This was by far the best video break down I have seen on the steps in refining from start to finish. Repeat this over and over until you’re making a 24 Ounce monster bar!
the black iron oxide can be filtered with a t shirt just as good as the coffee filters but faster and can be sold on line I think it go s for 7 to 10 bucks a pound maybe more if you dry it ,and the copper powder can be sold too . and thanks for showing how to proses the waste . only a good man would take the time to show others how to do things like this .
I would also think the copper could just be melted and used back in the cementing. He mentions not wanting to bother refining it, understandable, but it has reagent value at least, minimal effort
You're absolutely awesome, teacher. I've learned so much from you over the last couple of years that I finally started last Sept 15th with my first small steps in precious metal refining. Thank you Sreetips!
Awesome that flow chart help so much with remembering the processing of the gold and silver as much as it does the waste treatment. You have the kids touch
Man, Sreetips you are the best! Thank you so much for constantly sharing your extremely valuable information with the world. You sir benefit the world in a way not many can. Thank you so much! Just saw maybe 20 or so titles I hadn't come across before, this being one. Can't wait to watch them all!
I just fell in to my own computer scrapping buis. I was thinking this morning that i need to look in to how to treat the waste and bam i come acrosa your awesome vid! Thank you!!!!
I enjoy your content and make sure to catch your videos when they drop, and I gotta say this video here is one that I have been most curious about. Thank you for what you do.
Afternoon "ST". So far using your tutorials and my limited Chem experience, I've got some FINE quality Silver and am starting my first, Gold Enquartation, today. I've been doing ALLOT of research, into, the selling of Fine Gold Bullion, (Sitting on the Silver). I haven't found a good source that buys at over 80% of Spot Price. I'm sure that you've run into the same, frustrating, circumstances. Any Sage advice? Truly appreciate your efforts. You've made waking up in the morning, exciting again for me, with this new venture! Thank you again! Wade
Thanks for putting this video together. An often overlooked subject, but very important! I use the same process, but use baking soda to raise the pH of the FeCl solution to between 4-6, then wick filter. NaOH is added to the wicked solution raising the pH to 9. Filter the hydroxides and dispose of the waste water after lowering the pH to 7 with dry acid. I find baking soda is cheaper than sodium hydroxide. Love your videos! Appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge!
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your knowledge with us all. Priceless information you have given us. Thank you so much. God bless you.
Good morning Sreetips! I just wanted to let you know how much the white board presentation is appreciated. Your clear commentary while writing on the board made it permanently engraved on my aging memory. This earth is very generous gift to us from God and we owe it to him to keep it clean and unpolluted. Ignorance on our part often runs rampant and allows us to think we are doing the right thing when the opposite is true. This thorough explanation puts the responsibility on us to be responsible for our little piece of the environment and helps not only us but our neighbors around the world too. Thanks for taking the time to go through this for us...
This is a good overview of your main refining processes; it only leaves out the stock pot and filter refining, which as of this writing is still largely experimental. It looks like the gold stock pot and silver stock pot can be the same pot. I'm surprised there isn't a recycler who will take the copper that's been cemented out. I suppose purity issues have a lot to do with this. I suppose that if you had a bigger operation it would be worthwhile to re-use the leftover high pH solution near the end to raise the pH of the acidic iron solution, but I also suppose that lye is cheap enough not to worry about this. It's easy to forget that time is often the most important resource of all.
Another great video ! One waste product omitted is NOx gasses. If you could bubble some waste NOx through your caustic solution you'd reduce the pH for free. All the excess could be bubbled through iced water to recover some nitric acid. HNO3 + pH Down is cheap though, so unlikely worth the trouble.
Great video. I know sterling jewelry is plated with rhodium sometimes. As a repair jeweler, it was tough to work with. The solders in karat gold jewelry had a lot of crazy metals to help with melting, flowing, color, etc. Good luck with those.
They reversed the west lanes to east on the interstate at noon today. I've been through several storms like this. At first it's kind of cool, but then it gets old fast. The unbelievable part is the eye. It's as still as can be and the stars shine bright. Then the other side of the eye wall hits and all hell breaks loose again. I don't think it's going to hit here, but up north will get it bad.
thank you sir for sharing your knowledge. You are a truly wealthy person who does not hesitate to share knowledge that will help many to deal with this kind of waste. I will share it with friends who are engaged in this field where they may not be doing it right.
I'm dragging my feet on those because I'm not sure exactly how to proceed. But I'll get through it and get the precious metals. Probably won't be as much as I'm hoping for. It's only traces going in over a long period of time.
I've been thinking of how to start with your waste bucket too. Couldn't you theoretically just dissolve in AR, precipitate out gold and filter, precipitate palladium out with DMG and filter, and then do platinum and refine each individually?
I've got a fine basket strainer made of plastic. We use them at the jewelry repair shop to clean jewelry in the ultrasonic cleaner. It catches any diamonds that get vibrated out. I'm thinking that I'll pour everything thru the strainer and into a large beaker. This should get any pieces of copper out for me. Then add four liters of hot tap water and let it settle. Then siphone off the liquid and leave all the solids behind. After that, I'm still thinking about how to proceed. For the mud, what you've written above, seems like it might work.
@@sreetips I agree that dissolution in AR and dropping and filtering each metal in order of reactivity from the solution is probably the best way to go about it. This would be selective precipitation.
Ive been looking for environmentally safe ways of getting rid of wastes, thank you! I hope to start gold recovery for fun, and couldn't find safe disposal anywhere.
Dealing with the solid part of the waste, I understand perfectly (it gets tossed into the trash). But what about the caustic clear PH down solution ? Do you bring it to some waste treatment company ? Congratulations for your pedagogical talent !
