Telecommunication boards

[kjavanb123]

Geo,

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you on that processing methods, but for 4 tons of boards per month following advantages,

1- Assuming 20 working days in a month, 4 tons in a month means 200 kg of boards per day, each workers can scrap 50 kg of boards per day, 4 workers each $12 per day work, that is $48 everyday for labor costs, for 20 days that is $960.

2- Cyanide locally costs $20/kg ($10/lbs).

3- Acid costs is in range of $0.80 per kg ($0.40lbs).

But advantage in doing manual labor is process each components spearately, and my copper anode is going to contain mostly copper and traces of silver and palladium, as most of the gold containing parts were removed manually. If we I can grind them up to fine size, liberate the copper sheets, then I have the ABS plastics that can be sold in the market.

I am going to try this method with another 200 kg of mixed boards, and show results soon.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

After melting all nom-ferrous parts into an anode, I tried a very small cell, with the following setup, reference is a post by GSP,

1- Copper sulfate, the blue crystals, 120g
2- Tab water, 1000ml, boiled and already in the beaker
3- Added 15ml of hydrosufluric acid to the solution above
4- Cathode, stainless scrap from computer parts, size 8x9 sq.cm
5- Since there should be 120A for every sq meters of cathod, I adjusted the ampers to 0.9A,

Here are result in picutre, I am sure something I did not do right that a lot of copper got deposited on anode, so please advise.

Here is the copper sulphate crystals I dissolved in 1 liter of tab water,


Electrolyt after addition of 15ml of hydrosulfuric acid to the above solution,


Cell as it started to run, there were some tiny particle of copper floating on top,


Stainless steel sheet cathod after few minutes,


Anode after half an hour running the cell,


This was my very first try with running a copper refining cell, so please go easy on me, Also i forgot to bag the anode.

Regards
Kevin

 

[Geo]

Try using copper as the cathode and dont add sulfuric acid to the electrolyte.The sulfuric will dilute and attack the copper. Saturate the water with copper sulfate so that it will not absorb more copper.

 

[butcher]

I suspect your power supply, or a problem with it.
I would check your power supply, to make sure it is DC (also use the AC scale of a volt meter to test it).
Even with a DC power supply, you could have AC if diodes were shorted.
A DC power supply can also have a ripple current(acting as AC), filter capacitors in the power supply can smooth the ripple current.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

I did a small batch of ICs removed from telecomm boards. Incinerated first, just used a mortar pestel to grind part it, seieved it, and used the blue bowl to concentrate the ash. I noticed blue bowl does not work on ash, ashes need to be prepared by washing it, rinse it to another bucket, until water becomes clear. Make sure after adding water to ashes, swirl it then wait for few seconds until gold particles settled, then pour off the black water to another beaker until it is clear after addition of water. Please note to add a few drops of dish washing soap to it before rinsing.

The ashes,


Blue bowl in action, this is what happens when I dropped the ashes using small amount into bowl,


The concentrate after few minutes of runing the blue bowl,


Closer look at the concentrate,indicating bright yellow color fines,


Then I decided to smelt 7g sample from above concentrate with 10g borax, and 7g of copper in my cupola furnace, here is the result button,


More in the next post

 

[kjavanb123]

I dissolved the copper button produced by smelting concentrates from IC ash with copper in dilute nitric acid,

The solution after copper button got dissolved in hot dilute nitric acid,


The residue after copper alloy is dissolved, I am going to incinerate it again and try the AR.


Since most of the gold bonding wires end up in the ashes, please advise if smelting the ashes using copper as collector metal, and equal volume of borax.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

After I got my ball mill working. I had an idea for recovering most of the gold from ICs, the motor that runs my ball mill has two speeds, one is 3000rpm, and another is 450rpm, I was thinking after incineration and milling, separate non ferrous from ash and ferrous, as you can see in the picture below, some of the ferrous ones are gold plated, and gold in the ashes are so tiny, to mix the ash and ferrous section and put it in a sealed bucket, add sodium cyanide leach and peroxide to this mix and let it roll for few minutes so everything gold dissolves, then vaccume filter, drop the gold with zinc powder.
I know in mineral labs they have rolling bottle test for cyanide leach for minerals, please advise if similar applys to ICs ashes.
I can see a lot of losses using gravity separation ot water washes for the ashes.

