How do you extract gold from quartz?

Answer 1

Mercury is atomic number 80; gold is 79, so you're going to need to turn a proton into a neutron.

Your best option would probably be to isolate the 0.15% of naturally occurring mercury-196 and attempt to insert an additional neutron. That would convert it to radioactive mercury-197, which decays with a half-life of 64 hours into stable gold-197.

Good luck with that.

Answer 2

Answer

Quartz does not contain gold.

Gold is found in quartz, but is not a constituent of the mineral, quartz.
Although gold can chemically, be found in rare metallic sulphides, when found in quartz, it is usually found as immiscible grains either in the quartz, or with sulphide minerals, distributed within the quartz. It is not chemically bonded to the quartz or associate minerals. To extract the metal from the gold- bearing quartz rock, a determination is made as to the average grain size of the gold. Often these grains are microscopic, and are not discernible by eye. Once a size is determined, the ore is milled down to that size, to "free" the gold. Then either by gravity methods (taking advantage of golds high specific gravity) or by chemical methods, the gold is concentrated from the crushed material. Chemical concentration usually involves attracting the gold particles to another substance that is easily separated by a secondary process, from the gold. In the "old " days mercury was used to form an amalgam with the gold. Now, metallurgical extraction methods use other compounds and are far more refined.

Answer 3

put the gold bits in mercury until disolved then squeeze through a shammy leather and you will be left with a silver nugget half a potato and cut a hole in the middle drop the nugget in and replace the potato together then place into a bonfire and leave for several hours do not stand round the fire as the fumes are highly toxic when you return the potato should contain a gold nugget where the silver nugget was

Answer 4

Gold can be extracted from quartz by crushing the rock to release the gold, then using a combination of gravity separation and chemical processes to separate the gold from the quartz. This typically involves crushing the rock into powder, then using cyanide or mercury to extract the gold from the powdered material.