Nice to see you not only using a catch in the sink ( I’m still waiting for you to do an episode where you pull the P-trap and clean the fume hood up and try to recover any lost materials), but to see you finally using a reflux setup. I switched to reflux a couple years ago for all my processing with nitric to help save money and keep the fumes better controlled. I’ve even used a bubbler setup inside a tall graduated cylinder filled with distilled water to capture and convert the nitric fumes before I had a chilled water cooled distillation apparatus. It’s great to use the reflux for lower grade materials where your cost comes close to the yield. Keep on kicking ass Sreerips, I absolutely love watching your videos! I just had my first child a month ago, and the wife told me no more meth lab stuff (that’s what she called my refining setup haha) until my son gets a little older, so I’ll be living the refining life through your videos now 100% haha.
@@holleylafary6594 actually I was into electronics as far back as in the 70s, my mom and dad got me those 100 in 1 electronics kits from radio shack every year, I eventually made it into my career :)
Wildman, I took one chemistry class in my whole life back in high school fifty years ago. I got a D because it was incredibly boring, memorization and study. I wanted to get my hands on glassware and do experiments to see what happens. I wasn’t a very good student and nearly failed my Senior year. Partying and girls were high priority back then also.
Always use vacuum grease when using glassware under vacuum. Keck clamp/clips hold ground glass fittings together. Vacuum distillation is used to lower the vapor pressure of VOCs which reduces the boiling point allowing heat sensitive molecules to be distilled instead of being decomposed. To capture most of the NO2 you would need to bubble all the fumes exiting the distillation apparatus through a tall column of ice cold water and sodium hydroxide.
Somebody needs a bigger fume hood! 1:23 i had a go at the maths and calculated that there was 46 grams of Ag in the White Au and an additional 225g of Sterling was required, so long as some of the copper was used as part of the inquartation metal. Pretty close for non maths guy! 11:22 I forget the temp exactly but if you keep the boiling below 80ish ˚C the Nitrogen dioxide vapour doesn't evolve. Also putting the peroxide directly in with the Nitric as part of the 50/50 mix could help, along with some in the reciever. A good cheap temperature controller is a Rex C100 and type-k thermocouple to add to this simple setup. And pulling 300mmHg will lower the boiling point even more. So add a vacuum controller to the mix. Pulling just enough so the joints don't leak would minimise fumes through the pump. And great video!
I did it with a simple setup that just allowed the evolved NO2 gas to bubble into the H2O2 under its own pressure. I used as short a tube with as little empty space as possible in the first portion of the system. I applied no vacuum or forced pressure other than what the gas itself was creating as it was released by the reaction. I also had a double setup with the gas trap: the initial NO2 gas was bubbled into the main H2O2 reservoir, then excess gas from that bubbled out into a second H2O2 trap. The exhaust gas from that was vented out. Also important was the use of a small aquarium bubbler stone (washed in HCl first, then several changes of water, to remove any salts and soluble dyes). They're cheap little things and the attachment end fit nice and snug into the tubing. The tiny bubbles have vastly more surface area than large bubbles, hence the reaction of NO2 with H2O2 is exponentially faster. 3% H2O2 yields only very dilute nitric. If you have any hydroponics suppliers around, you can get 20% H2O2. Also, I believe some salons have it too, where it's used for hair bleaching and coloring.
so scary and dangerous, but man.....If you can find professional help and really take your time with it, gold collecting, refining and melting is a BLAST!
@@benediktheidland4281 Recovering the copper is a chore all by itself and considered by most to not really be worth it at the hobby level. Let's think it through folks. First you got to clean your copper powder, the precipitate that comes about when you place the copper bearing solution in contact with iron. Upon testing this precipitate you will find that it is copper mostly around 99% by weight. The remaining material would be considered waste in the copper so it must be removed to get you pure copper. Some of the metals that are in that small percentage might be valuable if you could collect them what would they be you ask? Any residual silver, gold, platinum group metals would be in microscopic quantities, and is considered the price of doing business. Let the copper refiner recover it when you sell them the copper with dryer slimes. Dried out thoroughly you will get the price for reclaimed copper, if cleaned it is better, refiner would pay you a bit more. Just dried copper waste from the iron pot would not be considered clean, btw. Many small rinse cycles would clean it proper, for this distilled water is not needed, but you will need a lot of water, a settling tank unless you use an elevated filter system to separate the solids from the water, that is best btw, a way to heat the now cleaned powder for drying thoroughly. The way to obtain a through mix while rinseing is to stir, not just once, and never to the point of piercing your filter. Same thing for drying the powder. I knew a guy, (don't we all?) who used a repurposed curd cutter (stainless wires stretched between several points, kinda like a very large whisk but flat and horizontal or sometimes vertical used to cut the curd when making cheese). Gave his arms a good workout and giant pectoral and deltoid muscle groups. Of course he was not doing copper recovery but recovering enamel overspray for sale to the general public and potters needing colorants, it was always brownish, sometimes he could get to the settling ponds before a color change but mostly shades of dark uncured enamel powder. He said it was a living, along with getting paid to clean the pools by the industry on a regular basis. He also wood baked bread, a source of income as well as heat for his drying tables, lots of venting below the steel plate he used for his drying of powder. He was also a Chimney Sweep seasonally so he managed his creosote build up himself when needed. He sold the powder creosote as well. All in all, one trade lead into another and he was overworked at times but happy, he said. Clean copper waste today (11/16/24) is $3.15/lb
I know you don't need this at all, and it may be a little dangerous, but you could put a Jacob's Ladder against the far wall of your fume hood. Then you just need to learn how to cackle, maniacally. You will then get a 10 / 10 on the mad scientist scale.
That was one of my favorite SMB drops thus far. I loved seeing the gold crashing out and slipping back into solution closely like that. You never cease to amaze me, sir.
for years you got by with just a beaker and a heating source....oh how the times have changed. seems like you are putting yourself thru ALOT more work for the same result? does all the new stuff work better?
