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Lucy

Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2020
Messages
5
Hi guys, thanks for letting me join,

I’m new to this we run a scrap business and I would like to branch off to the gold recovery side,
Has anyone any idea on the yield you would get from washing machine and other domestic appliances as looking out of curiosity some makers seem to use more than your gold fingers on ram cards. Thanks
 
Welcome to the forum.
While no expert on e scrap I’d have to say in general all domestic products are usually very low grade including computers, tablets and phones. I’m not saying it’s not worth removing boards if it’s easy and stacking them until you have reasonable quantities to sell on or to try and recover the values yourself which will take some considerable study and here on the forum is the place to do that. The big buyers of e scrap probably know the value of this material but few if any will share that knowledge as it came at a cost.
 
Thanks, yeah that’s what I been doing for the past year, much to me husbands annoyance,with the washing machines,dishwashers etc as easy to get to, and we have anything between 300 and 500 come through our hands each week, so have a quite a pile, the other problem is having to be licensed for the chemicals needed
 
Lucy there are processes that don’t need much more than Hcl and peroxide or bleach , the first is called AP which will liberate your foils by dissolving the base metals, you can just use Hcl and an air bubbler for the same process, the other mix of Hcl and bleach can be used to dissolve the foils which you can then precipitate the gold from using a few different chemicals which can all be found mentioned here on the forum.
If you want to do this I’d suggest a trial run with a representative sample of what you have and do say 5 kilos to see what sort of results you get and if it’s worth the extra effort to actually refine it yourself. Bear in mind they have never wasted gold so the chances are you will not get rich but it might add to your standard stream of income or for a rainy day fund.
 
That’s cool, I am slowly reading all I can on here and I’m not looking to make a fortune happy to help with recycling on a whole for our environment :)
 
The circuit boards from washing machines & dishwashers are VERY low grade boards - VERY little gold & are bought by board buyers for copper recovery not gold recovery (a "few" cents per pound

Not worth chasing after IMO

Kurt
 
If you want to learn values of the different grades of boards (& which ones are worth chasing after) check out board sorts web site - it will at least give you an idea of what is what - there are other board buyers that pay a bit higher

http://boardsort.com/

Kurt
 
I don't think you will find much gold at all in the washing machine circuit, although most washing machine timers which will have some silver in its contact points.
 
That would probably depend on how much work they are to remove from the machines.

Some people save everything, others what they deem worth their time and effort.
 
Next to nothing really a well placed hammer blow, that’s why I had looked in the first place :)
 
About a year ago I picked up about 50 pounds of boards from an appliance repair shop. The one you pictured above is better than any I have seen. Some of the other possible boards found in scrap yards would be better time spent. The real question is, is it profitable? Some cases it may be, in others, like mine, it isn't.
 
Lino1406 said:
What is seen here, is 0.1 g at most around $6 brutto. Now make your balance

Lucy - per the underlined - what Lino is saying - is that "at most" you might get as much as 0.1 gram gold from a kilo of those boards (in other words NOT per board - but per kilo of boards)

To do this you need to set up an area of your scrap yard for doing the recovery - then the refining of the gold

You need to have a way to control/scrub the fumes of the acids --- or EVERYTHING in the work area WILL rust

The work area also needs to contain chemical spills

Then you need to still treat the chemical "waste" after recovery/refining of the gold

By the time you factor in cost to set up a work area - cost of chemicals to first recover/refine & then treat waste - & cost of time to run the process (including waste treatment) --- it will cost you MORE then what you recover

Is there gold on those boards ? - yes - but they are still considered LOW grade boards

Trust me - I spent 11 years - as a business - dealing with circuit boards - The VAST majority of the boards I handled (like 2 tons per month) I sold - as is - to the bigger board buyers --- & that is because there is NO why to make money trying to process the vast majority of CBs - you can ONLY make a PROFIT if you process the VERY HIGHEST grade of E-waste - which is what I did - which amounted to about 1 - 3 % of all the E-waste I handled

Did I make money processing the "very highest grade" stuff ? - yes --- but that's because it was VERY HIGH yield stuff --- but I made FAR more money simply selling the VAST majority of boards directly to the BIG board buyers

For what it worth

Kurt
 
And for what it is worth - when I talk about "high grade" material - I am talking about stuff that pays "at least" 3 grams per kilo up to 10 grams per kilo

I certainly would not chase anything less the 3 grams per kilo

Kurt
 
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