Subject: removing mercury from gold

From: [email-masked] (Steve Rayner)
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 14:35:16 GMT

Heat will remove mercury from gold, you don't need a whole lot either. 
Dental amalgam works with body heat, vapourising the mercury, leaving the
gold behind.  I used to do jewelry repairs in conjunction with my watchmaking
business, an have some experience with this.  Any gold ring worth its salt
will withstand a dull red heat with no problems, but you don't need that much.
just pass it through a bunsen, or alchohol flame to heat it to about 300
degrees or so, and allow to cool.  If there is a lot of mercury in it you
may have to repeat the process several days appart until no more mercury
remains.

It may be of interest, that my late father was a placer miner/prospector for
part of the thirties. He put mercury behind the riffles in the sluice box
to recover the flour gold, which comprises the bulk of placer gold.  At
the end of a days work the mercury amalgum was sqeased through a handkerchief
to remove surplus mercury, and the remaining amalgum was placed in a ball
shaped cast iron crucible.  A piece of U shaped pipe screwed into the
crucible, the crucible was placed in the campfire, with the open end of
the pipe in a pail of water.  The mercury was driven from the gold, and
condensed in the water, leaving a crumbly ball of flour gold "dust" in the
crucible.  Ah yes, I neglected to say that the crucible was made in two parts
that screwed together. When mercury is saturated with gold it has the
consistency of bread dough.

-- 
                                Steve Rayner.