Had your condensers in the wrong order maybe? Also a stone to make much smaller bubbles might get a better result and not so much red death bypassing capture? Little triple necked flask looks like a pain in the *ss! Great entertainment value, and I've been waiting on this one since you dropped the short! Still getting an awesome end result and that is what counts!
Hey Kevin, look on marketplace for a fish tank chiller. Can usually get one for pretty cheap. You can use it to keep the water around 40-45*, it's basically an AC unit. In order to recover almost all no2 gasses, you would need a cold finger instead of a reflux condenser... But, it's all about recycling the no2 gas to try and maximize outputs. But I do think that chasing the small amount of efficiency will cost a lot more in energy to do it. Nonetheless, it's a worthy experiment.
After watching for so many years, is interesting to see sreetips trying a totally new system for the refinement on what I assume to be a way to reduce the time of said refinement. Good Luck on your experiments!
Side note- don’t be afraid to use a pipette to add a couple drops of sulphuric acid to seal it off better. The sulphuric if it were to drip through will help bring back some of the nitrates in your solution as well as help with precipitation of lead once cooled.
Wow, only less than 0.5g estimated potential loss for so many experiments and failures....THIS is why we be as methodical and safe as possible....now look at that beautiful bar, it almost looks crystallised! loved this video, Thanks again Sreetips! so so cool.
Just add H2O2 directly to the reaction or premix the HNO3 and H2O2 and use your separatory funnel you use for gold filled to slowly add. By doing this there's no NO2 fumes as the H2O2 is making the HNO3 in situ and being used on dissolution. Which saves HNO3 3% H2O2 is dilute and the remaining water in this can be used to store dissolved metals, saves on distilled water. Adding H2SO4 or BiSulphate can aid in minimising HNO3 use along with H2O2. And you can eliminate all that extra glassware Also H2SO4 on the joints stops them from ceasing and stops from getting trash in and essentially stopping the seal. I'm sure you could work out what happens to organics getting in Take care mate 🙂
I’m going to have to come back in a few hours to focus properly on the show. I know it’s going to be great and I thank you now for this. Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
a shame the mad scientist rig didn't work out as intended, all the best-laid plans of mice and men i guess very cool demonstration of precipitating out the PGMs from the silver nitrate solution with dmg and separating them though, seeing the green forbidden ecto cooler liquid filter out to blue is like magic
That one was from a lions club award back in 1933. Bought it from an estate sale. When I go to those sales with Mrs sreetips, all I can think about it one day, strangers will be digging through my prized possessions. And that none of it really matters.
All you need now is a Frankenstein monster and a Large power station :) That flow leaking looks pretty toxic, glad you had a mask on. The Precipitation with SMB is so so satisfying to watch.
Great video as always and nice glassware. I wrote the comment below in the last shorts video but it didn’t show up for some reason, so I’ll write it here as it might be useful to Mr. Sreetips or anyone who does gold refining. Instead of the refining rig shown here with the intention of trying to recover some nitric acid during the reaction, a very simple refining apparatus could be made with a 2 neck RBF (or the 3 neck seen here) by simply adding to one neck a NOx-resistant hose (silicone) connected to a 24/40 glass adapter. To the other neck, an aquarium air pump set at a low flow rate also connected with a 24/40 adapter would push through the silicone hose the NOx gases into a NaHCO3/NaOH scrubber/washer, thus neutralizing the corrosive NOx and result in the formation of nitrate salts. By doing this, the operational life of the fume hood blower motor could be extended with the added benefit of avoiding the release of NOx into the environment (or neighborhood to those who live closer to people). The nitrate salts could later be reacted with sulfuric acid to recover nitric acid. The scrubber solution would also capture any precious metals that could be released in the mist during the boiling of nitric/aqua regia solutions. Note that the scrubber must be tall enough to allow longer contact time of NOx bubbles with scrubber solution and the air pump must be kept on during cooling after reaction is complete to avoid suck back of scrubber solution into the rbf that would ruin the operation (or instead disconnect hose from scrubber). Edit: There are 24/40 glass adapters with both inlet outlet hose connecters so there would be no need to use both necks of the rbf.
On a side note. Yesterday when I was installing more shelving for the distillation glassware, I rattled the wall, driving a screw. One of my tall form, 2 liter beakers came off its shelf and shattered on the floor! Ashamed to admit it but I almost cried! I love my glassware! Do you feel that too? Pretty silly of this Old Man as they make new every day. My Linda always gives me heck when a box gets delivered and there's beakers inside! Thank heavens I was able to intercept the delivery of the distillation glassware before she saw it! I would have been royally dressed down if she had!
Hey Kevin, long time no speak. Hope you are well. I had an idea for a video ! I've seen you do a few videos on refining the sweeps from the jewelers tool draw and his floor so, how about a video of you doing a refine from the sweeps from your melt table and floor near your fume hood ? Cheers. Mike.
@sreetips using the Beast and all of the cement silver pounds of silver bars. They make a great weight in the bottom of those beautiful 2 foot tall flower pots on your patio. Nobody will ever be able to steal your beautiful annuals...
@ 35:15-ish... What's up with those ice cubes *AT THE BOTTOM* of the beaker?!?!?!?!?!? Ice floats! Especially in a solution as dense as I'd expect this to be! A couple cubes do, but there are clearly cubes ON THE BOTTOM???? What the...????????? OK, I see one bobbed to the surface, but at 35:45, there are still at least two cubes solidly on the bottom - 'Scuse me, MIND BLOWN! Possible your freezer is set so cold that the cubes were able to freeze condensation or similar, and stick to the bottom of the beaker? Only explanation I can come up with for ice cubes that refuse to float...
I would think the coil condenser would need to be at a larger downward angle so that any liquid formed in the coil would flow out into the catch vessel
The addition funnel can be used for sulfuric addition to nitrate salt mixed with water...the condenser receives the nitric acid to liquid and the waste potassium sulfate salt in the reaction vessel can be used as fertilizer for the bushes
@@adws5696 When the coof happened, our good man wanted to let undesirables know what’s waiting if they came knocking. I had mine next to me similarly lol.
