A question about dissolving ultra fine gold out of black sands with HCL and bleach.

[flinthunter]

I'm from Central Illinois and we have to work for our gold. A lot of our black sands have a large amount of ultra fine (only visible with a loupe) gold. I know that hydrochloric acid and bleach will slowly dissolve gold. I've searched the internet and can't find any information about using hcl and bleach for removing ultra fine gold from black sands. It is something I am going to try this summer. Has anyone heard of this method being used before with any success?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[Underburden]

HCL & Bleach will form a deadly gas that will make you wish you sent your black sands to a commercial recovery outfit. Just sayin
See line #1 in my signature.

 

[johnedoe]

I think I would try a kiln and borax.......Chlorine gas doesn't thrill me..lol

 

[arizau]

If you screen those cons, by various fractions, down to minus 200 mesh* and pan the batches in small quantities then you can recover most of that gold just by panning. Tedious but effective. That said, there is also a method using oleophylic adhesion that will reduce the black sand fraction of your concentrates by well over 90% to make your panning effort even easier. I think the/a simple method of doing that is in this thread "http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/508071-found-gold-dust-3-minutes.html". The method involves a pan coated with shortening. Look it up and at least test it...it works.

Good luck.



* Google "Rio Grande Supply screen sieves". They carry very inexpensive 5 1/2" stackable screens.

 

[Duckshot]

I'm from Central Illinois and we have to work for our gold. A lot of our black sands have a large amount of ultra fine (only visible with a loupe) gold. I know that hydrochloric acid and bleach will slowly dissolve gold. I've searched the internet and can't find any information about using hcl and bleach for removing ultra fine gold from black sands. It is something I am going to try this summer. Has anyone heard of this method being used before with any success?

I have heard of it being tried without success. Once.

The chlorine gas is not the only danger. The usual method of reducing the gold chloride to gold is to use sulfur dioxide gas bubbled into the solution. You will need a fume hood at least, and probably a fume scrubber too. A lot of investment with little return.

 

[johnedoe]

Here are a couple vids for ya,,,
personally I have an electric furnace.

I do not know why these pics load sideways sometimes.. click on it once or twice to right it.

 

[smokeythecat]

We have a ton of black sand here with mainly micro gold in it. I bought one of those gold wheels and it works very well.

 

[RTR]

Run that fine material on a Miller Table.No muss ,no fuss, faster than panning and no stinking gasses

 

[flinthunter]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am aware of the dangers of hcl and bleach and have the proper breathing equipment to process the black sands. All this will be done outdoors. For those of you that didn't seem to understand, the gold I'm talking about is not visible to the naked eye, only visible under a loupe, no disrespect intended. If I can see it, I can pan it. I see there might be several options here, hcl & bleach, mercury, or vasoline. It might be an interesting experimental summer.

 

[CGC Miner]

Vasoline..? It's oil and will float all your gold off.

I would super upgrade your cons then smelt them to see if it is worth your effort. Or you can carefully work with merc though I am not advising that.
If the cons are worth smelting then you can stockpile them and have them bulk processed/leached professionally.
For that to make sense, were talking 55 gal drum fulls or 1 ton batches at a time.

miller table and panning is probably most feasible