Thank you for your content.Over the years, it has been highly enjoyable and satisfying.Watching you do your processes, Something about your purification process. Separating the amalgamit's really is therapeutic. I have been watching for over a decade now.Probably not as long as others but long enough to say I consider you a brother... Much love and all the blessings to you and yours!!!
I absolutely love the colour too! Imagine having a bottle of chloro-auric acid (aqua regia with gold in it) just sitting on a shelf... A couple of thousand dollars hidden in some bottle in plain sight (looks like cool-aid?), just waiting for some stump-out. 😆
It is so satisfying watching u do the whole process of refining the gold, I could watching u for hours explaining it all u r so good at refining silver and gold, love your channel it's amazing and awesome 👌 👏 👍 fantastic job.
I really enjoyed the Darth Vader imitations while emptying the water in the sink, but loved the visuals with the silver creamer melts, Loved tonight's video!!! Oh ya I met a young man named Sree last week at work. didn't think I would ever meet someone with that name.
I was looking at Tomoko's Enterprize channel and saw where he got some silver crystals from you and made a king about 3 years ago and I saw where you started a chess set about 6 years ago. Someone on that channel said it would be neat to see a silver and gold chess set. Still just learning refining, using a torch or a home made furnace, home made vacuum chamber, how to identify the jewelry and everything else. It takes time learning all that and casting the metals is an art. It was nice to see some of your crystals get cast into something.
I already know you wanted to throw one of those bracelets in the batch to push your estimated yield up to 93.3 😉. As for the refining, very well done sir! That gold looked clean on the first drop!
Thanks for sharing with us Sreetips 🤠 Excellent Work 🐉 God Bless 🙏 I can't wait to get out and do some metal detecting at the lakes here Find some scrap gold.
Man!!! You make it look so easy, Brother! I don't know if I'm going to live long enough to get to where you are now! Seriously, you are a ROCK STAR, in Alchemaic Sciences!
@@johnschruben3586 I remember the video, mrs sreetips was really upset. To be fair I'll have to add, that it was just a reproduction of a 20 Dollar gold coin, not a original coin wich would have had numismatic value. If I remember it right, sreetips once mentioned he does not melt or dissolve coins. There is no need to refine them since the issuing county guarantees for the right precious metal content of the coins, so it's a known quantity of precious metals to calculate with.
I also had an idea....... A Centrifugal separation using a Maytage washing machine, that has a Stainless Steel drum and no agitator in the middle to get in the way. Waiting for gravity to drop parcipitates is almost unendurable. At my age time is a valuable commodity! What are your thoughts? Comercial centrifuges can't do large capacity solutions. I figured a way to be able to use 8,1,000 ml beakers at a time, in the drum of the washer. They would be able to pivot as the washer sped up.
Sodium chloride brine electrolysis would negate the need for inquaurtation. It converts the gold and other constituent metals into a very finely divided mud. I don't know how silver would react to the nacient chloride reaction, but it takes the gold plating layers off of plated phosphor bronze quite readily. There is no need to process the bulk of the core base metals, so there is also the effect of concentrating the gold content by leaving much of the base metals behind. If nothing else, it reduces the requirements for acids in the processes afterward.
I have had difficulty, in the past, converting Silver Chloride into a viable aqueous suspension, that is suitable for dropping out clean Silver. It's doable, just a pain. For what it's worth.
QUESTION: If I have been paying attention well enough, could you alternatively take the inquarted gold/silver to your silver cell for extraction of the gold, and then take the gold residue straight from the silver cell feed bag into the aqua regia process for refining (with associated rinses and sulfuric acid lead removal step)? Thank you for all your educational videos.
I dig how ya monogram EVERYTHING, I have a looooong name, having caught the names of 3 U.S Generals.. So "NOT YOURES" in sharpie on all my tools/items will usually suffice ... And if cans/bottles full of un-labeled chemical/organic solvent: "NOT BOOZE" And if within $pendy bottle of Tequila: "NOT YOURE BOOZE"...;) I really DIG watchin ya work away in youre own personal Alembic. Its truly fascinating stuff. Ive picked up quite a bit from yee, even though Im not in the precious metals game whatsoever (Aside from firearms/Hand-loading ammo I suppose?..;)
Question for you @sreetips which you may have addressed in a past video. How long could you store the gold in solution after dissolving the gold in aquaregia (spelling?) and boiling off the excess nitric? Can it be store indefinitely or is there a time frame it should be precipitated out?
@@sreetips Good to know. Thank you sir for being such a great teacher, my kids and I quite enjoy your video's! My oldest will be starting chemistry soon and is hoping to be able to use the knowledge she has gathered from watching you to bolster what she is going to be learning in school.
That’s fantastic. I was interested in chemistry when I was in school fifty five years ago. Had a small chemistry lab set up in my basement. I took a chem class in high school and got a D. It was too much study and memorizing. I wanted to get down to business and do reactions. My channel is an extension of that. Now that I’m grown up, I can do what I love.
Missed something on inspection! I think what you didn't catch in the melt showed up in the filter! Nice to see the strait forward process for high purity end result!
I like how at 29:24 when you add the first spoon of SMB and the first gold starts to precipitate, all he ice in the beaker jams up to the top of the liquid.
Another AMAZING educational efficient video. You r the BEST on tha Tube!!! 💯💯💯 I do have something I hope you can help me out with, I unfortunately do not use Nitric due to cost and availability, what options/substitutes do u recommend inplace of the Nitric boils for refining karat gold? I usually dissolve in acid peroxide bleach, and just tested a new method of Potassium Nitrate and HCL as a Aqua Regia substitute, if I can find a sub for the Nitric boils I'll b SUPER happy. Thanks in advance, speaking on behalf of your viewers we REALLY appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience! I can't imagine how many you have educated! You are truly a gift to us! We can not thank you enough! God Bless, I wish u and your family all the best!
Hello Mr. Sreetips. Silly question here. Can gold somehow be in gas form? I know it's stupid, but I feel like some of the gold is flying away of the beaker in gas form. Is it possible to place a stannous chloride soaked paper on top of the beaker during the aqua regia process in your next videos to check this? Thanks.