Sreetips this is gold. Here is knowledge for all us interested subs to take away and be happy knowing we have details of how a responsible home mini refinery works. Can you add circle arrows back for the stuff to be re added to keep refining Thanks mate. Gold yea har......
Thank you for that in depth explanation of your waste recovery process. The chemicals used are know poisons so there is concern after watching you turn solution into an $8k mini ingot. What happened to the left-overs? Great diagram as well.
I commend you on your knowledge. I anticipate your next video. Thank you! One question, is how you refine gold and silver the best cost effective to gain all the precious metals out or is there a better way?
Where does the zinc go from all the brass? That would be 15% of your copper stock pot. Does zinc follow the copper or the iron? What chemical does it make zinc hydroxide or chloride?
Excellent process review. However I would like to see the copper fines from the iron run by an XRF gun to see if any other precious metals are in the copper . same with the stock pots. I saw the inquarting with copper video, and I prefer that to the silver or sterling. it seems the silver has most of the pgms . I would look forward to a PGM chart like this as well. by the way where does the
Hiya professor shout out ftom England. Hope you and family are well and good, staying away from the bad weather I hope. Another fact filled film really easy to follow and understand, fantastic break down of process. Just a thought regarding copper cake from waste, can you work out the copper content as percentage, you may have a grade in copper waste with a simple melt for a bar, in small amount not worth a lot to you. You could donate to a charity or local organisation vetrans association for example were over time would be worth a melt for a grade bar of copper them. Cash is cash, just a thought. great films love watching them please keep going respect bro.
One of my refining mentors taught me that it just wasn’t worth the time and effort. Clean copper for refining is cheap and plentiful. I have buckets of cement silver that I need to get running through my silver cells. It feels like I’m running out of time (on earth) and I’ll never get it done.
@@sreetips lol well you got me started here in England Professor here copper worth collecting but I understand the way your growing crystals I believe you when you say time a mission but you could sell bag of P.S.G cakes or cement cake by weights if time an issue lol just another thought lol
Thanks for all your videos. Well explained. Why don't you reuse the cemented copper from your waste bucket in your stock pot? I think about melting it to get rid of non-metals, getting bars or shot of copper alloy. Are the base metals disturbing the process in the stock pot? I just wonder because you pay good money for the copper and stripping the wire seems to be time consuming and not too much fun. And it would decrease the amount of waste produced, always a good thing to think about.
At one time, I used to take copper from the waste bucket and put it into the stock pot. But I don't do it anymore because copper is so plentiful and copper from the waste bucket is contaminated with other metals.
@@sreetips even if the copper is contaminated with other metals wouldnt dissolving the copper into solution via cementation give you a second run at recovering any other traces of pgm's gold and silver from the sludge
Any chance you would be willing to share some guidance about what kind of price percentages are needed to come out ok buying plated, filled, and other jewelry items for refining? The costs of acids, ph up and down, smb, DMG, zinc, copper, test solutions, etc. can be researched but having a rough formula for estimating what to pay for plated as opposed to filled, electroplated etc. would be a great help to us struggling for at least survival at refining.
Hello. Can I get help from you regarding the upcoming problems regarding gold extraction? I chose your site because it is excellent and full of content. Thank you very much
Another great video, buddy! Ya know, I've used inquartation as a process quite a few times, but the last 2 times I've done it I've gotten that incredibly fine gold powder after the 2nd leach. I meticulously test each piece, and use 95% of the silver needed, but still get the powder that makes filtering a nightmare. It's odd, but still my favorite process.
I had that happen to me the last time I did a gold refining. Once I seen that the gold had crumbled I just kept adding nitric, settle, decant, add nitric, boil, settle, decant etc.. until the solution was clear and no more fumes evolved. Then I poured it all into a filter. Some of it got through the filter, but tenths only. I dissolved the gold, filter and all, in aqua regia then let it set overnight. Next morning I siphoned off the clear gold chloride solution that was sitting over about 1/4 inch of green grey residue in the bottom of the beaker. It went through the filter in about 1 minute. Then I poured the residue into the filter. It took almost 24 hours, most under vacuum, and I still didn't get it all. But again, tenths only were left behind. I saved the filter, it will have gold (in with all the junk) but again, tenths only. My yield was only off by about 2.5 grams out of 117 grams of pure gold expected.
@@sreetips very similar to what I've been doing. My first leach tested positive for pd, which could have only came from the dental scrap I had in the batch, miniscule amount I'm sure. It carried with the 925 I used to inquart with, but the 2nd leach is when it got messy! Had to use a pipette to pull the solution with, then a fresh nitric boil, let settle, pipette again, makes for a time consuming endeavor. There really is no way to catch it all though, even thought about drying, remelting, and trying again.
I actually did that once. I got it all in a filter after the first nitric boil. Put it in a melt dish, wet filter and all, and melted it back into a button. Tested the button with needles and test kit, then inquarted again and hit it with nitric again. I can't remember if it worked been a long time ago. Maybe I'll make a video with too much silver on purpose to demonstrate what happens and how to fix it. Thanks for the idea.
Can you skip the angle iron and just add NaOH to the copper nitrate solution? Should just have Cu(OH)2 instead of Fe(OH)2. Does it matter since the copper just gets thrown away anyway?
I have a question, I have a 40 gallon drum of waste over the past couple of years that I am sure I have silver gold everything in it it's all just been combined into 40 gallons. Where do I even start to try to pull the precious metals out of this hodgepodge mixture I have it's been sitting there for about a year? Thank you
There should be no precious metals in the iron water. However, if the solutions are transfered too soon, some PMs could make it into the iron bucket, but they would quickly cement out on the copper in the iron bucket. I let the solutions sit in these buckets for about a week before I transfer the solutions to ensure that all the metals have come out of solution.
