Thank you SuperDave for sending me a link to this thread.
I'm going to attempt to explain why these types of workshops or offerings are not going to help anyone on their way to recovering and/or refining precious metals. This is not to say that there might not be an entity or business out their somewhere who can or does do what this person is suggesting, and do it right, I just have not come across any. I see the post about another "opportunity" but I'll respond to that one after the original posted by SuperDave that this thread is about.
I have discussed this many times on GRF, if you were to look right now for example, there is someone trying to fast track their learning process to recovering and refining precious metals, who refuses to listen or conduct their learning in the right way, they are not getting any attention nor help because of this. There is a correct way and a wrong way to learning about recovering and refining precious metals. The sad thing is that if done correctly, anyone could learn how to do this, it's not that it's difficult or takes someone with stellar intelligence learn this, it's that it takes time, effort, energy, devotion, dedication etc. Most people want their return now and are not interested in investing all the time, effort, energy to do it properly.
First, on GRF, when you first go to the website it states something to the effect "refiners helping refiners" this means that people generally are helping other people who already understand and have some knowledge of the processes to recover and refine precious metals. That isn't to say that people on GRF are not willing to help people, but they do expect people who wish to learn, to have a basic understanding of what is going on. If I went to a website of doctors that explained the complicated procedures on how to operate on a heart, nobody is going to attempt to teach me how to do so without a background in the medical field, and some reading, studying and certification. I know that is stretching things a little far, but the example should make sense.
Unless you already have a background in chemistry, and understanding on how to use laboratory equipment, the proper equipment, etc attempting to process material for it's precious metal content would be a loosing proposition, and one of the things you may loose is your health, or your life, period.
There is a person who was selling a gold recovering process on
ebay. It was a gold stripping cell, and he may still be doing so today. In the video that he provides as an example of what you can do, you see him without gloves, loading a basket with gold plated material, then lowering it into a glass dish and applying electricity. During these actions this individual is talking about the solution being an electrolyte that is easy to obtain, and you see him reducing the gold plate to black sandy material right there on the video in a relatively short amount of time. He claims it's easy, safe, etc while doing all this. He has since changed the video after many of the members of GRF contacted him, but when he first started selling these he had no disclaimers. The truth about it is that he was using 98% sulfuric acid, here is an MSDS on Sulfuric Acid:
http://www.amsa.gov.au/marine_enviro...%29%20MSDS.pdf
A very simple rule that most people who have never dealt with chemistry or acids, overlook, is to never ever add water to acid, but to add instead acid to water. In the case of sulfuric acid, it dehydrates so fast, that if you were to put one drop in 98% sulfuric acid, it would suck the water out so fast, that it causes an explosion or splatter of the sulfuric acid, imagine sulfuric acid splatter all over you, your work space, and any animals or people in the immediate area. Here is a video of sulfuric acid dehydrating sugar:
I WANT TO STRESS THAT NONE OF THESE EXPERIMENTS SHOULD BE ATTEMPTED, IF THE FUMES THAT ARE GIVEN OFF BY THESE REACTIONS ARE BREATHED INTO YOUR LUNGS, IT CAN CREATE ACID INSIDE YOUR LUNGS AND DO PERMANENT DAMAGE OR WORSE!
Here is sulfuric acid reacting with water in a sponge:
This is what sulfuric acid does to organic material as well. I use sulfuric acid in some of my processes specifically for this reason, to burn off organic material. It is incredibly dangerous, and is not something refiners use on a regular basis if they can help doing so. Yet the person selling these recovery cells made it sound like it was just an electrolyte that could be purchased at any auto store. I believe personally he mislead people on purpose because if he did explain how incredibly dangerous it was, I don't believe he would have sold nearly as many units.
His sales pitch sounded very similar to this one.
Gold is one of the most difficult things to dissolve. It is a non reactive metal, it does not oxidize under normal conditions. This also means that all the different methods that are known, including organic aqua regia, iodide/iodine leaching, HCl/Peroxide, HCl/Bleach, Aqua Regia, Cyanide Leaching, etc etc etc are very corrosive and highly dangerous, and for the most part give off gases that you do not want to breath or come directly into contact with under any circumstances. There is no easy, simply and safe method for recovering any precious metals, period. There just simply is not, so anytime people post things like:
It's a simple safe process.