Afternoon Gunny! Have you ever had issues with the inquartation process? I'm working with some 18K, maybe a bit better. It doesn't seem to want to mix well with the copper I'm using for inquartation. I've melted and stirred it twice now and I'm still getting copper shot in my quenching pot. Any ideas?
Another great video, thanks Sreetips! Please can you tell us in your next video, more about those contaminants you removed from the initial melt? What are they and how did you spot them? What would they have done, and what would you have needed to do had you not spotted them? I'm fascinated! Thank you from Australia. 👍😎🇦🇺
Those were gold beads. They are normally hollow. But I let some in that were gold plated over plastic material. The balls that I removed were balls of ash. They wouldn’t have caused any problems. They were big enough that I could pick them out with tweezers. Otherwise I would have just left them in, no problem. The main problem is that I counted them as karat gold. So my yield will probably be off a little.
@@sreetips Thanks so much for the information! I was thinking they might be something nasty (toxic) or hard to extract (like palladium etc), so it's great it's just dirt basically. Not anything you want even reaching your filter paper! Likely put a hole in it. Thanks for sharing your adventures and knowledge. 👍😎
Hi. I'm new here and really love your channel. I have a question though, maybe 2. I have a lot of e-waste material like mainboards and old pci cards and old gold painted watches and so on, kilos and kilos. I figured I remove the components that could be of value as they are, such as EPROMs, Coils, Tantalum Caps, Inductors and some ICs. Most of the other components, such as resistors and caps are not worth a lot and I left them on the boards. Now the idea is to break the boards apart so they fit into my plastic container in order to give it a chembath so I can extract all the metals from the boards and the 9k jewlery. From the videos I've seen so far I know that Nitric Acid will break down every metal, except Gold if I just give it enough time and some bublling action or heat it up, please correct me if I'm wrong here, maybe I missed something but as far as my monkey brain understands, Nitric Acid breaks the metals such as Tin, Silver, Copper and Aluminum (or Aluminium) apart. I suspect there could be some other metals on the boards or inside the watches that don't get dissolved in Nitric Acid? Anyways, if I'm correct the Nitric Acid should take out everything that isn't Gold, I would pour the solution into another container for later possible silver extraction (using copper rods). Once I see no more stuff reacting with the Nitric Acid I would prepare 3 parts of Clohidric Acid and 1 part of Nitric Acid in order to obtain the Agua Regia to dissolve whatever gold is left on the boards/jewelry. Bubble action again, or heating it up to make it faster ofc, and transfering the solution into another container until there is no more yellowy reaction going on in my fist container (there should be no gold left then I guess). I would then add sodium metabisulfite to precipitate the gold from the agua regia solution and heat the obtained powder in my table furnace into a blob. Please tell me if the plan is correct and I understood everything correctly, or maybe explain a different, better approach. Could I maybe directly make Agua Regia, extract all metals with it and then just precipitate the gold and toss teh rest? I don't trust ChatGPT and don't wanna blow up my workshop xD. Really looking forward to a professional opinion from someone that does this stuff by the day.
I don't do this by the day, but I think I am pretty knowledgeable about this. Nitric acid will also leave Pt group metals (PGMs) next to the gold. As far as I know, those are pretty rare in computers, so no real need to worry about it, just so you are aware (and don't toss them away). Basically, you are correct. You will get better results with the first method, but the second method (direct to AR) is quicker, but you will toss silver (and possibly PGMs).
how do you work out the cost of refining the gold and other metals? not so much the buying of jewellery, the flux and acids and materials used while refining?
I don’t know those costs. We buy gold so very cheap at local sales that those costs don’t matter. I wish I could publish some videos on that but Mrs sreetips has asked me not to
Hello, just came across your channel. May I ask exaclty what it is that you are doing? Are you taking gold from junk-electronics and refining it? Or are you growing gold in a home lab?
I’m refining the gold from pieces of broken and scrap karat gold jewelry. I buy the scrap gold at local sales, then refine it and my videos. It’s my hobby.
What's your ph on the orange disolved hold solution and the clear solution, post precipitation pre rinse? Just wondering how acidic it still is. How much it drops during precip.
Hello teacher I'm doing the same thing in Korea. These days I have a problem. In winter, the purity was 99.9%, but as the weather warmed up, silver started to show. Teacher you put ice in the video, is this related to Agcl?
Is the silver incourtation absolutely necessary for the acids and heat to purify the gold? It won’t chemically react the same I’m assuming? Have you ever tried??
Putting scrap gold directly into Aqua Regia can be done. But it makes a very dirty solution and passivation can occur (hard crust of silver chloride forms and shield the metals from the acids. Both problem are completely eliminated with inquartation.
Kevin I'm curious, have you ever attempted an AP base metal extraction in lieu of a nitric extraction after inquartation? I would imagine it costing a LOT less in reagents at the cost of a week bubbling outside. Just a thought for a potential video. It's how I've done mine (on smaller scales) to save from spending the pretty penny on nitric or making enough to do a batch.
@@sreetips ya I don't know why I didn't think of that on your end (cause you always work with silver), I always use copper myself for inquartation when needed.
New to the channel and fascinated with it all. I’m sure it’s been explained elsewhere, but I’m wondering if you precipitate the silver back out of solution? Is it difficult? Is it worthwhile? Is it just the cost of doing business when you refine the gold? Edit: never mind I think I need to check out the silver videos..
He takes the silver waste and either runs it thru a silver cell or cements it out in copper to be refined in a stock pot refining video very little goes to waste on this channel you will enjoy his catalogue of videos for sure look for his silver cell videos they explain the silver recovery I hope you remember to take breaks periodically as u get stuck into the videos
I'm getting a yellow precipitate coming Ng from my gold while dissolving in the aqua regia. Do you have an idea as to what this is? Does it contain any gold?
Probably silver chloride. I just filter it out, pass it through the same filter a second time if it’s still cloudy. Then I add the filter to my paper storage for later processing.