@@sreetips Isnt it possible to Raise the PH with Baking sota (sodium Bicarbonate) and that Produces Carbon Dioxide. wouldnt it be possible to capture the Carbon Dioxide gas and Later after the Precipitation of the iron after the filtering, to bubble the Carbon Dioxide back through the Caustic solution to Lower the PH?
If you just get a roll of Aluminum or zinc it would drop out all the copper and you could reuse the copper power you would end up with to do other refining , could even just melt it into a copper bar and reuse in your stock pot, would save you a few hundred dollar in copper a year , and if you melt the aluminum into a bar ,( aluminum foil from the dollar store , or old aluminum pots and pans , or siding from building materials) then you could just toss in an aluminum bar and get all your copper back , would cost that much and youd save in buying more copper.
Have you tried to recover your nitric acid from the waste copper nitrate solution? I started doing this after i found nerdrage's video about it. I get most of my nitric back. i think my losses are orange gas. I havent found a nho3 supply that is cost effective so i recycle my waste back into usable products and cut out my biggest expense. Using a pid controlled hot plate i have been able to recycle and distill about 100ml of 70%-fuming hno3 per hour. Thats a lot more than i consume.
@@sreetips nho3 is so expensive($60L+s&h) here that its 1/5th the price to make it my self. The recycling procedure is identical with 1 extra step to recover the sulfuric acid used.
How toxic is the solution after the Iron treatment ? Being a bit lazy here, and wondering if the post iron solution could potentially be poured onto ash in fire pit, which will eventually be burned with fresh wood and so covered completely within wood ash. Would the ash, and then fire, and then more ash on top neutralize any remaining toxins in the iron solution ?
Thank you so much for this walk through, sreetips. I was curious if you’re still disposing of your waste impure metallic copper. If so, would you be willing to send it to me? I’d like to experiment with a few copper based magnetic alloys for some science experiments.
Couple of times I heard you say "once I'm certain all of the precious metals have been precipitated out of solution", and I was just wondering how you determined that, or at what point do you "feel certain" and what is that based on if something other than a Stannis chloride test or something comparable (and definitive)? Sorry I'm definitely not intending to be a smart-ass or anything I'm just one of those people who can't tolerate very much ambiguity and I need to know that I know or it causes me to suffer from "analysis paralysis" which often leaves me "stuck" and unable to commit. Never did like my father's do something even if it's wrong methodology....
Hi sreetips, I was wondering if it is possible to go after base ingredients for sulphuric and nitric acid at some point in this process? It looks as though I will have to make my own acids from scratch and even the base ingredients aren't very cheap or easy to obtain here, so it would be good to be able to recycle them to some degree.
Could the caustic liquid that you treat with PH down and pour down the drain be used for something like raising the pH of your treatment bucket you moved outside and use less lye?
When you say "dispose of" (e.g. the waste copper) do you mean bringing it to a municipal dump? or some waste treatment company? thanks for the video, very instructive
@@sreetips Dealing with the solid part of the waste, I understand perfectly (it gets tossed into the trash). But what about the caustic clear PH down solution ? Do you bring it to some waste treatment company ? Congratulations for your pedagogical talent !
Hia love your videos. Just one question. What do I do with the black powder stuff once collected off the copper pipes? I tried to filter on cotton and melt and it vanished :(
Hia sorry if this is a dumb question. I may have mixed stock pots up copper and steel. I have steel only in it now and have a white structure that’s built on top of the copper structure. Copper came out first Would this be higher in the reaction table like tin and lead or lower towards silver?
James, the exhaust stack goes through my roof. I don't have a scrubber. I only do it as a hobby. I installed it myself. I documented the install on the goldrefiningforum.com my user name there is "kadriver".
Oh course the metal hydroxide sludge is considered hazardous waste. F006 waste I believe. Your pH 9 water on the other hand is fine to dispose at that pH if you are disposing to a municipal sewage. Most municipal plants have a discharge pH range from 5 to 10.5. If you are discharging to surface water than yes a pH of 7 is required. Of course I sure you don't have a discharge permit. Don't mind me just being a smart a $$
Hey Sreetips, If you are not using the copper which is cementing on the angle iron, then why do you do it? Could you not take the waste solution from the previous step where all the precious metals cemented out on the copper, and treat it for disposal?
hello, I am a close follower of yours. I request you to automatically add Turkish subtitles to the subtitles in this and the next videos. I wish you good work, goodbye
I prefer to hold silver. I don't like the risk of having gold laying around. The average Joe doesn't care as much about silver. Less temptation for enemies, and those who may be friends.
why not reuse the copper, or are there other not wanted metals in the copper. I'm thinking granular copper would speed up the process. but I'm not a chemist.
Joseph, in refining, copper is a very useful metal. But after it gets used it’s considered waste. Because it’s contaminated with other metals. Clean copper for refining is cheap and plentiful. I buy it at yard sales.
I figure, now that you have a furnace to melt large batches of silver, melting ingots of copper waste would be easier. it may only be pennies on the dollar, but it is copper reused instead of landfilled.
sorry to go on about it, to me it's about the waste of resources with throwing it out, I'd rather give the copper product away to someone who'd use it than send it to landfill
ok, I see the AR goes thru a few steps, after SMB is added, it becomes the stock pot. what do you do with the AP and the hot Nitric? do those go into the stock pot also?
