# Kuma's first go at recovering I.C. gold



## kuma (Jan 10, 2012)

Hello all , how are tricks?
I hope all is well! :mrgreen: 
As I mentioned in an erlier post today , over the Christmas and New Year period I had a go at recovering some gold wires from inside I.C.'s using Patnor's pyrolyzation and crushing method.
This seemed well suited to me as it's more of a mechanical process than a chemical one. 
As most regular readers might know , I live in a flat / maisonette with my girlfriend and three children , and therefore the storing and using of chemicals are currently out of the question for me.
Still , having said that , just about all of what I did with these chips was done outside and well away from any houses. 
At times I used saftey equipment including dust mask and goggles , for the crushing and grinding of pyrolyzed material to dust , and oven gloves and tongs , for the handling and the *shuffling about* of my red hot pan and the contents within.
Heres a breakdown of what I did , how I did it , and how ( I feel ) it went ;

I started with 500 grams , or a little over 1.1lb , of mixed I.C.'s. These were from daughter and motherboards , and all types of other boards from things like printers and scanners , LCD monitors , and from inside all different types of drives. 
This 500 grams did not include any CPU's , RAM chips , or North / South Bridge flatpacks , just the square black types with the connecting wires on all four sides , and ranging in size from just a few millimeters across to about maybe 35 - 40 mm across. 
You can click on the images to enlarge.

http://tinyurl.com/7rynq3d

To pyrolyze , I used the lid from the top of an old P.C. with a couple of bricks in the back to help retain heat and filled it with 6kg of coal. 
The coal that I used was said on the bag to be mixed with peat , and the theory was that you set light to the corners of the bag holding the coal and this would be sufficient to get it going.
Fail! :lol: 
I had to rush home to get some change and go to the shop to buy a box of fire-lighters. By the time I had got them and made my way back up the hill it was already quickly getting dark and was starting to spit rain , but not heavily enough to put me off , so I carried on with my mission.
The firelighters worked a treat ( probably the best 60 pence that I've ever spent! ) , and in no time I had the coals burning and glowing nicely.
Once the flames had died down somewhat and the metal tray for the I.C.'s was starting to glow I placed them inside and watched as they smoked a bit and went lighter and lighter in colour until they were mostly a nice shade of grey.
I'm thinking that the I.C.'s were in the coals for around two hours or so , give or take.
When I removed the tray holding them it was glowing a real nice warm red colour , and after a couple of shakes of the pan to see the colour of the chips through I decided that I thought they were looking good , and as it was now dark and still raining slightly I thought enough was enough and made my way home.
I feel that now is a good time to point out that I had carried a large bottle of water with me and when I was finished I tipped the still hot coals out onto wet mud ( from the rain ) and poured the water over them making sure that they were well doused and out before I left.
I also made sure that I removed any rubbish when I left.
The computer lid cooled fairly quickly on it's own , and once I was done clearing up there was still enough heat in the bricks to keep my back warm through my rucksack on the way home , bonus! :lol: 

http://tinyurl.com/6ty4vef

The next day , I started to focus on trying to grind and crush the now pyrolyzed I.C.'s to as fine a dust as I could. For this I used a Pestle and Mortar.
I felt that this was working out quiet well for me , and my material started to look a lot like it should. 8) 

http://tinyurl.com/7q2ve4g

Once my powder seemed like it was all crushed and ground down to that "baby powder" like consistency , I passed the material through a fairly fine sieve over my large pan.
This left me with the expected larger pieces of left over metal and some smaller pieces of I.C.'s that hadn't fully pyrolyzed. 
This has been placed in a jar and will be kept and added to over time untill I have enough to warrant another round of pyrolyzation followed by chemical treatment to further clean up the material.
Once I had sieved all of the fine powder into my pan , I ran a magnet from a hard drive through it to remove some more of the magnetic material and this was placed in the jar with the other metalic bit's that had already been removed. 
From my large pan , I spooned the material into my smaller "finishing" pan , carefully panning it into a plastic washing up bowl ( bought especialy for this purpose when I bought my pan set early last year , so it is clean and unscratched and will never be used for dishes ).
I kept up this careful cycle until the water washing off of the material into the bowl was clear enough so I could clearly see how my material was moving and behaving in my pan.
To help see the action in my pan even better , and once I was sure that any values had settled , I poured off most all of the wash water in the washing up bowl and replaced it with clean water.
Once this settled again , after five minutes or so , I carried on washing my material in the small pan , spooning in more every so often.
After a short while , I started to notice that in the bottom of my pan there were lots very small black pieces that could be hiding any potential values from me.
On closer inspection , it became apparent to me that this must have been pieces of I.C.'s that hadn't been fully pyrolyzed , and even though I could pan it out , it took a slightly more aggresive panning action.
Eventualy , I managed to pan it down to a concentrate , and even though it was a really nice feeling seeing colour in my pan , I must admit that I was slightly disappointed with how little I was seeing , especialy with the amount of I.C.'s that I had started with! :shock: 

