copper from cell phone boards

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kjavanb123

Well-known member
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Apr 1, 2009
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Location
USA
All,

I depopualted a batch of cellphone boards, weighed 955 grams, after depopulation they weighed 220 grams, I used my test pyrolysis ubit then mix the burned boards with equal part soda ash and borax, melt it and got 58.9 grams of copper.
IMG_6717.JPG

Based on above, copper content in form of laminated in depopulated cellphone board is 26.77%.

I am trying to compile a list of copper content of different type of boards that I already depopulated and smelted.

Using a good pyrolysis, and a simple furnace, I am going to recover copper from the bare boards.

Regards
Kj
 
Your copper is not pure as you have not refined it in any way. Do you intend to process this copper as an anode material in a copper cell to recover any PM's in the material? Do you have an XRF result of the copper shown indicating other metals present?
 
4metals,

I recovered this copper just to see how much copper is in depopulated cellphone boards.

I dont think it contains any PMs, as I already leached the gold plating on boards using cyanide and smelt the components.

Unless some other metals are used in copper laminated in fiberglass of boards, I believe it should contain only copper.

I will try to test it tommorow. Not intended to refine this as scrap yards pay good money as copper 1.

Thanks and regards
Kj
 
Hi KJ, I'm quite enjoying your threads, you seem to be doing things differently from most. In your original post, do you mean that you used 220g of Borax and 220g of Soda Ash with the 220g of boards, or did they weigh less after pyrolization ?

Did you just use the same weight of each chemical as the weight of the pyrolized boards ?
 
Kernels,

Thanks for your words, sorry if my post confused you.

I used a regular mixer, to mill the pyrolyzed cellphone boards which were depopulated.

I then dump all the materials into a beaker it filled up till 250 ml mark, I added 1 part soda ash and 1 part borax so volume wise it matched 250 ml in the same beaker.

So at the end 250 ml of ash on top of it 250 ml of mixed soda ash and borax.

Mix the whole thing again in mixer, feed it to this crucible, as my last graphit crucible broke after 4 melts, despite the fact I pre heated it always.
IMG_6710.JPG

Next batch will be mix of graphic, internet sound etc card boards.
 
There will be whole lot of some other metals mixed in it. Copper will be dominant of course but you will find also tin, nickel and some very small quantities of some other metals.

http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/23.6/Pol.J.Environ.Stud.Vol.23.No.6.2365-2369.pdf

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/18491/InTech-Recycling_of_printed_circuit_boards.pdf

http://services.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/05/ULE_CellPhone_White_Paper_V2.pdf
 
The actual list of metals contained in typical cell phone boards is quite large.

I would think smelting with O2 sparging will get rid of most metals by oxidizing them into the slags with the exception of the copper the gold and the silver.

Then a copper cell would make electrolytically pure copper which should get you the highest $ payout, and silver and gold will be in the anode slimes.

I guess it all comes down to how much they pay per Kg for the mixed alloy copper you are selling and refined pure copper.
 
All,

Please note that these cellphone boards werr already depopulated and components smelted so the PMs were recovered using lead smelting.

Then the depopulated bare boards that had gold plating on keypads and around it were leached using cyanide.

The leached, depopulated boards then got pyrolyzed, mixed with flux, then melted to get that copper shown in the photo.

Unless I am missing about other metals used inside the cellphone bare boards, then this copper should only contain copper.

I use an air compressor to do scorification so I would think any solders that presented in the cellphone boards that does not report to slag, should using air.

Thanks
Kj
 
All,

In continue to above threat, I used venturi burner made by following king of random video on YT.

Incinerated whole depopulated boards. I noticed if I use a blender on pyrolyzed boards then incinerate them would result in much better incineration.

The heat from burner was so high even I was pointing it to material in open air, some of copper wires melted into beads.

Here are some photos,
Starting materials,
image.jpg

Incinerating the material, it turned out to be a cool photo,
image.jpg

Final product,
image.jpg

I will try to ball mill and see if I can use my homemade blue bowl to separate copper beads from ash.

Thanks
Kj
 
Was this just a test melt? Given enough material, the metals will pool and a flux cap can be easily broken away from a poured bar, no blue bowl or crushing required. Just drill and tap and hang them in a copper cell.
 
4metals said:
The actual list of metals contained in typical cell phone boards is quite large.

This is very true. That lump of metal is no more than an alloy of lots of things. You can't draw any results from it without further refining or tests.

Edit: It IS pretty though but that's where the usefulness in reporting yields constructively ends.
 
Kernel,
Thanks for your kind words. I will upload more as this project evolves.

4metals,
This was from 1007 grams of pyrolyzed bare circuit boards which I already smelted components and recovered PMs.

Since we depopulate and smelt components we are left with big pile of bare boards which I used my last pyrolysis setup to pyrolyze few kg of them.

This is my attempt to utilize this cool venturi burner furnace I have built to incinerate these bare boards which components already smelted, and recover copper.

I used a mortal and pestel to pulverize the incinerated boards, interesting result, as seen in the following photos.

Starting material, incinerated bare circuit boards which was done using my venturi burner,
image.jpg

After milling using mortar and pestel,
image.jpg

I am going to sieve the ash then run it through my blue bowl to see if any copper pieces carried with the ash.

By sifting the ash and run it in bluebowl I plan to remove as much ash as possible to save on using flux for melting the oversize copper pieces.

My next project is to build a afterburner based on design from 4metals, pyrolyze, and incinerate 6kg of misc boards, smelt it follow by oxygen sparging and assay before and after sparging.

I will use electrolysis to part copper and recover PMs.

So stay tuned.

Regards
Kj
 
Based on my experience using soda ash (an oxidizing flux) for copper (a base metal) should be avoided as this will result in losses.

You can use boric acid/borax mix instead, 50/50.

Though I am not sure how will you oxidize the other base metals without using soda ash.
 
Saadat,

It is possible to leach bare boards using acid, but it requires pyrolysis followed by incineration and milliing.

I tried smelting the incinerated and milled bare boards with good result.

I used the same flux mentioned by 4metals in his smelting thread.

5 parts soda ash, 2 parts borax and 1 part silica in my case I used pulverized glass.

Mixed that flux 1:1 ration with ash and smelted great result.

Best regards
Kj
 
Thanks
Why they need pyrolysis ?
I can not use smelting method because my workshop is small and this boards have Pb too that it is dangerous for me

In many patents and journals they said best wet method is leach with sulfuric acid and H2O2
This is process:
Crush >> Mill >> leach with sulfuric acid with 10.0 vol% hydrogen peroxide>> electrowinning
We can get silver and gold in anode slime
I want to refine low grade boards (for example TV boards) just for copper.

I think mixing sulfuric acid and H2O2 is very dangerous. Right?
 
saadat68 said:
Thanks
Why they need pyrolysis ?
I can not use smelting method because my workshop is small and this boards have Pb too that it is dangerous for me

In many patents and journals they said best wet method is leach with sulfuric acid and H2O2
This is process:
Crush >> Mill >> leach with sulfuric acid with 10.0 vol% hydrogen peroxide>> electrowinning
We can get silver and gold in anode slime
I want to refine low grade boards (for example TV boards) just for copper.

I think mixing sulfuric acid and H2O2 is very dangerous. Right?

How would the gold and silver be in the anode slimes if the copper isnt melted into an anode?

It would all be mixed in with the junk and ash left over from your leach.

If you milled everything then smelted all the metallics into a copper anode, then you could electrorefine the copper and the PM's would be left over in slimes, but just electrowinning a leach solution is only going to remove the metal ions that are dissolved in the solution, nothing more.
 
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