You need a stainless steel storage tank of some sort, then you can vaccume down the tank, use that for a vaccume and hook to your last peice of equippment store your fumes in it the they wont fill up your shop, google how to vaccume down a recovery tank, this method is used in hvac freon recovery everyday, just need chemical resistant parts, then you may be able to reflux and condense those gases from tank for a recycled dilute nitric acid
Being low by half a gram is better than being high by half a gram. This is a phenomenal yield. Things just keep getting better in sreetipsland. I will be interested to see how your Nitrogen recycling loop works when you get the kinks smoothed out. I think all you need to do is increase the angle on that condenser tube and the liquid will run down like it's supposed to. Cant wait to see this baby in action.
@@sreetips You could also use a bigger fume hood. The old one works great, but it's kind of limiting in the size of things you can put in there. Take a look at the Cleatech 72" vertical sash cabinet. Don't buy it, $9000, just copy it. Electrical and vacuum ports inside. Recessed floor to contain spills. Top and back vents to evacuate more quickly. You could build this for $300-$500 and never need to replace it. Incinerate the old one, and you'll fine 10g of precious metals.
If I built my own, I’d use a 500 gallon poly plastic tank with a six inch connection on top. Cut an access in front, install an “F” rated high temp external fan in the attic.
if you want to trap NOx gas, you need to catch it into a balloon. condensing and distilling doesn't since it's boiling point is to low (or you have to use liquid nitrogen to cool it)... i didn't understand the whole setup in you last video, but now i think a balloon is all you need. or bubble it directly into the H2O2.
@ I have been reading your book C.M. Hokey. I really enjoy it. I’m retired with a recently back rebuild. From S-1 to T-11. Everything went great. So I really enjoy watching your videos. Thank you Kevin!
I figure you must have considered this already but want to make sure. Can you take the vacuum pump exhaust/output back into the fume hood so any fumes are handled there?
Try running the NO2 through a long, wide tube coiled and submerged in the bucket, so it is full of water. This will allow the NOX concentration to build up and act as it's own oxidizer when making HNO3--see my chemical equations in the comment to your last long form video. Ideally, you shouldn't need any H2O2--what's the point buying a different chemical to get another chemical through roundabout means when you can buy it directly? H2O2 is probably more expensive (per mole, once you account for the concentrations.) If using waste NOX is to be a net gain for you, it must work with water or another cheap chemical.
@@kmarasin Most NO2 scrubbers use sodium hydroxide, to produce sodium nitrate as a waste product. Their main purpose is to reduce the amount of NO2 going out the chimney. Even with a fume hood it's a good idea to scrub waste gases when you can. It's the same with SO2 and chlorine, instead of just letting it all go out to the atmosphere you scrub those gases and then the function of the fume hood is what it essentially should be, protecting you from incidental exposure, rather than as a dumping ground for waste.
An excellent prediction on the gold content of your refined jewels, only off by 0.5 g ! I wonder how much gold vapor has settled on all your surfaces within your laboratory over the many years you are working there, and how you would recollect that.
The gold simply does not get hot enough to evaporate with his torch, 1,400°C. It can sublimate though at around 750°C and nano particles can condense on cooler surfaces, like the nozzle of a torch, that is near in space to the area where sublimation is occuring. This would reveal itself as a thin gold plating of a higher karat of the substance being heated. It does group toward the higher karats though since sublimation of any other metals present, copper (much higher temps 1084°C, if at all, partial pressure sensitive in low pressure settings), silver (much higher, and proprietary, at one atmosphere) will prevent them from accumulating. The nano particles are not neutral in charge, this can be used to advantage for capture, maybe. Gold sublimation is tricky stuff, gold vaporization and capture is better understood and can be pleasant to see. This is called, damn, it escapes me at present, maybe someone else can chime in with the name of this process in glass work?
That watch just sitting there, silently observing stuff being melted down in front of it, like something out of a kid's cartoon from the 80's or early 90's...
I don't know how or where you keep getting all your gold from, but I am envious. I've been going to estate sales and garage sales for months now, making sure to be there extremely early to be the first one in, but just can't find any gold! It's like they're taking their gold somewhere else first, before the estate sale happens, I dunno... 🤷🏼 I sure wish I had your luck.
Phil, I worked in a jewelry repair shop. I’m good friends with the owner. Some customers have gold jewelry that is broken beyond repair. The customer asks what can be done. The jeweler tells them that it’s scrap and can be sold as scrap gold. The customer doesn’t know where to sell it so they ask the jeweler where. The jeweler tells them he knows “a guy” that won’t try to cheat them, then he calls me. I’m ten minutes away so I hop in my car and drive down and buy their scrap. I get calls all the time. He can’t buy scrap gold through his shop because the law requires licensure. But I’m just a citizen buying scrap from another citizen. So no license is required.
I know the guys that runs the estate sales. They know I buy gold and silver. So when they have scrap gold or sterling silver flatware to sell, they call me. I go and buy the metal before the sale even starts. I pay them in cash and give them their ask price. That way, they don’t have to worry about lugging it to the sale, setting it out, and worry about getting stollen. I make it easy for them. In return, I get all the gold and silver that they have to sell.
But we’ve noticed that it’s getting harder to find the good deals lately. People may be starting to wake up that their cash is worthless, and still declining.
@sreetips ah, ok. So it's not just me that's having difficulty. And that's not good! You're hands down, my favorite channel, and have been for years now! I've learned so much from you! Everything I know has come mostly from your channel, and a little bit from Hoke's book. I don't want to see you having to shut the channel down because you can't find any more, that would be horrible!
Wow, well thank you for explaining a little further on how you come across your metals. I'll have to try that; reaching out to the people that coordinate estate sales and talk to them about selling me the gold before the estate sale. Again, thank you for all your advice and info and education and well, everything! I really do appreciate you and all you've done for TH-cam ❤
Using a sparger immersed in water contained in a tall container pass the nitrogen dioxide gas into the water. You will get a solution of nitrous acid and nitric acid. Then add some hydrogen peroxide to convert the nitrous acid to nitric acid. You will then have a dilute solution of nitric acid.