http://tinyurl.com/6p8235j

As I'm not too sure of space limits *per post* , I will finish off in another. 
All the very best for now ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Jan 10, 2012)

for some reason i cant put my finger on yet, i feel as though you may have washed some of your gold out of your pan. when your done with the first panning, collect your gold and re-pan your material and see if anything comes out.here's a trick i used to collect gold fines from concentrates, its not new and alot of people do it when prospecting.get a piece of solid corrugated pipe and slice it length wise into two pieces (about five foot).use one half and fasten to a board with a screw in each end.incline will depend on size of the material and water flow.pass water down the middle of the pipe and spoon your material into the stream of water (a garden hose will work).use a tub to catch material coming out the end. this is a makeshift mini sluice.it will speed the process up so much you will be amazed.


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## kuma (Jan 10, 2012)

So , I had pyrolyzed , crushed and ground , and then after removing most of the metalic pieces with a sieve and a magnet , panned my material.
On seeing the seemingly small amount of gold wires that had accumulated in my pan , I knew that if there was more , it was mostly going to be in the washing up bowl that I had washed and panned my material into.
So heres what I did to recover what more I could! :mrgreen: :arrow: 
I again let the wash bowl settle , then poured of as much of the dirty water as I could without disturbing the sediment in the bottom.
The bowel and it's contents were then placed in a top corner of our warm airing cupboard to dry out overnight.
By the morning , all of the material had thoroughly dried out. 
This left me with a mix of very fine grey powder , mixed in with quiet a lot of the small and incompletely pyrolyzed pieces mentioned in my last post.
I knew that I needed to whittle this mix down some more to make it easier , quicker , and safer to pan , and that I needed to try to eliminate the small black pieces of what is probably just basicaly carbonacious material , which from what I have read is not great news when you have gold in solution.
I should mention that when I say " safer " to pan , I am reffering to trying to lessen any potential loss in values through panning.
The problem with eliminating these small black pieces is that the chances are they were holding values within , so I devised a plan that didn't involve any immediate further pyrolyzation ( I was out of coal and funds ) , but would still eliminate some of the carbon from the material and unlock potential values inside.
On the morning that I pulled the bowl with the material from the airing cupboard is was fairly breezy outside , and I had notice earlier how easily the fine grey powder would be carried off on the wind when it was disturbed.
What I did was to go back up the hill with the bowl in a bag ( for protection from the wind ) , removed the bag when I got back to the field , then stood side on with the breeze gently shaking and tapping the bowl.
This had an immediate effect , carrying of fair amounts of the fine grey dust with the wind. I carried on doing this gentle shaking and tapping action in the breeze until most of the material left in the bowl was the small black pieces and not mostly the fine grey dust.
I am totaly confident that the shaking and tapping action would have carried any gold present to the bottom of the wash bowl , and that very , very little , if any , was lost during this process.
I guess that you could say I was panning in the wind! :roll: 
By eliminating most of the fine grey powder this way , I feel that I made life easier for myself as there was less material to pan off afterwards , and all of the material left only took one quick wash in the pan before the water was clear enough for me to carry on panning without losing material back into the wash bowl un-noticed.
Heres the material in the wash bowl after drying , but before " panning in the wind " ;

http://tinyurl.com/7423mff

Heres what the material looked like after panning in the wind ;

