I’ve been a goldsmith 36 years refined my first through electrolysis. ( I was a novice at the time). Apprentice. I’ve relearned a lot from your knowledge of chemistry and safety . Your teaching a whole generation to be confident in skills instead of college debt.
I know professional refiners don't value copper too much but I love it's color! The colors of copper's salts are very beautiful blues and greens. Great video!
Wonderful video, Mr Sreetips! But everybody knows I'm the REAL Copper Inquarter! 😆 Let me give you some advice, good sir. When you do your nitric acid boils to remove base metals... for copper inquartations, measure out 4.2ml of nitric acid per gram of base metal and add a little more nitric acid for good measure. For 10k, you can use the 5.2542 constant multiplied by the weight of the karat gold to easily determine how much nitric acid in ml is required. For 14k, you can use the 7.3584 constant. Use this same amount of distilled water for your nitric acid dilution. Let the reaction progress for about 3-4 hours until there are absolutely zero fumes left. Then decant this base metal solution and rinse the gold well with distilled water followed by a distilled water boil. This distilled water boil with remove all remaining color deep within the gold. Rinse a few more times with distilled water then perform a second nitric acid boil. You will notice that this second nitric acid boil will produce zero fumes and zero color. Allow this second nitric acid boil to progress for a good 30 minutes for good measure, then decant and save this unreacted dilute nitric acid for a future refining. Then you can rinse the gold with distilled water a few times and perform another distilled water boil followed by a few final distilled water rinses. You can then proceed to dissolving the gold in aqua regia as usual. I have followed this procedure multiple times and it never fails and produces stunning looking gold. Again, great work, sir! And thank you for the wonderful content! Cheers! Copper Inquarter
@@williamfoote2888 Yes, it is about 20 degrees Celsius higher than gold. Also, the smaller gold pieces heat up quicker than the larger piece of copper wire.
I would love to see a video on the setup you have and all the safety equipment you use and wear.( Fume hood,chemical storage ,etc.) My wife and I have collected over 4 lbs of Gold filled scrap from thrift stores over the last two years (tip .go on senior's day to get 20 % off) and was thinking of processing it in the near future and would like to do it as safely as possible
Fume hood is a must. After that, I’d recommend doing a small batch, a hundred grams, to completion. To get a feel for it. Then scale up a little at a time. Four pounds is enough to do several small batches.
I’ve been hoarding scrap gold and silver for awhile now. I found your channel a couple of years ago and have been trying to learn everything I can from you. We are going to be moving soon, and when we do, I’ve already budgeted in a large shed and everything I need to. I’ve been wanting to refine my gold and have to stay on myself to wait until I have everything I need… thanks for another great video sir
A thought occurred to me, Sr. Chief....i looked up the melting points of both copper and silver....silver melts at 1763 F. Copper melts at 1984 F. I don't know how much Acetelyne or MAP gas costs out there, but the extra 200 degrees to melt copper every time you need to inquart might start to add up.
The specific heat of copper is higher than the specific heat of silver, however the amount of material we're looking at is so small that we're talking about a few more seconds of acetylene to melt the copper anyway.
Those blue shades are incredible. I love the pulsing during the boilings that has been happening the last couple videos during the nitric boil time lapses. It is reminiscent of heart beats.
I've been noticing that too and it's kind of interesting that it happens with the 6 carrot (25%) Nitric boils but not with hydrochloric or AR but only with the inquarted gold nitric boils which is kind of interesting and I wonder why that is
Hello sir, copper seems to be better indicator, if the nitric boil is clean, however nitric consumption is like 4x higher (I calculated it some time ago, I remember x3.5 or something). Also, clean silver is "byproduct" when using silver inquartation, so to disolve it separately is another amount of nitric. If clean gold is priority, copper definitely has advantages. If economy of process is priority, silver is way to go... That is my take from todays video. Thanks...
You are welcome. Adding copper to my placer gold was something a friend suggested I do a few years ago, I thought he was nuts until he briefly explained inquarting. Fortunately, I wandered into your channel whist in search of a more thorough explanation and found not only that but much more. Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
I'll like to see copper being used to inquart the gold from now on. I don't know why but the rose gold is beautiful and of course very little silver chloride to deal with 🙌🏻. Also i would suggest that you sumerge the ingots in diluted sulfuric acid to remove any left over borax (like you do sometimes), i know it may be not needed but just to be perfect 👌🏻. I love this channel!
I feel like the gold crashing out of the solution would be a cool effect in a movie if shot with a macro or probe lens. 🤔 Looks like billowing clouds forming out of nothing. It's very satisfying to watch that part.
Sreetips, for some visual variety, I’d like to see the precipitaion done in “reverse" if thats possible. Create a dilute SMB solution and add concentrated gold solution to dilute SMB. Would be neat to see done a few drops at a time from a pipette or dropper. Maybe do a small scale test to see if its vaible first. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing, I can't find much sterling silver around here so I almost always use copper for inquarting or parting. I'm glad you shared another video on using copper.
Very good video! Changing over to copper inquartation or just trying? It looks like your gold refining waste beaker is accumulating some gold pour off. How long do you wait before refining the gold refining waste? Keep up the great content!
So cool to see different methods, the last one was awesome too! Let's hope Streetips will decide to show us inquartation with other metals in the future, witch one can make the job and witch one can't...I presume there is something about the difference of fusion point...Loved this 6K rose gold!
