Electrolysis is such a cool thing. My brother used to be one of the top printed circuit board production managers in the country, if not the world back in the 1980s and 1990s producing multilayer, flex, and exotic materials printed circuit boards doing small batch prototypes and large batch production runs for years. He was 17 yrs old when he got in the business. We used to use the large plating tanks to gold plate small items just to mess around. He was the first person to get circuits on a board made from Teflon. He was also one of the first to perfect the process of wire bonding processors to circuit boards. He knows all the chemistry and electrical engineering , all the processes for plating copper, nickel , silver, and gold and probably more. Thanks for the video. It brought back some fond memories
@@anomicxtreme --- no, he stayed in the production manager capacity as troubleshooter. He had a friend who was THE go to guy in the board building industry if your company was losing money and the owners or board members wanted to spend a bunch of money they hired this guy and he had power to hire and fire anyone in order to make a company profitable again and he would go around the country and spend maybe 6 mos or a year figuring out where the problems were in these companies and he had multiple degrees and was seriously a genius and he taught my brother most of what he needed to know to be the best production manager and this guy would get hired by comanies like Texas Instruments, Teradyne, Gould, just to name some I remember, and when he got settled in he would then tell the owners that they were losing money in whatever department and if they were losing in processing department he would then hire my brother to come in and figure out where in the process system they were screwed up. Why their boards weren't passing inspections, whether it was in photo, or cad, or laminating, etching, drilling, wherever, my brother could and still can look at any circuit board, and figure out what is wrong with it. So he and his friend traveled atound the country fixing companies or setting up board manufacturing divisions of companies that wanted into the business. But once they did what they needed they moved on to another company until my brother got tired of moving every year to another state. He was only in his late 20s and decided to stay in Silicon Valley around 1988 and worked for big and small companies doing prototypes, exotics and specialty boards. Then he burned out in his mid thirties and learned to restore and install hardwood floors. Total 180° turn in trades. He worked on old Victorians in the Bay Area with his own business for around 20 years. Board shops would still call him a couple times a year to consult or troubleshoot their processes when they had a batch of boards they couldn't get right and he'd walk in and sometimes he could just look at one of the boards and he would know immediately what was wrong with it and he would need a day to figure out why it was messed up and he'd figure that out set that particular process right, run a few boards through the whole process and test them and make any adjustments in whatever department and get it right and charge a bunch of money and go back to working on hardwood floors. That businesses, board and chip/wafer processing is and was moving so fast, and the technology changes daily and the amount of money being made or being lost on a daily basis (millions per day) the pressure from the owners on a production manager is insanely intense and to try to stay at the top of the industry is not possible for very long especially when everything started going micro and nano. A person cannot keep up with the new developments at the pace that things were changing during the 2000s. You could keep up if you were given time to go back to school and by that time the industry has changed again. That industry was killing my brother. He was 17 when he got in the business as a driver. By the time he was 21 he was one of the best in the business of producing top tier custom and prototype small batch military and exotic materials board building. About 17 yrs he did that.
@@lp8650 --- I see exactly what you are saying or I should say I'm picking up what you're puttin' down. LOL I see no benefit in the refinement if it is already .99999 24k gold. I think he is doing the process just for the chemistry method to show people that it is possible to take raw or scrap gold (of any karat or mixed with other material) and break it down, get the other valuable minerals separated and the worthless crap separated as well, and then the processes of then the refinement and then turning it into an ingot or bar. I think he uses 24k because it is straightforward for people who may not understand the differences in gold refinement? I can't remember if he started this video with a bunch of scrap jewelry of plated and filled etc... and then did the processes of bringing it up to 24k or if that was a different video.
You’re welcome. That was good fun and didn’t take too much time away from other projects. Well worth it for the experience(and one more 9)! Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟
Had me watching like a hawk. It never ceases to amaze me watching the gold disolve and float through the electrolite and reform. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing with us!
When you go to melt very high purity stuff; get a fresh graphite mold that has a graphite lid; load it, then put it in one of your melting furnaces.... The bar that comes out of it will look immaculate when you let it cool and solidify then remove it from the mold. Looks excellent. Keep up the good work Kevin!
