# Seperating and refining an almost nearly evaporated gallon of computerboard packed aqua regia



## Alchemistpassion89 (Jul 21, 2022)

Hi so I recently had a buddy who was attempting to get into e scraping and pm refining but gave up due to not realizing the time and labor he would need to put into the project. Anyway he offered to give me a gallon of aqua regia that he has had for a couple months in plastic jug so I could finish out the refining so I happily agreed. When I got home I opened it and figured I'd better filter it right off the bat so as I proceeded to do so first I noticed it was extremely dark green in color and had evaporated from a gallon to about 1000ml, also almost immediately upon filtering I noticed that under the solution had formed a large crystal network that was just less than the volume of solution in which I can see the remnants of metal foils (now plastic films) and some cellphone boards. So I asked my buddy what exactly he did and he told me he just made a rather sizeable ammount of aqua regia (most likely pretty nitric heavy) and started throwing in all his burned off computer board and cellphone board foils but that he decided to altogether skip the depopulating and burning of the boards and began just soaking the entire lot of what he had (15-20 lbs of product ranging from old and newer style computer cellphone and electronics boards and basically anything he thought looked like it might be gold or gold plated) so now I'm realizing that I'm left with a nightmare of a job on my hands. 

So now I'm here I have the time and resources to get the job done but it just seems like a daunting task and I'm not sure where exactly to start so I'm asking for assistance in this matter, any literature, advice, tips, and beneficial knowledge is welcome and much appreciated I hope to hear back from somebody soon thank you.


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Jul 21, 2022)

So since posting I decided the best place to start is just finish filtering since I had just started when I decided to post this and was waiting for it to finish. Upon checking my filters I noticed they had stopped allowing flow to proceed due to even more crystal crashing out of solution while filtering so I decided to just add water to the crystal and the solution until everything dissolved back into solution so now I have 1400 ml of solution, actual volume of liquid solution prior to rehydration actually ended up being about 600-800ml (cant be exact as filters clogged up before I could get a solid read) I am re filtering since the scrap bits that we're still present were incorporated with the crystal so I will update an exact volume when it finishes


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## nickvc (Jul 22, 2022)

If the donor did not dissolve all the metals on the boards etc the chances are any gold will be on those boards and not in your solution , try testing with stannous to see if you are wasting your time.


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Jul 22, 2022)

Sorry about the delayed response I have been having an extremely difficult time filtering as crystals continue to crash out of solution so I decided to pull out my vacuum filter and just assume I'll need to buy a new filter attachment when all is said and done, I am still using a coffee filter cut out to protect the filter as much as possible but it seems to drain slower every time. That being said im nearly done my volume has increased due to more water to dissolve crystals but I can accurately say that I now have 1600 ml of solution. During the time I spent filtering I got ahold of my friend and had the very same thought that you brought up nick luckily and somewhat unluckily (which you will hear why momentarily) my friend is somewhat of a hoarder and saved most everything that he soaked which he gave me also along with all the filters he used (which is alot and they are all full of product which surely needs worked on as much as everything else) and he also gave me a gallon of lighter green solution (still very much opaque though but lighter than the almost black solution im working with) and a quarter of a gallon of lighter blue solution which he claims is all the water he used to rinse the filters after filtering. I looked over the boards and most of them have been stripped of just about everything with the exception of a small box full that I set aside for further processing. I had some old stannous that I tested with last night however it is almost a year old since I used it and I figured it was bad as it had no reaction whatsoever to the solution, today im also gunna make a standard gold solution for testing the stannous just waiting on my dad who's a retired jeweler to drop off a peice of gold. Also I'm in the process of getting more stannous before I go forward too much but I'm positive that there has to be some ammount of gold in solution as he said he made a small batch of aqua regia that he dissolved just some gold in as a gold test solution but he dumped it in the solution when he decided to give up. So that's where I'm resting currently, buried under a mountain of wth was my friend doing and thinking while simultaneously wondering if he didn't plan all this out to play a horribly painful prank on me that will still be fairly rewarding in the end, both for the pm I do recover and also the peace of mind and relief that I finished such a arduous task and didn't die of frustration along the way lol.