Good sir. Where is the video of the refinements of the jewelers gold, the one that was cracking due to lead. I believe it was a sheet that he was trying to roll out. I can’t find it. Thank you! ❤
I absolutely love your videos!! Will you be using copper from now on since it gives you such good results? Or, was this just something to switch things up this time? Either way, your videos are fascinating to me. Thank you for doing them.
hey sreetips! when i read the thumbnail of the video, i immediately went and read the wikipedia page for copper chloride. sure enough, it is soluble in hydrochloric acid, as i suspected. you taught me some chemistry :D
Copper has always been an excellent collector of precious metals. Easy to refine out also. That's how it's done in all the great copper smelters. Although in their large quantities they use electricity. Parting the precious as an end result.
@@Hossak Not surprising - Gold is worth about 7,500 times more than copper. It means that you can have a copper sample that is 99.987% pure copper and the rest being gold and the value for each of these two metals will be the same. You should look into the price of Plutonium: over $4 million per kilogram which is about 65 times more expensive than gold (on a weight basis)
Sorry I work in the mining industry and was just pointing out that when you sell your copper concentrate (5000 tonnes at a time) to a smelter, they generally pay over 98% for the gold content. I am sorry for the confusion.@@PetraKann
Now I wonder if using pure silver crystals will produce equally pure gold. Maybe these impurities come from the sterling silver and not from the silver itself?
Pure silver is colorless, like water. I’d lose the blue color indicator. Plus, pure silver crystal has already been through the silver cell. Be like taking a step in the wrong direction.
I’ll bet it’s refreshing when you get to be helpful and take a break from the dark side of humanity. I support the police. Where would we be without you!
@@sreetips I was a fire fighter from 18 to 25. Now I've been a law enforcement officer for 13 years. Always wanted to help people. There are still good people out here. Thanks for supporting my brothers and sisters
Hey Mr. Sree! Next time you get bored, could you do me a HUGE favor? 😅 If you could go through your videos and create playlists, that would be epicly helpful! A playlist for your gold filled, karat, e-waste, silver cell, and maybe a playlist for your fails for fun?, etc… OH! And a playlist of you equipment! Your fume hood is something i would like to have a better look at. I think you have videos on that already, but I’ve been struggling to find it! Scrolling through all your videos can get tiresome! Thanks in advance, and a BIG thanks for the plethora of content you’ve posted. You have taught me so much, that words can’t describe my gratitude.
In a previous video a year or two ago, I think I recall Sreetips saying it takes a lot more Nitric Acid to dissolve copper than the same volume of Silver. But in this video it was 6 doses the same as usual. Was the volume of Acid per dose higher?
I like this process because you can save your silver to process separately with less steps getting you the 2 best metals, clean gold and silver, using up a very easy to find one in copper.
@Sreetips It’s what I always use, only pure copper wire bare bright! The sterling silver I use up with making plain wedding bands and cuffs and jump rings! The down side is it eats up more HNO3! TBBW🐺
Funny question. If some how you dropped the beaker with the gold in insulation on the floor. Would you take the stump out and sprinkle it on the floor to recover it?
In the comments section of another video he told me he thought ammonia too corrosive and aggressive so he won't use it. He is right about that for the hot gas (ammoniak), but I've used ammonia (4N) at room temperature without problems. A fume hood is recommended when using larger amounts, be he already has that.
27:37 Thanks SREETIPS! This was a new experience, and I loved it. The finish with this method was something else in the video; also, you mentioned it. A question comes to my mind: why always pour into graphite mold? Could you explain what's benefit to that? I mean, if the mold can hold the temperature after pouring, further or directly, you can melt gold and shake the mold to have a perfect bar, isn't it?
Senior Chief, I'd like to insert my two cents here. You always make the statement "Silver AND base metals". I gold refining there are only two. Gold, and base metals. Silver is a base metal. I believe you might reach a lot more people if you referred to silver as a base metal instead of it's own. And then explain that you also refine silver and so you use it as a base metal to refine gold and that jump starts the silver refining process, which is a side process to the gold. I hear you trying to explain the inquartation process over and over and I think the issue is you are describing the refining of two precious metals at once, instead of refining gold and everything else is a base metal. I am not being critical of anything you do, you have actually helped me more than I can even begin to say. I love your videos and look forward to each and every one. Semper Fortis.
Off topic, but I've been going through your old videos trying to get a handle on shop setup requirements. Do you have a video on your glassware? Looking for minimum requirements, a nice setup and possibly the dream collection. Keep up the good work!
@@sreetips Most definitely a fume hood! Wouldn't even consider it otherwise. I'm trying to get a handle on price of entry into the hobby. Specifically I was interested in the glassware, since you seem to have a lot of various types and sizes of beakers, flasks, funnels, etc. I assume it's like most hobbies, the deeper you get the more you accumulate, but what do you consider the bare minimum needed to get started? Also are you picking them up at yard sales, Amazon or at the Lab Supply?
I buy my glassware on eBay. I had a chemistry lab in my basement when I was in 7th grade. This is more or less a carry-over into my adult life. I just bought the glassware as I needed it. You should be able to watch the videos and take notes. That’s what I did. But back then, there were no videos like mine to refer to.
That's great! Now you can catch up on all your silver processing without adding a bunch of additional silver on top of what you already have.👍 You are going to use a lot more copper though.
every stage looked cripser than usual. I did write a few days ago about using copper, is this video a reply to that or was it already planned? Regardless it was great and thank you for showing the video. I assume you use silver to inquart because you can reclaim the silver so less wastage?