@@sreetips Min venn. Har du noengang tenkt på hva som skal skje når vi en dag er hjemme hos vår Far i himmelen. Personlig så tror jeg det skal skje mye der. For det første så skal vi møte vår frelser og herre Jesus Kristus..så våre forfedre som vi skal møte.. venner vi fikk her på jorden..vi skal få treffe de sjeler vi var et lys for mens vi vandret på jorden. Der blir det møter og tilbedelse,men også dype personlige samtaler. Vi skal få høre om Jesus og Apostlene. Jeg tror vi også skal få dype samtaler med de. Jeg husker at du sa til meg..Arne..Da skal du og jeg treffes å samtale. Det er mye å se frem til bror 🙂 Der er vi endelig uten smerter vi bar hee på jorden. Da skal vi ligge i Guds grønne enger. Hvilken dag det vil bli Sreetips 🙏
Isn't there a check valve that you can get to install on top of the addition funnel to prevent gas reflux? I understand that as the liquid is removed, in a closed loop system, the space has to be replaced by something. With a 1 way check valve at the top of the funnel, it would allow for clean air replacement, without any fume reflux.
Sweet I was hoping you'd use a vacuum setup to pull the liquid out of that weird looking flask instead of having a dismantle at all the time. and grab it and dump it all.
Excellent video , the joys of process chemistry, but if you notice when you were adding the dilute nitric to the delivery funnel , the cold liquid condensed the fumes by contact , so if you have sufficient height adding the addition funnel to the exhaust flow of the condenser so the cold liquid dilute Nitric running down into the traction vessel takes away the red fumes directly
Incidentally why not see if an induction heater would be suitable for melting your metals , electricity is seriously cheaper than acetylene and oxygen , automotive ones , for loosening rusted bolts would work just fine
New rig is getting crazier and crazier. Love it!!
It's alive......IT'S ALIIIIIIVE!!!!
Nice to see you not only using a catch in the sink ( I’m still waiting for you to do an episode where you pull the P-trap and clean the fume hood up and try to recover any lost materials), but to see you finally using a reflux setup.
I switched to reflux a couple years ago for all my processing with nitric to help save money and keep the fumes better controlled. I’ve even used a bubbler setup inside a tall graduated cylinder filled with distilled water to capture and convert the nitric fumes before I had a chilled water cooled distillation apparatus. It’s great to use the reflux for lower grade materials where your cost comes close to the yield.
Keep on kicking ass Sreerips, I absolutely love watching your videos! I just had my first child a month ago, and the wife told me no more meth lab stuff (that’s what she called my refining setup haha) until my son gets a little older, so I’ll be living the refining life through your videos now 100% haha.
Chemistry is a lot cooler than I thought it was back in 80s in high school.
Agree
That's because you were in the biology mode then😂. Jk
@@holleylafary6594 lol yup, though the classroom was not as much fun.
@@holleylafary6594 actually I was into electronics as far back as in the 70s, my mom and dad got me those 100 in 1 electronics kits from radio shack every year, I eventually made it into my career :)
Wildman, I took one chemistry class in my whole life back in high school fifty years ago. I got a D because it was incredibly boring, memorization and study. I wanted to get my hands on glassware and do experiments to see what happens. I wasn’t a very good student and nearly failed my Senior year. Partying and girls were high priority back then also.
Always use vacuum grease when using glassware under vacuum. Keck clamp/clips hold ground glass fittings together. Vacuum distillation is used to lower the vapor pressure of VOCs which reduces the boiling point allowing heat sensitive molecules to be distilled instead of being decomposed. To capture most of the NO2 you would need to bubble all the fumes exiting the distillation apparatus through a tall column of ice cold water and sodium hydroxide.
That's amazing the blue liquid came out of the green. Chemistry is awesome
Entertaining for certain.
Somebody needs a bigger fume hood!
1:23 i had a go at the maths and calculated that there was 46 grams of Ag in the White Au and an additional 225g of Sterling was required, so long as some of the copper was used as part of the inquartation metal. Pretty close for non maths guy!
11:22 I forget the temp exactly but if you keep the boiling below 80ish ˚C the Nitrogen dioxide vapour doesn't evolve. Also putting the peroxide directly in with the Nitric as part of the 50/50 mix could help, along with some in the reciever. A good cheap temperature controller is a Rex C100 and type-k thermocouple to add to this simple setup. And pulling 300mmHg will lower the boiling point even more. So add a vacuum controller to the mix. Pulling just enough so the joints don't leak would minimise fumes through the pump.
And great video!
Best teacher I've ever had.
I did it with a simple setup that just allowed the evolved NO2 gas to bubble into the H2O2 under its own pressure. I used as short a tube with as little empty space as possible in the first portion of the system. I applied no vacuum or forced pressure other than what the gas itself was creating as it was released by the reaction.
I also had a double setup with the gas trap: the initial NO2 gas was bubbled into the main H2O2 reservoir, then excess gas from that bubbled out into a second H2O2 trap. The exhaust gas from that was vented out.
Also important was the use of a small aquarium bubbler stone (washed in HCl first, then several changes of water, to remove any salts and soluble dyes). They're cheap little things and the attachment end fit nice and snug into the tubing. The tiny bubbles have vastly more surface area than large bubbles, hence the reaction of NO2 with H2O2 is exponentially faster.
3% H2O2 yields only very dilute nitric. If you have any hydroponics suppliers around, you can get 20% H2O2. Also, I believe some salons have it too, where it's used for hair bleaching and coloring.