Gold refining waste solutions may containe traces of precious metals (mostly platinum group metals) and every drop goes into the stock pot that is full of copper to cement those traces out. Silver refining waste solutions will be mostly copper in solution with traces of silver. I add those to a bucket with copper to get all the silver out and any traces of PGMs. I don’t want silver solutions in my stock pot. I don’t want gold refining waste solutions in my silver bucket. HOWEVER, both of those solution are added to my waste treatment bucket that’s full of angle iron. In that bucket the copper cements out and the iron goes into solution. I toss the cemented copper because it is contaminated with other metals (pluse copper for refining is cheap and plentiful) and I end up with just iron in my waste solution. All the toxic metals are removed.
Spent AP solutions go straight into my waste bucket full of angle iron. But if traces of PMs are suspected in the AP then it could be run through the stock pot to get those traces. HOWEVER, running the AP through the stock pot will chew up lots of copper needlessly and; I don’t do much with AP (acid/peroxide) because I don’t refine much escrap anymore. The yields are too low.
Yes, I've read everything you posted about it. It is still a distant task for me right now. I've probably got some of it in my gold refining filters. One day I'll try to figure out how to get the rhodium.
I have a video posted on refining silver cell slimes. The stock pot is a different animal but may be similar. I'm not quite sure how to proceed with it but I will figure it out.
No, the silver cell slimes are processed separately. I've made a video that shows how the slimes get refined. The waste from refining the slimes will contain ammonium chloride. This type of waste does not go into the stock pot (or I use a separate bucket) because of the ammonia that it contains.
I put a copper pipe in my waste got a lot of green crystals growing would you be able too tell me what is going on. I was doing silver coins if that helps
I used the drain cleaner you showed in one of your videos. I get bored I’m always interested in learning how to do things. Heart problems put me down where it’s hard to work now so I get a lot of time on my hands lol
Inquarting with silver (or you can use clean copper or brass) and parting with hot dilute nitric, if done correctly, will completely eliminate problems with passivation and silver chloride formation and make refining the gold very easy.
This was by far the best video break down I have seen on the steps in refining from start to finish. Repeat this over and over until you’re making a 24 Ounce monster bar!
the black iron oxide can be filtered with a t shirt just as good as the coffee filters but faster and can be sold on line I think it go s for 7 to 10 bucks a pound maybe more if you dry it ,and the copper powder can be sold too . and thanks for showing how to proses the waste . only a good man would take the time to show others how to do things like this .
I agree on not throwing away copper. Considering its spot price is pretty high right now and it looks like it'll be going up.
I would also think the copper could just be melted and used back in the cementing. He mentions not wanting to bother refining it, understandable, but it has reagent value at least, minimal effort
It’s heavily contaminated and pretty much useless. And not worth the effort to get it clean.
@@sreetips contaminated with what? ...didnt you add only iron witch will be dissolved in solution and go back to your iron bucket?
Mostly iron
What a brilliant video, it took me two years to learn what you just imparted in 20 mins. Thanks for sharing
You're absolutely awesome, teacher. I've learned so much from you over the last couple of years that I finally started last Sept 15th with my first small steps in precious metal refining. Thank you Sreetips!
Great video! Thank you for one of the most thorough explanations of the process.
This is exactly the kind of information that people need to know. Thank you for such a detailed explanation.
Awesome that flow chart help so much with remembering the processing of the gold and silver as much as it does the waste treatment. You have the kids touch
Since I started watching your videos I was always wondering what you do with the wastes. Thank you for showing us the process. God bless you.
I just want to say keep doing what you are doing, because you are great at it, I learned so much from you!
I've watched lots of these videos where I start to predict the next step... this really really helps me understand how
Great video. I have watched enough of your videos to piece together this flowchart in my head, but I love the visual overview. THANKS!
Man, Sreetips you are the best! Thank you so much for constantly sharing your extremely valuable information with the world. You sir benefit the world in a way not many can. Thank you so much! Just saw maybe 20 or so titles I hadn't come across before, this being one. Can't wait to watch them all!
What an outstanding series! With videos this from gentlemen like you, we would be a much more intelligent (and not just educated).
I just fell in to my own computer scrapping buis. I was thinking this morning that i need to look in to how to treat the waste and bam i come acrosa your awesome vid! Thank you!!!!
I enjoy your content and make sure to catch your videos when they drop, and I gotta say this video here is one that I have been most curious about. Thank you for what you do.
This is an excellent video! I have read and re-read Hoke on this and I understand it better now that I see it as a flow chart. Thanx Streetips!
Glad it helped, thank you.
Afternoon "ST". So far using your tutorials and my limited Chem experience, I've got some FINE quality Silver and am starting my first, Gold Enquartation, today.
I've been doing ALLOT of research, into, the selling of Fine Gold Bullion, (Sitting on the Silver). I haven't found a good source that buys at over 80% of Spot Price. I'm sure that you've run into the same, frustrating, circumstances. Any Sage advice? Truly appreciate your efforts. You've made waking up in the morning, exciting again for me, with this new venture! Thank you again!
Wade
Wade, I sell to aragold.com and elemetal direct. They both pay 98% but it’s business accounts only,
Thanks for putting this video together. An often overlooked subject, but very important! I use the same process, but use baking soda to raise the pH of the FeCl solution to between 4-6, then wick filter. NaOH is added to the wicked solution raising the pH to 9. Filter the hydroxides and dispose of the waste water after lowering the pH to 7 with dry acid. I find baking soda is cheaper than sodium hydroxide. Love your videos! Appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge!
Thanks Andy
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your knowledge with us all. Priceless information you have given us. Thank you so much. God bless you.
