John Hudson’s
Method
by Charles Dragoo
To begin with, I learned this method from John
Hudson while corresponding with him through Email and over many Telephone calls. This method is simple,
in terms of the materials used. However the leaching part of the process along with the filtration to
clarify the leach solution makes for some interesting work. John used an electric cement mixer to mix the
leach. I mix the leach solution by hand with a solid HDPE rod I made several years ago. In this document
I will attempt to give a step by step process for those who are interested in trying this method out your
self. I would like to add that any source material should be assayed before using this process. Some
other source materials that have been used for this process include limestone, powdered volcanic rock,
clays, volcanic ash, with great results. The cheapest way to start would be with powdered limestone that
has been proven to have no lead or other toxic metals in it.
Processing the
Sands
I begin by taking the sands that I use and roasting
them for about a day or so to remove any traces of arsenic or any of the other nasty toxic materials in
the sands. After the roasting of the sands, let them cool
overnight.
Preparing the Acid Solution for the
leach
The water used in this method is very important. You
never want to use water that has been treated with chlorine or fluoride. Use well water or waters from a
good spring. You can use distilled water but this seems to give smaller yields due to the water being
free of minerals. Take 4 litres of clean well water and place this is a
suitable vessel. I use a 5 gallon HDPE bucket for the leach. Add 200ml of HCl
(hydrochloric acid, also called muriatic acid) to the water and stir this well. This will be your leach
solution.
Adding the Source
Material
The amount of source material to add per gallon of
leach solution is 2 to 5 lbs. Make sure this source material is as fine a
powder as possible.
When adding the source material, add it slowly. As a
rule of thumb; add less and stir more. This part of the process could take you hours because when you add
the source material it seems to froth and bubble like crazy. The froth in the solution rises like dough
and fast if you add too much of the material too soon. Just go slowly and prepare for the next step in
the process.
Let this settle out. What I mean by that is to let
the bubbling and frothing stop. Then you will stir this about 3 times the first day. On the second day
stir this solution as many times as you can. Four times is good enough. The leach solution will be ready
to filter when there are no more signs of reaction taking place. If you have patience let the leach go
for 3 days. I have had some really interesting results from a leach I performed for over a
week.
Filtering the
Solution
The next step is to filter the solution so that it
is clarified. Your solution will be tinted but it must be clear of any solids floating around. When the
solution is crystal clear then it will be ready for the catalyst to be added. The method used to clarify
the solution is very basic and inexpensive. Take a funnel made of HDPE and insert 5 to 8 layers of coffee
filters. In the coffee filter add a wad of bathroom tissue. The tissue will trap most of the solids and
allow the solution to filter out clear. You may have to repeat this until you get the desired clarity of
solution. You can place the funnel into a glass jar of one gallon size or a bucket made of HDPE. When the
solution is clear you can move to the next step.
Adding the
Catalyst
This next step can be done in two ways. The first
way is to add 10 to 20 ml of sulfuric acid to the gallon of leach solution. The second way is to add 2.5
ml of sulfuric acid to 1 liter of solution to be evaporated. Now this step is where you really use your
own judgment and try out different amounts of the catalyst. The more sulfuric acid used per liter the
faster the powder precipitates out of the solution. The powder that comes out as a result of using more
sulfuric seems to look and feel different. If you add 10 to 20 ml of the sulfuric acid to the gallon the
precipitation is slower. You will see the powder form around when about 300 ml of the solution is left in
the beaker. This powder drops out in the form of long crystal needles and lots of them. After adding the
catalyst we then move on to the next step.
Evaporation of the
Solution
This step can be done with electric or gas burner
and can take anywhere from a couple hours to a few days to perform depending upon the amount of heat
used. If I let this solution evaporate at 150 degrees then chances are it will take over 5 hours per
liter of solution. If you added more sulfuric acid to 1 liter of solution then the powder will start to
form in minutes and continue to form during the whole evaporation process. So watch the heat and take
note of how much sulfuric was added to the leach solution. When the powder starts forming, stir the
solution very well. When the powder drops to the bottom of the beaker the heat will build up and cause
the solution to blow upward and out of the beaker from the sudden release of heat. What I do when this
starts happening is to take the beaker off the heat and let the powder drop out to the bottom. Pour off
the rest of the solution into another beaker and put this on the heat and continue the evaporation. This
seems to help cut out a bulk of the stirring at this step. After the powder starts forming and you get
through the evaporation, move on to the next step. Remember, never let all of
the solution totally evaporate out of the beaker. You want to leave at least 150ml to 200ml of solution
in the beaker.
