don't throw away your fools gold

[garnethawkins]

Many people (including myself a few months back) thought fools gold was worthless, but thanks to a bit of research and trial and error i was able to strip out 11grams of gold from what i had originally thought was 100% pyrite, as well as a fair quantity of platinum (haven't figured out how to process platinum yet so if anyone happens to know please tell me lol)

As heatho stated in the "ureka gold" post, there are numerous ways to extract gold ore from pyrite and other potentially rich sources, and Im sure that this post will open the flood gates to other techniques... Or that's the plan anyways lol

after collecting a large amount of fools gold for the kids - 10 ounces of the crap (i was collecting it for the kids who lost interest after a while) i read that it was possible that real gold ore could be locked in the matrix

now seeing as i couldn't acquire any nitric acid to make Aqua regia i was forced to use the "acid peroxide" method.

STEP ONE
grind down the pyrite as best you can using a morter and pestal - this is probably the hardest and most time consuming part, so if anyone knows a quicker way id LOVE to hear it :lol:

STEP TWO
soak in hcl over night
*pyrite reacts violently with hcl and lets off alot of toxic fumes DO THIS OUTSIDE

STEP THREE
decant the old acid and replenish with new hcl, this time adding 6% hydrogen peroxide, hp is an oxidisor and helps convert gold into gold chloride thus making it soluble, AGAIN outside with all of this as the fumes are toxic and the yellow stuff just isn't worth dying over .
After a couple of hours the reaction will have stopped, add some more hydrogen peroxide and repeat process until peroxide no longer initiates a reaction.

STEP FOUR
Take a coffee filter and filter out any remaining solids (mostly quarts and sands but occasionally you will find some platinum, worth checking in your pan)

STEP FIVE
PRECIPITATION
get some sodium hydroxide and mix it with water, wait until the exothermic reaction is finished (glass will be cool to the touch) and using am eye dropper, slowly add sodium hydroxide to your acid peroxide mixture and you should see a brown cloud like precipitate forming, keep adding sodium hydroxide until no more precipitate forms and leave over night.

STEP SIX
WASHING
take another coffee filter and filter out your solids from your liquids, then get some distilled water and pore it through your precipitate until the water starts filtering out cleanly.
At this point your precipitate still contains alot of other contaminants like copper etc, so add some more hcl and re filter.
What its left is pure gold wash it with some more distilled water and leave to dry on the filter for the next step.

STEP SEVEN
SMELTING
ok you need a crucible, a torch capable of melting gold (mapp gas works well butane doesn't burn hot enough) and a flux made from a 1:1 ratio of borox and soda ash.
Gently pre heat the crucibal to avoid thermal shock and add a thin layer of flux.
Then add your gold precipitate and an equal amount of flux on top and (again SLOWLY) melt down your flux, once melted you can crank up the heat, you will know when you have gotten it hot enough as the powder will have melted into a bubble in the middle of your crucibal, CAREFULLY pore molten gold into a bowl of Luke warm water to help remove any flux that may be fused to your gold button

Congrats! Your now alot poorer but you have more gold

 

[Heatho]

Cool, glad it worked. I'm pretty keen to try on small amounts
too, would probably only test 30g of suspected ore though.
Then decide whether to do more or not, that's just me though.

There is a lab supplies company in Sydney which sells Nitric Acid
in small amounts. Actually they have most of the stuff for this
experiment. Ezylab I think. Just need to supply drivers licence.
They may know of a company in VIC as shipping hazardous
materials can be expensive.

I was under the impression that Pyrite had to be baked before
extraction to release Sulpher Dioxide, I guess the Peroxide would
do the oxidising in this case.

Some very nasty gasses in this experiment, not too bad if very
careful though. Good result.

 

[jenmal]

Very interesting

 

[garnethawkins]

Cheers for the heads up on acquiring nitric acid would certainly reduce the time it takes for processing... Not sure how much you would get out of an ounce of ore, i used 10 ounces and only pulled out 11 grams but i suppose for experimentation purposes i guess its not going to matter as long as you get a positive result.
Let me know how you go

 

[Heatho]

I doubt I'll do this anytime soon, but maybe one day.

1g of gold per oz is pretty rich ore though.

 

[garnethawkins]

It is indeed i am certain in my attempt it was more luck then anything which is why i was saying Im not sure how much you would get from a single ounce

 

[Heatho]

If you follow the steps correctly it's not that hard in theory, but yeah probably a bit more difficult in practice.

I'd start with a small amount just to test the yield, even 10 grams could be enough. Would like to know what I'm getting before potentially wasting stuff and making nasty gasses for no return.