I don't know how much time it takes for the ice to cool down the solution or even if it's important, but I think crushing the ice would make it quicker or use chilled water instead
Have you ever heard of ORMUS? Or white powdered gold from egyption times? I,m doing research into this topic and i am sure a part of the process is when the gold is in sponge for since its non metallic,any thought on this sir?
@@sreetips Have you watched David Hutchinson videos by chance ? His chemistry used when he found traces of it may interest you. He was leach mining / soil conditioning if I remember ?
I can’t even find out what it is. If it’s a compound of gold, then what are its constituents? You know, like chloroauric acid (gold dissolved in acid) is: H(AuCl4) according to Wikipedia. But nowhere to be found is the chemical formula compound known as “ORMUS”. It doesn’t exist.
@@sreetips ORMUS is a acromion . It is basically when you get a metal down to the point where it loses its magnetic properties and and gains new properties . kinda like graphene in 1 nanometer size compared to carbon from the pencil
I see. I don’t know how it’s done or if it can be done. I’ve seen the video of a guy in a tunic making it. But it doesn’t give any specifics. A lot like refining videos used to be when I first started watching RUclips 15 years ago.
Wow, great video. I like the copper used instead of sterling silver. It's much more cost effective than going out buying sterling. Are there any other metals that can be used Inquarting the gold? So far it's sterling silver and copper.
The book says brass. But brass is 85% copper 15% zinc. Zinc is high reactive and I believe that it would tend to cause the gold to crumble instead of remaining solid. This would make separation of the gold from the solution more difficult.
Excellent video and the end product justified inquarting with copper. Check your melting dish, it looks dull and might need a reflux of borax and could be why the gold beads are sticking to the melt dish. You can clean the melt dish with melted borax, the more, the better , gathering up the small spattered gold beads into 1 larger bead for a few 1/10ths of a gram extra.
Looks like you used less SMB with Copper Inquartation, with about the same number acid solution seperations as Silver Inquartation and less expense. Great alternative if you're low on Silver too.❤
I wonder when your going to do X-ray analysis to verify gold vs various methods. Would be interesting I think to see how much of what is left in the final product
There’s a respectable amount of gold in that waste piggy bank jug. Lol… I love those refining videos. Not sure why, but seeing value come outta waste like that is fascinating! 💪💪
The problem with copper is how much more nitric acid it takes to get it into solution. It also has a tendency to take some gold into solution with it. Silver can also do the same trick although not nearly so much.
Ok, here's one for ya. What about making certain golds to spec? Black Hills gold 2nd and 3rd colors are 14k with copper for the 'red' gold and 14k with silver for the 'green' gold. True "Black Hills Gold' supposedly as to be mined from there to be certified as such, but the chemistry is still intersting!
@@sreetips Or perhaps like a surgeon implanting an artificial joint? Not the same, but has other value than just financial. Gods forbid I should say 'art' because I totally don't get art, but ...
I didn't even know you could inquart with copper. Also the first thing I thought once you had inquarted it was, oh rose gold....then you said it. Great viewing as always.
Hey Kevin, but if you inquart with copper, you miss the chance to get rid of all the sterling silver who as a higher value once refined in crystals no ?
The sterling will find another path into the silver cell. I don't think this is an issue. You could say that inquarting with copper doesn't give the used nitric a chance to do double duty after it dissolves the base metals in the 6K gold, but I don't think that's a big issue. If you wanted to say that this method uses a bit more nitric, I think that's correct.
Wow thanks for that , very impressive. I noticed you had a slightly carbonised softer flame on your oxy torch , on other occasions you have had an oxidised hard flame with quite a lot of smoke ! You may be losing some of your yield to burning? Just a throat , cheers
I ran out of feed stock shot. The cement silver is backing up on me something terrible. I need to get my furnace fire up and melt some impure silver shot.
I still think it would be interesting to inquart the gold, but make a bar or button instead, then flatten it out as thin as possible with the rollers. Coil it into a spring and then see how it does with the hydrochloric acid. I think it would be quite fascinating to see if creating a larger surface for the acid to work on would separate the gold and silver faster. Or just to see what it looks like.
Darn it all! 🤣 Maybe if you have a nice hammer you could ust it to bang out your frustrations? Darn banks, supressing silver! *_BANG!_* (I keep lots too, its' GOT to break.) Darn YT making creators do stupid things! *_BANG! BANG!!_* Darn neighbors dog barking at the squirrels after I've been up till 4 a.m. waiting for this or that chemical reaction... *_Bang! Pow!_* 😁
Thank you for yet another very educational video, I always enjoy them! One question: how do you deal with your used crucibles, especially the ones wich are too dirty or damaged to use anymore? Do you cook them in sulfuric acid to dissolve all the borax and collect the small beads of metal wich were stuck to the crucible / trapped in the borax accumulations? Or do your save them to crush them up some time in the future?
@@sreetipsGet a ball mill and crush them to a powder. Leach with excess HNO3 and HCl. Heating would help, but letting it soak for days/weeks, and topping the container off with fresh acid will be necessary. Filter off the solids, rinse the powder/sludge with a couple aliquots of fresh acid. Process the acid solution like you normally would. I don’t know where you’d get a ball mill from for a one time use. Maybe this is your chance to do a collab with the fellow at mmblc? He’s got one. You and Mrs S take a cross country trip, get him to smash your dishes to powder, and you show him how to do the Hoke procedure correctly. Win win. Nifty content creation.
