Mercury retort?

[IDAu]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a quality retort? I’m hesitant to randomly buy one that may have leaks and let vapor out.

 

[russau]

I'd either make it myself to keep the price down and to be able to test it for any leaks BEFORE I want to use it. OR buy one from a known ,and trusted equipment manufacture. and I DO understand your concerns completely !

 

[IDAu]

I'd either make it myself to keep the price down and to be able to test it for any leaks BEFORE I want to use it. OR buy one from a known ,and trusted equipment manufacture. and I DO understand your concerns completely !

I’d definitely rather save some money, but I’m so strapped for time getting set up right now I can’t.

if anyone’s bought one that passed a leak test please drop me the mfg!

 

[lukdiver2]

Speaking of mercury leaks. I read years ago the 49ers use to put the amalgam mercury they put in the gold pan to collect the fine gold into a potato they placed alongside the campfire. The mercury 'flashed' off and left the gold button behind. Then they ate the potato. I'd recommend something a little more scientific. We've collected mercury from one of the wrecks we dove at Pt. Sur ("Ventura" 1875 and originally she was the "Resaca" a Civil War sloop of war). We keep it in a glass jar covered with water.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Speaking of mercury leaks. I read years ago the 49ers use to put the amalgam mercury they put in the gold pan to collect the fine gold into a potato they placed alongside the campfire. The mercury 'flashed' off and left the gold button behind. Then they ate the potato.

Which is why so many of them went mental, and then expired.

They also used to use that same pan as a dinner plate. Fact is, they didn't even know what they didn't know, and it put a bunch of 'em in an early grave.

 

[southfork]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a quality retort? I’m hesitant to randomly buy one that may have leaks and let vapor out.

I bought one like this works perfect follow instructions https://www.ebay.com/itm/1664154254...ZiHpaD9lb7zOo55iqaJP0aKbmB|tkp:Bk9SR-K155PYZQ

 

[Bonaro]

I have built several small retorts out of copper pipe and brass fittings. The issue with this is that mercury will amalgam to the brass. I avoid this by coating it internally with soot from my acetylene torch. Steel is a better way but harder to work with.
I also have a couple production retorts and they all work well.
Most of the time when working with small quantities of amalgam, I just use nitric to separate the gold, then precipitate the hg out of the acid. Whole new set of precautions needed here and with any retort, always use in a well ventilated area.

 

[IDAu]

I have built several small retorts out of copper pipe and brass fittings. The issue with this is that mercury will amalgam to the brass. I avoid this by coating it internally with soot from my acetylene torch. Steel is a better way but harder to work with.
I also have a couple production retorts and they all work well.
Most of the time when working with small quantities of amalgam, I just use nitric to separate the gold, then precipitate the hg out of the acid. Whole new set of precautions needed here and with any retort, always use in a well ventilated area.

That’s what I’ve been doing for my sample clean ups, but I really want to be able to just throw all my gold in and recover the mercury from it. Why waste more nitric and deal with extra safety and contamination I figure

 

[desertgolddigger]

You either use a retort or Nitric Acid. Both are safe as long as you use proper safety precautions.

If you are interested using Nitric Acid, go to YouTube, and enter Two Toes into the search window. Once you are on the Two Toes page, look for the two videos "How to clean gold concentrates using mercury". Two Toes walks you through the whole process. While the initial investment is a few hundred dollars (retorts cost almost that much), the process is fairly easy, if not as quick as using a retort.

The big thing is to ensure you have air movement when using chemicals, so that the fumes blow away from you and anyone else nearby. A high speed fan works very well at dispersing the fumes. Two Toes uses copper to collect the mercury for reuse. But you can use another method of dropping little balls of aluminum foil into the dissolved mercury/nitric acid mixture. The foil has a higher affinity when dropped into nitric acid, and therefore causes the mercury to be released while the aluminum is dissolved into the acid. Once the aluminum/nitric acid finishes outgassing, you dilute it with distilled water, and then do use baking soda to neutralize the acid.

All actions when using nitric acid should be slow. Drop small amounts of aluminum foil at a time, and wait until the reaction slows, then do so again until out gassing disappears. The same is done with the baking soda, less is safer. Just keep slowly adding until the reaction foaming doesn't occur anymore.