I was just wondering this the other day. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Good morning Sreetips! I just wanted to let you know how much the white board presentation is appreciated. Your clear commentary while writing on the board made it permanently engraved on my aging memory. This earth is very generous gift to us from God and we owe it to him to keep it clean and unpolluted. Ignorance on our part often runs rampant and allows us to think we are doing the right thing when the opposite is true. This thorough explanation puts the responsibility on us to be responsible for our little piece of the environment and helps not only us but our neighbors around the world too.
Thanks for taking the time to go through this for us...
I still have the screenshot from two years ago on my phone for reference. Thank you again!!!!
Who cares if you spelled silver wrong it happens, it was a good demonstration how to dispose of the waste properly.
Thanks, I left off the "L" in dissolve also.
I have to deal with the spelling police too. It's pretty ridiculous when everyone knows what you meant to spell
This is a good overview of your main refining processes; it only leaves out the stock pot and filter refining, which as of this writing is still largely experimental.
It looks like the gold stock pot and silver stock pot can be the same pot.
I'm surprised there isn't a recycler who will take the copper that's been cemented out. I suppose purity issues have a lot to do with this.
I suppose that if you had a bigger operation it would be worthwhile to re-use the leftover high pH solution near the end to raise the pH of the acidic iron solution, but I also suppose that lye is cheap enough not to worry about this. It's easy to forget that time is often the most important resource of all.
Another great video !
One waste product omitted is NOx gasses.
If you could bubble some waste NOx through your caustic solution you'd reduce the pH for free.
All the excess could be bubbled through iced water to recover some nitric acid.
HNO3 + pH Down is cheap though, so unlikely worth the trouble.
Great video. I know sterling jewelry is plated with rhodium sometimes. As a repair jeweler, it was tough to work with. The solders in karat gold jewelry had a lot of crazy metals to help with melting, flowing, color, etc. Good luck with those.
your a brave man. I would leave as fast as I could like I did when Harvy hit us here in TX. I do hope you will be ok.
They reversed the west lanes to east on the interstate at noon today. I've been through several storms like this. At first it's kind of cool, but then it gets old fast. The unbelievable part is the eye. It's as still as can be and the stars shine bright. Then the other side of the eye wall hits and all hell breaks loose again. I don't think it's going to hit here, but up north will get it bad.
thank you sir for sharing your knowledge. You are a truly wealthy person who does not hesitate to share knowledge that will help many to deal with this kind of waste. I will share it with friends who are engaged in this field where they may not be doing it right.
Great explanation of waste treatment! Still looking forward to seeing what you recover from your stock pots!
I'm dragging my feet on those because I'm not sure exactly how to proceed. But I'll get through it and get the precious metals. Probably won't be as much as I'm hoping for. It's only traces going in over a long period of time.
I've been thinking of how to start with your waste bucket too. Couldn't you theoretically just dissolve in AR, precipitate out gold and filter, precipitate palladium out with DMG and filter, and then do platinum and refine each individually?
I've got a fine basket strainer made of plastic. We use them at the jewelry repair shop to clean jewelry in the ultrasonic cleaner. It catches any diamonds that get vibrated out. I'm thinking that I'll pour everything thru the strainer and into a large beaker. This should get any pieces of copper out for me. Then add four liters of hot tap water and let it settle. Then siphone off the liquid and leave all the solids behind. After that, I'm still thinking about how to proceed. For the mud, what you've written above, seems like it might work.
@@sreetips I agree that dissolution in AR and dropping and filtering each metal in order of reactivity from the solution is probably the best way to go about it. This would be selective precipitation.
This is an education!!! Thank you!
Ive been looking for environmentally safe ways of getting rid of wastes, thank you! I hope to start gold recovery for fun, and couldn't find safe disposal anywhere.
Dealing with the solid part of the waste, I understand perfectly (it gets tossed into the trash). But what about the caustic clear PH down solution ? Do you bring it to some waste treatment company ? Congratulations for your pedagogical talent !
Thank You for posting this video. I really enjoyed!
I think that this is the first video on this subject on TH-cam. ;)
i love your channel and all the hard work thank you
cant wait to see the stock pot recovery and yield on that.
Coming up
Sreetips this is gold. Here is knowledge for all us interested subs to take away and be happy knowing we have details of how a responsible home mini refinery works.
Can you add circle arrows back for the stuff to be re added to keep refining
Thanks mate. Gold yea har......
Thank you for that in depth explanation of your waste recovery process. The chemicals used are know poisons so there is concern after watching you turn solution into an $8k mini ingot. What happened to the left-overs? Great diagram as well.
I commend you on your knowledge. I anticipate your next video. Thank you! One question, is how you refine gold and silver the best cost effective to gain all the precious metals out or is there a better way?
Where does the zinc go from all the brass? That would be 15% of your copper stock pot. Does zinc follow the copper or the iron? What chemical does it make zinc hydroxide or chloride?
That’s a good question. I don’t know.
Excellent process review.
However I would like to see the copper fines from the iron run by an XRF gun to see if any other precious metals are in the copper .
same with the stock pots.
I saw the inquarting with copper video, and I prefer that to the silver or sterling.
it seems the silver has most of the pgms .
I would look forward to a PGM chart like this as well.
by the way where does the
Theres probably traces of precious metals in that copper. We can never get 100% separation. Entropy guarantees it.
I prefer sterling silver for inquartation because I refine silver also.
Hiya professor shout out ftom England. Hope you and family are well and good, staying away from the bad weather I hope. Another fact filled film really easy to follow and understand, fantastic break down of process. Just a thought regarding copper cake from waste, can you work out the copper content as percentage, you may have a grade in copper waste with a simple melt for a bar, in small amount not worth a lot to you. You could donate to a charity or local organisation vetrans association for example were over time would be worth a melt for a grade bar of copper them. Cash is cash, just a thought. great films love watching them please keep going respect bro.