Gold plated item in the separated ferrous pieces of the ICs ash,


Non-ferrous with partially melted to little buttons,


Thanks
Kevin

 

[macfixer01]

Kevin,
I assume you must have meant your ball mill runs at either 300 RPM's (not 3000) or 450 RPM's? There are certain optimal parameters for each ball mill such as the speed, and the proportion of grinding media to the item being ground. The best rotational speed depends on a lot of things such as the jar diameter, the total weight of the contents, the size and type of grinding media, and so on. Running it too fast does no good since the centrifugal force would just hold everything against the sides and no tumbling action or grinding would occur. Of course the inside shape of the jar figures into this as well.

Macfixer01

 

[macfixer01]

Kevin,
I assume you must have meant your ball mill runs at either 300 RPM's (not 3000) or 450 RPM's? There are certain optimal parameters for each ball mill such as the speed, and the proportion of grinding media to the item being ground. The best rotational speed depends on a lot of things such as the jar diameter, the total weight of the contents, the size and type of grinding media, and so on. Running it too fast does no good since the centrifugal force would just hold everything against the sides and no tumbling action or grinding would occur. Of course the inside shape of the jar figures into this as well.

Macfixer01

In response to a PM and just to clarify... I do realize he's talking about the motor speed and not the final barrel speed which would be slower, perhaps only 100 RPM's or less. I'm just saying that while a dual-speed AC motor capable of running both 3250 or 1725 RPM's is quite common, that to find one offering native speeds of both 3000 and 450 RPM's is unheard of in my experience.

 

[kjavanb123]

Macfixer,

I meant to use the 450rpm motor to make the mill roll slower, then cyanide leach the ashes and magnetit parts. The rotation makes it easier for cyanide to extract all the PMs.

Regards
Kevin

 

[ashir]

how traise or lower the H of cyanide solution?
if
sodium cyanide dissolved in tap water with hydrogen peroxide!?

 

[kjavanb123]

how traise or lower the H of cyanide solution?
if
sodium cyanide dissolved in tap water with hydrogen peroxide!?

Please don't do anything with cyanide yet, meantime read posts by GoldSilverPro in his search.

If you read the first page of this threat you can see an example of use of cyanide on gold plated. You

 

[ashir]

thanks kj, i read goldandsilver's post ,
i am not going to use cyanidation, i was asking about pH for knowledge! i am fan of iodine/iodide leaching. cyanide is "you have last chance" every time!
i was looking for some posts on iodine leaching with complete mathod to prepare the solution
and reget the iodine from solution. percipating gold from iodine solution! many post but all keep thier secrets!

 

[anachronism]

thanks kj, i read goldandsilver's post ,
i am not going to use cyanidation, i was asking about pH for knowledge! i am fan of iodine/iodide leaching. cyanide is "you have last chance" every time!
i was looking for some posts on iodine leaching with complete mathod to prepare the solution
and reget the iodine from solution. percipating gold from iodine solution! many post but all keep thier secrets!

You're not looking at this the right way.

Firstly cyanide leaching is not as dangerous as people make out IF you understand what you are doing. Now that's a big IF. Understanding the chemistry behind it and the risks is based upon knowledge, and knowing those things comes from a good understanding. The fear instilled in people is warranted but given how many people would be risky with hot water, I'm not surprised how few experienced people will share.

If you're coming here to learn a process like Iodine/Iodide leaching, which is a great process then you need to read the posts and ask the people who made them and see if they will help. Remember though that it's not risk free, and you will need to be set up to deal with waste.

Please don't expect that you'll get a straightforward line by line "how to" roadmap straight from the get go. You need to establish relationships, and not many people are going to just spoon feed you.

Jon

 

[ashir]

thanks anachronism
i ask iodine related question in cyanide , because kj did a reply and i want ask him more out of a topic,
cyanide will not dangrous for me may be but i am trying to keep safe people around me! as i am not using any dangrous stuff like cyanide!
i will try it but untill i not understand it, i can not proceed!
i am feeling in iodine leaching post that every professional is hiding a same logic in thier answers and post, though some are very clear, but with same secrets. well i am have bookmarked at least 13 posts about iodine leaching, reading and reading, after that i will must try cyanide. as i have 100 g sodium cyanide to test , but i never try this because it need more time to learn!
thanks to mention one reality , no way to go straight to the way in jesy few lines!