Is it possible to be lazy when getting the materials for recovery?

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Walcam

Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2019
Messages
23
Location
Odense
Hi.

Topic say it all :)
I have been watching a ton on youtubevideos of crapping computers for gold, but most of them seem quite selective in the things they go for.

Some only go for IC´s other go for the golden fingers, however i can see that there are many places in a pc that contain gold,CI, ISA slots, to jumpers and other connecters.

My son and i tried to dismantle a pc to the fulle extent, taking every single chip of all the cards, taking of the crystals, unvinding all coils including inside the psu for copper wires, taking those damn small thingys containing the platinum. yeah basicly everything.. and it took forever.
we even ended up burning the now empty motherboard to get the copperwires inside the board itself and besides the time, smell and angry wife, it just dont seem worth it.

So now the question from the topic.

Would it be possible to either dissolve a complete motherboard without depopulating it first, and the later retrieve the different metals from the sollution, by different types of precipritation

Or would it be possible to crush tho whole thing in a mill and then either melt it down to 1 lump of stuff for later treatment to burn away as much plastic etc.
 
Or, sell the whole board to a board buyer and move on to the next project. You will never make any money doing it they way you just did.
 
While you're learning the chemistry, be sure you also learn how to deal with all the toxic waste you'll be creating. You're wife has good reason to be angry. By burning the motherboard, you released a cloud of toxic gasses into the atmosphere, all headed downwind toward your neighbors and all other living things.

While I admire your desire to spend time with your son and learn things together, one of the most important lessons to teach him is responsibility, good stewardship of the Earth, and the common sense to know where to stop. Most members here cherry pick a few items that they can process themselves with minimal environmental impact, then sell the rest on to someone who is equipped to process it safely.

Dave
 
Both replies thus far are right. I sell nearly all boards whole. Most of the rest I remove only a few parts, then sell. Prudence, plus knowing your limitations are key.

If you do want to learn how to refine precious metals, recovery from electronics is the long way around. I would suggest you learn on scrap jewelry. There are far fewer things that can go wrong, thus limiting waste and loss.

Read Hoke. Read again. Make notes. Ask questions pertaining to your notes. Learn the acquaintance experiments. Do all this, and you might be ready to do recovery and refining on jewelry scrap.

Time for more coffee.

Edit. Until I looked at your profile, I did not realize you were a Dane. There may be both EU and Danish laws and regulations that could limit what you can do. Due to that, I will leave it to our members in the EU to guide you in that arena.
 
Thank you guys for your replies :)

And ofcourse your right, that we need to be responsible and think about the enviroment, and i have no plan to burn a number of mother boards, and can assure that any chemical waste is delivered to the local recycling center in my city.

So enviroment and cost efficiency aside, my question was to the theory and chemistry when your material is mixed and not clean like when you have only the gold fingers. and to take it a step furter, to collect as many of the different metals as possible from the process.

So assuming that i would sink an entire motherboard into a tray of acid without depopulating it first, what would happen? and what would be the best course of action ? how would you go about it?

My thought. and please feel free to correct me if i am totaly off

I would start with HCl 30-35% and dissolve the metals that will dissolve in this alone like zink, aluminium etc
Then i would move the motherboard to a new bath of HCl + Hydrogen peroxide to get the copper and i guess soldering tin would also come off here.
then i consider for 3.rd bath of nitric acid to remove anything that is left i guess that would be silver and (palladium)
and finaly aqua regia for the gold.

would this be possible or would i still get a very impure AR solution?


alternative could i sink the MB directly into AR and precipritate the metals one by one from it?

I apologize in advance for my spelling, as English is not my native language.
 
No, no, and no. It just doesn't work that way.

There are just too many problems in what you propose. You'll end up with a big mess and probably never recover any metals of any value.

If you're interested in learning, by all means stick around and study the forum. Everything you've proposed has been discussed in detail in the past, but you'll have to devote the time to learning it.

If it was as easy as what you propose, everyone would be doing it. It's not, and that's why knowledgeable members cherry pick a few items and sell the rest.

Dave
 
Walcam said:
Thank you guys for your replies :)

And ofcourse your right, that we need to be responsible and think about the enviroment, and i have no plan to burn a number of mother boards, and can assure that any chemical waste is delivered to the local recycling center in my city.

So enviroment and cost efficiency aside, my question was to the theory and chemistry when your material is mixed and not clean like when you have only the gold fingers. and to take it a step furter, to collect as many of the different metals as possible from the process.