One of my refining mentors taught me that it just wasn’t worth the time and effort. Clean copper for refining is cheap and plentiful. I have buckets of cement silver that I need to get running through my silver cells. It feels like I’m running out of time (on earth) and I’ll never get it done.
@@sreetips lol well you got me started here in England Professor here copper worth collecting but I understand the way your growing crystals I believe you when you say time a mission but you could sell bag of P.S.G cakes or cement cake by weights if time an issue lol just another thought lol
You’re the bomb. Excellent video. Keeper to refer back too. Tks
Thanks for all your videos. Well explained.
Why don't you reuse the cemented copper from your waste bucket in your stock pot? I think about melting it to get rid of non-metals, getting bars or shot of copper alloy. Are the base metals disturbing the process in the stock pot? I just wonder because you pay good money for the copper and stripping the wire seems to be time consuming and not too much fun. And it would decrease the amount of waste produced, always a good thing to think about.
At one time, I used to take copper from the waste bucket and put it into the stock pot. But I don't do it anymore because copper is so plentiful and copper from the waste bucket is contaminated with other metals.
@@sreetips even if the copper is contaminated with other metals wouldnt dissolving the copper into solution via cementation give you a second run at recovering any other traces of pgm's gold and silver from the sludge
Great episode, Sreetips.
Any chance you would be willing to share some guidance about what kind of price percentages are needed to come out ok buying plated, filled, and other jewelry items for refining? The costs of acids, ph up and down, smb, DMG, zinc, copper, test solutions, etc. can be researched but having a rough formula for estimating what to pay for plated as opposed to filled, electroplated etc. would be a great help to us struggling for at least survival at refining.
Welcome back Sreetips!
@sreetips Is there an updated video for this? Good Job 👍
No, this is it
Nicely done. Very clear, thank you! Now that you have shown me the complete picture, when I get the palotas to play with nitric acid, I'll be set! 😂
Fantastic video, very useful and interesting. Thanks!
Great video!! What do you use to check the ph? I bought some of the ph testing strips for pools, but I’m not sure how accurate they are.
I use “fast fix” pH test strips. Pricy, but more accurate than pH paper.
Thanks again for another great video
Awesome video! Learned a ton. Thanks.
You should dry and keep the copper waste for future you to worry about. Could become worth refining.
Hello. Can I get help from you regarding the upcoming problems regarding gold extraction? I chose your site because it is excellent and full of content. Thank you very much
I’ll try to answer refining questions if I can. But I don’t offer any kind of training or tutoring services.
Another great video, buddy! Ya know, I've used inquartation as a process quite a few times, but the last 2 times I've done it I've gotten that incredibly fine gold powder after the 2nd leach. I meticulously test each piece, and use 95% of the silver needed, but still get the powder that makes filtering a nightmare. It's odd, but still my favorite process.
I had that happen to me the last time I did a gold refining. Once I seen that the gold had crumbled I just kept adding nitric, settle, decant, add nitric, boil, settle, decant etc.. until the solution was clear and no more fumes evolved. Then I poured it all into a filter. Some of it got through the filter, but tenths only. I dissolved the gold, filter and all, in aqua regia then let it set overnight. Next morning I siphoned off the clear gold chloride solution that was sitting over about 1/4 inch of green grey residue in the bottom of the beaker. It went through the filter in about 1 minute. Then I poured the residue into the filter. It took almost 24 hours, most under vacuum, and I still didn't get it all. But again, tenths only were left behind. I saved the filter, it will have gold (in with all the junk) but again, tenths only. My yield was only off by about 2.5 grams out of 117 grams of pure gold expected.
@@sreetips very similar to what I've been doing. My first leach tested positive for pd, which could have only came from the dental scrap I had in the batch, miniscule amount I'm sure. It carried with the 925 I used to inquart with, but the 2nd leach is when it got messy! Had to use a pipette to pull the solution with, then a fresh nitric boil, let settle, pipette again, makes for a time consuming endeavor. There really is no way to catch it all though, even thought about drying, remelting, and trying again.
I actually did that once. I got it all in a filter after the first nitric boil. Put it in a melt dish, wet filter and all, and melted it back into a button. Tested the button with needles and test kit, then inquarted again and hit it with nitric again. I can't remember if it worked been a long time ago. Maybe I'll make a video with too much silver on purpose to demonstrate what happens and how to fix it. Thanks for the idea.
@@sreetips I'll be watching out for it for sure. It's definitely a giant pain in the ass when it happens.
Can you skip the angle iron and just add NaOH to the copper nitrate solution? Should just have Cu(OH)2 instead of Fe(OH)2. Does it matter since the copper just gets thrown away anyway?
The iron removes other metals, not just copper.
Fantastic video really well explained, thank you
I have a question, I have a 40 gallon drum of waste over the past couple of years that I am sure I have silver gold everything in it it's all just been combined into 40 gallons. Where do I even start to try to pull the precious metals out of this hodgepodge mixture I have it's been sitting there for about a year? Thank you
Stock pot
Very nice video sir and Inside the iron water you have put sodium hydroxide inside that filter I gold silver and Palladium please tell me sir
There should be no precious metals in the iron water. However, if the solutions are transfered too soon, some PMs could make it into the iron bucket, but they would quickly cement out on the copper in the iron bucket. I let the solutions sit in these buckets for about a week before I transfer the solutions to ensure that all the metals have come out of solution.
Thanks a lot sir for sharing complete knowledge and process. Apart from phdown is there any chemical for bring down pH
I don't know, maybe some weak acid, but I've always used pH down from the swimming pool store.