Are the torches/burners you use oxy-acetylene? Could it all be done using a metal melting furnace? Also, is the burner you use with the ceramic and glassware an induction burner or coil?
Sreetips: Regarding Sterling silver, if it is 88-90% silver, what price per ounce, as a percent of spot, would you pay for silverware and still consider it to be a good deal? Also, when appraising silverware, what would you deduct for components that are not sterling, like knife blades? Thanks!
80% of spot. I figure 10g of sterling for the weight of the handle. But if you end up paying 100% it’s still a good deal because silver is grossly undervalued.
Aqua regia does dissolve lead (just about anything), but the added sulfuric acid will precipitate lead as lead sulfate (highly insoluble). Besides that, silver will precipitate as silver chloride as that also is insoluble, one of the reasons to remove it with nitric acid before going to AR.
Hes the master. Im glad he will never get to see me refining, i dont think he would be able to hide his laughter! I may sell some dirty 23k+ nuggets soon on ebay. If Sree buys them, they have a chance to be real 24k oneday. 😎
Good afternoon again good sir. Quick question, as always lol. What ratio would you say you use when adding sulfuric acid to precipitate and lead? Or are you just adding a squirt, so to speak? Thank you as always, can never get enough of these videos. One more question. When inquarting, say you don't have enough gold to make 6k gold (I have some grips for a 1911 I won at auction for 120 bucks that have 20% of their weight being made up of 8k gold and I don't have enough gold to get to 6k)... is there much harm in having a higher ratio of silver to gold?
@@sreetips I have found that my autism often leads me to not fully communicating all the important information, my apologies for that. I should have noted the 8k gold is 'welded' on top of the silver. It could just be my limited knowledge but I don't see a real option other than melting it all together. It is a very ornate design going across the entire surface so cutting it out isn't an option.
If the 8k gold is welded to a piece of silver, then I’d just boil the whole thing in dilute nitric. The silver will dissolve completely, the 8k gold is low enough gold concentration that the nitric will get all the silver out of the gold too. If you boil it long enough
Hello me again, I have a question i dont think you have ever addressed before. What happens if you have your loaded aqua regia with gold , and just leave it to evaporate ? No MSB or such, just let it air dry out? If i was to guess it would crystallize, but again i,m guessing. Thanks
What were the little white blobs, you pulled out with a tweezer? Just curious. It looked like Borax. I have the same thing occur. I'm going to melt some 14K and 18K today. Thought I'd try the Copper inquartation you demonstrated.
@sreetips Absolutely! Fume hood is robust! Also a full face respirator, gloves and Flame and Chem resistant lab coat! I watch your tutorials, Gunny. Hard to miss the warnings at the beginning of each one! I'm glad for them and your safety precautions. I've looked at other sites, occasionally. It is distressing to see some sticking their hands in a beaker with fuming Nitric and not be wearing gloves! YIKES! Also the guys decanting catalytic ceramics. No respirator, no gloves, just sucking in the dust! Unbelievable! I am in the practice of studying each process, researching ect. As well as SREETIPS, the Gold Refining Forum is a solid referencing source. Thanks for that as well! It was your suggestion to me, to become a supporting member. Your videos are extremely well done and you always give us a heads up, when a potentially energetic reaction will occur. That's why I'm a devoted follower. You do it RIGHT!
Have you ever thought about melting metal with a solar death ray? People frame up a lense from an old big screen tv and use it to focus the sun. It might be hard to control but it would save on gas. Also you could do larger amounts, the beam is about an inch wide and will slice through anything.
Yeah, I have been guilty of getting too excited and jumping the gun. The results are that you end up spending even more time and chemicals redoing. Definitely frustrating.
Back to the yeller stuff. Love the colors of both the blue and red/yellow and then to the bright yellow. Last two nitric boils could have been saved to reuse. $ wasted...
Quick question regarding your calculations. Where is the 1.265 for 14K and 0.635 for 10K derived from? If you're inquarting, would it not be simply taking the weight of each Karet multiple it by 25% to get the amount of silver would be needed to lower the Karet for recovery via HNO3?
@@sreetips I see. Correct me if I am wrong. If I have a 38 gram of 14K bracelet. The gold content of that bracelet can be calculated by part to whole division. 14k/24k equals 0.58 or 58% of pure gold. Then would you inquart 0.145 of silver to knock down the karat?
38g x .583 = 22.15g pure gold times 3 equals 66.45 - (38g - 22.15) = (66.45 - 15.85) = 50.55g x .95 = 48.02g sterling to properly inquart 38g of 14k. Or just multiply 38g time 1.265 = 48.07g sterling to properly inquart 38g of 14k. The last digits are insignificant.
QUESTION. I have a vintage class ring, 1944. The inside is stamped “BALFOUR GOLDFLEX”. After watching a boatload of your videos I can tell you know way more than you let on, lol. Do you happen to know ow what goldflex is? Thanks
@@sreetips thanks for the response. I’ve seen too many conflicting descriptions on the internet. I’ve seen people say it’s nothing, but I’ve also seen some say it’s 8k. It was definite worth asking someone with your kind of experience in the precious metals, though, so thank you. Love watching your refining videos. Keep on keeping on!
Yard sales and estate sales, mostly. People are clueless about gold and silver. They believe, incorrectly, that paper dollars are more valuable. This misconception creates some fantastic buying opportunities.
@@sreetips That's awesome! How much cash do you think it would take to setup a small refinery operation for a beginner using home-made stands and thrifted wares? Of course I understand there are some pretty hefty premiums for quality glass, but I like the way you've been able to seemingly keep your overhead cost for equipment moderate.
I accumulated it as I needed it. Type lab glassware on eBay. Sometimes you can find a bunch for cheap. The first thing you need before glassware is a fume hood. No way to safely do these reactions without one.
@@sreetips Understood! These are incredibly damaging substances for every part of the body that I'm aware of! Thanks for all your help and thanks for making content of these scientific processes. That SO2 reaction was TO DIE FOR!