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## nickvc (Jul 23, 2022)

If that small box has been in that solution and there are metallics still there the chances are the gold is there but a stannous test if your solution should tell you.


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## Hombressino (Jul 23, 2022)

A couple of pictures would always be good to help the forum members to give you an advice.


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Jul 25, 2022)

So over the last few days I've been taking a bit of a break however I did sort out and set up my disaster of a project for easier visibility for these pictures of what I'm working with to better give an Idea of exactly what I'm working with. Also my father fell through with the gold as he came down with covid so I just used a bit of gold that wasn't pure to make a test solution just so I had something to visibly show I had results with my stannous. There's a decent ammount of pictures just to give a full range of the small box of boards that weren't down to the base plastic and anything i considered suspect of possibly retaining the gold from solution.

To label these pictures they are


Star dish is half product that was pulled from his last soak and half that never saw aqua regia also a strange hunk of metal i found in one of his filters along with the two odd blue pieces of something unknown (even my friend isn't sure what they are or how they were in filter as he doesn't recall anything similar in appearance or feel) and some gold looking wire and the plastic that was typical byproduct of his foil soaks from burnt boards.


All the "filter fluff" for lack of a better term from all of his filters




the beginning of his filters


Middle of filters



End of his filters



Primary solution after I finally finished filtering




Secondary solution (his filter rinse solution, mostly water and whatever stayed soaked through the filters he rinsed)



1st close up of oddities from filter



2nd close up with metal hunk flipped (bule things unchanged from first)



Stannous tests




Secondary portion of suspect box material 



First portion of suspect box material.


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Jul 29, 2022)

Since no one has responded in a good ammount of time I decided to just try adding SMB straight to my primary solution to see what would happen so I poured out 200ml of it and added a few spoonfuls, to my surprise I ended up with a rather large ammount of precipitate so I decanted and saved this mud and waited a few more days to see if anyone would post here but no luck so just a few minutes ago I took the remaining bulk of my solution and added a decent ammount smb to solution and got an even level of precipitate that piled to the 200ml mark so I decanted and added this mud to my previous run, I will wait a few hours and let everything fully settle before I remix both the first run 200ml solution to the bulk and try to hit it with smb one last time to see if I get any precipitate after I will decant what I can and filter the last bit then wash with hot hcl to dissolve any possible copper or other impurities. Then i plan on making some drop by drop aqua regia solution to add said mud too along with some other gold that I have stripped from my own personal boards via a hot nitric bath then I'll add smb yet again to precipitate before smelting I expect to take it slow and finish over the course of the next couple days  if anyone has any better advice id love to hear it

Edit* I do still need advice on precipitating the pgms out of solution as I'm flying blind on that aspect of this project however i will be doing research in the meantime


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## Yggdrasil (Jul 29, 2022)

So while waiting you have not searched the forum and not read C.M. Hokes book?
You have just been sitting there and waiting for us to solve your conundrum??

Basically all has been done wrong it seems, which the advise given should indicate, have you actually done something to correct this?
Have you tested with stannous after the last precipitation?
Most of what could have been there of Gold will likely be the sludge in the bottom, due to the partial dissolved base metals.
So what have you done with that?
It may be smart to add all the sludge/precipitate together and boil it in water and then HCl a few times.
Then redissolve in HCl/Peroxide for a proper refining step.

