Dummies Guide to GOLD bullion refining at home as a long term precious metal investment - made EASY

just a quick thought, as im looking at trying this myself. would it just be possible to "burn off" the excess liquid at the "mud" extraction stage, instead of leaving it to evaporate? sorta the same way as when you burn off the water when weighing real gold after its been extracted.

surely just putting a flame underneath the jar should burn off the excess water and leave just the sediment gold?

Originally posted by rayuki
just a quick thought, as im looking at trying this myself. would it just be possible to "burn off" the excess liquid at the "mud" extraction stage, instead of leaving it to evaporate? sorta the same way as when you burn off the water when weighing real gold after its been extracted.

surely just putting a flame underneath the jar should burn off the excess water and leave just the sediment gold?

You can, but you may reintroduce contaminates. The liquid has to be pure, (even purified water - thinking AU.999). The potato might introduce new elements too!

After I clean my metal filings (not mud), I don't let it dry and start melting while it is wet. That's for platinum which has to be very pure before you melt it. Gold is easy, but I'm working with only 750/100. If my gold is a fine powder I mix boracic acid and spirits then set it alight, because water will damage the crucible I use.

I think the OP experiment would be much easier if find a jewellery tool wholesaler and buy a simple $15 crucible and some borax...

When the reaction finally stops, add an additional very small quantity (a few mls) of nitric. If bubbling starts up again, then not all the contaminant metals have been dissolved yet and once again, allow the process to continue on its own. If adding further nitric does NOT result in bubbling, then all metal contaminants will have been dissolved leaving behind relatively pure gold.
At this point, you can dilute the blue liquid with water, wait for the gold to settle to the bottom, then carefully pour most of the liquid into another container. Just be careful and don't pour away any of the gold !!
Add some more water to the settled gold to dilute even further any remaining liquid, then let the gold settle again, then carefully pour most of the liquid into another container ... again, DON'T pour away any of the gold.
After repeating the dilute/pour procedure a few times (basically "washing" the gold), we end up with something like this:



well no Answer yet on my posts hope that the next time i log on that some 1 will give me a risp ..........

i would like to know what % is the gold in the post and picks it looks good but the % ???'

if i leave it in this state and do a large batch of this is it the same ...

like i do 10 first step and then i do all of it at once the second step????

How trimmed down does the gold have to be off of circut boards, if I was to drop an entire 3 inch by 4 inch green circuit board into the acid, does that diminish the amount of acid rapidly?

Thanks!

reply to post by mindping


Yeah it would.
It would waste the acid, and there are components that won't dissolve and just get in the way.

You pretty much need it down to just the metal.
Pull all the metal out of the chips and only put the metal into the acid.

reply to post by DISINFORMANT


im interested Calcifer0

reply to post by tauristercus

Huge thanks to you for this [very informative] guide,WELL DONE. In my area I can get truck loads of electronics FOR FREE, [and I did] and some recycle centers even pay you to take this stuff off their hands because they have to pay top prices to dispose of it.
I started scrapping 1 week ago and man it adds up fast, looking forward to processing my first bits of gold and silver.
HOWEVER, I found an information gap in your column, right after you added the urea, I can't seem to find any place where you add the SMB or how much.
Can you please clarify that for me, Thanks again.

tauristercus, Hi, I have a question I have followed your instructions I have gold dissolved in aqua regia but when I add Urea, there's no reaction.. so then I add SMB and then it seems to the gold to precipitate but as soon that happens it gets dissolve again.. basically it seems I cant neutrilize the Aqua Regia with urea..

reply to post by iamtheman240


Oops found it on page 3, now we just need to line em up

Can anyone tell me what the best method is to process computer memory cards in AR, do they need chopping up or can I just place them in whole if my container can hold them?
Also is there any gold inside of them? Thanks

In your post on ATS you mentioned that you had an easier process for refining gold. How can I get that information? [email protected]

Originally posted by guillelm
tauristercus, Hi, I have a question I have followed your instructions I have gold dissolved in aqua regia but when I add Urea, there's no reaction.. so then I add SMB and then it seems to the gold to precipitate but as soon that happens it gets dissolve again.. basically it seems I cant neutrilize the Aqua Regia with urea..

Now thats strange as the reason for adding urea is to neutralize the nitric ... otherwise the gold will, as you found, precipitate out but then immediately get attacked by the nitric/hydrochloric (aqua regia) once again and immediately dissolve back into solution.
In the presence of nitric, urea will immediately start to produce "bubbles" which is an immediate indication that it's reacting with, and neutralizing, the nitric. As the urea dissolves, you need to keep adding more urea until all "bubbling" stops .. at which point the nitric has been neutralized. At his stage, you can then add the SMB to precipitate the raw gold powder without it being immediately dissolved.

I can only assume that what you're using and "believe" to be urea is not actually the "correct" urea that we need to use. You can get urea from a garden nursery where it's sold as fertilizer.

Originally posted by iamtheman240
Can anyone tell me what the best method is to process computer memory cards in AR, do they need chopping up or can I just place them in whole if my container can hold them?
Also is there any gold inside of them? Thanks

What I do is simply use sharp pliers and "snap off" the gold edging from the remainder of the memory card.
This minimizes the amount of contaminants in the solution.

Also, don't put the memory edges containing the gold directly into aqua regia ... drop the edges into nitric acid only first to remove any contaminants like copper, silver, etc. You'll find that the gold on the edges will lift off and separate away cleanly and float in the nitric. You can then use a plastic pipette to carefully suck out all the floating gold (leaving the contaminated nitric behind) and then squeeze the gold into a container of clear water to help wash/dilute any clinging nitric.

I have a question, I read both the articles from collecting and refining silver and gold. I was curious about the last part of the gold process when it finally gets dissolved by the hydrochloric acid and nitric acid mix and becomes the yellowish liquid. If you had an amount or trace amount of platinum or palladium in the jar with this liquified gold mix, would those metals still be in a solid state or would they have dissolved along with the gold?

Would this be a good time to strain and remove potential platinum or palladium particulates from the liquified gold solution?

Thanks, really enjoyed those articles.

reply to post by tauristercus
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Hi tauristercus, I followed your instructions with 8oz of computer fingers and things worked out nicely, well almost. I got the yellow liquid gold and everything, (wasn't crystal clear like yours looked to be but was clear enough to see through) I added the urea which I got from the local fertilizer dealer, ( mine didn't react like yours from the bottom up but I did get some foaming on top) When I was sure I wasn't getting any more foam I added the SMB and things started to happen right away, HOWEVER what I got settling on the bottom wasn't a "red" powder it was white powder first leaving the water blue, by the next Morning the blue had settled on top of the white leaving the water clear, by now I have cleaned the powder 4 times and I'm left with a grayish blue powder. is there any way you can tell me what happened or what I can do next? Thanks

reply to post by tothegold


Man I wish someone would answer this post, I have the same questions

you did not add this step "6. use SMB to precipitate the brown coloured "gold sediment" " in your process,can you tell me detaily about this step and how is the liquid dried

reply to post by DISINFORMANT


would you be so kind to share your easier process for refining gold?

Can you share your easier process for refining gold ... email: [email protected]

Ok tried this last night and I have a large amount of gold fingers and pins. Poured the acid/water into the jar and it started dissolving. left it alone and came back many hours later and found somethings hadn't dissovled and there is a "grey" sludge in the buttom of the jar. Am I not using enough acid/water mixture? Did I miss something somewhere?