As you are using mercury and acid, I suggest not dumping the neutralized it on the ground, or down the drain. There might still be traces of mercury in the neutralized acid.

Two Toes method is probably the safest method though. Somewhere on YouTube is the aluminum foil demonstration, though I can't find it anymore.

​

 

[N-Lionberger]

Speaking of mercury leaks. I read years ago the 49ers use to put the amalgam mercury they put in the gold pan to collect the fine gold into a potato they placed alongside the campfire. The mercury 'flashed' off and left the gold button behind. Then they ate the potato. I'd recommend something a little more scientific. We've collected mercury from one of the wrecks we dove at Pt. Sur ("Ventura" 1875 and originally she was the "Resaca" a Civil War sloop of war). We keep it in a glass jar covered with water.

If they wanted to “flash off” the mercury they would have just cooked it in a pan. The idea of using a potato was to use it as a simple retort, after cooling off the mercury they would crush the potato in a pan of water to recover the mercury that hopefully was trapped in the potato. Also the 49ers weren’t wasting potatoes on cleaning amalgam they were hard to find in the gold camps and when available they were expensive delicacies.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Also seeing as retorts aren’t pressure vessels I doubt you should be too concerned about it leaking. It will take the path of least resistance which is down the condenser pipe it’s not going to force mercury vapor through a pin hole in a weld.

 

[IDAu]

Also seeing as retorts aren’t pressure vessels I doubt you should be too concerned about it leaking. It will take the path of least resistance which is down the condenser pipe it’s not going to force mercury vapor through a pin hole in a weld.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Any leak is a concern

 

[southfork]

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Any leak is a concern

Test with plain water spray the welds with soapy water I don't think there's enough pressure to be concerned. And always work outdoors and stay upwind.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Test with plain water spray the welds with soapy water I don't think there's enough pressure to be concerned. And always work outdoors and stay upwind.

There isn’t any pressure in a retort!

 

[southfork]

There isn’t any pressure in a retort!

My retort has a recirculating pump on the cooling tank it has light pressure. The welds around the heating chamber should be tested unless you want the mercury vapor escaping to the wind.

 

[IDAu]

There isn’t any pressure in a retort!

There isn’t a lot of pressure in a retort, but it only has to be slightly higher than atmospheric pressure. I’ve got a lot experience with distilling, and even in a completely open system a leak is noticeable. Rig up a manometer and I bet you see it climb slightly… I’m not doing that with mercury.


And from what I see a lot of retorts the offtake goes into water? That’s definitely going to spike pressure.

 

[desertgolddigger]

You definitely don't want your retort discharge end under water. That's why all instructions I've seen say to wrap an old piece of cotton around the discharge end, and secure with rubber band or something elastic. Drop the wrapped cotton cloth dangling end into the water to allow it to soak up water. The mercury will travel through the retort to the discharge end, find the cotton cloth, and follow the cloth into the bowl/pan of water. If you don't do this, water can be sucked back up through the retort, and nasty things can happen.

 

[IDAu]

You definitely don't want your retort discharge end under water. That's why all instructions I've seen say to wrap an old piece of cotton around the discharge end, and secure with rubber band or something elastic. Drop the wrapped cotton cloth dangling end into the water to allow it to soak up water. The mercury will travel through the retort to the discharge end, find the cotton cloth, and follow the cloth into the bowl/pan of water. If you don't do this, water can be sucked back up through the retort, and nasty things can happen.

The water would suck up if not removed after heating while it's cooling. The cotton cloth sounds safer... I've seen quite a few people on Youtube with their offtake in a cup of water.

 

[N-Lionberger]

The water would suck up if not removed after heating while it's cooling. The cotton cloth sounds safer... I've seen quite a few people on Youtube with their offtake in a cup of water. run a retort with the condenser pipe underwater.

Yup that’s why you don’t do that! As desertgolddigger stated you use a rolled up piece of cloth at the end, it sits in a cup of water. I have retort I got from desertgolddigger that I’ve used a few times and have experience with other folks retorts and have experience in other forms of distillation, I learned to make Moonshine in Tennessee when I was a teenager and have built and troubleshot a number of distillation apparatus in my career as a scientific glassblower. How much amalgam are you dealing with?

 

[JohnWhite]

If I were you—I’d not buy one off of TEMU…That is if they sell them…🤣