This is just insane to me. I’ve been watching your videos for almost two years now. The more I watch the more I want to pick this up as a hobby.
so scary and dangerous, but man.....If you can find professional help and really take your time with it, gold collecting, refining and melting is a BLAST!
that's why i just watch sreetips. all those fumes and stuff that can melt your lungs is too much for me 😂
Thank you for all of this valuable information, sreetips
I miss your videos when you are gone for days! Hope you and Mrs sreetips are well! Hope we can get more videos on your silver cell soon!
moin, grts from germany, I support that. Sreetips Silver and Gold Videos are fantastic, but I would collect the copper, too
@@benediktheidland4281 Recovering the copper is a chore all by itself and considered by most to not really be worth it at the hobby level.
Let's think it through folks. First you got to clean your copper powder, the precipitate that comes about when you place the copper bearing solution in contact with iron. Upon testing this precipitate you will find that it is copper mostly around 99% by weight. The remaining material would be considered waste in the copper so it must be removed to get you pure copper. Some of the metals that are in that small percentage might be valuable if you could collect them what would they be you ask? Any residual silver, gold, platinum group metals would be in microscopic quantities, and is considered the price of doing business. Let the copper refiner recover it when you sell them the copper with dryer slimes. Dried out thoroughly you will get the price for reclaimed copper, if cleaned it is better, refiner would pay you a bit more. Just dried copper waste from the iron pot would not be considered clean, btw. Many small rinse cycles would clean it proper, for this distilled water is not needed, but you will need a lot of water, a settling tank unless you use an elevated filter system to separate the solids from the water, that is best btw, a way to heat the now cleaned powder for drying thoroughly. The way to obtain a through mix while rinseing is to stir, not just once, and never to the point of piercing your filter. Same thing for drying the powder.
I knew a guy, (don't we all?) who used a repurposed curd cutter (stainless wires stretched between several points, kinda like a very large whisk but flat and horizontal or sometimes vertical used to cut the curd when making cheese). Gave his arms a good workout and giant pectoral and deltoid muscle groups. Of course he was not doing copper recovery but recovering enamel overspray for sale to the general public and potters needing colorants, it was always brownish, sometimes he could get to the settling ponds before a color change but mostly shades of dark uncured enamel powder. He said it was a living, along with getting paid to clean the pools by the industry on a regular basis. He also wood baked bread, a source of income as well as heat for his drying tables, lots of venting below the steel plate he used for his drying of powder. He was also a Chimney Sweep seasonally so he managed his creosote build up himself when needed. He sold the powder creosote as well. All in all, one trade lead into another and he was overworked at times but happy, he said.
Clean copper waste today (11/16/24) is $3.15/lb
SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE!!!
Excellent result! I love the willingness to experiment. Your vids are a lot of fun to watch. Not just the same thing over and over.
I know you don't need this at all, and it may be a little dangerous, but you could put a Jacob's Ladder against the far wall of your fume hood. Then you just need to learn how to cackle, maniacally. You will then get a 10 / 10 on the mad scientist scale.
I'm sure Kevin is only one critical mistake away from being a super villian, at least I saw a tee shirt with that on it .
That was one of my favorite SMB drops thus far. I loved seeing the gold crashing out and slipping back into solution closely like that. You never cease to amaze me, sir.
for years you got by with just a beaker and a heating source....oh how the times have changed. seems like you are putting yourself thru ALOT more work for the same result? does all the new stuff work better?
No, I’m doing this for the entertainment value.
I was wondering the same thing. How efficient will the new tech be when it is dialed in?
That seems to be what Kevin is testing, experimenting with as it were, we see no increase for additional labor at this point.
I’ll keep experimenting with new setups. If I can reduce the amount of gas that goes up the stack then that would be helpful.
Had your condensers in the wrong order maybe? Also a stone to make much smaller bubbles might get a better result and not so much red death bypassing capture? Little triple necked flask looks like a pain in the *ss! Great entertainment value, and I've been waiting on this one since you dropped the short! Still getting an awesome end result and that is what counts!
I get excited everytime I see a new video on my feed
Love the set up! Yeah I think a Liebig condenser is best used vertical.
That new rig sure is fascinating to see in action. Another beautiful result 👍🏻
Nice adventure man... glad to see you're attempting the internal recycle thing
I love to see you exploring new refining techniques for our enjoyment. Thanks for all your creative education.
Really nice bar
I really like that the reflux / distillation rig captures the NOX , to me I think it worth it . Great video
Hey Kevin, look on marketplace for a fish tank chiller. Can usually get one for pretty cheap. You can use it to keep the water around 40-45*, it's basically an AC unit. In order to recover almost all no2 gasses, you would need a cold finger instead of a reflux condenser... But, it's all about recycling the no2 gas to try and maximize outputs. But I do think that chasing the small amount of efficiency will cost a lot more in energy to do it.
Nonetheless, it's a worthy experiment.
Aquarium inline chiller. 200 gallon with titanium heat exchanger. Should eliminate the ice bucket.
@@sreetips might want to check if the 200 gallon is also a requirement for the usage, a deep chill can be froze up in short order sometimes.
After watching for so many years, is interesting to see sreetips trying a totally new system for the refinement on what I assume to be a way to reduce the time of said refinement.
Good Luck on your experiments!
Side note- don’t be afraid to use a pipette to add a couple drops of sulphuric acid to seal it off better. The sulphuric if it were to drip through will help bring back some of the nitrates in your solution as well as help with precipitation of lead once cooled.
I used sulfuric to seal the joints. A little messy but it worked.
Wow, only less than 0.5g estimated potential loss for so many experiments and failures....THIS is why we be as methodical and safe as possible....now look at that beautiful bar, it almost looks crystallised! loved this video, Thanks again Sreetips! so so cool.
Just add H2O2 directly to the reaction or premix the HNO3 and H2O2 and use your separatory funnel you use for gold filled to slowly add.
By doing this there's no NO2 fumes as the H2O2 is making the HNO3 in situ and being used on dissolution. Which saves HNO3
3% H2O2 is dilute and the remaining water in this can be used to store dissolved metals, saves on distilled water.
Adding H2SO4 or BiSulphate can aid in minimising HNO3 use along with H2O2.