Why do you expect there to be PGM's in there?
The pictures don't seem to indicate any sources of PGM's


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Aug 8, 2022)

No I had not searched the forum any further because prior to posting this post I looked pretty heavily for a relatable topic only to find posts that were half finished lacking the information I needed and posts full of people berating and horribly criticizing the original poster (there's a difference between constructive criticism, which I don't mind and can be beneficial and just outright being a dick to someone) also no I haven't just been sitting waiting for you to solve my problems, had I been doing that it's pretty blatantly obvious that I'd never have gotten anywhere and would waste my life away waiting for answers that apparently would never come to light. That having been said, upon re reading my initial posts I failed to mention I'm fairly new to the refining world having only gathered a mass quantity of scrap and equipment and needed supplies, this specific scenario I am especially new too. However now that I have a tangible resource to reference I most certainly will be. I agree that all has been done incorrectly and clearly by the work I have done I'm trying to at the very least make headway on a situation that is beyond my know-how. I have since used sodium metabisulfite to precipitate solution as well as a small ammount of ammonium chloride to precipitate pgm in solution however I was recently in a bad atv accident which stopped My income and I've ran out of a few key resources. Due to said accident and various other hurdles that have sprung up, I currently dont have a way to make a quality gold standard solution nor the funds or materials to make a quality stannous chloride solution and i used the last bit of my hcl to rinse the first part of my precipitate, but I have still been using the resources I do have to proceed while still keeping all waste for the fact it's better to be safe than sorry. As of now I have 72g of what should be gold precipitate and 125g of what should be pgm precipitate however due to the fact that I know there are base metals in solution I am 100% confident these are most likely heavily contaminated. (Btw I assume there are pgms in solution as most electronics contain pgm and giving the fact most boards are completely stripped there pretty much has to be pgm in solution, yes it's only an assumption albeit a educated and logical one. here are some pictures of said precipitates. When I have the funds to proceed I had already planned to take the steps outlined in your message to begin a proper refining scenario until


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 8, 2022)

I’m guessing you refer to me when being of bad behaviour. 
Well sometimes our patience get depleted. Specially when all the advice given is more or less enough to solve your problem at hand. We can help people get started, but we prefer people to do their own work and study.
This way any information found will be better understood. We will always be able to give people the advice they need, but not always the information they want. 
So to the post

First and foremost.
There is not much need of resources to get hold of Stannous.
You need HCl obviously, which is cheap muriatic as you find in any hardware shop.
Tin can be found anywhere, Pewter lead free fishing sinks or old PCBs.
Dissolve a few grams 1-3 in HCl and you have Stannous.
There are numerous threads on the forum in this.
Your solution is testing all your solutions, if they are barren pour them together and hang in a piece of solid copper and an air bubbler to cement out what ever is in there.
According to the pictures here I would be surprised if there is more than 1g of gold.
And as previously said, it is likely that any gold has cemented on the copper traces inside the PCBs

The rest of the questions will be answered in bold inside the quote.


Alchemistpassion89 said:


> No I had not searched the forum any further because prior to posting this post I looked pretty heavily for a relatable topic only to find posts that were half finished lacking the information I needed and posts full of people berating and horribly criticizing the original poster (there's a difference between constructive criticism, which I don't mind and can be beneficial and just outright being a dick to someone) also no I haven't just been sitting waiting for you to solve my problems, had I been doing that it's pretty blatantly obvious that I'd never have gotten anywhere and would waste my life away waiting for answers that apparently would never come to light. *All you need is here, but it may take some time and work to find it. *That having been said, upon re reading my initial posts I failed to mention I'm fairly new to the refining world having only gathered a mass quantity of scrap and equipment and needed supplies, this specific scenario I am especially new too. However now that I have a tangible resource to reference I most certainly will be. I agree that all has been done incorrectly and clearly by the work I have done I'm trying to at the very least make headway on a situation that is beyond my know-how. I have since used sodium metabisulfite to precipitate solution as well as a small ammount of ammonium chloride to precipitate pgm in solution however I was recently in a bad atv accident which stopped My income and I've ran out of a few key resources. *Pooh, long sentence. Why add more to a solution we have said very likely don’t have anything of value in it. Test first so you know if it is needed. See the body of my reply. And again, why do you believe there is PGM in there? I have seen nothing in the pictures posted that indicate so.*
> Due to said accident and various other hurdles that have sprung up, I currently dont have a way to make a quality gold standard solution nor the funds or materials to make a quality stannous chloride solution and i used the last bit of my hcl to rinse the first part of my precipitate, but I have still been using the resources I do have to proceed while still keeping all waste for the fact it's better to be safe than sorry. As of now I have 72g of what should be gold precipitate and 125g of what should be pgm precipitate however due to the fact that I know there are base metals in solution I am 100% confident these are most likely heavily contaminated. (Btw I assume there are pgms in solution as most electronics contain pgm and giving the fact most boards are completely stripped there pretty much has to be pgm in solution, yes it's only an assumption albeit a educated and logical one. here are some pictures of said precipitates. *No most electronics don’t have PGMs, if the boards are really old they may have had some Palladium in the MLCCs. There are some very high grade and military speciality boards that contain PGMs, but they are exceedingly rare, and even though gold is rare in PCBs PGMs are even more so. *When I have the funds to proceed I had already planned to take the steps outlined in your message to begin a proper refining scenario until