http://tinyurl.com/7cjporz

Once I had whittled down my material to mostly the black carbonacious looking part , I gently placed it back into the Mortar and Pestle with a small brush and continued to grind it down to as fine a powder as I could.
It was very noticeable to me that as I ground down this black material it held it's very dark colour , even more evidence in my eyes that I had insufficiently pyrolyzed my I.C.'s in the first place.
Again , I panned my material through my smaller finishing pan back into the wash bowl , but this time it panned like a dream.
The water stayed clear so I could see what was going on in my pan , and it didn't take long for me to start seeing some nice colour there too! :mrgreen: 
Heres how my second attempt at panning this material turned out , and even though it's peanuts compared to what you experienced pro's are extracting from some of this stuff , I was more than pleased with the results , 8) 

http://tinyurl.com/75r6pm8

A slight close-up of the same image ;

http://tinyurl.com/6mr7hky

And there you have it!  
It wasn't perfect , and even though I've learnt lot's during this process , I still have a whole lot more to learn , but I feel that I'm on my way now and I can't tell you all how good it feels to finaly get something done.
I started this process on New Years eve ( incidently just about 6 months to the day that I found this amazing place ) , sitting on the edge of a field with awsome views across Jersey , with a chilled tin in my hand.
When my mates over here ask me what I did on New Years eve , I tell them that I sat in a field with a couple of tins and a coal fire burning *micro chips* , in the dark and in the rain , and they think I'm nuts. ( :shock: )
I think it's awsome , and I thank all of you that have contributed to the learning curve that I , and I know many others out there aswell , thouroughly enjoy.
I have no final weight on the concentrates that were left in my pan as our current digital scales are fairly poor , and I still have the washed and panned material in my wash bowl to go through again ( just to make sure! :mrgreen: ).
I will pan the material in the wash bowl again , and eventualy be able to clean these concentrates with acid , and then and only then do I feel that I could share half decent yield data.
Thank you all , and a massive thanks to you Patnor for your guide to I.C.'s , this is truly fastinating and awsome stuff! 8) :mrgreen: 
P.S. , I hope that I didn't ramble on too much with my posts , it's just nice to put it out to people that have an interest!  
Wishing you all the very best and an amazing New Year ,
With my kindest regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## kuma (Jan 10, 2012)

Hi Geo! It's been a while chief!



Geo said:


> for some reason i cant put my finger on yet, i feel as though you may have washed some of your gold out of your pan. when your done with the first panning, collect your gold and re-pan your material and see if anything comes out.here's a trick i used to collect gold fines from concentrates, its not new and alot of people do it when prospecting.get a piece of solid corrugated pipe and slice it length wise into two pieces (about five foot).use one half and fasten to a board with a screw in each end.incline will depend on size of the material and water flow.pass water down the middle of the pipe and spoon your material into the stream of water (a garden hose will work).use a tub to catch material coming out the end. this is a makeshift mini sluice.it will speed the process up so much you will be amazed.



I had actualy considered something like this on a small scale , but as space and building materials are quiet difficult for me at the moment I decided to just crack on with what I had.
When we finaly get moved to a place with a garden I'm deffinatly keen for trying something like that , it looks and sounds cool! :mrgreen: 
I was sure that I had lost material through the first panning too , it seemed fairly obvious even to my novice mind , thank pants that I wasn't figuring it out in a stream , I shudder to think of the combined losses over the years , must litteraly be tons! :shock: :lol: 
Many thanks for the advice and the reply Geo!
All the very best and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Jan 10, 2012)

very good job. an excellent example of what can be done with these IC's instead of the more dangerous process of wet ashing.

that really was a nice amount of gold from a double handful of Escrap. let us know what the final weight is please.


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## kuma (Jan 10, 2012)

Hi Geo! :mrgreen: 



Geo said:


> very good job. an excellent example of what can be done with these IC's instead of the more dangerous process of wet ashing.
> 
> that really was a nice amount of gold from a double handful of Escrap. let us know what the final weight is please.



Many thanks chief , it really means a lot to me to hear that from someone who actualy knows what they're doing!   
I will deffinatly let you guy's know the final weight , I'm going to keep all parts from this process seperate , as I plan to for all of my other future processes , in order to try and keep acurate yield data which I am more than willing to share with the family!  
Many thanks again for the kind and encouraging words Geo! :mrgreen: 
Again , wishing you all the very best and sending my kindest regards ,
Chris


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## niteliteone (Jan 10, 2012)

Great post Kuma  

The detailed process was actually pretty good too. It's in the rambling that most of the small (important) details can be found.

