assaying

[mickance]

can anyone recommend someone to assay some concentrate... i have ( beach sand)

i have 2.6 oz on hand more if i want to put through my beach sluice...out of that i reckon 1 grain in ten is gold when put under my microscope ....man if only they were nuggets instead of minute sand type grains almost invisable to the naked eye
but what interests me most is the grey metalic grains which i think could be platinum and apart from the odd black sand grain that didnt want to make love to my magnet its at least 80% of metalic gray stuff ...well i dont know what else it could be ..silver ..lead i dont think so .
anyway with 1 in ten grains being gold ive gold about 8 grams of gold i reckon without the silver metalic stuff
if platinum its worth heaps

any ideas on how to tell if its platinum ..i tried putting it is some hydrogen peroxide and got a few bubbles ..probably not enough for me to firmly believe theres platinum there

any ideas how to check for platinum in sand ....
i dont know how i would go if i buy a furnace to melt the gold as platinum melts at a higher temp
any help appreciated

 

[Swinging & digging]

Bugger all platinum in Australia so very unlikely!

 

[mickance]

you have no idea ....

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=platinum beach sand

its always been there ...knowing how to extract it ..thats the part almost no one knows though i may write a book about it one day

im happy no one knows

 

[mickance]

ahh rowville ..know it well used to be in dandenong

 

[Heatho]

Bugger all platinum in Australia so very unlikely!

Yes there is , it was mined from beach sand on the East Coast of Australia in numerous places, quite a bit in other states too, though Russia is the largest producer by far.

 

[Heatho]

can anyone recommend someone to assay some concentrate... i have ( beach sand)

i have 2.6 oz on hand more if i want to put through my beach sluice...out of that i reckon 1 grain in ten is gold when put under my microscope ....man if only they were nuggets instead of minute sand type grains almost invisable to the naked eye
but what interests me most is the grey metalic grains which i think could be platinum and apart from the odd black sand grain that didnt want to make love to my magnet its at least 80% of metalic gray stuff ...well i dont know what else it could be ..silver ..lead i dont think so .
anyway with 1 in ten grains being gold ive gold about 8 grams of gold i reckon without the silver metalic stuff
if platinum its worth heaps

any ideas on how to tell if its platinum ..i tried putting it is some hydrogen peroxide and got a few bubbles ..probably not enough for me to firmly believe theres platinum there

any ideas how to check for platinum in sand ....
i dont know how i would go if i buy a furnace to melt the gold as platinum melts at a higher temp
any help appreciated

Mickance, there are 6 PGM's (Platinum Group Metals), they are never pure Platinum and always alloyed with other PGM's and other metals such as Gold, copper Silver many actually. so some rests just wont work. Assaying is the only way to be sure I think unless you can find another way, maybe XRF analysis would work I don't know.

I think the Peroxide test would be good but m,any metals react with{Peroxide, copper does violenty I think from memory. Are you on the East Coast of NSW by chance?Don't want your spot just interested, would love a pic of your beach sluice also, please? I have often dreamed/thought of this as quite a lot of PM's were won from beaches, would be way easier than sluicing rivers and creeks inland. They beach sluice a lot in the USA. PM me about this if you like as I'm genuinely interested for interests sake, not greed.

An experiment I did today from some beach sand in Sydney........ I'm wondering what the silver stuff is too, I should have cleaned it with a magnet too but didn't bother, will next time.

 

[Heatho]

ctually just doing some reading, if you have Gold with it then it most likely IS Platinum with it, Tin also.

 

[mickance]

swinging and digging ..you are like me and most people who are more familiar with teh victorian goldfields ..everywhere is different as in gippsland gold is not like the golden triangle
i loved to get up hawthorn creek or similar in gippsland ..no big nuggets or any really just creek gold but man so lovely on a 40 plus day splashing in the water

again here where i live on the beachfront i have learnt to adapt to whats here though i have just bought a gb2 after having sold my last one and see what fine gold i can detect in the mountains here ...only fine stuff here

 

[mickance]

heatho i have sent you an email ....ill put a photo up of my sluice when i can

 

[Heatho]

ill put a photo up of my sluice when i can

Awesome, thanks.

 

[KarlS]

If it come from beaches around Balina, it got gold and PGM for sure.
This is what I would do wit it.I had ask similar question some time ago. As I did not got satisfactory answer I come up with this procedure to recover gold or PGM from black sands.
Get empty tin from baked beans or similar. Put the tin over the pipe of similar diameter as the can and with piece of wood beat the bottom of the tin to the kind of conical shape. Fill the tin about half full with lead.
In the cast iron pot or fry pan roast your black sands over the camp fire. It will stink mostly of Sulphur, so keep away from the fumes.
Now melt the lead in your tin. Add roasted black sand to the tin. Stir it well with metal rod. Any gold or PGM will sink to the bottom and much lighter iron compounds will float on molten lead surface.
Let it cool down. You will have to cut out tin metal. Cut off tip of the lead cone. That where your gold is going to be concentrated .
Pour some white vinegar in the glass container and add some hydrogen peroxide. Drop
the lump of lead you cut off in to the solution. It will turn kind of milky colour. Leave it there until the lead dissolve. Your gold is going to be in the sludge on the bottom of the container.
Don't drink the solution, although it is kind of sweet(lead acetate ) it is no good for you. If you want make resulting liquid environmentally safe add some battery acid (sulphuric acid ) to it. It will precipitate lead as lead sulphate which is almost unsolvable and therefore fairly safe.
There must be a way how to get lead back from this solution, but as I done chemistry some 50 years ago I do not remember how..
As how effective this method is, well it depends on gold concentration in the black sand. I had recovered 2.8 grams of gold from 420 grams of black sand from one location. And I got no gold from 340 grams of black sand from different location.
Karl

