Sodium Burn Process

Disclaimer:

Though protective clothing is not being worn by the folks in the pictures, it should always be worn during every portion of this process.

From: Robert
Subject: Sodium/gold
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 08:57:20 -0500

Dear Friends,
Thanks to help from Barry and D, I have been able to speak directly with the Essene and his daughter and clarify many important points on the sodium/gold process. I have done several burns using this new information and have greatly improved both the quality and quantity of precipitate obtained. I have summarized the equipment, materials, and procedures required below.

1. Vessels: The Essene uses an 8 quart stainless steel stock pot (which can be purchased from WalMart for about $16) to burn and afterwards boil the sodium/gold. He would like to use a titanium pot, and contracted with someone to make him one, but they took his money and never delivered the pot. So he has been using only stainless steel pots, with the top tightly clamped on with 12 small C clamps. After three burns the pot is totally destroyed due to caustic corrosion. If you use stainless steel, you will get a lot of iron oxide and iron hydroxide contamination in your results. Thus, you should allow the solid matter to settle out of the solution overnight, and then pour off the clear liquid on top, before you do your precipitation. It if very difficult to filter out all of the solid matter, especially at a high pH.

Personally, I have been using a titanium vessel that I had fabricated. There is very little contamination. If you use stainless steel, you will obtain a dark brown or black liquid after boiling. If you use titanium, the liquid will be cloudy purple.

2. Torch: The Essene does not use an induction furnace to perform the sodium/gold work. He uses a homemade propane torch. It is made from a two inch dia. steel pipe, (12 inches long), in which he has drilled two sets of 1/2 inch air holes circumferentially around the pipe, with each set spaced about 4 inches apart. To one end of this pipe he has welded a steel plate, through which he inserts a 1/4 inch pipe, sticking about 2 inches into the interior of the larger pipe. This is welded to the plate. To the interior portion of the small pipe, he attaches a pipe cap, in which a 1/16th inch hole is drilled. This is the gas jet. The other end of the 1/4 inch pipe is about 30 inches long, and is screwed into the propane line coming from a small barbecue type propane tank. It thus serves as a torch handle. No regulator is used. The valve on the propane tank itself is used to regulate the flame. You should obtain a powerful bushy 8 inch diameter flame from this torch. He then applies an even heat to the bottom of the pot, with the sodium and gold placed inside, until the steel becomes dull red hot (which is about 600 C). He does not monitor temperature except by the dull red color. He says the dull red color should be obtained within one minute, or your flame is too weak. Hold the pot at this temperature (color) for 5 to ten minutes or until you hear the material start to pop and burn within the vessel. If white smoke comes out, you need to improve your clamping technique. If a little smoke comes out it is ok. Then remove the heat and allow to cool.

I am continuing to use my own rosebud propane torch with oxygen accelerator. It is needed to heat up my titanium vessel, which is made out of 3/16 inch thick material, and my vessel is small enough to be bathed completely in my flame. I obtain the dull red color in about 30 seconds.

3. Proportions of Materials: The Essene usually does a large sized burn, using one pound of sodium metal and one to six ounces of gold. That is why he uses a large pot. I usually do a much smaller burn, consisting of a few grams of gold, and an ounce or two of sodium. The ratio should be around 1 part gold to 10 or 15 parts sodium to make sure that there is enough sodium to react with the gold. The sodium will first react with everything else, including oxygen, iron, etc.; before the gold, so you need an excess of sodium. This explains why my earlier burns produced so little yield.

4. Wetting Down: After the materials have cooled, when you open the pot or vessel, you should see a thin white crust covering the sodium melt. That is sodium oxide or hydroxide. The Essene wets this material down by setting the pot in his driveway (or on any noncombustible surface) and squirting it with water ejected from a spray bottle (with a fine mist). When it starts to pop and burn, stop wetting, and allow the reaction to slow down before continuing. If your vessel is too deep rather than wide, I have found that a pocket of un-reacted sodium will usually form at the bottom, and towards the end of the wetting process, the water on top will finally soak through and it will react with explosive force, blowing out everything in your vessel, in a fireworks display of burning sodium. So be very careful! Wide vessels are much better for wetting down the material. You want to have as much surface area for the sodium to melt and run horizontally as possible. Sometimes, during this process you will get a runaway sodium burn, which will melt through the pot and empty all of the contents onto the ground, so proceed slowly. I had one batch burn right through a thin walled titanium pot and spill out. If you use stainless steel for the wetting process, the burning sodium will eat up the pot like a cookie, and a lot of your un-reacted gold will be deposited as a plating on the steel, at which point it is unrecoverable. I now pour out the contents of my small titanium vessel onto a titanium plate, which is placed within a stainless pot. Most the reaction occurs on the piece of plate, rather than the stainless surface, and I thus cut down the amount of crap that goes into the boiling.

5. Boiling the Liquid: After wetting the material thoroughly, and after all the burning has stopped, add about a half gallon of distilled water to the residue and 4 to 8 ounces of sodium hydroxide crystals. If you are doing a large burn, use one gallon of water and one cup of crystals. The Essene does this in the same pot as he used for the burn, and the wetting. I have used either a stainless steel pot, or more recently, a Scan Pan pot, which has a titanium-ceramic coating impregnated on an aluminum base. After two boilings, however, the coating is beginning to bubble. So this may not hold up for long. But it really cuts down on the crap in the solution. Boil the solution for one to two hours. I do a vigorous boil with a top placed on the pot. You might add a little water after a while if it looks low.

6. Precipitation: After boiling, remove from heat, and add some more water to cut the caustic nature of the solution, allow to cool, and then place in glass jars for storage overnight. This will allow the solid matter to settle to the bottom. You can then remove the clear liquid the next day by pouring off, or using an ear syringe. Pour the clear liquid into a quart jar, about 1/3 full, and fill up to 3/4 full using distilled water. By diluting the solution in this manner, the ppt will be whiter. If you are getting a ppt that is yellow or brown, it means that your solution is too strong, and needs to be diluted with more water before adding the HCl. Bring the pH down to 8.5 using HCl while stirring and then allow to sit for a few minutes. You should obtain a flocculent white ppt that will settle down to the bottom of the vessel is a big fluffy heap. This is supposed to be the STUFF. I have only recently begun to obtain this stuff in quantity, and have not really determined what it is yet. But the Essene and his daughter claim that they have given this away to cancer and aids patients who have obtained complete cures using it.

To get to this point, I have probably used up and lost about 3 ounces of gold, spent hundreds of hours, and wasted several thousand dollars on various vessels, and other equipment, so be careful. The white gold bug can be expensive. :-)

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