You can be assured that it is a lie, period, there are no exceptions. There is no safe nor simple process, there are processes that are less dangerous, there are processes that are more simple than others, but none are simple nor safe. We are dealing with chemistry that took hundreds of years to perfect, acids that are highly dangerous, and processes that if not done properly could cause great harm. You can reduce the risks by using the proper equipment and conducting yourself in ways that lessen the danger, but it is not safe, nor simple.
If I were to attend college in order to learn how to do this, removing the general education requirements and only focusing on what I actually needed to take in order to be able to do this correctly these are the things I would have to learn.
Math so that I could figure the different chemical equations
Basic chemistry processes, how to pour, how to use a fume scrubber/fume hood, which glass equipment to use, how to use a hotplate/stirrer, etc.
Advanced chemistry, how chemicals react with each other, how metals react with chemicals, how to avoid making explosive and volatile solutions ( for example some people use Urea to neutralize acids, in the presence of excess nitric acid you can create a high explosive and volatile solution of Urea Nitrate ) etc.
You would or should learn about electrochemistry, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, etc.
You would need to purchase the books for all these courses, and read each one while taking instruction from an experienced professor.
That is not to say you cannot pick up a book, read what is required, talk with other people, read posts on GRF, and learn how to do it yourself. I learned on my own from books and people who helped me along the way. But I can promise this. There is no class, no one day presentation that will convey enough information and/or knowledge for anyone to process
e-scrap for gold. Even if you could someone defy the laws of time, space, physics and cram enough information into a one day workshop, I don't believe there is a human alive who could absorb enough information to properly apply it.
This workshop may teach how to recover gold using one specific way. It might walk you through each step in the process like a recipe, and if you payed attention strictly to what was being talked about, you may even be able to replicate it. But that is not how we recover and refine. We do so by observation, understanding what is happening dynamically in solution and being able to alter those solutions for desired results while they are happening. For example, a recipe for dissolving gold into solution will call for a specific amount of Hydrochloric acid to be mixed with Nitric Acid, but that is not the way it's done in real life. In real life we make small additions of Nitric Acid to Hydrochloric acid until the gold is dissolved, so in this way we are not left with a solution that has excess Nitric Acid, and thus needs to be neutralized by heat and evaporation, this is where people add urea to neutralize excess nitric acid, and this is where the potential for creating Urea Nitrate comes from.
Another little tid-bit of information. In many of the instructional videos I have seen, you see the person conducting the video wearing nitrile gloves to protect themselves. What they either do not know, or are not telling you, is that if you get nitric acid on nitrile gloves they will combust and catch on fire, maybe not immediately but it will happen. Here is an example:
They also will not tell you, or do not know how nitrile gloves fair against Sulfuric Acid, here is a video example of that:
Also, if nitric acid is spilled onto something that has natural fibers, like a cotton cloth for example, it could make Nitrocellulose (Gun Cotton), specially if there is sulfuric acid also present. I personally know people who have spilled small amounts and created gun cotton by accident, only to have it spontaneously combust when it comes into contact with very little heat, when they least expected it. It's even worse when you make a wood fume hood that absorbs acids, and makes the entire structure Nitrocellulose, imagine if that goes up without warning. Here is a video on this:
These are all things that have happened to people I personally know who also recover and refine precious metals. These are only a few of the things that could happen, and shouldn't be considered, by a longshot, the only safety concerns.
I can continue and make this post all about scary things that could happen, but I think my point has been made without going further. The person who is offering this workshop is misleading people into believing that these processes and/or acids/chemicals that are used to recover and refine precious metals are relatively safe and harmless, when in fact, they are not.
If anyone is truly interested in learning how to recover and refine precious metals, I would suggest checking out the Gold Refining Forum, reading C. M. Hoke just like is suggested, learn at the proper pace (this is not a one day weekend workshop) and if you are honestly serious about learning, I would be more than happy to help if and where I can, as would many other people on GRF. But please, do not make the mistake of believing even for a minute that you can accumulate enough information, knowledge and experience to be able to process anything by attending a one day workshop on this subject.
Scott
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Originally Posted by freonjoe
P & M Recycling - Specializing in E-Waste Recycling. 
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