Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia, C., Chlori-na′tion.

Home Collections/Texts Perseus Catalog Research Grants Open Source About Help

Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:

This text is part of:

19th-Century American

View text chunked by:

chapter : entry
entry

Chlori-na′tion.

A process for the extraction of gold by exposure of the auriferous material to chlorine gas.

The process was first introduced by Plattner, a professor in the School of Mines, Freiberg, Saxony.

“The principle involved is the transformation of metallic gold, by means of chlorine gas, into soluble chloride of gold (the aurum potabile of the ancients), which can be dissolved in cold water, and precipitated in the metallic state by sulphate of iron, or as sulphide of gold by sulphureted hydrogen gas. The precipitate may then be filtered, dried, and melted with suitable fluxes to obtain a regulus of malleable gold.” — Raymond.

The following conditions are necessary: —

1. The gold must be in a metallic state.

2. There must be no other substance in the charge which would combine with free chlorine.

3. The chlorine must have no impurities which would dissolve other metals or bases.

4. No reaction must be induced which would cause precipitation of the gold before the termination of the process.

The process with quartz and free gold does not involve roasting, but the latter process is necessary with ores containing sulphurets and arseniurets. In the chlorination process, the ore is sifted into a wooden vat lined with pitch, and having a false bottom beneath which the gas is admitted. The top is luted on and the gas admitted; when the gas begins to escape at a hole of observation in the lid, it is the signal that the air is ejected and the hole is then closed. The gas is continually passed into the mass for say eighteen hours, according to the coarseness of the gold; the cover is removed and water introduced, and the solution drawn off into [543] the precipitation vat. The gold is precipitated by sulphate of iron, the supernatant liquor decanted. The sediment is a brown powder which is filtered upon paper dried in an iron or porcelain vessel, smelted to a metallic regulus in clay crucibles, a little borax, salt, and nitrate of potash being used as fluxes. See Raymond's “Mines, mills, and furnaces,” pp. 417 – 431.

1877.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar:

Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia
Knight, Ed.

This text is part of:

View text chunked by:

Table of Contents:

Chlori-na′tion.

Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia Knight, Ed.

This text is part of:

View text chunked by:

Table of Contents:

Chlori-na′tion.

Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia
Knight, Ed.