And you can eliminate all that extra glassware
Also H2SO4 on the joints stops them from ceasing and stops from getting trash in and essentially stopping the seal. I'm sure you could work out what happens to organics getting in
Take care mate 🙂
Great video beautiful gold bar thanks for sharing sreetips
What a beautiful bar. The pores add character to the piece.
Great video,
Thanks for sharing.
great looking bar love it
.1 gram off. Nice, very nice work! That must be a Shreetips wonder! Plus, there is still a bit of Pt metals to go! Superb recovery.
You are the Precious Metal Alchemist! I really enjoy watching you experiment.
Great all round experimentation.
I liked when the whole mug went in 😂
Me too!
Sreetips, on getting the gold out of the reaction vessel, use the big hole in the middle.
Sometimes the simplest solution is so obvious that you can’t see it.
Was looking to see if I had to make that comment.
That little wrist watch has been thru it all. Heat ...cold...fumes and more. I dont know the brand but it it amazing how it just keeps on ticking.❤
It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
I’m going to have to come back in a few hours to focus properly on the show. I know it’s going to be great and I thank you now for this. Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
a shame the mad scientist rig didn't work out as intended, all the best-laid plans of mice and men i guess
very cool demonstration of precipitating out the PGMs from the silver nitrate solution with dmg and separating them though, seeing the green forbidden ecto cooler liquid filter out to blue is like magic
Everytime sreetips melts a beautiful silver cup I cry 😢
That one was from a lions club award back in 1933. Bought it from an estate sale. When I go to those sales with Mrs sreetips, all I can think about it one day, strangers will be digging through my prized possessions. And that none of it really matters.
All you need now is a Frankenstein monster and a Large power station :) That flow leaking looks pretty toxic, glad you had a mask on. The Precipitation with SMB is so so satisfying to watch.
Great video as always and nice glassware.
I wrote the comment below in the last shorts video but it didn’t show up for some reason, so I’ll write it here as it might be useful to Mr. Sreetips or anyone who does gold refining.
Instead of the refining rig shown here with the intention of trying to recover some nitric acid during the reaction, a very simple refining apparatus could be made with a 2 neck RBF (or the 3 neck seen here) by simply adding to one neck a NOx-resistant hose (silicone) connected to a 24/40 glass adapter. To the other neck, an aquarium air pump set at a low flow rate also connected with a 24/40 adapter would push through the silicone hose the NOx gases into a NaHCO3/NaOH scrubber/washer, thus neutralizing the corrosive NOx and result in the formation of nitrate salts. By doing this, the operational life of the fume hood blower motor could be extended with the added benefit of avoiding the release of NOx into the environment (or neighborhood to those who live closer to people). The nitrate salts could later be reacted with sulfuric acid to recover nitric acid. The scrubber solution would also capture any precious metals that could be released in the mist during the boiling of nitric/aqua regia solutions.
Note that the scrubber must be tall enough to allow longer contact time of NOx bubbles with scrubber solution and the air pump must be kept on during cooling after reaction is complete to avoid suck back of scrubber solution into the rbf that would ruin the operation (or instead disconnect hose from scrubber).
Edit: There are 24/40 glass adapters with both inlet outlet hose connecters so there would be no need to use both necks of the rbf.
Sounds like a good way to scrub your NOx emissions. I like the idea that it would keep the blower repair/replacement frequency down.
On a side note. Yesterday when I was installing more shelving for the distillation glassware, I rattled the wall, driving a screw. One of my tall form, 2 liter beakers came off its shelf and shattered on the floor! Ashamed to admit it but I almost cried! I love my glassware! Do you feel that too? Pretty silly of this Old Man as they make new every day.
My Linda always gives me heck when a box gets delivered and there's beakers inside! Thank heavens I was able to intercept the delivery of the distillation glassware before she saw it! I would have been royally dressed down if she had!
Oh yes, you can’t have too much clean glassware.
Sulfuric Acid make for a very good glass joint “grease” , also Dow-Corning makes a joint grease as well
I used sulfuric to lube each joint. It was a little messy but it worked.
Hey Kevin, long time no speak. Hope you are well.
I had an idea for a video ! I've seen you do a few videos on refining the sweeps from the jewelers tool draw and his floor so, how about a video of you doing a refine from the sweeps from your melt table and floor near your fume hood ? Cheers. Mike.
Can almost see your eyes on that first look at the gold what you were saying. (^ u ^)
For me, it's the first dose of the MSB.
Definitely the Mad Scientist at work. Interesting setup.
Enjoyed it.
The Beast?!?
Coming soon
@sreetips using the Beast and all of the cement silver pounds of silver bars. They make a great weight in the bottom of those beautiful 2 foot tall flower pots on your patio. Nobody will ever be able to steal your beautiful annuals...
@ 35:15-ish... What's up with those ice cubes *AT THE BOTTOM* of the beaker?!?!?!?!?!? Ice floats! Especially in a solution as dense as I'd expect this to be! A couple cubes do, but there are clearly cubes ON THE BOTTOM???? What the...????????? OK, I see one bobbed to the surface, but at 35:45, there are still at least two cubes solidly on the bottom - 'Scuse me, MIND BLOWN! Possible your freezer is set so cold that the cubes were able to freeze condensation or similar, and stick to the bottom of the beaker? Only explanation I can come up with for ice cubes that refuse to float...
I put them in earlier and they froze to the bottom of the beaker.
I would think the coil condenser would need to be at a larger downward angle so that any liquid formed in the coil would flow out into the catch vessel
I noticed that too late in the process
I'm going to make a silver refining set-up. I'm hooked.
The addition funnel can be used for sulfuric addition to nitrate salt mixed with water...the condenser receives the nitric acid to liquid and the waste potassium sulfate salt in the reaction vessel can be used as fertilizer for the bushes
Great video as always but I wanted to see you separate out all the PGM's after you did the small sample.
Maybe in a future video
I love watching u refine gold fantastic job.
Rube Goldberg would be proud, Senior!