Have you ever extracted and refined gold from gold ore? I know there’s several videos on TH-cam be about it. It would be interesting to see your procedure.
i know its a piece of feedback you wont care too much about, but the watch in the background on the time lapse shots is amazing. keep up the good work man
I so wish you where my neighbor! I would love to be your helper! Your work is top shelf! I love your channel and tune in to every video! If you ever want to refine natural gold nuggets let me know and ill mail you some! Most of my gold comes from the ground and the rest from old electronics .. Thank you Sir and God Bless you & Your wife🙏🙏🙏
Can you inquart with gold plated scrap? I've seen you use several base metals to inquart. Using scrap plated material could allow you to recover the gold more easily in the plated stuff and provide the needed base metal.
Also, if your stannous tests smoke yellow, its because of excess nitric correct? Thats what i believed anyway, i added a lot of SMB (to avoid Urea), and my 1st drop had gray/brown crystals with gold mud inside rhem and beside them. Luckily hot water fixed it all in the end, but thats the 2nd time in hundreds of runs over years that i had those crystals, first time a decade ago, they were green/yellow crystals. This time, I just remember my stannous test smoking yelleow, and having to add a whole lot of SMB before any color change or gold drop. It was a scary moment that still has me puzzled 5 days later. I tell myself it was to much nitric (im usually using Sodium Nitrate), and then to much SMB to neutralize it. But im honestly unsure. Good news is you rarely, or likely never lose the gold in solution forever. But sometimes you must worker 10x harder to get the gold back because you made a mistake. And that day i made some mistake. But the fix was easy, fortunately for me.
I use evaporation to drive off excess nitric. It’s far superior than adding reagents to kill excess nitric. It’s easy to do, it works every time, just takes a little longer.
I was thinking it might be similar to the way they get it from spark plugs. I was just curious cause I’m in the pool and Spa business and we throw away hundreds of these cells every year thank you sir.
Refining platinum group metals requires a lot more chemistry and highly specialized equipment. Gold and silver are like a cookie recipe compared to PGMs. Not suitable for a hobby refiner to risk it.
Would you concider to use metric numbers in length as well not just only in weights? When I hear 7 inch, it doesn´t mean anything in Europe. Thank you Mr Sreetips. Greetings from Sweden.
I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that your ice cube tray did not have your name on it .
Painting my name on everything is a giant pain. Wish I didn’t have to do it.
"Mrs. Sreetips has directed me . . . " LOL! She Who Must Be Obeyed!🐞 We all have one.
Thank you for your content.Over the years, it has been highly enjoyable and satisfying.Watching you do your processes, Something about your purification process.
Separating the amalgamit's really is therapeutic. I have been watching for over a decade now.Probably not as long as others but long enough to say I consider you a brother... Much love and all the blessings to you and yours!!!
Thank you
That gold in aqua regia... Wow. It's gorgeous!
I absolutely love the colour too! Imagine having a bottle of chloro-auric acid (aqua regia with gold in it) just sitting on a shelf... A couple of thousand dollars hidden in some bottle in plain sight (looks like cool-aid?), just waiting for some stump-out. 😆
It is so satisfying watching u do the whole process of refining the gold, I could watching u for hours explaining it all u r so good at refining silver and gold, love your channel it's amazing and awesome 👌 👏 👍 fantastic job.
I really enjoyed the Darth Vader imitations while emptying the water in the sink, but loved the visuals with the silver creamer melts, Loved tonight's video!!! Oh ya I met a young man named Sree last week at work. didn't think I would ever meet someone with that name.
Beat me to it 😂😂😂
I was gonna congrats on the Darth Vader cameo!!!
Thank you Sir. Always a pleasure to watch this process.
Was about to go to bed and got the alert I'm definitely not going to bed yet lolol 9:45 pm was when it alerted me my favorite on TH-cam by far
These inquartation melts are always so satisfying to watch plus the refining process is fascinating 👍🏻
I was looking at Tomoko's Enterprize channel and saw where he got some silver crystals from you and made a king about 3 years ago and I saw where you started a chess set about 6 years ago. Someone on that channel said it would be neat to see a silver and gold chess set. Still just learning refining, using a torch or a home made furnace, home made vacuum chamber, how to identify the jewelry and everything else. It takes time learning all that and casting the metals is an art. It was nice to see some of your crystals get cast into something.
I began learning to cast using lost-wax. But I lost interest. I’d still like to try it.
It’s mesmerizing to watch that gold and silver melt into the pot… The honey pot 😊
I love honeypots
Mesmerizing as always. Thank you Sreetips!
I already know you wanted to throw one of those bracelets in the batch to push your estimated yield up to 93.3 😉. As for the refining, very well done sir! That gold looked clean on the first drop!
Oh yea! This makes my day complete! Great video. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing with us Sreetips 🤠 Excellent Work 🐉 God Bless 🙏 I can't wait to get out and do some metal detecting at the lakes here Find some scrap gold.
@ 8:00 Darth Sreetips. You gotta admit it's catchy 😆
Sithtips
Man!!! You make it look so easy, Brother! I don't know if I'm going to live long enough to get to where you are now! Seriously, you are a ROCK STAR, in Alchemaic Sciences!
Beautiful gold. Thanks for your fantastic content.
I've been watching your videos for so long now that I can tell from the thumbnail how clean that gold is. Beautiful.
Gooooood evening from central Florida! Hope everyone has a great night!
Goooood evening!
I am from Central Florida as well. Nearly 25 years in Orlando now living near Bartow FL.
@@richardhulbert9480 Dade City here... howdy neighbor! 👋😎🌴🌴
Have you ever accidentally scrapped a jewelry item that Mrs. Sreetips wanted to save?
considering she buys most of it she probably gets first picks
One time he embedded a diamond into a collectible coin she wanted to preserve. She was not amused.
Shut up… idiot
@@johnschruben3586
I remember the video, mrs sreetips was really upset.
To be fair I'll have to add, that it was just a reproduction of a 20 Dollar gold coin, not a original coin wich would have had numismatic value. If I remember it right, sreetips once mentioned he does not melt or dissolve coins. There is no need to refine them since the issuing county guarantees for the right precious metal content of the coins, so it's a known quantity of precious metals to calculate with.