So assuming that i would sink an entire motherboard into a tray of acid without depopulating it first, what would happen? and what would be the best course of action ? how would you go about it?

My thought. and please feel free to correct me if i am totaly off

I would start with HCl 30-35% and dissolve the metals that will dissolve in this alone like zink, aluminium etc
Then i would move the motherboard to a new bath of HCl + Hydrogen peroxide to get the copper and i guess soldering tin would also come off here.
then i consider for 3.rd bath of nitric acid to remove anything that is left i guess that would be silver and (palladium)
and finaly aqua regia for the gold.

would this be possible or would i still get a very impure AR solution?


alternative could i sink the MB directly into AR and precipritate the metals one by one from it?

I apologize in advance for my spelling, as English is not my native language.

don't do it

1. Aluminium chloride is a neurotoxin, just pick those heatsinks and aluminium caps off before HCl if you still decide to go ahead...
2. Most of the gold (and Pd if there's any) on a motherboard is incapsulated in plastic - IC's (big and small), BGAs, MLCCs (Ceramic).... Your acids will have some access to the absurdly thin gold plating on pins, but that is just a fraction from "total gold"... more so, any flakes or powders of gold will get stuck in all the nooks and crannies on your board - plastic sockets, etc. you won't be able to wash it out...
3. If there will be any gold in solution (AR) with copper (or more reactive metals) present - it will cement out, you can't be sure you put ALL of your gold in solution unless there is NO other metals present on your board - can you imagine for how long you'll have to wait for acid to access all of the copper under solder mask and inside the chips?

btw, I am talking from my own experience, I actually did chuck a few MB in to AP with bubbler going, for fun, waste of time (and perfectly good copper II chloride, which got soiled) :)
 
First of all, you shouldn't need to heat anything up while scrapping a computer. Just take off any IC's, capacitors, or oscillators with a pair of pliers wherever possible, then knock off anything else with either a screwdriver, or cheap chisel, even tapping it with a hammer if you need to. Everyone develops their own style and after taking apart a few of them you'll get up to speed and it won't seem so bad. I like to rest the board against my bench vice, so I can hit some parts off with my hammer. Eventually you'll actually enjoy sorting parts out into different containers and see them slowly fill up. There's a zen to it. :arrow: :p :D
 
what about the board itself after you have cleard it of everything on it?
Is it possible/worth it to get the copper wireing inside the board?
 
niks neims said:
don't do it

1. Aluminium chloride is a neurotoxin, just pick those heatsinks and aluminium caps off before HCl if you still decide to go ahead...

That would be why its the active ingredient in antiperspirants then? 8) 8) 8)

Haha I had this "discussion" a few years ago when a couple of people on another forum were screaming and scaring people about it's toxicity and I said at the time that it should be taken in context. It didn't end well.

Jon
 
anachronism said:
niks neims said:
don't do it

1. Aluminium chloride is a neurotoxin, just pick those heatsinks and aluminium caps off before HCl if you still decide to go ahead...

That would be why its the active ingredient in antiperspirants then? 8) 8) 8)

Haha I had this "discussion" a few years ago when a couple of people on another forum were screaming and scaring people about it's toxicity and I said at the time that it should be taken in context. It didn't end well.

Jon

The dose makes the poison....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_chloride#Safety
It would probably kill the guy if he inject himself with it in "rather high doses".... but then again few kg of gold would also if dropped on the head from rather high enough...

all kidding aside, If you do have an opinion on Aluminium chloride from home refiners point of view, please, do share ;)

Walcam said:
what about the board itself after you have cleard it of everything on it?
Is it possible/worth it to get the copper wireing inside the board?

You are missing out on a considerable value if you don't, there should be about 10-20 % Cu by weight there, then again most simple scrapyards won't take material like that in small quantities... I do not think that there is a way to turn it in to somewhat saleable state by yourself without burning/milling&gravity separation... certainly not by wet chemistry, unless you plan to run copper refinery....
 
Walcam said:
what about the board itself after you have cleard it of everything on it?
Is it possible/worth it to get the copper wireing inside the board?
Is it possible. Yes. Is it financially viable in large scale? No. Is its discussion banned on this forum, yes.

Is it something you should try to do as a family exercise in metal processing? Heck no

If you want to have fun family refining, buy an Oz of silver, a junk karat gold scrap ring and read up on inquarting. Filter the gold, cement the silver. Leave old electronics alone.

What no one has said is that even if you could recover all of the gold from one motherboard...you’d have such a small amount of gold that you would never be able to find it. Pin head size button of gold.



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