This is how we learn is by experimenting and you are the wizard thank you for sharing this very enjoyable video with us six stars sir
65th! The only thing missing is electricity arcing between two rods generating a loud buzzing noise. Ha ha. Roger in Pierre South Dakota
Another awesome video!! Keep em coming!
I miss seeing the 1911 on the table. Very gangster :)
Never saw that 😂
@@adws5696 When the coof happened, our good man wanted to let undesirables know what’s waiting if they came knocking. I had mine next to me similarly lol.
That my lead dispenser. For uninvited guests with conquest on their mind. They come looking for gold and silver, but get lead instead.
@@sreetips they get that .9999 triple refined lead slug. Might be cool to pour your own silver bullets.
@@ExtractingMetals I find lead optimal in both mass and price :)
I'd be tempted to dig my projectile out afterwards if it were silver lol.
Nice contraption!
I think you want to add another column to that set up for it to recollect the nitric.
You need a stainless steel storage tank of some sort, then you can vaccume down the tank, use that for a vaccume and hook to your last peice of equippment store your fumes in it the they wont fill up your shop, google how to vaccume down a recovery tank, this method is used in hvac freon recovery everyday, just need chemical resistant parts, then you may be able to reflux and condense those gases from tank for a recycled dilute nitric acid
That’s a good idea.
@sreetips i mentioned this idea to you about a year ago on a different video as also a way to bottle your so2 gas for precipation
I’m not that sophisticated.
Fantastic
Being low by half a gram is better than being high by half a gram. This is a phenomenal yield. Things just keep getting better in sreetipsland.
I will be interested to see how your Nitrogen recycling loop works when you get the kinks smoothed out. I think all you need to do is increase the angle on that condenser tube and the liquid will run down like it's supposed to. Cant wait to see this baby in action.
I need taller bubbling columns, and more of them.
@@sreetips You could also use a bigger fume hood. The old one works great, but it's kind of limiting in the size of things you can put in there. Take a look at the Cleatech 72" vertical sash cabinet. Don't buy it, $9000, just copy it. Electrical and vacuum ports inside. Recessed floor to contain spills. Top and back vents to evacuate more quickly. You could build this for $300-$500 and never need to replace it.
Incinerate the old one, and you'll fine 10g of precious metals.
If I built my own, I’d use a 500 gallon poly plastic tank with a six inch connection on top. Cut an access in front, install an “F” rated high temp external fan in the attic.
@@sreetips Things to look forward to.
Watched all your vids. So happy to see this pop on now!!!
if you want to trap NOx gas, you need to catch it into a balloon. condensing and distilling doesn't since it's boiling point is to low (or you have to use liquid nitrogen to cool it)...
i didn't understand the whole setup in you last video, but now i think a balloon is all you need. or bubble it directly into the H2O2.
Pretty cool how he shows the trial and error process.
Awesome as always ! Thank you sir
Gooood afternoon from central Florida! Hope everyone has a great afternoon!
Goooood afternoon!
Hello David..hello Sreetips.
Have a wonderful weekend both of you my good friends 🙂
Glad you’re safe!! I do got to ask, what type of mask and filters are you using? Also in my opinion you rock!
3MP95
@ I have been reading your book C.M. Hokey. I really enjoy it. I’m retired with a recently back rebuild. From S-1 to T-11. Everything went great. So I really enjoy watching your videos. Thank you Kevin!
Excellent! Hope you feel better.
Maybe try putting the Graham condenser first, vertical, then optionally the Allihn. And use a bubbler stone as someone else suggested.
Agree
🤔 might have to upgrade the fume hood😅 you have out grown it 👍👍great video
Wow! About as close as you can get. You also have PGMs. So pretty dang good.
while sreetips does the same thing, he does try to mix things up with experiments, with something happening in a funky way
I figure you must have considered this already but want to make sure. Can you take the vacuum pump exhaust/output back into the fume hood so any fumes are handled there?
Yes
id like to see what is in your drain trap at some time....gotta be "some" precious metals in there im guessing. 🙂
Maybe try to bubble the NO2 vapors in water to recover the nitric ?
Wow! This is like the other level. Great video, no matter the fails.
Good work team
Thank you Sreetips for taking that s Stannis test after you boiled the gold in hydrochloric acid...😊
I was surprised that it was negative.
I do think it's worth trying to capture those nitrogen dioxide fumes. Love seeing the experiments, looking forward to the next one.
There’s got to be a way to do it.
Maybe multiple bubbler rigs in series. And pressurize the system using keck clips on all the joints.
@@sreetips i put a comment on a way.to do it
Try running the NO2 through a long, wide tube coiled and submerged in the bucket, so it is full of water.
This will allow the NOX concentration to build up and act as it's own oxidizer when making HNO3--see my chemical equations in the comment to your last long form video.
Ideally, you shouldn't need any H2O2--what's the point buying a different chemical to get another chemical through roundabout means when you can buy it directly? H2O2 is probably more expensive (per mole, once you account for the concentrations.) If using waste NOX is to be a net gain for you, it must work with water or another cheap chemical.
@@kmarasin Most NO2 scrubbers use sodium hydroxide, to produce sodium nitrate as a waste product. Their main purpose is to reduce the amount of NO2 going out the chimney. Even with a fume hood it's a good idea to scrub waste gases when you can. It's the same with SO2 and chlorine, instead of just letting it all go out to the atmosphere you scrub those gases and then the function of the fume hood is what it essentially should be, protecting you from incidental exposure, rather than as a dumping ground for waste.
An excellent prediction on the gold content of your refined jewels, only off by 0.5 g !
I wonder how much gold vapor has settled on all your surfaces within your laboratory over the many years you are working there, and how you would recollect that.