Keep up the good work.
Tom C.


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## kuma (Jan 10, 2012)

Hi Tom , I hope your all well!



niteliteone said:


> Great post Kuma
> 
> The detailed process was actually pretty good too. It's in the rambling that most of the small (important) details can be found.
> 
> ...



I have to admit , it felt real good to finaly get it off of my chest , nobody aroud here is even remotley interested or has a clue what I'm talking about when I say my new found words such as " pyrolyzation " , :roll: :lol: 
Cheers chief!
All the best for now and kind regards to you ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## butcher (Jan 10, 2012)

kuma.
I have done similar things many times, the gold plating and traces can be very thin, the base metal can oxidize in the roasting process and loosen some of this fine gold from base metals, the grinding in the mortar and pestle can also powder or loosen fine flakes of gold, this abraded gold can float away easily in the panning, blown away in dry washing (panning with wind), or be mixed in the very fine ceramic and ash.

The panning is good to separate the heavier part, but I would save the fine powder panned off, for a later leaching process, or smelting treatment, I feel without this you may have lost a portion of values.

I hope this was not the case in your project, because I want to see a big gold button in your hand.


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Butcher! How are tricks today?
I hope your well! :mrgreen: 



butcher said:


> kuma.
> I have done similar things many times, the gold plating and traces can be very thin, the base metal can oxidize in the roasting process and loosen some of this fine gold from base metals, the grinding in the mortar and pestle can also powder or loosen fine flakes of gold, this abraded gold can float away easily in the panning, blown away in dry washing (panning with wind), or be mixed in the very fine ceramic and ash.
> 
> The panning is good to separate the heavier part, but I would save the fine powder panned off, for a later leaching process, or smelting treatment, I feel without this you may have lost a portion of values.
> ...



I was thinking to myself whilst looking at some of the metalic pieces in the jar that they looked slightly oxidised and wondered if this could potentialy be of some use to me.
As I'm not in a big rush and as I'm unable to use chemicals at the moment , I wondered if maybe I could perhaps further encourage the oxidisation of these pieces leaving me with a bit less material to deal with meaning that I would require less acid further down the road when it comes to completley eliminating base metals.
It was just a thought that I had , but an interesting one to me , again just because I'm unable to use chemicals at the moment. :roll: 
Grinding and powdering gold to dust in the mortar and pestle was a concern for me , as I spent quiet a while crushing and grinding my material to get it as fine as possible and I had figured that the finer the gold was the greater the chance of losses.
I guess that I was just relying on the weight of the small gold particles to work with me , I hadn't considered that it could simply blow away! :| 
( Incidently , I kept coming across refferences to dry washing in the desert when I was looking about for ways to extract some silver from the local mine tailings ( what led me here! :mrgreen: ) and I couldn't figure out in my mind how you could dry pan , now I know , cheers! :lol: )
When I was panning my material into the wash bowl I used some drops of washing up liquid to try and help smaller bits of gold sink , and even with this sometimes on close inspection I could see tiny _clumps_ of gold floating on the surface , kind of sticking together like a colony of golden microscopic ants floating down a river , so I would deffinatly have to say that I did loose some gold back into the wash bowl.
I'm happy to say that I only dry washed ( look at me! :mrgreen: ) the material once , which was before I ground and panned the material a second time , and I have kept everything.
I like the idea of leaching the powders , my panning technique probably leaves a lot to be desired , and I'd be supprised if even the guy from the Grahams Golden Nuggets cerial box could pan every last microscopic speck of gold from the powder that I have! :lol: 
Loosing some values wasn't a _major_ concern for me this time around as I was really only looking to get aquainted with the recovery method , but I did try pretty hard not to , after all it took me a while to collect those I.C.'s and the thought of carelessly throwing away precious metals without even trying to avoid losses seems , well , daft really.
Every time that I log on to this forum I learn something new and I can't be thankful enough , I say that from the heart.
I just hope that we get moved house sooner rather than later so I can try to put to use some more of what I have learnt here , I have just under 2lbs of nicely trimmed fingers now aswell as other materials that I'm hoping will go some way towards that fabled first button!
Many thanks , 
With my warmest regards and best wishes ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## recycleordie (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Kuma,
that was brilliant, i really enjoyed reading your post, well done, that panning in the wind made me laugh, i just hope you didnt loose any gold, lol.