@@sreetips No more than your food dishes might. Hi temp ceramics are intentionally tough. You face the same problem that mmblc does: small amounts of valuable metal mixed in with lots of Si/Al oxides. He thinks he can simply crush them and float the Au out, like placer ores, but the amount retained on the alumina/silica grains is where the biggest volume remains. In his case, he has a witches brew of chemical elements that’d require him to use a cyanide leach to extract the important metal value, you only have a couple elements to deal with. All are amenable to a good acid leach.
So, I have an odd situation. I dumped about 5 pounds of trimmed fingers into a bucket of filtered HCL about 5 months ago. (I got busy) Today I opened it up and started taking out the fingers expecting a good number of foils. However, other than a few small pieces sticking to a finger here and there, there were no foils at all! It has been hot this summer (Florida) but I was under the impression that HCL did not affect gold in any way. What am I missing???? There may have been a little peroxide. But if there was it was not much.
"Could this be something you could use your waste copper (the stuff you cement out on the iron prior to waste disposal) for?" Very, very dirty - tin and lead bringing extra problems to refining.
@@NorthDownReader where exactly are the tin and lead coming from if it's copper nitrate reacting with iron? I'd expect you'd filter the copper nitrate before adding yo the waste bucket and the lead has already been dropped out of solution as the sulfate and filtered previously.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 There's plenty of contamination being introduced into the system from Sterling silver, dirty copper and dirty iron.That's even if you are sure that anything in the carat gold and floor sweeps was precipitated by the sulphuric acid and caught in the filter papers (Then the filter papers get processed anyway) The stock pot and waste bucket aren't just precipitated from nitrates, they are cemented out in an electrochemical reaction. Anything more reactive than copper stays in solution in the stock pot and ends up in the waste bucket. Anything less reactive than iron cements out in the waste bucket along with the copper. I never saw any sign that there was any filtering of the bulk of the liquids going from the stock pot to the waste bucket, only the precious dregs were filtered for the stock pot recoveries.
I really like the addition of clocks and timers to give context to the time lapse footage! Thanks Sreetips!
I’ve been a goldsmith 36 years refined my first through electrolysis. ( I was a novice at the time). Apprentice.
I’ve relearned a lot from your knowledge of chemistry and safety . Your teaching a whole generation to be confident in skills instead of college debt.
Thank you!
Man that blue color is something else
I love the new lighting! Watching that gold precipitate with the SMB under that light is magical.
MSB , on that first spoonful has always been my favorite part . Watching the cloud form and change 👌
That beaker bump at 14:35 nearly gave me a heart attack. Loving the increased production value, thank you again sir, always a treat.
I know professional refiners don't value copper too much but I love it's color! The colors of copper's salts are very beautiful blues and greens. Great video!
Wonderful video, Mr Sreetips! But everybody knows I'm the REAL Copper Inquarter! 😆 Let me give you some advice, good sir. When you do your nitric acid boils to remove base metals... for copper inquartations, measure out 4.2ml of nitric acid per gram of base metal and add a little more nitric acid for good measure. For 10k, you can use the 5.2542 constant multiplied by the weight of the karat gold to easily determine how much nitric acid in ml is required. For 14k, you can use the 7.3584 constant. Use this same amount of distilled water for your nitric acid dilution. Let the reaction progress for about 3-4 hours until there are absolutely zero fumes left. Then decant this base metal solution and rinse the gold well with distilled water followed by a distilled water boil. This distilled water boil with remove all remaining color deep within the gold. Rinse a few more times with distilled water then perform a second nitric acid boil. You will notice that this second nitric acid boil will produce zero fumes and zero color. Allow this second nitric acid boil to progress for a good 30 minutes for good measure, then decant and save this unreacted dilute nitric acid for a future refining. Then you can rinse the gold with distilled water a few times and perform another distilled water boil followed by a few final distilled water rinses. You can then proceed to dissolving the gold in aqua regia as usual. I have followed this procedure multiple times and it never fails and produces stunning looking gold. Again, great work, sir! And thank you for the wonderful content! Cheers!
Copper Inquarter
there he is lol!
Nice alternative to always having to deal with silver every time, well done !!
Certainly a bit cheaper than using silver every time. Plus copper is easier to get too.
It's really cool to see the process with a different base metal. I was quite surprised at how difficult the copper looked when melting.
Copper melts at a very high temperature.
@@duanedodson1Well.. higher than Ag.
@@williamfoote2888 Yes, it is about 20 degrees Celsius higher than gold. Also, the smaller gold pieces heat up quicker than the larger piece of copper wire.
I would love to see a video on the setup you have and all the safety equipment you use and wear.( Fume hood,chemical storage ,etc.) My wife and I have collected over 4 lbs of Gold filled scrap from thrift stores over the last two years (tip .go on senior's day to get 20 % off) and was thinking of processing it in the near future and would like to do it as safely as possible
Fume hood is a must. After that, I’d recommend doing a small batch, a hundred grams, to completion. To get a feel for it. Then scale up a little at a time. Four pounds is enough to do several small batches.
When you add the stump out it reminds me of the surface of a few planets they show.
"THE AMERICAN DROPPER" Mr Streetips content just keeps upgrading and is more addictive than ever( if this is your practice)
I’ve been hoarding scrap gold and silver for awhile now. I found your channel a couple of years ago and have been trying to learn everything I can from you. We are going to be moving soon, and when we do, I’ve already budgeted in a large shed and everything I need to. I’ve been wanting to refine my gold and have to stay on myself to wait until I have everything I need… thanks for another great video sir
Get a fume hood! No way to safely do these reactions without one.