@@sreetips Isnt it possible to Raise the PH with Baking sota (sodium Bicarbonate) and that Produces Carbon Dioxide. wouldnt it be possible to capture the Carbon Dioxide gas and Later after the Precipitation of the iron after the filtering, to bubble the Carbon Dioxide back through the Caustic solution to Lower the PH?
If you just get a roll of Aluminum or zinc it would drop out all the copper and you could reuse the copper power you would end up with to do other refining , could even just melt it into a copper bar and reuse in your stock pot, would save you a few hundred dollar in copper a year , and if you melt the aluminum into a bar ,( aluminum foil from the dollar store , or old aluminum pots and pans , or siding from building materials) then you could just toss in an aluminum bar and get all your copper back , would cost that much and youd save in buying more copper.
Have you tried to recover your nitric acid from the waste copper nitrate solution?
I started doing this after i found nerdrage's video about it. I get most of my nitric back. i think my losses are orange gas. I havent found a nho3 supply that is cost effective so i recycle my waste back into usable products and cut out my biggest expense.
Using a pid controlled hot plate i have been able to recycle and distill about 100ml of 70%-fuming hno3 per hour. Thats a lot more than i consume.
No, I have not done that
@@sreetips nho3 is so expensive($60L+s&h) here that its 1/5th the price to make it my self. The recycling procedure is identical with 1 extra step to recover the sulfuric acid used.
@@rainwater397 have you got a link to a video regarding this?
Iron could be extracted with a strong magnet from the cemented copper
How toxic is the solution after the Iron treatment ? Being a bit lazy here, and wondering if the post iron solution could potentially be poured onto ash in fire pit, which will eventually be burned with fresh wood and so covered completely within wood ash. Would the ash, and then fire, and then more ash on top neutralize any remaining toxins in the iron solution ?
I don’t know. I think It’s best to drop the iron out with sodium hydroxide, filter those solids out. Then burn them in a fire pit.
Thank you so much for this walk through, sreetips. I was curious if you’re still disposing of your waste impure metallic copper. If so, would you be willing to send it to me? I’d like to experiment with a few copper based magnetic alloys for some science experiments.
Sorry, more trouble than it’s worth
Couple of times I heard you say "once I'm certain all of the precious metals have been precipitated out of solution", and I was just wondering how you determined that, or at what point do you "feel certain" and what is that based on if something other than a Stannis chloride test or something comparable (and definitive)?
Sorry I'm definitely not intending to be a smart-ass or anything I'm just one of those people who can't tolerate very much ambiguity and I need to know that I know or it causes me to suffer from "analysis paralysis" which often leaves me "stuck" and unable to commit.
Never did like my father's do something even if it's wrong methodology....
Stannous will detect even traces of gold in solution. It’s a very sensitive test.
That was a good diagram of what you do!
Hi sreetips, I was wondering if it is possible to go after base ingredients for sulphuric and nitric acid at some point in this process? It looks as though I will have to make my own acids from scratch and even the base ingredients aren't very cheap or easy to obtain here, so it would be good to be able to recycle them to some degree.
Could the caustic liquid that you treat with PH down and pour down the drain be used for something like raising the pH of your treatment bucket you moved outside and use less lye?
Possibly
When you say "dispose of" (e.g. the waste copper) do you mean bringing it to a municipal dump? or some waste treatment company? thanks for the video, very instructive
The copper gets tossed into the trash. Nobody wants it because it's contaminated with other metals.
@@sreetips Dealing with the solid part of the waste, I understand perfectly (it gets tossed into the trash). But what about the caustic clear PH down solution ? Do you bring it to some waste treatment company ? Congratulations for your pedagogical talent !
Hia love your videos. Just one question. What do I do with the black powder stuff once collected off the copper pipes? I tried to filter on cotton and melt and it vanished :(
I process it selectively removing metals as I go. The first step is always incineration. Then the acids. It’s really quite lengthy.
Hia sorry if this is a dumb question. I may have mixed stock pots up copper and steel. I have steel only in it now and have a white structure that’s built on top of the copper structure.
Copper came out first
Would this be higher in the reaction table like tin and lead or lower towards silver?
Tin or lead are above copper so they won’t cement out on copper.
Hey, how could I process gasoline, I don't have the proper facilities any place near me.
Really interested in how you vent the fumes from the fume hood, is it ran through a scrubber or just vented outside?
James, the exhaust stack goes through my roof. I don't have a scrubber. I only do it as a hobby. I installed it myself. I documented the install on the goldrefiningforum.com my user name there is "kadriver".
Oh course the metal hydroxide sludge is considered hazardous waste. F006 waste I believe. Your pH 9 water on the other hand is fine to dispose at that pH if you are disposing to a municipal sewage. Most municipal plants have a discharge pH range from 5 to 10.5. If you are discharging to surface water than yes a pH of 7 is required. Of course I sure you don't have a discharge permit. Don't mind me just being a smart a $$
Great video
Hey Sreetips,
If you are not using the copper which is cementing on the angle iron, then why do you do it?
Could you not take the waste solution from the previous step where all the precious metals cemented out on the copper, and treat it for disposal?
I get copper at yard sales very cheap. The copper in the waste bucket gets thrown out. It’s not worth it for me to try to refine it and reuse it.
@@sreetips Yes, I get that, but when you throw it away, why do you cement it out on the iron?
Because copper in solution is more toxic than iron in solution.
@@sreetips Thank you for replying to all my questions! Best greetings from Germany!
Hello Streetips,
Can you tell me if Nitric acid freezes and what are the effects if it does? Thank you.
