Mercury coated gold

[The Gilded Lens]

What do I do with it? I don't want to toss it back into the river, burning it off is a huge no-no and it doesn't play nice with my uncoated gold.
Is is ruined if it's coated? What do you do with yours?
Thanks all.

 

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[Bonaro]

If you build a copper retort to clean one gram of HG covered gold, you will end up with a gram of clean gold and 5 pounds of contaminated copper. You just made the clean up a LOT bigger.
HG will amalgamate to almost all metals except cast iron.

 

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[IMPDLN]

I have to laugh at the comment one page back from the original poster. Referring to her gold as having koodies, LOL. Dennis

 

[DDancer]

Not sure why you'd use 5 pounds of copper, one is not building a still~ the two I've built only weigh maybe 8oz each~ and they have lasted me near 20 years now. *shrugs* Haven't gone mad yet.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Please do not try to clean copper with nitric acid. It reacts badly and produces a poisonous gas. A quick google will show you the results. A copper retort will work but you will also coat it with mercury~ there is no good way to clean it up. Properly stored there's no problem just leaving it dirty~ you wont loose much mercury. Just remember to knock it out or use a pipe cleaner *with gloves* to remove the excess in the condenser tube and cap it after use.

Can you share more (pic?) on how you store it? I may do this as the big iron ones are overkill for me. Not sure but...

 

[Goldwasher]

I've burned gold off of mercury safely numerous times and it hasn't affected me at all.

 

[Goldwasher]

I've burned mercury off of gold safely numerous times and it hasn't affected me at all.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Does your double post suggest double vision problems due to mercury exposure? LoL!

Glad you are ok as far as you know but you are wasting good mercury and pissing off the greenies by releasing it into the environment

 

[goldenIrishman]

Not only that but it takes time for the effects to become apparent.... apparent... apparent...

 

[calnatv]

If were talking a tiny amount of mercury that is covering a tiny amount of gold, burn it off in a safe area,( do i need to say, don't use the pan for cooking when your done? Or do I try and protect the stupid?) put it in a vial filed with ammonia, shake it a couple times a day and it will come out purdy and shiny. If were talking large amounts that's used to amalgamate the gold from your cons, then use a retort

 

[Bonaro]

calnatv is right, you have to keep things in perspective.
HG has been villianized by the left and media to the point where people fear any amount of it. It's all about dosage.
If you have a gram of merc covered gold and you burn it off outside in a safe area, you have released approximately the same amount of HG as you would if you broke 1-2 fluorescent tubes. The proper procedure for cleaning up a fluorescent tube is to sweep up the glass and go about your day. With that being said, I would be a bit more concerned if I broke 100 tubes or if I broke a couple tubes every day for a long period.
Use your head

 

[russau]

As a retired electrician of many years of working on lighting , ive broke hundreds of thousands of flo. light bulbs. and just a couple of years before I retired , the company I worked for said , "no more breaking of flo. tubes) we had to box them up and have a truck driver come and get the and bring them to a special location to minimize the mercury contamination in the areas we worked. they wanted all the "eggs" in one basket!

 

[fowledup]

As a retired electrician of many years of working on lighting , ive broke hundreds of thousands of flo. light bulbs. and just a couple of years before I retired , the company I worked for said , "no more breaking of flo. tubes) we had to box them up and have a truck driver come and get the and bring them to a special location to minimize the mercury contamination in the areas we worked. they wanted all the "eggs" in one basket!

"Retired Electrician" and a miner- knew you were a person of the finest sort!

We had to do the same with our tubes, then we'd shake our heads and get a kick out of the driver throwing the boxes up into the truck and pausing so he could hear the tubes go poof!

 

[Bonaro]

We pay a company to come recycle our dead tubes from work. He charges us more than the original purchase price of the tubes

 

[bedrock bubba]

*smiles* Well I got what I hoped for No I don't advocate the potato method. Good ideas and techniques

Arrrghhh!

All these years, no one ever told me not to eat the potato!

 

[Bonaro]

You will be surprised what people will do if they are not specifically told not to do it

 

[weston777]

I have used mercury on gold recovered from electronics scraps many times to clean the gold up. I bought a retort at a metal detector shop in san diego for about $25 bucks. I recovered about 2 troy lbs a year this way. The retort is the best way to recover your gold and you will not loose a drop of mercury.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I have used mercury on gold recovered from electronics scraps many times to clean the gold up. I bought a retort at a metal detector shop in san diego for about $25 bucks. I recovered about 2 troy lbs a year this way. The retort is the best way to recover your gold and you will not loose a drop of mercury.

Smart, very smart. Merc works great on those gold foils doesn't it?!!

Can you pm me details of your scrap processing techniques and any tips? I'm just getting into it myself...