Mercury Use and Recovering Gold from Amalgam information and questions

Retort is a water cooled distillation device that evaporates then distills the mercury off the gold. If you heat mercury with a blowtorch it will boil off the gold but produces highly toxic fumes that can be absorbed through the skin or lungs.

Dron said:

AM1990 said:

How did the mercury get there? Why does it attach itself to gold?

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How did it get there? It's almost certainly not naturally occurring. More than likely it came from the old timers spilling some.

Why does it attach itself to gold? It has to do with Mercury's electron shell configuration. Mercury will readily form amalgams with most metals.

You can learn more about Mercury by watching this video:

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiWlthrtneU[/video]

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Interesting video. Thanks for the link and information.

Dave79 said:

Retort is a water cooled distillation device that evaporates then distills the mercury off the gold. If you heat mercury with a blowtorch it will boil off the gold but produces highly toxic fumes that can be absorbed through the skin or lungs.

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Thanks mate. I doubt i have enough to make it worth getting a distillation device. If i find anymore i'll collect it all in the same vial and decide what to do with it.

Total weight for about 3 hours of sluicing and a couple of extra pans was about 0.16grams, although most of that is probably mercury.

Try to keep your clean gold separate as the mercury will grab hold of any gold it comes into contact with. I've got a vial half full of mercury amalgam that contains gold but it's too much trouble extracting it for me to bother with.

Dave79 said:

Try to keep your clean gold separate as the mercury will grab hold of any gold it comes into contact with. I've got a vial half full of mercury amalgam that contains gold but it's too much trouble extracting it for me to bother with.

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Do you know what, i was sure i had another picker and when i got home it was missing. But now you have said that i am certain its covered by mercury now. I also thought i had more gold than what i had, as in smaller specks.

I'll keep it all separate.

Thanks for your help.

I have a question. Why did the old timers use mercury?

AM1990 said:

I have a question. Why did the old timers use mercury?

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For the very reason it attaches to gold.
Stampers would use it on a big metal bed, it would capture the small gold they had trouble keeping a hold of.
They would then separate the two and re use the mercury, but some always made it's way into the streams.

Just leave it in the vial, not worth the effort to extract unless you had a vegemite jar full.
Very dangerous stuff, don't try to burn it off to collect $2 of gold.

Occasional_panner said:

AM1990 said:

I have a question. Why did the old timers use mercury?

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For the very reason it attaches to gold.
Stampers would use it on a big metal bed, it would capture the small gold they had trouble keeping a hold of.
They would then separate the two and re use the mercury, but some always made it's way into the streams.

Just leave it in the vial, not worth the effort to extract unless you had a vegemite jar full.
Very dangerous stuff, don't try to burn it off to collect $2 of gold.

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Yeah i won't touch it. If i find more i'll keep it all together.

Restricted hazardous chemicals/dangerous goods use or discussion isn't endorsed by Forum Management. Individuals using any hazardous chemicals/dangerous goods do so at their own risk/s and need to ensure their own legislative compliance.

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Good morning all,
This is probably a dumb question but i have found amalgam for the first time. I don't have a retort or know how to set one up.. first question can i touch the amalgam?? Secondly is there a safe way to burn the mercury off the gold?? Where i have been working i have no doubt ill find more i don't want to out it with the rest of my gold in case it sticks to it as well any help would be greatly appreciated

Yes you can touch it, yes you can burn it off safely,just put what you think has mercury on it in another jar clearly marked so you dont accidentally put clean gold in it, later down the track build yourself a retort so you can burn off the mercury, job done

Wear gloves. It's absorbed through skin too.

No..you can't touch it,only with rubber gloves.
You need to work in a CONTROLLED environment.
Mercury fumes are INVISIBLE, do not work over it with a blow torch with a slight breeze, how often does
a breeze change direction.
Mercury vapors are highly toxic, the effects of exposure may not be noticed until long after the the damage has
been done. It's like playing with a brown snake.
Mercury vapors is carried by the blood to the central nervous system where it is oxidized. DISASTER .

I have played with mercury heaps of times, touching it is not as bad as it is made out to be, repeated exposure to it is bad yes, but you would get more mercury from eating fish once a week than touching a couple of nuggets coated with it, I guess the vial of mercury I have next to my bed I should move or maybe not

Your life mate, go for it. :N:

Mercury use by recreational Prospectors does not go un-noticed by the green lobby.
Around 10 years ago a US based green group had tests done on black sand concentrates at Dave McCracken,s home, which were
found to have traces of mercury.

Burning off the mercury like in this video is releasing it to the atmosphere, a retort would be better and safer, but i think
use of mercury should not be encouraged in recreational prospecting.

There is a lot of confusion re mercury, which is a dangerous nerve poison, partly because its toxicity depends a lot on the form it is in. Metallic mercury is not easily taken into the body except as vapour, so rarely causes poisoning from handling it (I would not put it on my bare skin though). However methyl mercury and similar compounds are highly toxic and have killed thousands at some sites (eg Minimata Bay). Since the gold rushes, perhaps a third of metallic mercury lost in streams has converted to methyl mercury (a major reason for restrictions on prospecting in some streams). The past (and to some extent present) use of amalgam fillings has lulled people into a false sense of security, but of course amalgam is a form of mercury solid solution not readily dissolved in the mouth (although we now know that slow mercury loss from amalgam occurs and may have undesirable health effects - duh, I'm sure my brain used to work better :awful: ). Likewise, mercury vapour in lamps is minor and contained in the tube, as with mercury thermometers (but care is required if they break). When you put a thermometer in your mouth, you are only contacting glass not mercury - but I suspect it gives many people a false sense of security relating to mercury.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774175/

However metallic mercury is dangerous in the form of mercury vapour, and retorting is the main way in which poisoning occurs in mining and prospecting operations. The above is irresponsible in part (not those who reproduce the videos of others and no doubt believe it is safe, but those who actively encourage its use with videos etc., although that is also no doubt ignorance and not intentional). A number of countries have banned mercury completely in gold mining. Obviously it is the retorting, not the amalgamation process, that is most dangerous - and the environmental damage because of loss to streams and soil.

There have been convictions for mercury possession in Australia (eg for possession of 360 gram of mercury metal):

https://www.theage.com.au/national/...ssing-tasers-and-mercury-20151120-gl46tj.html

Mercury is a schedule 7 substance, and a licence is required to buy, possess or sell it. It is also used in terrorism (in making explosives and bomb timing devices) - so Big Brother is watching (understandably).

Mercury was (and is) expensive, and past gold miners did not let vapour escape to air, but recovered it by cooling and condensing the vapour to liquid elsewhere as it was driven off the amalgam.

I recommend not experimenting with retorting amalgam. If you have a lot, ie potentially a lot of contained gold, give it to a research chemist to retort it under safe conditions (assuming that is legal - university chemistry departments are probably exempt from provisions relating to Schedule 7 poisons) .

best way is in an enclosed retort with the other end under water get it hot to drive all the mercury off your gold make sure you do it outside and the retort is underwater to catch the mercury and fumes and wear gloves as others have said already

Hi all

I was out doing some panning and found some pieces. When it was in the pan it was gold. When I got home it had changed into something else like silver.

Anyone know what this stuff is and is it worth keeping?

See the pics.

Thanks.

Mercury I would say has made it change colour

Yep, the mercury on some of the gold has amalgamated with the other gold.

So your gold is still there, just covered with mercury.

You can burn it off, but need to be very careful about the fumes. There are lots of treads on the forum about mercury, and good information on the web, too.

So do some research before you decide what to do!