It is fun, and not as daunting to get set up for an introductory experiment as you make it sound. Firstly you don't even need a power supply to start with simple reactions. You can weakly plate copper onto steel by dipping a piece of steel in a solution of copper sulphate, sold as root killer in most hardware stores. You can also electrolitically clean metalc surfaces like copper or silver, with a weak vinegar and salt solution, and 9v battery. You can grow copper and tin crystals crystals the same way, but for tin you first make tin chloride and use that as your electrolyte.
My and my mate used to make hygrogen and oxegen with with nothing but a pair of wires, 2 nails, a jam jar and a power socket (extreamly dangerous btw, do not do this). You don't need much more to do it safely, just a cheap powersupply and you're rolling. You'll not be able to refine/plate with gold or silver, but you'll be able to at least start learning stuff and dip your toes into electrolosis.
@@DaftyBoi412 yes I used 5v 2A USB chargers successfully for plating copper. I used copper wire as (+) and the workpiece as (-) as a electrolyte I used HCL hydrochloric acid. Very simple setup. No need for any copper sulphate And of course standard batteries AA to plate with gold and silver, graphite (pencil) electrode
I been watching you a long time Doc this was 1 super satisfying video. I can't wait to see where you go with this? The silver cell by itself is totally badass.
Not sure how I ran across your video but I’m glad I did. Your videos are amazing and very informative. Can’t wait to watch more videos when I have time.
Big issue is for this refining technique to get the gold in the spent electrowinning solution low enough. In our gold recovery process (using standard cyanide leaching solutions) we can get down to 1-2 ppm Au in spent solution however we are not trying to produce high purity cathode, just trying to recover everything we can from solution and put it in a bullion bar. The refining is the Refinery's problem we sell to. Great video as always!!!
NurdRage did a demonstration of recovering copper from copper nitrate/sulfate. In his video he showed that low current and high concentration led to stronger deposition on the cathode, while high current and low concentration led to poor, powdery deposits that detached from the cathode. So it depends on what you want.
@@nothingnothing1799 -Or maybe the opposite? Start low so you get a poor powdery deposit on the cathode that will detach easier later, and then crank it up so the rest of it sticks to the poor deposit, and when you're done pull it all off in one piece since the innermost part will be poorly attached.- nvm, I'm dumb.
@@williambarnes5023 low current produces the stronger composition and high current produces the powdery deposits, so starting high would make the base layer crumbly Edit: np I honestly had to reread it a couple of time to make sure I hadn't made the mistake
Awesome work Sreetips. The lighting and angle on the electrolyte has been one of your best shots, it actually looked like shining gold in solution rather than the forbidden chloroauric coolade. Room for improvement but I guess thats partially what this second attempt was for. Like other commenters I'm sceptical that a soldered anode is the best approach. Cant knock Bobs welding though... Great vid! Great result, great process... Hats off to Emil Wohlwill from 149 years in the future. Wonder what kind of hat he was wearing in 1874...
in the future for a setup that doesnt need soldering, you should run the anode through the rollers to make it thin enough that the alligator clip can hold the gold directly, and instead of soldering leads on, just make some ladder steps to hold it higher, and as the bar shortens you can lower it down farther into the solution, this will also mean that the excess gold in the end is smaller in mass and easier to process later without having to melt all the solder off. This also makes it faster to switch to a new anode, just have another thin long piece prepared and you can effectively hot swap it, you just have to get a little better at rolling them not in the shape of a banana lol
I never tried electrolytic gold refining myself, but my father's attempts with aqua Regia always turned out ( old computer processors, etc). It is quite informative to see a technique that is new to me. I always learn from you. Thank you for trying new techniques I cannot afford to experiment with! Your content is a God send! Thank you!
I have done a hell of a lot of gold and silver soldering, it can be time consuming and can go wrong easily without a lot of experience. Get an orion pulse tig welder and the job is literally done in 2 mins, the biggest plus that no flux or solder is required and a weld way way outdoes a solder joint for strength by many factors. Love your videos they bring me joy.🏴👍
I used to work in a macinist/welding shop. Per the hi tech welder had, you can weld any metal. He welded a big copper cooling head for NASA, die to complexity it was machined in 2 parts and welded with the big welder and #4 copper ground wire.
