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Author: Subject: Fulminating Gold
Tdep
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[*] posted on 20-10-2015 at 15:35


Quote: Originally posted by cyanureeves  
dieglegold DONT do whats in the video with your ammonia hydroxide that you ordered.in the video he uses household ammonia and shows it not detonating upon impact.your gold WILL explode,i know because it blew up on me right under my nuts and dirt flew into my eyes.1gram of gold will surely blow your hand completely off.i used a tinier amount of gold and it hurt me pretty bad,i tried to scrape it off a glass coffee pot with a screw driver.i swear i did not even get to scratch it when it blew up and was done by the weight of the screw driver alone.a member here thought it was more likely not the mere contact but the friction of the scratching.do not let it dry then try to scrape it off.i repeat.your gold WILL explode with stout ammonia.


Oh oh I know why this is too! Quite a significant issue I only realised after someone on reddit pointed it out to me.

Cyanureeves what you used scrapped gold. Scrapped gold that would likely contain some silver. If there is trace amounts of silver, you're going to produce the similar fulminating silver complex, sometimes called silver nitride. It's black and explosive, but unlike FG it's amazingly sensitive. Crazily sensitive. I've been making some this past week and it explodes on impact only slightly more than touch powder, I set it off tapping some dried filter paper with a long stick. It's worse than touch powder though, because it's also exploded on me while completely in suspension because I looked at it wrong, and least touch powder is docile when wet!

Me and OP used pure gold, native gold does not contain silver where as scrapped gold does. Any amount of fulminating silver produced will be touch sensitive and detonate the rest of the FG. DO NOT produce FG with impure gold and expect to be able to handle it.


Another issue with FG is that the complex is messy, containing varying amounts of ammonia, chloride and water ligands around the gold. Those variations will cause a change in the properties of the explosive. I noticed variations in properties from batch to batch. It is probably that concentrated ammonia produces a more sensitive product due to a more complete replacement of the water ligands with ammonia (okok ammine, ligand names are stupid) ligands rather than with household ammonia. I didn't have conc ammonia at the time but I do now, so I can test this out when I get some more free time.


[Edited on 20-10-2015 by Tdep]
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cyanureeves
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[*] posted on 20-10-2015 at 16:16


my gold was in fact not pure gold.
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dieglegold
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[*] posted on 30-10-2015 at 08:51


Well, I am back to generating disappointing results with fulminating gold. I received the bottle of 29% ammonium hydroxide, which I believed would create powerful FG as indicated by cyanureeves (see above). I took about 3 cc of gold chloride solution (prepared by dissolving a gold nugget in 1:3 aqua regia and containing about 0.3 gm of gold), diluted it to 10 cc with water, then added an excess of stout ammonia solution. A yellowish precipitate formed, which I filtered and then washed with some distilled water while the ppt was still on the filter paper. I dried the ppt. When touched with a match, it fizzles slightly. When wrapped in Al foil and heated, it pops and fizzles. I am disappointed, because I thought the stout ammonia would create a powerful FG. What am I doing wrong this time?
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hissingnoise
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[*] posted on 30-10-2015 at 09:13


Are you using jewelry-grade gold, by any chance?

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JJay
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[*] posted on 30-10-2015 at 09:18


Are there any surfactants in the ammonium hydroxide?
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dieglegold
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[*] posted on 30-10-2015 at 12:31


Until this last batch I had been using 99.99 % bullion gold. If you read above, I had plenty of problems making it work. For this last batch I used gold nuggets. The silver in the nuggets formed a silver chloride ppt in the aqua regia, which I expected from past experience, and so I decanted off the gold chloride/aqua regia solution and discarded the silver chloride ppt.

I don't believe there are surfactants in the ammonia solution because it is sold as pure 29% ammonium hydroxide by Consolidated Chemical and Solvents, LLC. Supposedly it is ACS grade.

What I keep experiencing is a "weak" form of FG, which fizzles and pops but rarely explodes. My procedure is not producing the pure stuff like Tdep and cyanureeves describe, but I cannot figure out why.
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cyanureeves
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[*] posted on 30-10-2015 at 17:23


you dont have to dilute the aqua regia just pour the ammonia in into it.funny how i dont recall ever seeing an ammonium chloride cloud when i added the ammonia.i had done it about three times prior until the last batch got me and up into my eyes flew what precious little gold i had.you could probably redo all your precipitates and make a nuclear explosion with it.careful and dont get complacent!this FG is as elusive to you as Ammonium iron(III) sulfate is to me.
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