@@sreetipsyes sir, I’ve already designed my setup and made a list of everything I need and want and a fume hood is #1 on the list.
A thought occurred to me, Sr. Chief....i looked up the melting points of both copper and silver....silver melts at 1763 F. Copper melts at 1984 F. I don't know how much Acetelyne or MAP gas costs out there, but the extra 200 degrees to melt copper every time you need to inquart might start to add up.
The specific heat of copper is higher than the specific heat of silver, however the amount of material we're looking at is so small that we're talking about a few more seconds of acetylene to melt the copper anyway.
Correct, but I’m still using silver. This was just a demo
Those blue shades are incredible. I love the pulsing during the boilings that has been happening the last couple videos during the nitric boil time lapses. It is reminiscent of heart beats.
I've been noticing that too and it's kind of interesting that it happens with the 6 carrot (25%) Nitric boils but not with hydrochloric or AR but only with the inquarted gold nitric boils which is kind of interesting and I wonder why that is
It's the hotplate turning on then off, maintaining temperature.
I too find the rhythm pleasing to watch :)
It’s the thermostat on the heating pad cause it to pulse during the time lapse.
That was so funny
Hello sir, copper seems to be better indicator, if the nitric boil is clean, however nitric consumption is like 4x higher (I calculated it some time ago, I remember x3.5 or something). Also, clean silver is "byproduct" when using silver inquartation, so to disolve it separately is another amount of nitric.
If clean gold is priority, copper definitely has advantages. If economy of process is priority, silver is way to go... That is my take from todays video. Thanks...
Agree
Just so calming to watch your videos. Thanks.
It's that radio voice XD
That's one of my favorite things about Sreetips. Totally chill. Enjoy on the edge of your seat or just listen.
I agree
You are welcome. Adding copper to my placer gold was something a friend suggested I do a few years ago, I thought he was nuts until he briefly explained inquarting. Fortunately, I wandered into your channel whist in search of a more thorough explanation and found not only that but much more. Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
I'll like to see copper being used to inquart the gold from now on. I don't know why but the rose gold is beautiful and of course very little silver chloride to deal with 🙌🏻. Also i would suggest that you sumerge the ingots in diluted sulfuric acid to remove any left over borax (like you do sometimes), i know it may be not needed but just to be perfect 👌🏻. I love this channel!
The smb drops were stunning, loved the close ups! Great result with a nice little bar at the end!
I feel like the gold crashing out of the solution would be a cool effect in a movie if shot with a macro or probe lens. 🤔 Looks like billowing clouds forming out of nothing. It's very satisfying to watch that part.
A lovely result. I too enjoy seeing the timelapses and the addition of clocks and timers. 👍
Sreetips, for some visual variety, I’d like to see the precipitaion done in “reverse" if thats possible. Create a dilute SMB solution and add concentrated gold solution to dilute SMB. Would be neat to see done a few drops at a time from a pipette or dropper. Maybe do a small scale test to see if its vaible first. Thanks!
Excellent suggestion. Thank you.
That would be interesting. Nice idea
Your work is incredible Sir!
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing, I can't find much sterling silver around here so I almost always use copper for inquarting or parting. I'm glad you shared another video on using copper.
Its nice to see how you have learned and grown with this.
We have learned
Awesome work Sreetips.
Omg lol, I'm in bed just about to go to sleep and i see a new gold video, kevin, it's 2:54 here in Ireland 😂😂😂.
Sorry about that!
Looked very clean after the first refining pass. Probably was 3 9s already
That’s a testament to how good inquarting with silver and parting with nitric is at cleaning the gold.
One of my favorite channels.
Very good video! Changing over to copper inquartation or just trying? It looks like your gold refining waste beaker is accumulating some gold pour off. How long do you wait before refining the gold refining waste? Keep up the great content!
Just a demo. I refine silver. I usually wait about six months to recover gold from the waste container.
Gold in solution never gets old
Great series! Thank you.
So cool to see different methods, the last one was awesome too! Let's hope Streetips will decide to show us inquartation with other metals in the future, witch one can make the job and witch one can't...I presume there is something about the difference of fusion point...Loved this 6K rose gold!
Beautiful, thank you for sharing your work sir.
Your orange tang and orange smoke are amazing.
Good sir.
Where is the video of the refinements of the jewelers gold, the one that was cracking due to lead. I believe it was a sheet that he was trying to roll out. I can’t find it.
Thank you! ❤
I can’t remember
@@sreetips
Okay. Thank you good sir. I’ll keep looking. Thank you for all the videos and information you post up. By far, yours are the best! ❤️🔥
I absolutely love your videos!! Will you be using copper from now on since it gives you such good results? Or, was this just something to switch things up this time? Either way, your videos are fascinating to me. Thank you for doing them.
I refine silver. The first step is to dissolve it n nitric. So I’ll be using silver to inquart. This was just a demo to show that copper can be used.
Great video it was brighter even as a melt. Awesome
hey sreetips! when i read the thumbnail of the video, i immediately went and read the wikipedia page for copper chloride. sure enough, it is soluble in hydrochloric acid, as i suspected. you taught me some chemistry :D
Excellent!
Cool. Love how you change things up.
Good job. Copper is good when you dont have any silver to process. Good clean copper helps too.
Nice ~ good to see different processes to get to the final inglette.
I like how after all the gold settles to the bottom after adding the stump out the water becomes so clear
Copper has always been an excellent collector of precious metals. Easy to refine out also. That's how it's done in all the great copper smelters. Although in their large quantities they use electricity. Parting the precious as an end result.