Your videos are very fascinating to watch. I've always been impressed by the things you can do in chemistry. I really appreciate your explanations too, very informative
A Fantastic experiment ! Thanks so much for risking your gold to show us what happens when you leave your plating machine on too long , the gold collected was beautiful and would be nice to see a close up. Thank you much
One thing you might try is using a cylindrical pin/needle/rod cathode for collection. Seems you could just twist that crystal right off so long as the substrate was smooth enough. Real cool vid thnx. Hope to see more improvement on the gold crystal making.
Thank you for a very informative workshop. I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but if you can't find a sharpie, you can use the lines on the beaker as reference points.
It's been a couple of months since I watched one of your videos. You remind me a lot of Bob Ross....seriously. I'd love to have you as my neighbor. Man, you have some cool equipment
87 grams of .9999 pure gold at $64.66 per gram = $5,625.00 in gold. Awesome job! If you've never held an ounce of pure gold in your hand the weight, density and the glow are amazing.
@@trillionairebyinflation8527 I'm also curious why people wouldn't do this all the time, and he hasn't really answered the question... is it because it's too dangerous? is it not cost effective? does it cost more to acquire the equipment and raw materials than you would earn by selling the gold?
the gold stuck to the cathode will have titanium on it. in order to further purify it one must rinse it with aqua regia or atleast hcl. followed by distilled water treatment before melting it down
A couple of tips: 1: obviously a pure gold anode is best, but if you use titanium, give it a light spray with WD40 - gold will peel off nicely. 2: best not to use a stir bar. You want any impurities to fall to the bottom as a sludge. Constant stirring will stir sludge into electrolyte and enable it to be entrapped in the collected gold sponge defeating the whole purpose of purification. 3: voltage control is critical. You want contaminants to sludge out and not be transferred to cathode. Slow and steady does the job - higher volt (and amps) will force contaminants across to cathode and not give them time to sludge out.
Thank you for yet another cool educational video! Might be a good idea to taper the cathode and make the edges smooth in order to easily pull off the golden sleeve.
Good to see you using CORNING casserole dishes and lab equipment. I grew up in Corning and my ancestors worked in the factory there. Thanks for the chemistry lesson and neat video on creating beautiful gold from scrap items.
I worked in custom thermoplastic injection molding. Any part that had to release besides off a flat surface had a draft angle of about 3 degrees. I kept looking at your turbine blade and I instinctively wanted to place a draft on all surfaces with fine sandpaper finishing with Emory cloth to a polished surface. Wouldn't have to be mirror just less than the draft angle. It would pop off with a few taps. Also was thinking seeing how thermocondictive Ti is you could place ice against the hanger bend while running the gold end under hot faucet water. It would release easier that way. Another technique used in injection molding. Cooling channels inside mold , drafted angles for release. Little round details on the plastic part is remnant of the ejector pins that push out part. Retired, i miss work so much.
When you love your job, it’s hard to leave it. I have another turbine blade. I’ll trim it up to the specs you gave and I’ll repeat this in a future video. It was easy to do and the gold is very high purity.
Wow it's crazy how you mentioned the gold specs after you increased the voltage i saw them right before you mentioned it, And then as you were saying it they literally started popping up everywhere. Science and chemistry is awesome. No doubt about it.
the gold you precip'd out of the electrolyte looks SUPER clean. Normally its a caramel to " gold " color. That is straight gold yellow. very nice looking.
I would just like to give you a hearty thank you. Learning about electrolysis has allowed me to create hydrogen fuel from water and baking soda. I would have never alleviated my electricity bill had it not been for you sir... THANK YOU SO KINDLY❤
it's satisfying to watch the gold cathode rolling process, look at that nice refined gold bar get cold worked into a nearly foil thin strip, look at the reflection of the gold in the top roller
If your whole purpose is to remove contaminants from the gold bar you have to ask where they are going. By having a stirring bar operating you are not allowing any of the impurities in the anode to settle out to be removed as they may settle out onto the plated gold. You do this correctly with your silver cell by containing the sacrificial anode within a cloth basket. I would follow the other suggestions about rolling the bar into a strip to form a contact point and put the material to be purified in a cloth basket or let the impurities settle out. Be careful to keep the voltage just high enough to plate gold and not copper, silver, lead, hydrogen or whatever. If you are making hydrogen the voltage is too high.