The gold simply does not get hot enough to evaporate with his torch, 1,400°C. It can sublimate though at around 750°C and nano particles can condense on cooler surfaces, like the nozzle of a torch, that is near in space to the area where sublimation is occuring. This would reveal itself as a thin gold plating of a higher karat of the substance being heated. It does group toward the higher karats though since sublimation of any other metals present, copper (much higher temps 1084°C, if at all, partial pressure sensitive in low pressure settings), silver (much higher, and proprietary, at one atmosphere) will prevent them from accumulating. The nano particles are not neutral in charge, this can be used to advantage for capture, maybe. Gold sublimation is tricky stuff, gold vaporization and capture is better understood and can be pleasant to see. This is called, damn, it escapes me at present, maybe someone else can chime in with the name of this process in glass work?
in a years time Sreetips will split the gold atom and usher in a new era. I love the innovation.
Ni reacts with DMG too. But the Ni complex compound is red. I suspect there is some Ni in white gold. Greetings and regards!
Another great bar of GOLD
That watch just sitting there, silently observing stuff being melted down in front of it, like something out of a kid's cartoon from the 80's or early 90's...
It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
I don't know how or where you keep getting all your gold from, but I am envious. I've been going to estate sales and garage sales for months now, making sure to be there extremely early to be the first one in, but just can't find any gold! It's like they're taking their gold somewhere else first, before the estate sale happens, I dunno... 🤷🏼
I sure wish I had your luck.
Phil, I worked in a jewelry repair shop. I’m good friends with the owner. Some customers have gold jewelry that is broken beyond repair. The customer asks what can be done. The jeweler tells them that it’s scrap and can be sold as scrap gold. The customer doesn’t know where to sell it so they ask the jeweler where. The jeweler tells them he knows “a guy” that won’t try to cheat them, then he calls me. I’m ten minutes away so I hop in my car and drive down and buy their scrap. I get calls all the time. He can’t buy scrap gold through his shop because the law requires licensure. But I’m just a citizen buying scrap from another citizen. So no license is required.
I know the guys that runs the estate sales. They know I buy gold and silver. So when they have scrap gold or sterling silver flatware to sell, they call me. I go and buy the metal before the sale even starts. I pay them in cash and give them their ask price. That way, they don’t have to worry about lugging it to the sale, setting it out, and worry about getting stollen. I make it easy for them. In return, I get all the gold and silver that they have to sell.
But we’ve noticed that it’s getting harder to find the good deals lately. People may be starting to wake up that their cash is worthless, and still declining.
@sreetips ah, ok. So it's not just me that's having difficulty.
And that's not good! You're hands down, my favorite channel, and have been for years now! I've learned so much from you! Everything I know has come mostly from your channel, and a little bit from Hoke's book. I don't want to see you having to shut the channel down because you can't find any more, that would be horrible!
Wow, well thank you for explaining a little further on how you come across your metals. I'll have to try that; reaching out to the people that coordinate estate sales and talk to them about selling me the gold before the estate sale.
Again, thank you for all your advice and info and education and well, everything! I really do appreciate you and all you've done for TH-cam ❤
I have no clue what you were trying to do here.
But the ingot turned out beautiful as always.
It’s for the show mostly.
@@sreetips Are you worried that people could get tired of nitric boils in beakers?
But it's magic every time.
I still can’t believe that this many people like to see gold (and silver) refining.
@@sreetips Zen in the art of gold refining. It's exciting to see a master crafting his chemistry.
Copper is a very beautiful metal, too.
@@sreetipsNever..ever board to se Sir🔥
Using a sparger immersed in water contained in a tall container pass the nitrogen dioxide gas into the water. You will get a solution of nitrous acid and nitric acid. Then add some hydrogen peroxide to convert the nitrous acid to nitric acid. You will then have a dilute solution of nitric acid.
Hello Mrs and Mr Sreetips.
Hope you have a nice day🔥God bless you🙏By the way...Very cool rig👍
And a blessed weekend⚒️
Arne
Thanks Arne!
@@sreetips Min venn. Har du noengang tenkt på hva som skal skje når vi en dag er hjemme hos vår Far i himmelen.
Personlig så tror jeg det skal skje mye der. For det første så skal vi møte vår frelser og herre Jesus Kristus..så våre forfedre som vi skal møte.. venner vi fikk her på jorden..vi skal få treffe de sjeler vi var et lys for mens vi vandret på jorden. Der blir det møter og tilbedelse,men også dype personlige samtaler. Vi skal få høre om Jesus og Apostlene. Jeg tror vi også skal få dype samtaler med de.
Jeg husker at du sa til meg..Arne..Da skal du og jeg treffes å samtale. Det er mye å se frem til bror 🙂 Der er vi endelig uten smerter vi bar hee på jorden. Da skal vi ligge i Guds grønne enger. Hvilken dag det vil bli Sreetips 🙏
Isn't there a check valve that you can get to install on top of the addition funnel to prevent gas reflux? I understand that as the liquid is removed, in a closed loop system, the space has to be replaced by something. With a 1 way check valve at the top of the funnel, it would allow for clean air replacement, without any fume reflux.
I think I saw a few flakes jump out when you were pouring the inquarted metal over the ice.
Me too
Sweet I was hoping you'd use a vacuum setup to pull the liquid out of that weird looking flask instead of having a dismantle at all the time. and grab it and dump it all.
That was very handy
12:02 do you use silicone grease on your glass fitting connections?
No, I used sulfuric acid
Dude is becoming the Walter White of refining
😆🤣😂
Excellent video , the joys of process chemistry, but if you notice when you were adding the dilute nitric to the delivery funnel , the cold liquid condensed the fumes by contact , so if you have sufficient height adding the addition funnel to the exhaust flow of the condenser so the cold liquid dilute Nitric running down into the traction vessel takes away the red fumes directly
Incidentally why not see if an induction heater would be suitable for melting your metals , electricity is seriously cheaper than acetylene and oxygen , automotive ones , for loosening rusted bolts would work just fine
We used to use an kitchen induction hob to melt lead
I prefer the torch setup
Probably better off just adding the H2O2 to the reaction vessel.
Ah, i see by "mad" you mean "mildly exasperated"
"A" for effort for trying new ways.
i commented about a wider hood before this video ever came out. awesome. hahahaha.
Am I right to assume that all the ice used for cooling is frozen distilled water?
Tap water