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi chief , how are tricks?
I hope your well! :mrgreen: 



recycleordie said:


> Hi Kuma,
> that was brilliant, i really enjoyed reading your post, well done, that panning in the wind made me laugh, i just hope you didnt loose any gold, lol.



Chuckles! Yeah , theres me not knowing what dry washing was , and at the same time thinking that I'd perhaps come up with some kind of ingenious new idea , that's my plum moment out of the way for this week!  :lol: :lol: 
I'm hoping that I didn't loose much gold , I guess that it's inevitable that some must have been lost along the way but hopefully it was minimal as I really did try to be careful!
Many thanks!
All the best for now , and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## joem (Jan 11, 2012)

Kuma
great job and an excellent learning post. I will definately try it this spring in a scrap bar b q. S my one question is;
are these tiny bits of wires recovered karat gold or plated wires?


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Joem , how are tricks?
I hope that your all well! :mrgreen: 



joem said:


> are these tiny bits of wires recovered karat gold or plated wires?



As far as I know chief , those tiny bonding wires are pure , unadulterated , 24k gold , also known in some circles as " angel hair " , 8)  
Many thanks for the kind words!
All the very best and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## gold4mike (Jan 11, 2012)

Kuma,

I know this is off-topic but, I wish that your pleasant demeanor / personality would carry over to the rest of the world. You always begin and end your posts with kind hearted words.

Thank you for setting a good example :mrgreen:


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Having said that , just to make sure that my thinking was correct with regards to it being reffered to as " Angel Hair " , I did a quick google search before I posted , I did indeed confirm this name to myself , but I also found this ;

Gold wire
Gold wire is used extensively for thermocompression bonding and thermosonic bonding. In producing the
gold bonding wires, surface finish and surface cleanliness are the critical issues to ensure the formation of a
strong bond and to prevent clogging of bonding capillaries. Pure gold can usually be drawn to produce an
adequate breaking strength (ultimate tensile strength of the wire) and proper elongation (ratio of the
increase in wire length at rupture to the initial wire length given as a percentage) for use as bond wire.
Ultrapure gold is very soft, therefore small amounts of impurities such as 5-10 ppm by weight of Be or 30-
100 ppm by weight of Cu are added to make the gold wire workable. Be-doped wire is stronger than Cudoped
wire by about 10-20% under most conditions, thus advantageous for automated thermosonic bonding
where high-speed capillary movements generate higher stresses than in slow or manual bonders.

From this webpage ;

http://tinyurl.com/73vrq5y

I'm not sure what impact a few PPM will have on purity , but either way it's always cool to learn something new!
Many thanks again , 
All the best for now and kind regards ,
Chris


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Mike!
How are tricks? I'm not milking this now , but I hope your well! :mrgreen: 



gold4mike said:


> Kuma,
> 
> I know this is off-topic but, I wish that your pleasant demeanor / personality would carry over to the rest of the world. You always begin and end your posts with kind hearted words.
> 
> Thank you for setting a good example :mrgreen:



   
It's deffinatly nice to be nice , it can get on some peoples nerves sometimes though , for example if I go for a pint in the local pub I have this habit of " doing the rounds " and shaking all of the locals hands to say hello , and it's the same when I leave too , :lol: 
But basicaly I suppose it's just that good manners cost nothing , and in a world as crazy as this one , I think it helps to spread some pleasantry every now and then ,
Many thanks for your kind words Mike , this forum means a lot to me and it's not just some program running on a server somewhere , it's real people , and your all awsome.
If I was only alowed to be nice and polite to one group of people on this planet other than my ( blood ) family , you guys would be top of my list , hands down!
Wishing you all the very best and sending my warmest regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## samuel-a (Jan 11, 2012)

kuma said:


> I'm not sure what impact a few PPM will have on purity , but either way it's always cool to learn something new!