I may refine my electrolytic gold refining equipment and process. I liked the high purity gold that it produced. I think that some movement of the electrolyte is necessary to prevent depletion at the cathode. If the gold ions get depleted at the cathode then other metals could begin to co-deposit, if they are present in the electrolyte. But if I do this then I’ll probably use high purity gold anodes to begin with. I may even try running the four nines gold back through the cell for a second pass. Try for five nines. This experiment has got me interested about electrolytic gold refining.
A note on the electrical process: The current is the important part, and is usually referenced in amps/Cathode surface area. The higher the current, the faster the reaction, but the hotter the solution gets and the more lumpy the deposition is. The lower the current, the smoother the deposit is. The actual current depends on the conductivity of the solution, the distance between the electrodes, and the voltage. Of those variables, the voltage is the only one that is user adjustable. So if you were to do more of this, then find an amperage/Cathode-area that gives you the results you desire, then aim for that.
I'm sorry u got a divorce. U was about that lifestyle and all them hoes and I would had be loyal to til death u fucked all that up and I'm not like them I'm not running back to u .
Use amps or milliamps per square centimeter. Also the anode and cathode should be parallel to each other or there will be uneven deposition. Corners that are closer have more current concentration since distance between these is smaller. Should have a lab grade thermometer so cell temp can be monitored and kept constant. Keeping a constant current control with your power supply, but watch for a steady rise in voltage which would mean electrolyte exhaustion.
Large commercial refiners use alternating anode/cathode plates suspended in a tank of silver nitrate electrolyte. These are called “thumb cells.” I am operating a moebius silver cell with the distance being equidistant between the anode basket and the cathode (stainless bowl). I’m a small hobby refiner.
Nice, electrolysis was my favorite part of chemistry. Our chemistry teacher taught us a lab that let us electroplate our quarters in gold hahaha it was epic to learn that AND we got to walk away with a cool ass momento. Cool to see you do it here
@@nuggetellawho taught you math? Lol. It's a difference of 0.0009. And it doesn't matter: do you know that that small of a difference of a chemical in our organs can kill us? It's not arbitrary.
you should consider making silver and gold 'art exhibits' using this crystal growing method. gold and silver crystals together mounted onto something would be a huge hit with the fans. i would buy several.
It wasn't exactly what I expected to see. For some reason I hoped to see well formed crystals like the silver cell, but It does answer a question I've always wondered. It is possible! Although ridiculously expensive to put together!
Just had another thought concerning the supports can you scratch or etch into the mould a thin semicircle From one end and connect the outside edges together forming the semicircle. This way all that's needed is to bend it over the beakers edge and then connect the positive lead to the loop
I have been doing electroforming process and refining using AR for 7 yrs. Electrolytic refining for 3 years using almost the same procedure as this in the video.
If you want to grow much larger crystals, try a pulse deposition plating at kHz range frequency. Something like a 1.5V sine wave with a .5V DC offset, so it spends most of its time plating, at 1~10 kHz. If it's easier for you to set up a square wave, that should also work fine.
@@kanepritchard5831 At a glance, it seems legit, 1.5V sine wave with 0.5V DC offset will have a range of -1V to 2V, the negative portion reverses the process, dissolving the gold on the cathode, but it should affect the smallest crystals more, so that the larger crystals are left behind.
Since I have no clue I’m wondering if you shaped your titanium into a tapered needle shape if it would pull right out of the gold when your done. Or if you used a ..9999 fine gold bead shape or square or pyramid ect would it plate into that shape? Great video I’ve heard a lot about your channel but never had time to watch a vid till now. Very cool in my opinion. Thanks for sharing see you on the next one 👍🏼👊🏼
if you used a stainless steel bowl like with the silver cell, would the gold not come off the bowl in the same way the silver does? or would the electrolyte corrode/dissolve the bowl?
Sreetips, will you make a video discussing the intricacies of your melting tools? I'd like to learn more about your oxy acetyline setup and your diy furnace. How big are your tanks? When and why do you choose torch vs furnace? How much do you spend on gas refills? Etc. Thank you for your wonderful content over the years, and God bless.
I’d be interested to see the difference between the quality of that bar and the good you precipitated from the electrolyte. It seems you used pure gold to refine pure gold so are you really getting better quality pure gold or is it just that much more gold? Plus your melt dish looked like it may have had some trash in it as well so I wonder how much contamination came into the bar from there. Very interesting indeed. I’d be interested in an analysis of the bars quality.