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## Martijn (Aug 9, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> Well sometimes our patience get depleted. Specially when all the advice given is more or less enough to solve your problem at hand. We can help people get started, but we prefer people to do their own work and study.



Occasionally we do get members who will not dive in, realize the dangers of hydrometalurgy and present a full step plan, based on their own research, for us to comment on. 
This will result in a more complete thread with more valuable information. 
Other members ask: i have rock, how can u get rich from it? 
Those threads tend to not have very much in depth info but a lot of sarcasm instead. 

We are very hesitant to 'help' people (read: risk their lives and the ones around them) who clearly do not have enough experience to proceed with their intended steps or convictions as to what they might have. They will get only one advice: stop and study. 

If you think you have PGM's in solution, test to make sure. Don't go looking for chemicals or processes to get any assumed values out. Stop adding things to an unknown soup of metal salts and trash. 

One thread to make clear why you need to know what you're doing:








Why Can't I Ask a Simple Question and get a Simple Answer?


Many new members are frustrated when they first join this forum. They may have experience on other internet forums where it is common for members to ask simple questions and get quick answers. They join this forum in hopes of getting similar responses to their questions about refining. These...




goldrefiningforum.com





As Yggdrasil pointed out: 








When In Doubt, Cement It Out


When In Doubt, Cement It Out This is advice I often give to new members who find they've created a bit of a mess, and they're wondering how to recover their values (gold, silver, PGMs, etc.). Perhaps they've followed a process they've seen on YouTube that left out some important details...




goldrefiningforum.com





How did you filter a nearly evaporated solution? Did you add water or HCl? Water will have pushed out insoluble salts.

Have fun, Stay safe.


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## Alchemistpassion89 (Aug 24, 2022)

I was not referring to you specifically sorry if it seemed that was the case I just meant in general. I haven't been back to this post since I last posted due to my injury but in the mean time I did decide to just cement out the solution using copper and start again from there, I'm doing so in 2 batches however the first run I used a copper plate that deteriorated quicker than I'd expected and fell to the bottom so it probably has some copper impurities in it that I'm not too worried about and I'll have to deal with later. On the first batch I ended up with 85g of cemented material so I'm expecting a somewhat similar return on the second minus any copper impurity. Btw I filtered solution using both hcl and water to rehydrate initially more so on the hcl side. Also the pgm salts I mentioned precipitating with ammonium chloride do In fact test positive for pgm when dissolved in water and also contain a decent amount of whiteish gray non water soluble portion that rests at the bottom of said solution. I have stopped focusing so heavily on that whole mess and have just been letting it do its thing with the occasional nudge here and there while I process my own scrap as I'm getting a large ammount of it lately and it's really starting to pile up.


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## galenrog (Aug 24, 2022)

Stannous Chloride is your best friend for testing solutions. Learn it. Make it. Love it.

Time for more coffee.


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