No. Mr ST wouldn't be here now
kind of addicted to watching that aqua regia phase and nitric boils cleaning things up... then that ... ok, so I'm hooked !
Where can I buy concentrated nitric acid ?
I never get tired of watching your videos thank you
LOL, for a minute I thought I was hearing Darth Vader doing the melting of the shot 😉 That's a novel approach mr Sreetips 😆
I also had an idea....... A Centrifugal separation using a Maytage washing machine, that has a Stainless Steel drum and no agitator in the middle to get in the way.
Waiting for gravity to drop parcipitates is almost unendurable. At my age time is a valuable commodity! What are your thoughts?
Comercial centrifuges can't do large capacity solutions. I figured a way to be able to use 8,1,000 ml beakers at a time, in the drum of the washer. They would be able to pivot as the washer sped up.
Sodium chloride brine electrolysis would negate the need for inquaurtation. It converts the gold and other constituent metals into a very finely divided mud. I don't know how silver would react to the nacient chloride reaction, but it takes the gold plating layers off of plated phosphor bronze quite readily. There is no need to process the bulk of the core base metals, so there is also the effect of concentrating the gold content by leaving much of the base metals behind. If nothing else, it reduces the requirements for acids in the processes afterward.
I have had difficulty, in the past, converting Silver Chloride into a viable aqueous suspension, that is suitable for dropping out clean Silver. It's doable, just a pain. For what it's worth.
Sounds like you had Darth Vader as your cameraman @8:02
QUESTION: If I have been paying attention well enough, could you alternatively take the inquarted gold/silver to your silver cell for extraction of the gold, and then take the gold residue straight from the silver cell feed bag into the aqua regia process for refining (with associated rinses and sulfuric acid lead removal step)? Thank you for all your educational videos.
No, the material going into the silver cell must be relatively high purity to begin with or else the cell will quickly become fouled.
I dig how ya monogram EVERYTHING, I have a looooong name, having caught the names of 3 U.S Generals..
So "NOT YOURES" in sharpie on all my tools/items will usually suffice ...
And if cans/bottles full of un-labeled chemical/organic solvent: "NOT BOOZE"
And if within $pendy bottle of Tequila: "NOT YOURE BOOZE"...;)
I really DIG watchin ya work away in youre own personal Alembic. Its truly fascinating stuff. Ive picked up quite a bit from yee, even though Im not in the precious metals game whatsoever (Aside from firearms/Hand-loading ammo I suppose?..;)
Question for you @sreetips which you may have addressed in a past video. How long could you store the gold in solution after dissolving the gold in aquaregia (spelling?) and boiling off the excess nitric? Can it be store indefinitely or is there a time frame it should be precipitated out?
Forever, as far as I know.
@@sreetips Good to know. Thank you sir for being such a great teacher, my kids and I quite enjoy your video's! My oldest will be starting chemistry soon and is hoping to be able to use the knowledge she has gathered from watching you to bolster what she is going to be learning in school.
That’s fantastic. I was interested in chemistry when I was in school fifty five years ago. Had a small chemistry lab set up in my basement. I took a chem class in high school and got a D. It was too much study and memorizing. I wanted to get down to business and do reactions. My channel is an extension of that. Now that I’m grown up, I can do what I love.
Hello Mrs and Mr Sreetips.
First a clip from you...Then out to use my detectors 🙂
God bless you 🌸🌸
Missed something on inspection! I think what you didn't catch in the melt showed up in the filter! Nice to see the strait forward process for high purity end result!
The Ring doorbell sound made my dog bark!
I like how at 29:24 when you add the first spoon of SMB and the first gold starts to precipitate, all he ice in the beaker jams up to the top of the liquid.
Another AMAZING educational efficient video. You r the BEST on tha Tube!!! 💯💯💯
I do have something I hope you can help me out with, I unfortunately do not use Nitric due to cost and availability, what options/substitutes do u recommend inplace of the Nitric boils for refining karat gold? I usually dissolve in acid peroxide bleach, and just tested a new method of Potassium Nitrate and HCL as a Aqua Regia substitute, if I can find a sub for the Nitric boils I'll b SUPER happy.
Thanks in advance, speaking on behalf of your viewers we REALLY appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience! I can't imagine how many you have educated! You are truly a gift to us! We can not thank you enough! God Bless, I wish u and your family all the best!
I always use nitric acid. Never tried potassium nitrate.
For the decade plus I've been watching, the first spoonful of SMB is always my favorite reaction 👌🏻
@sreetips: The first refining looked so clean. What would you expect the fineness to be after the first refining?
Probably close to three nines.
This is honestly one of the best channels on TH-cam. You should try to make a nice cuban link out of what youve made so far
Hello Mr. Sreetips. Silly question here. Can gold somehow be in gas form?
I know it's stupid, but I feel like some of the gold is flying away of the beaker in gas form. Is it possible to place a stannous chloride soaked paper on top of the beaker during the aqua regia process in your next videos to check this?
Thanks.
Yes, there are losses all along the way. Boiling the gold solution will cause finely atomized droplets of gold to exit the beaker and go up the stack.
Afternoon Gunny! Have you ever had issues with the inquartation process? I'm working with some 18K, maybe a bit better. It doesn't seem to want to mix well with the copper I'm using for inquartation. I've melted and stirred it twice now and I'm still getting copper shot in my quenching pot. Any ideas?
That’s normal
Another great video, thanks Sreetips! Please can you tell us in your next video, more about those contaminants you removed from the initial melt? What are they and how did you spot them? What would they have done, and what would you have needed to do had you not spotted them? I'm fascinated! Thank you from Australia. 👍😎🇦🇺
Those were gold beads. They are normally hollow. But I let some in that were gold plated over plastic material. The balls that I removed were balls of ash. They wouldn’t have caused any problems. They were big enough that I could pick them out with tweezers. Otherwise I would have just left them in, no problem. The main problem is that I counted them as karat gold. So my yield will probably be off a little.