I am also concerned that the melt dish used to produce the 0.9999 pure bar wasn't completely virginal or in pristine & new 'factory clean' condition. Any informative thoughts you may have to allay these concerns would be greatly appreciated if not completely helpful.
Just wanted to say I've been captivated by your videos for weeks now, there is something about your processes that are almost magical, thanks for rousing an interest in me that I never knew I had thanks sreetips
Good job. But i still think that doing this with a 14k or even a 10k as a cathode is worth the try even with a smaller scale Because just like the silver process, even the platinum group metal have lower oxidation voltage than gold and all the oxidation stats are soluble. The unnone are the lead impurities. Thanks for the experiment. realy enjoyable ☺
The book calls for 980 parts per thousand pure gold, or better. 14k, at 583 parts per thousand, or 10k at 417 parts per thousand, would quickly foul the electrolyte. If I continue doing this then I’ll use high purity gold anodes to ensure the highest purity. Otherwise it defeats the process of using the cell.
i'd be massively interested to see what some of what you have produced looks like under an electron microscope. i'm curious if we can see differences in structure at that scale, or if it looks the same as standard methods. not sure if there's any near you, but your local uni/college might have some fans that can help :)
This is amazing to watch. Maybe a lower current would make nice gold crystal? Although it's amazing, the gold just doesn't impress me nearly as much as the silver crystals do. What an amazing thing to learn about. Really cool stuff you're doing!
Well Kev, how do you feel about the whole experiment overall? i feel this was a much much better result and process then the past videos you have made...
It’s got me very interested. I may refine the equipment and start using this for future refining. The titanium cathode was a big plus, finding that it works well.
@@sreetips I’d be very interested in the results using an impure gold bar as the source of AU vs the pure gold bar like this one, would it operate the same as the silver cell/ wohlwill cell you have operated, will the impurities displace like in the silver cell or will it not work? I’d assume use 18k solid gold cast bar as the anode, 🤷 would that even work, or do you need all AU in solution? 👀👀👀 so many questions
❤ amazing you started and where you are in the adventure. Your definitely knowledgeable on how to and self support on this side of the chemical world with gold .uch respect to you what beautiful piece of stone
Next time you do make a new bar for the gold cell, you could try taking a small bar and have it rolled out into a wire of desired thickness and when pouring the new bar have them either sitting in the mold or dip them into the molten gold. The cathode might benefit from a narrowing a slight bit near the end to help it come off a bit easier but not too much so it will just slip off in the cell.
@@sreetips when you started setting it up I was wondering how you were going to get the gold off the titanium. I was surprised to see it come off that easy
Another very nice video sreetips. Currently building a silver cell. Going to watch this one again to work out final gain of gold weight. Thankyou again sir.
Was interesting to see the slight change in growth structure when bumping up the voltage.. as you mentioned when asked about the voltage in silver cell, I gather the crystal structures would grow too thin and too fast and result in a short if left unattended. I wonder if in the right vessel, you might be able to create some interesting structures.. Very cool to see.. but seems far more labour intensive.. but a nice change in content.. still entertaining as always. Looking forward to seeing what you do next
Your videos are fascinating. I used to work as an electroplater, coat the surfaces you don’t want plated with protective dipping wax. That’s what used for the item being plated. A different product is used in the anode and cathode bars and racks. It’s called plastisol.
silver crystals and now gold! 🤩 That titanium worked a lot better than I expected as well, probably a good decision to go with in hindsight as opposed to the ribbon as the ribbon would've probably caused even more hassle next to an impossibility to separate the 9999. Do you think you could melt away the gold from the titanium or would that cause some impurities to mix in?
Just for future reference, never try to melt a metal element from another metal element. Whichever has the lowest melting point (Au in this case) will obviously melt, but the Higher melting metal (Ti in this case) will just be that perfect warm temperature for the molten element to stick to... think how fabricators pre heat work beforehand etc.
Watching the anode erode and showing it's structure was as enjoyable as seing this beautiful gold depositing on the cathode. Thank you again, this is a process I wanted to see for a long time :) Hope you have thought og some variations in current, voltage, heat or PH in mind that you wll share with us. I believe the reason the gold stuck to the anode was because of the concentration of the electrolyte. To be honest, I thought the process was quite fast.