Yup - that is why you get over 98% payment for the gold content of your copper concentrate.
@@Hossak
Not surprising - Gold is worth about 7,500 times more than copper.
It means that you can have a copper sample that is 99.987% pure copper and the rest being gold and the value for each of these two metals will be the same.
You should look into the price of Plutonium: over $4 million per kilogram which is about 65 times more expensive than gold (on a weight basis)
Sorry I work in the mining industry and was just pointing out that when you sell your copper concentrate (5000 tonnes at a time) to a smelter, they generally pay over 98% for the gold content. I am sorry for the confusion.@@PetraKann
Now I wonder if using pure silver crystals will produce equally pure gold. Maybe these impurities come from the sterling silver and not from the silver itself?
Pure silver is colorless, like water. I’d lose the blue color indicator. Plus, pure silver crystal has already been through the silver cell. Be like taking a step in the wrong direction.
Nice, I love copper chemistry it has all the best colors without too much toxicity!
Boy, wet gold powder sure is stubborn, took much longer than usual to get that melted.
Oh yeah. Kids go play, daddy is watching his sreetips
Rhode Island police officer.
Anther great finish to my awful night shift
I’ll bet it’s refreshing when you get to be helpful and take a break from the dark side of humanity. I support the police. Where would we be without you!
@@sreetips I was a fire fighter from 18 to 25. Now I've been a law enforcement officer for 13 years. Always wanted to help people. There are still good people out here. Thanks for supporting my brothers and sisters
"Copper Inquarter" is going to like this one lol
Uh huh.
He made a comment.
Hey Mr. Sree! Next time you get bored, could you do me a HUGE favor? 😅 If you could go through your videos and create playlists, that would be epicly helpful! A playlist for your gold filled, karat, e-waste, silver cell, and maybe a playlist for your fails for fun?, etc… OH! And a playlist of you equipment! Your fume hood is something i would like to have a better look at. I think you have videos on that already, but I’ve been struggling to find it! Scrolling through all your videos can get tiresome! Thanks in advance, and a BIG thanks for the plethora of content you’ve posted. You have taught me so much, that words can’t describe my gratitude.
In a previous video a year or two ago, I think I recall Sreetips saying it takes a lot more Nitric Acid to dissolve copper than the same volume of Silver. But in this video it was 6 doses the same as usual.
Was the volume of Acid per dose higher?
It was six boils, about the usual (I've seen seven a couple of times), the amount of nitric in each boil was about double.
For this amount of gold 5 nitric boils would have done it using silver, maybe four.
I like this process because you can save your silver to process separately with less steps getting you the 2 best metals, clean gold and silver, using up a very easy to find one in copper.
The first step with silver is to dissolve it in nitric. So that’s why I use silver to inquart. Refining both metals at the same time.
@Sreetips
It’s what I always use, only pure copper wire bare bright! The sterling silver I use up with making plain wedding bands and cuffs and jump rings!
The down side is it eats up more HNO3!
TBBW🐺
Funny question. If some how you dropped the beaker with the gold in insulation on the floor. Would you take the stump out and sprinkle it on the floor to recover it?
Possibly, but I hope that day never comes.
Why are you not doing in purification dilute ammonia boils after rinsing smb with water and HCL boil, gets it cleaner.
In the comments section of another video he told me he thought ammonia too corrosive and aggressive so he won't use it. He is right about that for the hot gas (ammoniak), but I've used ammonia (4N) at room temperature without problems. A fume hood is recommended when using larger amounts, be he already has that.
Because it’s not necessary.
Excellent video thank you 😊
Wow, been wondering when you'd try this. I saw Nile Red do this a few years back. So interesting to see how the process is different.
27:37 Thanks SREETIPS! This was a new experience, and I loved it. The finish with this method was something else in the video; also, you mentioned it. A question comes to my mind: why always pour into graphite mold? Could you explain what's benefit to that? I mean, if the mold can hold the temperature after pouring, further or directly, you can melt gold and shake the mold to have a perfect bar, isn't it?
That’s the way I learned it. I’ve always done it with graphite molds. I get excellent results.
In brewing and winemaking, we also use SMB. We use it to kill wild yeast a couple days prior to pitching the yeast of choice.
Yes, SMB can be purchased in bulk from beer and wine making suppliers.
The stump out is my fav part!
Love watching your videos. One of these days I'm going to buy some sponge on your eBay store.
Senior Chief, I'd like to insert my two cents here. You always make the statement "Silver AND base metals". I gold refining there are only two. Gold, and base metals. Silver is a base metal. I believe you might reach a lot more people if you referred to silver as a base metal instead of it's own. And then explain that you also refine silver and so you use it as a base metal to refine gold and that jump starts the silver refining process, which is a side process to the gold. I hear you trying to explain the inquartation process over and over and I think the issue is you are describing the refining of two precious metals at once, instead of refining gold and everything else is a base metal. I am not being critical of anything you do, you have actually helped me more than I can even begin to say. I love your videos and look forward to each and every one. Semper Fortis.
Looks like its a lot cleaner but it seems like it took longer to melt down..👍🏻👍🏻
I slowed the video down on this one.
is that some old indurated gold on the floor behind the melt table looks like old shot
Probably
Off topic, but I've been going through your old videos trying to get a handle on shop setup requirements. Do you have a video on your glassware? Looking for minimum requirements, a nice setup and possibly the dream collection. Keep up the good work!
Fume hood first. No way to safely do these reactions without one.
