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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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Recover gold from gold plated stainless steel wire

Q. I am a chemical engineer working with a private firm in India. At this stage the problem I am facing is the following, any sort of help will be appreciated:

I have stainless steel wire of 304 grade, which is electro-coated with gold. Now I am seeking to dissolve stainless steel completely without losing gold at all.

Can you suggest any method?

Warm regards,

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A. Try 50% hydrochloric acid

Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK

A. Hi Vishnu. Hopefully Trevor's response will be the answer you seek, but you seem to be describing one particular step you intend to execute rather than mentioning the actual goal, and it's hard for me to accept that dissolving all of the stainless steel is the most practical route to recovery of the materials from gold plated stainless steel wire :-) It just seems more practical to strip the gold plating off and recover the gold, and I wonder if maybe it's possible to strip the gold but you started with the assumption that it isn't possible?

Luck & Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

Q. Hi, Jason Ho here from Malaysia, I am facing an issues where my 22K gold jewellery contains some small and tiny broken pieces of stainless steel. I believe my worker accidentally melted the old jewelry with it and that then being used in the casting process. May I know which acid should I use to dissolve stainless steel but not gold. I have tried boiling it with 60% hydrochloric acid

Q. Jason, did you get the stainless steel out of the gold? I have a few ounces of bench filings and sweeps that have some stainless steel and other metals in it. I'm wanting to recover the gold and possibly the silver too.