chief
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Lowest conc. of HNO3/HCl, at which Au/Ag etc. will dissolve
What is the lowest conc. of HNO3/HCl, at which Au/Ag etc. will dissolve, given enough time ? The idea is to leach hardware (mainboards) as whole,
without the mechanic work of getting the plated contacts separated.
But also, of course, one wouldn't want to waste any acid etc., ... . So: Would it be possible, to just use only a little amount of the acids, in maybe
10 l H2O, and leach a larger amount of mainboards like that ? Just enough acid to dissolve everything dissolvable ?
Or may the Au/Ag/Pd be ppt. out of conc. acid, so to harvest the Au, but having still the remaining acid for further leaching ?
[Edited on 11-12-2008 by chief]
Or could such mainboards just be given into a larger chlorate-cell, and left there to the agressive chemistry for a while ... ?
[Edited on 11-12-2008 by chief]
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Fleaker
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I think you would be better served asking that question over at http://www.goldrefiningforum.com because that seems to be a big focus over there and people do this there and make money doing it.
In your case, you will run into problems with rate of dissolution--if you want to take a long time to dissolve away base metals, then use dilute
solutions.
Also, if you plan on mixing HNO3/HCl to get aqua regia and then dilute it, it will not work well for any silver containing item or alloy because the
silver will immediately dissolve in the nitric and then be precipitated to its insoluble chloride salt, AgCl.
Neither flask nor beaker.
"Kid, you don't even know just what you don't know. "
--The Dark Lord Sauron
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