@@sreetips Most definitely a fume hood! Wouldn't even consider it otherwise.
I'm trying to get a handle on price of entry into the hobby. Specifically I was interested in the glassware, since you seem to have a lot of various types and sizes of beakers, flasks, funnels, etc. I assume it's like most hobbies, the deeper you get the more you accumulate, but what do you consider the bare minimum needed to get started?
Also are you picking them up at yard sales, Amazon or at the Lab Supply?
I buy my glassware on eBay. I had a chemistry lab in my basement when I was in 7th grade. This is more or less a carry-over into my adult life. I just bought the glassware as I needed it. You should be able to watch the videos and take notes. That’s what I did. But back then, there were no videos like mine to refer to.
@@sreetips I definitely appreciate the videos. I'll start taking notes. Thanks.
That's great! Now you can catch up on all your silver processing without adding a bunch of additional silver on top of what you already have.👍 You are going to use a lot more copper though.
I’ll still use silver to inquart because I refine silver also. Copper is useful to reduce silver out of solution. After that, it’s waste.
every stage looked cripser than usual. I did write a few days ago about using copper, is this video a reply to that or was it already planned? Regardless it was great and thank you for showing the video. I assume you use silver to inquart because you can reclaim the silver so less wastage?
Yes, correct
I don't know how much time it takes for the ice to cool down the solution or even if it's important, but I think crushing the ice would make it quicker or use chilled water instead
Haha, beautiful pour brother. Nice flame polish.
Have you ever heard of ORMUS? Or white powdered gold from egyption times? I,m doing research into this topic and i am sure a part of the process is when the gold is in sponge for since its non metallic,any thought on this sir?
I’ve looked into it. Everything I’ve found calls it pseudoscience.
@@sreetips Have you watched David Hutchinson videos by chance ? His chemistry used when he found traces of it may interest you. He was leach mining / soil conditioning if I remember ?
I can’t even find out what it is. If it’s a compound of gold, then what are its constituents? You know, like chloroauric acid (gold dissolved in acid) is: H(AuCl4) according to Wikipedia. But nowhere to be found is the chemical formula compound known as “ORMUS”. It doesn’t exist.
@@sreetips ORMUS is a acromion . It is basically when you get a metal down to the point where it loses its magnetic properties and and gains new properties . kinda like graphene in 1 nanometer size compared to carbon from the pencil
I see. I don’t know how it’s done or if it can be done. I’ve seen the video of a guy in a tunic making it. But it doesn’t give any specifics. A lot like refining videos used to be when I first started watching RUclips 15 years ago.
Wow, great video. I like the copper used instead of sterling silver. It's much more cost effective than going out buying sterling.
Are there any other metals that can be used Inquarting the gold? So far it's sterling silver and copper.
The book says brass. But brass is 85% copper 15% zinc. Zinc is high reactive and I believe that it would tend to cause the gold to crumble instead of remaining solid. This would make separation of the gold from the solution more difficult.
Excellent video and the end product justified inquarting with copper. Check your melting dish, it looks dull and might need a reflux of borax and could be why the gold beads are sticking to the melt dish. You can clean the melt dish with melted borax, the more, the better , gathering up the small spattered gold beads into 1 larger bead for a few 1/10ths of a gram extra.
Too much borax and I’ll glue the gold ingot into the graphite mold. Have to break it to get it out.
Looks like you used less SMB with Copper Inquartation, with about the same number acid solution seperations as Silver Inquartation and less expense. Great alternative if you're low on Silver too.❤
I wonder when your going to do X-ray analysis to verify gold vs various methods. Would be interesting I think to see how much of what is left in the final product
Did this seem like it took forever to melt or is it just me ?
I slowed the melt sequence in this video.
Is there a time limit that gold can be held in aqua Regia before it must be precipitated out? ❤ Always interesting.
None that I know of. It can be stored in solution or even evaporated to crystals of gold chloride and stored indefinitely.
I wonder why at 6:15, the gold starts to go in solution without nitric. it was rinced with distilled water so I'm not sure what happened there.
Residual nitric in the gold
There’s a respectable amount of gold in that waste piggy bank jug. Lol… I love those refining videos. Not sure why, but seeing value come outta waste like that is fascinating! 💪💪
The problem with copper is how much more nitric acid it takes to get it into solution. It also has a tendency to take some gold into solution with it. Silver can also do the same trick although not nearly so much.
Great video
Ok, here's one for ya. What about making certain golds to spec? Black Hills gold 2nd and 3rd colors are 14k with copper for the 'red' gold and 14k with silver for the 'green' gold. True "Black Hills Gold' supposedly as to be mined from there to be certified as such, but the chemistry is still intersting!
I’m refiner of gold. Creating those alloys is like asking a surgeon to implant a tumor, rather than remove one.
@@sreetips Or perhaps like a surgeon implanting an artificial joint? Not the same, but has other value than just financial. Gods forbid I should say 'art' because I totally don't get art, but ...
Nice one! Is this the way forward?
I didn't even know you could inquart with copper. Also the first thing I thought once you had inquarted it was, oh rose gold....then you said it. Great viewing as always.
So called red (rose) gold is an alloy of copper and gold, but I thought the 25% gold would be too little.
@@ottolehikoinen6193 gotta admit I don’t know, I did read about it once though, I forgot the percentages.
Hey Kevin, but if you inquart with copper, you miss the chance to get rid of all the sterling silver who as a higher value once refined in crystals no ?
He has silver coming out of his ears, and has said so in a few videos.
