Making gold nuggets by dissolving gold in mercury and heating

A. Hi, DA.

Mercury is for creating "mad hatters". Unfortunately, gold refining isn't a weekend project or something you can learn from an internet posting; rather, it's a vocation requiring training, experience, and learning. If you have a friend in the jewelry business or who is a chemistry teacher, see if s/he can explain and demonstrate the issues; otherwise, please see if your library has a book on gold refining (or precious metals refining). There are severe hazards working with chemicals like mercury (you can't even buy a thermometer with the mercury sealed in glass at a drugstore anymore), and some of the refining steps, if poorly implemented, can generate fulminates (motion sensitive explosives). Good luck.

Regards,

? What is your rationale for saying that you can melt it and most of it will be gone. Melting gold alloy will not decrease the weight of gold to be measured by any scale that most people have access to

A. You please use good quality graphite crucible to melt your gold. After melting, pour it in cold water which is in stainless steel container. Dry the nuggets.