Rh time period...

[Lou]

Greetings and my thanks for the open and assistive format here. I'm unsure of whether or not this thread is open but I'm going to test the water.
Long to short: collected cat conv. Removed matrix. Crushed and halogen stripped for 2 weeks at STP and started pulling and adjusting leach solution until I figured color was so faint it was over 90%. Dropped everything with zinc. Ended up with a strange non homogenous mix of light/dark metal sponge and a purple metallic glass as seen magnified 100x. Filtered, rinsed w H20, dried until all collected. Final solution after zn was a medium green fluid with a tinge of real to it. Checked for complexation with I2 solid dissolution and some precipitate form identical to previous zn solids. Pulled and combined with a small sample of earlier stock. To both the main zn precipitant was then cleared of lower metals (not many as everything was glass and plastic) to get a denser mix of the metal matrix with light, dark and purplish metal glass. The other mixed matrix sat and dried. A sheen of highly reflective metal formed on the surface as it dried.


To both solids I added HCl and KNO3 to make poor Joes AR. The main body formed a thick orange powder at the bottom that froze the spin vane in place. The second iodide mixed sample slowly formed the AR with N2O4 production and it dissolved and formed the dark orange precipitate. My question is this...


What is the purple metallic crystalline "glass"? It forms only under descending acid concentration as precipitation with zinc occurs after all the gray metals have dropped.

I will be filtering and rinsing the products shortly and attempting to drop the metals and convert by firing in sealed graphite flash heated via thermite.

how did you remove the matrix?

If you removed the matrix, why wouldn't you just melt up the residue with copper and flux and get the last traces of the ceramic out?

This seems like a lot of work. Also, anyway you can show me this iodide test for complexation? Is this supposed to mean if there's no precipitate (presumably of PdI2?) that everything is complexed? But it's in HCl? So...???

 

[Pustalchemyst]

I t

This is very interesting way of performing the actual melt. I like the concept. Probably, I won´t do this on my own, but if it works for you, then why not. Certainly cheaper than induction furnance, but also certainly more laborious than torch melting.

By the way, with platinum metals, evaporative loss during melting isn´t that high, if you aren´t overheating it to extreme temperatures. Palladium can be vaporized to some minimal extent, but you will need to overheat it way way too much. What I found not so good is that you cannot watch and stir the charge when melting.

Think that the vaporization has a lot to do with disturbance and surface area. So the stack method was developed to eliminate any gaseous attacks as well as get a more uniform heating whereby the exhaust isn't pushing material around and flinging the dust before sintering. I would make an induction furnace but it's rather laborious to do so. Although the electronics are simple. The stack method also allows pre printing of the ingot rather than striking afterwards. I also use it to make ring loops that I can pound out into jewelry.

 

[Pustalchemyst]

Yup. Many articles are written issuing the leaching in science literature. You never have complete leaching, and this is one of very reasons why.

That is why catalytic converters are pyrometallurgically processed to get highest recoveries. It is also much much quicker.

Huh. Well I can see it being faster but the oxide resistance ....

 

[Cjeweler]

I recently refined my bench sweeps, (AR minimum nitric). I work in golds and platinum alloys, I dropped the gold and am left with a solution of likely copper, silver, ect, and a strong orange Stanous showing. i don’t want to pursue the platinum now, jus t save it in the simplest manner. Cementing seems the easiest. iam familiar with copper and iron, I am now aware of Zinc. Can the forum offer some suggestions.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I recently refined my bench sweeps, (AR minimum nitric). I work in golds and platinum alloys, I dropped the gold and am left with a solution of likely copper, silver, ect, and a strong orange Stanous showing. i don’t want to pursue the platinum now, jus t save it in the simplest manner. Cementing seems the easiest. iam familiar with copper and iron, I am now aware of Zinc. Can the forum offer some suggestions.

Zinc will drop out all the metals.
Not a problem if the Gold and Silver has been dropped and that was the only other metals.
If there is other metals, Copper is better but needs vigorous stirring.

Read this whole thread:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/when-in-doubt-cement-it-out.30236/

Edit to adjust text

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I recently refined my bench sweeps, (AR minimum nitric). I work in golds and platinum alloys, I dropped the gold and am left with a solution of likely copper, silver, ect, and a strong orange Stanous showing. i don’t want to pursue the platinum now, jus t save it in the simplest manner. Cementing seems the easiest. iam familiar with copper and iron, I am now aware of Zinc. Can the forum offer some suggestions.

You will not have any substantial amount of silver in an AR solution. The silver would form silvr chloride and precipitate.

Dave

 

[eaglekeeper]

I recently refined my bench sweeps, (AR minimum nitric). I work in golds and platinum alloys, I dropped the gold and am left with a solution of likely copper, silver, ect, and a strong orange Stanous showing. i don’t want to pursue the platinum now, jus t save it in the simplest manner. Cementing seems the easiest. iam familiar with copper and iron, I am now aware of Zinc. Can the forum offer some suggestions.

If you decide to go with zinc, just know that the reaction usually starts off slow. But once it starts generating heat that reaction can get out of hand. Make sure you have a catch basin, watch glass and a tall enough beaker. Using zinc powder you can control the reaction by how much you add.

 

[Cjeweler]

Got busy in other directions and now am again focused on the remaining solution metals.. After considering the above comments I am wondering if there is a relatively safe way to drop the platinum group metals from the remaining solution. Thanks Chris