@@sreetips Thanks so much for the information! I was thinking they might be something nasty (toxic) or hard to extract (like palladium etc), so it's great it's just dirt basically. Not anything you want even reaching your filter paper! Likely put a hole in it. Thanks for sharing your adventures and knowledge. 👍😎
Amazing how fast the copper goes into solution!
Just looking at this man work you know its more for fun than for profit hehe. Good on ya, great men content!
Hi. I'm new here and really love your channel. I have a question though, maybe 2. I have a lot of e-waste material like mainboards and old pci cards and old gold painted watches and so on, kilos and kilos. I figured I remove the components that could be of value as they are, such as EPROMs, Coils, Tantalum Caps, Inductors and some ICs. Most of the other components, such as resistors and caps are not worth a lot and I left them on the boards. Now the idea is to break the boards apart so they fit into my plastic container in order to give it a chembath so I can extract all the metals from the boards and the 9k jewlery. From the videos I've seen so far I know that Nitric Acid will break down every metal, except Gold if I just give it enough time and some bublling action or heat it up, please correct me if I'm wrong here, maybe I missed something but as far as my monkey brain understands, Nitric Acid breaks the metals such as Tin, Silver, Copper and Aluminum (or Aluminium) apart. I suspect there could be some other metals on the boards or inside the watches that don't get dissolved in Nitric Acid? Anyways, if I'm correct the Nitric Acid should take out everything that isn't Gold, I would pour the solution into another container for later possible silver extraction (using copper rods). Once I see no more stuff reacting with the Nitric Acid I would prepare 3 parts of Clohidric Acid and 1 part of Nitric Acid in order to obtain the Agua Regia to dissolve whatever gold is left on the boards/jewelry. Bubble action again, or heating it up to make it faster ofc, and transfering the solution into another container until there is no more yellowy reaction going on in my fist container (there should be no gold left then I guess). I would then add sodium metabisulfite to precipitate the gold from the agua regia solution and heat the obtained powder in my table furnace into a blob. Please tell me if the plan is correct and I understood everything correctly, or maybe explain a different, better approach. Could I maybe directly make Agua Regia, extract all metals with it and then just precipitate the gold and toss teh rest? I don't trust ChatGPT and don't wanna blow up my workshop xD. Really looking forward to a professional opinion from someone that does this stuff by the day.
I don't do this by the day, but I think I am pretty knowledgeable about this. Nitric acid will also leave Pt group metals (PGMs) next to the gold. As far as I know, those are pretty rare in computers, so no real need to worry about it, just so you are aware (and don't toss them away). Basically, you are correct.
You will get better results with the first method, but the second method (direct to AR) is quicker, but you will toss silver (and possibly PGMs).
I’ve done trimmed circuit cards fingers by dissolving the base metals out with hot dilute nitric.
Awesome video can't wait until next video thanks for sharing sreetips
how do you work out the cost of refining the gold and other metals? not so much the buying of jewellery, the flux and acids and materials used while refining?
I don’t know those costs. We buy gold so very cheap at local sales that those costs don’t matter. I wish I could publish some videos on that but Mrs sreetips has asked me not to
Hello, just came across your channel. May I ask exaclty what it is that you are doing? Are you taking gold from junk-electronics and refining it? Or are you growing gold in a home lab?
I’m refining the gold from pieces of broken and scrap karat gold jewelry. I buy the scrap gold at local sales, then refine it and my videos. It’s my hobby.
Wow, very impressive! @@sreetips
What's your ph on the orange disolved hold solution and the clear solution, post precipitation pre rinse? Just wondering how acidic it still is. How much it drops during precip.
Probably pH1 for both
Hello teacher I'm doing the same thing in Korea. These days I have a problem. In winter, the purity was 99.9%, but as the weather warmed up, silver started to show. Teacher you put ice in the video, is this related to Agcl?
Is the silver incourtation absolutely necessary for the acids and heat to purify the gold? It won’t chemically react the same I’m assuming? Have you ever tried??
Putting scrap gold directly into Aqua Regia can be done. But it makes a very dirty solution and passivation can occur (hard crust of silver chloride forms and shield the metals from the acids. Both problem are completely eliminated with inquartation.
First spoon full ✨🔥 Thats pure Solution Sreetips reacts that quick
Kevin I'm curious, have you ever attempted an AP base metal extraction in lieu of a nitric extraction after inquartation? I would imagine it costing a LOT less in reagents at the cost of a week bubbling outside.
Just a thought for a potential video.
It's how I've done mine (on smaller scales) to save from spending the pretty penny on nitric or making enough to do a batch.
The hydrochloric acid would immediately react with the silver and form a hard crust of silver chloride - passivation.
@@sreetips ya I don't know why I didn't think of that on your end (cause you always work with silver), I always use copper myself for inquartation when needed.
New to the channel and fascinated with it all.
I’m sure it’s been explained elsewhere, but I’m wondering if you precipitate the silver back out of solution?
Is it difficult? Is it worthwhile? Is it just the cost of doing business when you refine the gold?
Edit: never mind I think I need to check out the silver videos..
He takes the silver waste and either runs it thru a silver cell or cements it out in copper to be refined in a stock pot refining video very little goes to waste on this channel you will enjoy his catalogue of videos for sure look for his silver cell videos they explain the silver recovery I hope you remember to take breaks periodically as u get stuck into the videos
I recover the silver from my silver jar, melt into shot, and run it through my silver cell.
@@sreetips the silver cell videos are on my playlist for the weekend. True alchemy; it’s incredible
I'm getting a yellow precipitate coming Ng from my gold while dissolving in the aqua regia. Do you have an idea as to what this is? Does it contain any gold?
Probably silver chloride. I just filter it out, pass it through the same filter a second time if it’s still cloudy. Then I add the filter to my paper storage for later processing.
Are the torches/burners you use oxy-acetylene? Could it all be done using a metal melting furnace? Also, is the burner you use with the ceramic and glassware an induction burner or coil?