The sterling will find another path into the silver cell. I don't think this is an issue. You could say that inquarting with copper doesn't give the used nitric a chance to do double duty after it dissolves the base metals in the 6K gold, but I don't think that's a big issue. If you wanted to say that this method uses a bit more nitric, I think that's correct.
Correct. I’m still using silver to inquart. This was a demo
Sreetips for the win again!!!! ❤❤❤
Wow thanks for that , very impressive. I noticed you had a slightly carbonised softer flame on your oxy torch , on other occasions you have had an oxidised hard flame with quite a lot of smoke ! You may be losing some of your yield to burning? Just a throat , cheers
I noticed you haven’t been showing your silver cell lately. I was wondering why?
I ran out of feed stock shot. The cement silver is backing up on me something terrible. I need to get my furnace fire up and melt some impure silver shot.
I still think it would be interesting to inquart the gold, but make a bar or button instead, then flatten it out as thin as possible with the rollers. Coil it into a spring and then see how it does with the hydrochloric acid.
I think it would be quite fascinating to see if creating a larger surface for the acid to work on would separate the gold and silver faster. Or just to see what it looks like.
I tried that once. It was so tough that I could get it to feed through the rollers.
Darn it all! 🤣 Maybe if you have a nice hammer you could ust it to bang out your frustrations?
Darn banks, supressing silver! *_BANG!_* (I keep lots too, its' GOT to break.)
Darn YT making creators do stupid things! *_BANG! BANG!!_*
Darn neighbors dog barking at the squirrels after I've been up till 4 a.m. waiting for this or that chemical reaction... *_Bang! Pow!_*
😁
I’d rather let the chemicals do all that work for me.
Thank you for yet another very educational video, I always enjoy them!
One question: how do you deal with your used crucibles, especially the ones wich are too dirty or damaged to use anymore?
Do you cook them in sulfuric acid to dissolve all the borax and collect the small beads of metal wich were stuck to the crucible / trapped in the borax accumulations? Or do your save them to crush them up some time in the future?
I save them in a big container. I have yet to figure out how to process them.
@@sreetipsGet a ball mill and crush them to a powder.
Leach with excess HNO3 and HCl. Heating would help, but letting it soak for days/weeks, and topping the container off with fresh acid will be necessary.
Filter off the solids, rinse the powder/sludge with a couple aliquots of fresh acid.
Process the acid solution like you normally would.
I don’t know where you’d get a ball mill from for a one time use.
Maybe this is your chance to do a collab with the fellow at mmblc? He’s got one.
You and Mrs S take a cross country trip, get him to smash your dishes to powder, and you show him how to do the Hoke procedure correctly.
Win win. Nifty content creation.
I think they will disintegrate in water.
@@sreetips No more than your food dishes might. Hi temp ceramics are intentionally tough. You face the same problem that mmblc does: small amounts of valuable metal mixed in with lots of Si/Al oxides.
He thinks he can simply crush them and float the Au out, like placer ores, but the amount retained on the alumina/silica grains is where the biggest volume remains.
In his case, he has a witches brew of chemical elements that’d require him to use a cyanide leach to extract the important metal value, you only have a couple elements to deal with. All are amenable to a good acid leach.
The melt dishes are fused silica, not ceramic. Ralph at aquillarefining says that hot water will cause them to crumble. But I’ve never tried it.
Glad i can fast forward.He stretches it out to the max.
Alumina Can Copper is a nice shiny gold coveted by naval architects. 🤔
So, I have an odd situation. I dumped about 5 pounds of trimmed fingers into a bucket of filtered HCL about 5 months ago. (I got busy) Today I opened it up and started taking out the fingers expecting a good number of foils. However, other than a few small pieces sticking to a finger here and there, there were no foils at all! It has been hot this summer (Florida) but I was under the impression that HCL did not affect gold in any way. What am I missing???? There may have been a little peroxide. But if there was it was not much.
Test with stannous
Very beautiful gold bar thanks for sharing sreetips
Could this be something you could use your waste copper (the stuff you cement out on the iron prior to waste disposal) for?
Absolutely
"Could this be something you could use your waste copper (the stuff you cement out on the iron prior to waste disposal) for?"
Very, very dirty - tin and lead bringing extra problems to refining.
@@NorthDownReader where exactly are the tin and lead coming from if it's copper nitrate reacting with iron? I'd expect you'd filter the copper nitrate before adding yo the waste bucket and the lead has already been dropped out of solution as the sulfate and filtered previously.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 There's plenty of contamination being introduced into the system from Sterling silver, dirty copper and dirty iron.That's even if you are sure that anything in the carat gold and floor sweeps was precipitated by the sulphuric acid and caught in the filter papers (Then the filter papers get processed anyway)
The stock pot and waste bucket aren't just precipitated from nitrates, they are cemented out in an electrochemical reaction. Anything more reactive than copper stays in solution in the stock pot and ends up in the waste bucket. Anything less reactive than iron cements out in the waste bucket along with the copper.
I never saw any sign that there was any filtering of the bulk of the liquids going from the stock pot to the waste bucket, only the precious dregs were filtered for the stock pot recoveries.
No, that’s heavily contaminated.
It looks like the copper version makes it a little more resistant to melting but boy dam it looks good
Sreetips, is that precious metals splattered all around your melt dish area? You should do a clean up/ recovery video of that area.
"You should do a clean up/ recovery video of that area."
I think I remember that the sweeps go in the paper store for processing with that.
You're the Best Bro!