight. PbCl won't. Don't boil the solution hard. It's not worth wasting the acids. I don't like urea. I have never had any luck with it. Call me old school,,,,,,, Dropping the gold is easy. All you need is the sodium metabisulfide, or zinc shavings or

chips. I have had the best luck working with warm solutions. Not boiling hot, but just between 155 and 135 degrees.(I have a laser pyrometer I measure the liquid temps with) This seems to have the best effect for the least acid. Never add NaOH to any solution containing precious metals. The metals might or might not fall out of solution, or they will be locked so the only way to recover them is to evaporate everything down to dry, then start over. The witches brew is hard to work with. As I said, these have been my experiences. If you've had better luck doing it diffrently scrapman, good for you. The shortcuts just haven't worked for me. Urea does work. In small amounts, urea only deNOxes the nitric acid solution, but when you add it fully, it destroys the nitric. Still, I prefer the boil down as it more effective, cheaper, and for some reason, I get more peace of mind doing it that way. I don't use sodium sulfite, I don't use copperas/iron sulfate, and I don't do cementation with zinc. I use sulfur dioxide because it works damn well and it's really clean. I don't understand why anyone would add ammonium chloride to an aqua regia solution. Get rid of the nitric first, use urea or preferably, boil. What he saw was the nitric acid dissolving the precipitate and, in the first case, re-protonating what would be his platinum precipitate. I try and avoid electronics scrap. If I do anything with it, I ash it, and add that to molten copper with a little bit of zinc and charcoal in the melt. Cast it into an anode and electrolytically separate it with copper plating out, and the gold, silver, and any PGMs (unlikely) as the sludge on the bottom). If I was starting with an alloy (let's say a mixed bag of dental stuff), I would probably melt it with some copper in a graphite crucible with a little borax, shot it or cast it into a thin ingot and wrap the ingot in some leather and hammer it flat. I'd dissolve as much as possible in nitric acid, filter out the residue with my Buchner funnel, rinsing with 3M nitric acid, then with distilled water. Keep all filtrate and precipitate out with sodium chloride or HCl your silver values. If there is lead, it comes down too, but I filter that all and add ammonia and shake it really well. Any lead is left in that, it's better than the hot water trick, at least with respect to losses. What's left in the now Pb/Ag free solution is copper, some nickel, and possibly palladium metal. Treat the palladium as you would, precipitate it, then reduce it to sponge under hydrogen. Your residue on the fritted glass funnel is your gold, platinum, and miscellaneous PGMs other than palladium (which is nitric soluble). Use 50*F aqua regia to separate the gold from the rest. Boil down to remove nitric, precip with your choice, filter, rinse with HCl, wash residue with distilled H2O and melt your gold. Test with DMG for Pt and others with the now gold free solution, if there is any Platinum, now is when you use the ammonium chloride. @Chuck, for the most part, Ag will not go into solution in aqua regia, if the silver content of your metal that you're treating is over 1%, you'll have problems with the AgCl making a passive layer that the aqua regia can't permeate. That's why you inquart and part with nitric. Remember freshmade, potent Aqua Regia is orange in color and fumes, after it's seen gold, it's yellow in color, or greenish yellow if there's other junk. If you've boiled it down right, it'll be a blood red syrup of AuCl3 with some HAuCl4. Chuck is right about hot solutions, those do work better, but there's a time and a place for doing hot work, sometimes you can use solution temperature to your advantage with regards to precipitation and separation.

Oh yeah, don't use NaOH to neutralize your acid, as it's not selective to nitric, it'll kill both your HCl solution (which keeps your values in their acidic states) and the nitric. IF in excess it'll precipitate out your metals as insoluble hydroxides that are a pain to deal

with, more wasted reagents/time. Aqua Regia is mainly used in small scale gold refining and recovery. I know of several people who use it for digesting junk jewelry, catalytic converters and prospecting concentrates, then dropping the metals out of solution selectively. It's too expensive to use on a large scale operation. This is a fearsome combination of acids. Don't breathe the fumes whatever you do. The potential for lung dammage is extremely high. Not to mention how it could ruin you day getting it on your skin. Another formula for a form of Aqua Regia is 3pts HCl and 1pt concentrated(50% or stronger) H2O2. This isn't quite as volitile as AR made with HNO3, but it will still do a number if it gets on you. If you are going to use these acids, make sure you take the time to learn what metals each one works on, and how to properly nuetralyze and dispose of them. Be careful and take every safety precaution to ensure your safety. Basicly the saying, Do as you otter, add acid to the water" mainly applies to sulphuric acid. Water acid to Sulphuric acid is very exothermic and can cause an extreme boilover event.(The guy who got me into precious metal recovery took facial scars of one of those boilovers to his grave) The main place you use water in an Aqua Regia solution is after the solution has been evaporated to a mud consistancy. Remember, this needs to be done twice with the mud reconsttuted with HCl, then the third time it is reconstituted with Distlled H2O. From there, just add the precipitants. The order depends on what metals you are going for. DH2O is also used to wash any precipitants or pregnant solutions into a filtration setup. I use Waltman Filters thru a Bechler funnel. Some people use a vacuum filtration system. You never add a base to an acid, or vice versa. Remember when you used vinager and baking soda as a kid? With some reactions it's not pretty. Some are downright dangerous or stupid.(I had a Chem teacher in high school who mixed a chlorine solution with a ammonia solution. The chlorine solution was saturated with Gold. It precipitated as Ammonium Auric Chloride. Basicly the most dangerous non combusting explosive. She blew up a bulletproof fume hood with 2g of the stuff. I know the proportions, and I'm not going to post them) Gently washing precipitates with DH2O is ok. Indescriminately adding water to concentrated acids isn't. Put that whitish crust in the sun and see if it changes color. If it turns a deep purple(almost black) or black, you may have some silver. PbCl and PbNO3 are generally soluble in AR solutions. The only time i had a crust form was when I was told to use aluminum to precipitate gold from solution. It was my first batch around 15yrs ago. I still have it, but because of the aluminum, gold, platinum and who knows what other metals, It's a witches brew that I'll need to cupel with lead or bismuth to find out how much precious metal is there.