Washing the
Powder
The next step is to wash the powder six times. This
takes all the salt out of the powder that formed from the acids. A good idea would be to get several
gallons of well water or spring water and place these in the refrigerator. We want the water for the
washing to be ice cold as this helps to cut down on losing the powder down the drain. Before doing the
work on the leach go ahead and prepare several gallons of wash water. Next, take your beaker with the
cooled solution and powder mix and pour in ice cold water. Fill up the beaker to the 1000 ml mark and
place this in the refrigerator to settle out. Once this has settled, slowly pour off the top water into a
plastic bucket. Pour off until you see that you might lose some of the powder and then stop. Add more
water up to the 1000 ml mark and repeat. On the third washing add only up to the 500 ml mark and repeat
this 2 more times. After the 6th washing, let the powder settle for some time then slowly pour
off the top water into another glass container. I use a Pyrex bowl and save this water as this water
contains powder as well. Move on to the next step.
Drying the
powder
There are two ways that I dry the Powder. You can
dry the powder in the oven at 150 degrees in a Pyrex dish or you can put the wet powder on a glass plate
or in a Pyrex dish and sun dry it. Sun drying the powder seems to charge it up quite well and it is a
most natural way. So, take the Beaker of wet powder and spoon out the powder into a Pyrex dish. The wider
dish with lower walls helps the drying process speed along. If using the oven, check the powder
periodically with a spoon to see if it is dry. Scrape the powder along and check it. After oven drying,
set this out to cool. Scoop out the powder which should not stick to the dish and place it in another
dish. Let this sit on a window ledge and dry a little more or for charging purposes.
Storing the
Powder
When the drying process is completed you can take
your powder and store it in a sterile plastic container or in a sterile glass container. Make sure these
containers seal well so that dust or other things cannot get into the powder.
After notes
Things I have noticed while doing the process are:
At every 125 ml of solution there is a different grade of powder that forms. This has not happened every
single time with the process but it happens more often than not. When you add the catalyst to the leach
solution you will see that a white powder will start forming without heat at room temperature. This
powder comes down as a heavy powder that is insoluble in acid when dried. This powder is more granular
and not fine like the other powder that comes out. Most all of the powder that comes out is fine and very
fluffy. The powder shines too. Sometimes the needle like crystals that form in the solution during the
evaporation process are as long as a half an inch but most of the time they are more like a half or less
then a half centimeter. Upon a closer look at the needle like structures, they are clear like glass and
very fine. When you have millions of these, needle like structures together, it looks like a shiny white
powder.
I have added up to 70 ml of sulfuric acid to 1000 ml
of the leach solution and the same thing happened. There was a lot of precipitate in the needle like form
of glassy powder. I did not use a heat source for this experiment.
I have taken this powder and placed it on a sheet of
stainless steel to be heated. I proceeded to heat the powder. After about 5 minutes of heating the
powder, I took a long steel spoon to move the powder around. When I moved some of the powder around it
seemed to move across the surface of the steel plate effortlessly, floating if you will. When I attempted
to move the powder with the spoon a second time the powder moved away from the spoon. It seemed that
every time I approached the powder with the spoon it would move away as if the spoon was a magnet pushing
against another magnet. I did this for nearly 20 minutes.
Some of the powder will move around in a
petrie dish when I move my hand under the surface.
Sometimes I wouldn't touch the dish and some of the powder would fly across in the dish but for most of
the time I would touch the bottom and move my fingers around, rubbing the bottom of the
dish.
If the powder is on a flat plate near plastic bags,
the powder starts being pulled to the bags. You can watch this happen. It happens not all at once but in
waves. I have only noticed this 3 times. I have not tried to do it anymore.
When I add some of the powder to water it will form
into a gel. But this is not all the time. Like I mentioned before, different powders come out at
different levels of evaporation.
For more information Please contact: Dragoo.Charles@gmail.com