The electric burners in my fume hood are cheap electric burners. Oxy/acetylene torch. I’ve used melt furnaces,
The paper squares are a good reference for size 0.5cm²
Sreetips: Regarding Sterling silver, if it is 88-90% silver, what price per ounce, as a percent of spot, would you pay for silverware and still consider it to be a good deal? Also, when appraising silverware, what would you deduct for components that are not sterling, like knife blades? Thanks!
80% of spot. I figure 10g of sterling for the weight of the handle. But if you end up paying 100% it’s still a good deal because silver is grossly undervalued.
Ahh man been waiting for a new show lol, great vid
Sreetips ive seen other people use urea to neutralize the acid. Does that take away from the final weight by using that?
Urea isn’t used by modern refiners. Evaporation is a far superior method to remove excess nitric.
I am new to this. So aqua regia does not dissolve lead and some other basic metals? These are all the black particals in the filter paper?
Aqua regia does dissolve lead (just about anything), but the added sulfuric acid will precipitate lead as lead sulfate (highly insoluble). Besides that, silver will precipitate as silver chloride as that also is insoluble, one of the reasons to remove it with nitric acid before going to AR.
Those black specks were hematite
Thank you
Just curious why you continue to use the torch and melt dish method. Why don't you invest in an electric or propane furnace?
Personal preference.
@@sreetips fair nuff 👍🏻
heh nice smashing the stack reference
You got us….” To be continued….” Good video, keep up the great work
Did the hydrochloric acid turn yellow when you first poured it in due to left over nitric acid caught in the gold even after the water boil ?
Yes
Hes the master. Im glad he will never get to see me refining, i dont think he would be able to hide his laughter! I may sell some dirty 23k+ nuggets soon on ebay. If Sree buys them, they have a chance to be real 24k oneday. 😎
I have to say that I consider your videos better than any other and I recomend to my friends and family that they watch your videos.
Thank you!
Good afternoon again good sir. Quick question, as always lol. What ratio would you say you use when adding sulfuric acid to precipitate and lead? Or are you just adding a squirt, so to speak? Thank you as always, can never get enough of these videos.
One more question. When inquarting, say you don't have enough gold to make 6k gold (I have some grips for a 1911 I won at auction for 120 bucks that have 20% of their weight being made up of 8k gold and I don't have enough gold to get to 6k)... is there much harm in having a higher ratio of silver to gold?
I add a half a milliliter.
8k gold can be boiled in hot nitric as is. No need to add additional silver to the gold.
@@sreetips Awesome! Added that to the 'recipe' book. Thank you kindly!
@@sreetips I have found that my autism often leads me to not fully communicating all the important information, my apologies for that. I should have noted the 8k gold is 'welded' on top of the silver. It could just be my limited knowledge but I don't see a real option other than melting it all together. It is a very ornate design going across the entire surface so cutting it out isn't an option.
If the 8k gold is welded to a piece of silver, then I’d just boil the whole thing in dilute nitric. The silver will dissolve completely, the 8k gold is low enough gold concentration that the nitric will get all the silver out of the gold too. If you boil it long enough
Hello me again, I have a question i dont think you have ever addressed before. What happens if you have your loaded aqua regia with gold , and just leave it to evaporate ? No MSB or such, just let it air dry out? If i was to guess it would crystallize, but again i,m guessing. Thanks
It can be evaporated to dryness, will form orange chloroauric acid crystals.
@@sreetips interesting? Will it still weigh the same as metallic gold? Thank you for this response, your my go to instructor for alchemy .
Wow this just opened a very new complex set of science for me to look into , thank you Mr Sreetips
Yes, the mass won’t change. A volume of liquid that has gold dissolved in it will weight more than the same volume of liquid with no gold in it.
@@sreetips I still have a long way to go learning how to make monoatomic gold. But i will get there. Cheers
What were the little white blobs, you pulled out with a tweezer? Just curious. It looked like Borax. I have the same thing occur.
I'm going to melt some 14K and 18K today. Thought I'd try the Copper inquartation you demonstrated.
Those were pieces of plastic that were inside some gold balls.
Wade, make sure and do it in a fume hood. No way to safely do reactions without one.
@sreetips Absolutely! Fume hood is robust! Also a full face respirator, gloves and Flame and Chem resistant lab coat! I watch your tutorials, Gunny. Hard to miss the warnings at the beginning of each one! I'm glad for them and your safety precautions.
I've looked at other sites, occasionally. It is distressing to see some sticking their hands in a beaker with fuming Nitric and not be wearing gloves! YIKES! Also the guys decanting catalytic ceramics. No respirator, no gloves, just sucking in the dust! Unbelievable! I am in the practice of studying each process, researching ect. As well as SREETIPS, the Gold Refining Forum is a solid referencing source. Thanks for that as well! It was your suggestion to me, to become a supporting member.
Your videos are extremely well done and you always give us a heads up, when a potentially energetic reaction will occur. That's why I'm a devoted follower. You do it RIGHT!
Have you ever thought about melting metal with a solar death ray? People frame up a lense from an old big screen tv and use it to focus the sun. It might be hard to control but it would save on gas. Also you could do larger amounts, the beam is about an inch wide and will slice through anything.
I’ve seen those videos, melting rocks.
Been waiting on gold video!
Yeah, I have been guilty of getting too excited and jumping the gun. The results are that you end up spending even more time and chemicals redoing. Definitely frustrating.
Back to the yeller stuff. Love the colors of both the blue and red/yellow and then to the bright yellow.
Last two nitric boils could have been saved to reuse. $ wasted...
I just noticed the model of your scale - GOLD SERIES. Appropriate.
Could the junk in the filter be lead from the jewelry? Ty SREETIPS for answering us. 👍🤙❤️
Hematite.
Quick question regarding your calculations. Where is the 1.265 for 14K and 0.635 for 10K derived from? If you're inquarting, would it not be simply taking the weight of each Karet multiple it by 25% to get the amount of silver would be needed to lower the Karet for recovery via HNO3?
No, because the karat gold contains silver and base metals that must be accounted for when calculating the amount of silver to add.