I don't know. I've never tried to freeze any.
Streetips, What kind of material is that on your fume hood that is draping down if you don't mind me asking?
hello, I am a close follower of yours. I request you to automatically add Turkish subtitles to the subtitles in this and the next videos. I wish you good work, goodbye
I thought I had subtitles in all languages enabled. I’ll check into it.
@@sreetips thanks i'm looking forward to it
would sodium bicarbonate neutralize the excess acid.
It don’t have the punch
I prefer to hold silver. I don't like the risk of having gold laying around. The average Joe doesn't care as much about silver. Less temptation for enemies, and those who may be friends.
first to thumbs up!!! super video by the way as always :)
I've heard that even some waste treatment plants recover precious metals.
I didn’t know that.
why not reuse the copper, or are there other not wanted metals in the copper. I'm thinking granular copper would speed up the process. but I'm not a chemist.
Joseph, in refining, copper is a very useful metal. But after it gets used it’s considered waste. Because it’s contaminated with other metals. Clean copper for refining is cheap and plentiful. I buy it at yard sales.
the waste copper from cementation on iron could be melted into ingots and sold to a scrap yard as is for at least red brass price
I figure, now that you have a furnace to melt large batches of silver, melting ingots of copper waste would be easier. it may only be pennies on the dollar, but it is copper reused instead of landfilled.
It would cost more in fuel than the copper is worth. Copper is very useful in precious metals refining. But after that, it’s considered waste.
sorry to go on about it, to me it's about the waste of resources with throwing it out, I'd rather give the copper product away to someone who'd use it than send it to landfill
Hi..how are you, I am from Mumbai India, dear I want to know how much palladium in one kg MLCCs capicitor please tell me
Thankyou regards
Mohsin Khan
I’ve never processed Mlcc I don’t know
@@sreetips ok Thankyou
If your any where near Wisconsin I'll take the copper...
Awesome.cheer...!
I have been trying to figure out what to do with the AP and AR waste solution. Does the AP and AR also go into the stock pot?
ok, I see the AR goes thru a few steps, after SMB is added, it becomes the stock pot. what do you do with the AP and the hot Nitric? do those go into the stock pot also?
Gold refining waste solutions may containe traces of precious metals (mostly platinum group metals) and every drop goes into the stock pot that is full of copper to cement those traces out. Silver refining waste solutions will be mostly copper in solution with traces of silver. I add those to a bucket with copper to get all the silver out and any traces of PGMs. I don’t want silver solutions in my stock pot. I don’t want gold refining waste solutions in my silver bucket. HOWEVER, both of those solution are added to my waste treatment bucket that’s full of angle iron. In that bucket the copper cements out and the iron goes into solution. I toss the cemented copper because it is contaminated with other metals (pluse copper for refining is cheap and plentiful) and I end up with just iron in my waste solution. All the toxic metals are removed.
Spent AP solutions go straight into my waste bucket full of angle iron. But if traces of PMs are suspected in the AP then it could be run through the stock pot to get those traces. HOWEVER, running the AP through the stock pot will chew up lots of copper needlessly and; I don’t do much with AP (acid/peroxide) because I don’t refine much escrap anymore. The yields are too low.
@@sreetips thank you for the replies. love your work. I have watched hours of your stuff.
thankyou so much for making this video
Did you read all my comments about Rhodium
from your previous video ?
Yes, I've read everything you posted about it. It is still a distant task for me right now. I've probably got some of it in my gold refining filters. One day I'll try to figure out how to get the rhodium.
@@sreetips Ok, I was just gonna say, you could save up the gold waste for later use,
rather than neutralizing it and throwing it out.
Would any ph decreasing compound be acceptable as a final step/could one use clean muriatic acid to achieve the same effect?
I've never tried hydrochloric acid.
Yes HCl works very good. But I would not even neutralize the solution. pH=9 actually is only a slightly basic solution.
how to get clean copper from nitric acid solution?
I buy clean copper at local sales. It’s not worth trying to recover copper from nitric solutions. Copper is waste, to a precious metals refiner.
What happen if dont have the silver just directly refine?
A very dirty solution
Will you refine the silver slimes with the same sediment from your stock pots?
I have a video posted on refining silver cell slimes. The stock pot is a different animal but may be similar. I'm not quite sure how to proceed with it but I will figure it out.
Okay I'll check it out. You should create a Patreon. I'm sure a lot of people want to support you as you put out these very informational guides.
The slimes from the silver cell, if any, get added to the stock pot?
No, the silver cell slimes are processed separately. I've made a video that shows how the slimes get refined. The waste from refining the slimes will contain ammonium chloride. This type of waste does not go into the stock pot (or I use a separate bucket) because of the ammonia that it contains.
I put a copper pipe in my waste got a lot of green crystals growing would you be able too tell me what is going on. I was doing silver coins if that helps
That’s baffling, not sure what that would be.
@@sreetips I’m wondering if it’s the salt and sugar. It’s really strange because it is ice cold and doesn’t melt
I’ve never used salt and sugar on copper. No experience with that.
I used the drain cleaner you showed in one of your videos. I get bored I’m always interested in learning how to do things. Heart problems put me down where it’s hard to work now so I get a lot of time on my hands lol
@@sreetips I was doing silver. I put the copper in the waste bucket to collect the precious metals like you showed in a video to clean the waste
I forgot to ask what is the purpose of inquartation? I apologize if this was already discussed.
Inquarting with silver (or you can use clean copper or brass) and parting with hot dilute nitric, if done correctly, will completely eliminate problems with passivation and silver chloride formation and make refining the gold very easy.
What should the pH in my waste bucket be?
Probably close to one