For years I collected the sludge from the bottoms of my flow-through wet
tumbler system, thinking that there must be some precious metal in it, but
always wondering if there would be enough to make it profitable to send
off to refining.
I would ask the reps from the refining companies what they thought and
they didn’t get too excited about it. They would ask for samples, say,
“send it in and we will see”, not especially encouraging. Turns out it was
worth it.
16 years of accumulated sludge, dried out, weighed 171.5 lbs.
The yield was 1.26 ozt gold, 138.27 ozt silver
Total was 139.53 ozt precious metal or 9.57 lbs. So my waste stream was
5.6% precious metals.
For more than one reason you shouldn’t dump the waste down the drain. it’s like stone cutting sludge, it will absolutely clog your drain. Dry it out, recycle it.
I’m talking about magnetic tumbler water as well. It’s primarily burnishing the metal. No sludge or anything down the drain. I wouldn’t do that.
The coffee filters are a good idea. I wonder if we’d be better off using a filter that would catch smaller particulates? Not sure what that would be?
Mark
Search for “qualitative filter paper” in the Industrial and Scientific category on Amazon. it comes in various diameters down to 1.5 micron pores. Those’ll catch most everything.
You can dump sludge and ultrasonic waste down drain IF you do what I do.I first pour thru coffee filters(reusing filtered ultrasonic cleaner) Leftover sludge water goes down drain into a 5 micron filter under the sink. Stuller started selling them maybe 5 years ago item 23-6020:100000:T. They now charge about $190 for setup. I bought one and quickly discovered it was merely a reverse osmosis whole house water filter. FiltersFast has about 15 brands that all work some as low as $32 (Culligan HF-360A Whole House Water Filter Housing).You will have to provide the fitting
s Even if you get the Stuller one buy discount filters in bulk, they just have to be 5 micron. I experimented and sent in 2 filters individually to refiners setting up they could keep the refined metal if there was no refining charge. the refined metal of one was $38, the other $42. well worth the $3 per filter(Hydronix SDC-25-1005 Sediment Water Filter - 5 Mic also FiltersFast price)
. it comes in various diameters down to 1.5 micron pores. Those’ll catch most everything.