@@sreetips I see. Correct me if I am wrong. If I have a 38 gram of 14K bracelet. The gold content of that bracelet can be calculated by part to whole division. 14k/24k equals 0.58 or 58% of pure gold. Then would you inquart 0.145 of silver to knock down the karat?
38g x .583 = 22.15g pure gold times 3 equals 66.45 - (38g - 22.15) = (66.45 - 15.85) = 50.55g x .95 = 48.02g sterling to properly inquart 38g of 14k. Or just multiply 38g time 1.265 = 48.07g sterling to properly inquart 38g of 14k. The last digits are insignificant.
@@sreetips Thank you for taking time out of your day to break the calculations down.
What happens if you let the gold laden solution evap all the way? Will the gold be left as a powder ?
You’d end up with burnt orange chloroauric acid crystals. I did this by accident last summer.
watching gold precipitate is awesome
You must be rolling in the dough, granite counter tops for the lab, nice,,,,
QUESTION. I have a vintage class ring, 1944. The inside is stamped “BALFOUR GOLDFLEX”. After watching a boatload of your videos I can tell you know way more than you let on, lol. Do you happen to know ow what goldflex is? Thanks
I’ve never seen “goldflex” but during that time karat gold would be marked 10k. So I’d be suspicious.
@@sreetips thanks for the response. I’ve seen too many conflicting descriptions on the internet. I’ve seen people say it’s nothing, but I’ve also seen some say it’s 8k. It was definite worth asking someone with your kind of experience in the precious metals, though, so thank you. Love watching your refining videos. Keep on keeping on!
My question is that blowout can it be added to the current batch or not? if not why?
What blowout? Not sure what you’re asking.
It never ceases to amaze me at how much "junk" is left over in some of these steps. Where do you find your gold pieces?
Yard sales and estate sales, mostly. People are clueless about gold and silver. They believe, incorrectly, that paper dollars are more valuable. This misconception creates some fantastic buying opportunities.
@@sreetips That's awesome! How much cash do you think it would take to setup a small refinery operation for a beginner using home-made stands and thrifted wares? Of course I understand there are some pretty hefty premiums for quality glass, but I like the way you've been able to seemingly keep your overhead cost for equipment moderate.
I accumulated it as I needed it. Type lab glassware on eBay. Sometimes you can find a bunch for cheap. The first thing you need before glassware is a fume hood. No way to safely do these reactions without one.
@@sreetips Understood! These are incredibly damaging substances for every part of the body that I'm aware of! Thanks for all your help and thanks for making content of these scientific processes. That SO2 reaction was TO DIE FOR!
Can you share details about the respirator/filters you use in which circumstances?
I’m working in a fume hood that draws the harmful gases away from me. I wear a 3MP95 mask when melting metals so I don’t have to breath the smoke.
Thank you sir as always a very enjoyable and informative video six stars sir
Have you ever extracted and refined gold from gold ore?
I know there’s several videos on TH-cam be about it. It would be interesting to see your procedure.
I’ve never worked with gold ore. Yield are measured in grams per ton
I thought you started inquarting with copper and liked that better. What made you go back to silver?
Because I refine silver also. First step is to dissolve the silver, so why not use it to refine the gold. Like refining both metals simultaneously
Yep gonna download this for offline watching
I love your work ❤
i know its a piece of feedback you wont care too much about, but the watch in the background on the time lapse shots is amazing. keep up the good work man
I used a big battery powered clock in the past. But the fumes quickly destroyed it.
Nice job
Does stompout change the PH? Does it neutralize the acid?
Maybe a little, but I’ve never measured it. My guess is that it’s pH1 before and after precipitation.
I so wish you where my neighbor! I would love to be your helper! Your work is top shelf! I love your channel and tune in to every video! If you ever want to refine natural gold nuggets let me know and ill mail you some!
Most of my gold comes from the ground and the rest from old electronics ..
Thank you Sir and God Bless you & Your wife🙏🙏🙏
Thank you!
Do you use Distilled water for the ice cubes in this video?
Tap water
Can you inquart with gold plated scrap? I've seen you use several base metals to inquart. Using scrap plated material could allow you to recover the gold more easily in the plated stuff and provide the needed base metal.
No, gold plated is junk metals including tin and sometimes lead.
Excelente.
anyone else clench a little bit when he started pouring the bucket into the sink?
Nah, I said, how sweet of him to help Mrs.Sreetips with the dishes! 😂🤣😅 lol
Also, if your stannous tests smoke yellow, its because of excess nitric correct? Thats what i believed anyway, i added a lot of SMB (to avoid Urea), and my 1st drop had gray/brown crystals with gold mud inside rhem and beside them. Luckily hot water fixed it all in the end, but thats the 2nd time in hundreds of runs over years that i had those crystals, first time a decade ago, they were green/yellow crystals. This time, I just remember my stannous test smoking yelleow, and having to add a whole lot of SMB before any color change or gold drop. It was a scary moment that still has me puzzled 5 days later.
I tell myself it was to much nitric (im usually using Sodium Nitrate), and then to much SMB to neutralize it. But im honestly unsure. Good news is you rarely, or likely never lose the gold in solution forever. But sometimes you must worker 10x harder to get the gold back because you made a mistake. And that day i made some mistake. But the fix was easy, fortunately for me.
I use evaporation to drive off excess nitric. It’s far superior than adding reagents to kill excess nitric. It’s easy to do, it works every time, just takes a little longer.
Awesome as always just wondering if you would maybe do a show on refining iridium from old pool cell chlorine generators?????
I don’t have a clue on how to refine iridium.
I was thinking it might be similar to the way they get it from spark plugs. I was just curious cause I’m in the pool and Spa business and we throw away hundreds of these cells every year thank you sir.
Refining platinum group metals requires a lot more chemistry and highly specialized equipment. Gold and silver are like a cookie recipe compared to PGMs. Not suitable for a hobby refiner to risk it.
Can i ask what size buechner funnel you use?
I use 11cm in this video
Would you concider to use metric numbers in length as well not just only in weights?
When I hear 7 inch, it doesn´t mean anything in Europe.
Thank you Mr Sreetips.
Greetings from Sweden.
Greetings, I’ll do it!