 

[Heatho]

Ahh yes, forgot you posted that in another thread too Karl, great info. It just remined me, cheers.

 

[KarlS]

I have stayed in Balina for few weeks in about 1983 when we sailed around Australia. As I read somewhere that there is gold on the beaches, I pan there. There was bit of gold in the pan plus very small round silvery bits. I did not know what it is at that time, but now I'm pretty sure it was PGM.
Karl

 

[Hunting the yellow]

can anyone recommend someone to assay some concentrate... i have ( beach sand)

i have 2.6 oz on hand more if i want to put through my beach sluice...out of that i reckon 1 grain in ten is gold when put under my microscope ....man if only they were nuggets instead of minute sand type grains almost invisable to the naked eye
but what interests me most is the grey metalic grains which i think could be platinum and apart from the odd black sand grain that didnt want to make love to my magnet its at least 80% of metalic gray stuff ...well i dont know what else it could be ..silver ..lead i dont think so .
anyway with 1 in ten grains being gold ive gold about 8 grams of gold i reckon without the silver metalic stuff
if platinum its worth heaps

any ideas on how to tell if its platinum ..i tried putting it is some hydrogen peroxide and got a few bubbles ..probably not enough for me to firmly believe theres platinum there

any ideas how to check for platinum in sand ....
i dont know how i would go if i buy a furnace to melt the gold as platinum melts at a higher temp
any help appreciated

Mickance, there are 6 PGM's (Platinum Group Metals), they are never pure Platinum and always alloyed with other PGM's and other metals such as Gold, copper Silver many actually. so some rests just wont work. Assaying is the only way to be sure I think unless you can find another way, maybe XRF analysis would work I don't know.

I think the Peroxide test would be good but m,any metals react with{Peroxide, copper does violenty I think from memory. Are you on the East Coast of NSW by chance?Don't want your spot just interested, would love a pic of your beach sluice also, please? I have often dreamed/thought of this as quite a lot of PM's were won from beaches, would be way easier than sluicing rivers and creeks inland. They beach sluice a lot in the USA. PM me about this if you like as I'm genuinely interested for interests sake, not greed.

An experiment I did today from some beach sand in Sydney........ I'm wondering what the silver stuff is too, I should have cleaned it with a magnet too but didn't bother, will next time.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/487/1429784299_20150423_172027.jpg

could be mica mineral quite common in granite and on most beaches

 

[Heatho]

I don't think it's Mica HTY, I've seen plenty and it's too heavy for Mica. A report I found yesterday from the beach it came from said the Black sand is mostly Monazite but does not explain the Silvery stuff unless it's one of the Rare Earth Metals associated with Monazite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite

It could actually even be mildy radioactive, anyway I'll get to the botton of it sooner or later with some research, I'm interested in what it is though.

 

[Wombats1]

Very interesting guys, I could be wrong so i will pose the question, does Peroxide dissolve Gold? I believe it does so retention time is going to be important otherwise some of your gold is going to end up in solution, i have no ideas how to precipitate this solution either (not a chemist).
as for PGM and gold they rarely occur together in primary deposits, tertiary processes apparently account for the concentration of heavys

 

[shivan]

I believe you would need hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide for a reaction to occur. I think mainly used in recovering gold from circuitry, so not sure how well it would work on pure gold ?

 

[KarlS]

From my experience, hydrochloric acid and peroxide mix does not disolve gold. It will lift the gold plating from RAM's and other electronics boards. It will disolve copper.
Karl

 

[Wombats1]

My belief comes from my employment at a stripping plant (1985) the, lab was onsite, the chemist was playing with sludge from the bottom of the electrowinning cell, it was stated that hydrogen peroxide would dissolve gold and was amoung a few that did. Heat he said would speed the process up. Maybe it is just too slow a reaction to worry about. It is not aqua regia after all. Love this stuff keep it up

 

[Dr4gul3]

not much in the way of acids will dissolve gold. a mix of 3 parts hydrochloric and 2 parts Nitric will dissolve pretty much anything though.

what KarlS suggested sounds pretty good idea.
I could ask some of my old refinery buddys to see what would dissolve the lead easily if you want, they might even give me some live examples haha they have plenty of lead floating around.

that said, you could also try Oxidizing the Lead, if you get the molten lead above 900 degrees it should start oxidizing, that will oxidize all of the base metals and lead, and leave only precious metals. and to help the process you can melt it on a marborite crucible or cupel which soaks up the molten lead pretty easily.

Dr4g.