Anyone ever tried at home gold refining?

I get a lot of scrap gold and gold filled items at the shop. We usually take the scrap gold 10k, 14k, 18k, ect. to our refiner and they process it. The gold filled was piling up and my refiner wont take anything but large quantities so I decided to start looking around for ways to process it to a level where I could take it to my refiner.

I am using the aqua regia process to chemically disolve the gold filled and then reconstituting the solid gold back out of the solution using Sodium Metabisulfite to cause the pure gold to reconstitute.

If there is enough interest in this thread I could do a write up of the entire process. So let me know if you want to know how it's done.... it's hazardous and dangerous so I don't recommend doing this unless you really plan on being safe about it. There are some good walk through websites out there.

Till then I leave you with this. Discuss.

 

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I tackled more dangerous processes than that as a chemistry hobbyist, but I didn't have the stomach for it once I was paying my own homeowner's insurance.

Be very careful -- I'm guessing that you could face all kinds of legal trouble if something goes wrong enough for emergency services to get involved. It's also good citizenship to find a safe way to dispose of your waste.

 

Matt, if it is dangerous, why don't you just provide links to other "How to" sites so if someone screws up, they will sue someone else instead of you.

Chris

 

I agree completely. I take careful steps to neutralize and dispose of the chemicals properly at my local county toxdrop.

 

Good point. This is the process I am following. They are using computer parts... but it can be used for any gold refining.

http://www.x24kgold.com/2011/02/how-to-refine-gold-from-computer-parts.html

 

Yeah, Chris had a great point. Everyone knows who you are and where your shop is Mat, you are not an anonymous poster. I am glad you just posted a link to someone ELSE'S article.

 

Yeah, that would really suck. Since you don't want to do this indoors, and you probably don't have a safe in your back yard, you don't really want to let people know the plastic jug sitting there on your patio contains a couple thousand dollars worth of gold.

You might want to hold off on this project for a while...

 

It ain't that wild. We used to use aqua regia to clean out glass wear in college. However, that was long before the EPA etc. was even thought of.

 

And on the other hand, you don't want passing kids or dogs to not realize that it's full of toxic and corrosive liquid and gas, and give it a big sniff or a kick. Seeing that container on what appears to be a public sidewalk gave me the willies.

 

Definitely keep it in a fenced back yard, not on the front sidewalk. Then you only have to worry about theft, and not so much about liability.

 

That's an interesting thought though. Assuming nobody got hurt, can you imagine the frustration to be had if a kid came along and kicked your jug and you had $2000+ worth of dissolved gold deposited in a thin film on the sidewalk, the street, or in your grass? How would you even attempt to recover that?

Of course that would pale in comparison to the frustration that would come with exposing a kid to arsenic or cyanide.

 

If memory serves me well some of those chemicals, if not handled properly can cause Environmental damage. Significant enough for the EPA to slap you with a large fine.

If you know what you're doing Matt then go for it and show us how it is done. Always great to share more knowledge.

 

You think so? Why not tell that to the Midwesterner who got tired of having his house burglarized. He set up booby traps inside, and when a burglar was injured, not only did the homeowner go to jail, but he was sued for civil damages.

Chris

 

Are you out of your mind?!!!!

Chris

 

Booby traps are a whole different subject.

Of course there could still be some liabilities while cooking in your back yard, but much, much less than leaving it on a public sidewalk.

 

After you are done dissolving and start the gold reconstituting this is what you get. You can see the gold starting to come together. I am doing this process under the tutelage of the owner of a local EPA compliant chemical company/chemist. I can assure you that all the chemicals are being treated with respect and disposed of correctly.

 

Matt
Very interesting, I can't wait to see the end result

 

Wow, it looks like it's coming out in flakes -- that's not what I would've expected.

Looking forward to the photos from the next steps! If you're willing to share, it would also be cool to know how much gold-filled material you started with, and what your final yield is. (If that's none of our business, maybe a ratio in milligrams of gold per kilogram of starting material, or something like that that doesn't give actual totals?)

 

Cool! I would have expected the need for a stronger container, not just a regular plastic bucket.