Kuma

15 ppm contaminate = 0.0015%
That is, the gold content is 99.85%


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Samuel , how are tricks?
I hope that your all good! :mrgreen: 
Would I be right at all in thinking that 99.85% is still classed as 24k ?
I've had a brief look on google and can't seem to find anything deffinitive , but I did see one site that claimed to be selling 99.85% pure gold and they were reffering to it as 24k , :roll: 
Sorry for the noobish question chief , I feel that I should probably know this by now!  :lol: 
Thanks for the heads up!
All the best and kind regards for now ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Jan 11, 2012)

actually the term "pure gold" can be misleading. unless its plated or filled, 10k is considered pure gold and can be used in that way. unless someone specifies percentages like 99.99% is considered ultra pure gold, there are other classifications on gold other than percentages and karat like watch gold or coin gold.it would be difficult without the proper equipment and knowledge for a home refiner to process gold to a finesse of 99.99% so if you get gold to 99.85% that is very pure gold for a hobbyist and would be considered 24k.


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## kuma (Jan 11, 2012)

Hi Geo , how are tricks?
I hope that your all good!
Many thanks ( again! ) for the heads up on that chief!
What you say makes sense to me , I've heard of " karat " gold being reffered to as " pure " gold before , and I can see how using this term can be missleading.
I suppose that it would depend on who you were talking to and the exact nature of the conversation , i.e. wether or not your on the same page! :lol: 
It's good to hear that angel hair / bonding wires are still considered 24k , otherwise that would have meant that I was living in a * dream world * for quiet some time , and I would have something embarrassing to admit to my now supprisingly optimistic girlfriend! :lol: 
Many thanks Geo!
Wishing you all the best and sending my kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## samuel-a (Jan 11, 2012)

I'm not so sure as to the 'official' gold standards.

I can only tell you how i see it:

.999 - .9995 - can be called 24K (for jewellry making).
.9999 - bullion 'grade' (investment / high-tech indusrty)
.99999 - .999999 - ultra pure (analytical chemistry / high-tech indusrty)


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## Geo (Jan 11, 2012)

that would be 1 ppm? i couldnt imagine i would ever see anything like that, of course 1% impurity would be hard to see with the naked eye.


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## qst42know (Jan 11, 2012)

Search gold bonding wire. They don't state a percentage but a trace of berylium is often mentioned.

http://www.coininginc.com/gold_wire_and_ribbon.asp

http://heraeus-contactmaterials.com/en/products/audr/productpage_smt_adhesives_2.aspx

http://www.gold.org/technology/uses/electronics/bonding_wire/


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## Meh (Jan 11, 2012)

samuel-a said:


> kuma said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not sure what impact a few PPM will have on purity , but either way it's always cool to learn something new!
> ...



Or perhaps 99.9985% pure :wink:


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## samuel-a (Jan 12, 2012)

Meh said:


> Or perhaps 99.9985% pure



1 ppm is 1/1,000,000 = 0.000001 which would be 0.0001%
To convert to precentage you would divide by a factor of 10,000
15 ppm = 15/10000 = 0.0015%

To convert to mass:
Say you have 100 grams gold bar with 15 ppm declared contaminants:
15 ppm = 0.0015% * 100g (gold bar) = 0.15 grams contaminants
100g - 0.15g = 99.85g gold content

99.9985% pure gold would accounts for 0.15 ppm contaminants.

I'm pretty sure about that... though, you got me thinking i might have missed something here.


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## Harold_V (Jan 12, 2012)

samuel-a said:


> Say you have 100 grams gold bar with 15 ppm declared contaminants:


Just a compliment on your proper use of the word contaminant. Contaminant(s) is/are the unwanted substance(s) that contaminate. For clarity, gold would not contain contaminates--------it would contain contaminants. 

Harold


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## kuma (Jan 12, 2012)

Hello all!
How are tricks today? I hope all is well! :mrgreen: 
I was starting to get somewhat confused by all of the numbers with regards to parts-per-million and the maximum ppm contaminants permissible in gold before it was no longer deemed 24k ( numbers aren't my strong point at all! :| ) , so I used google again , and searched for " minimum parts per million 24 carat gold " to see if I could find any official standard , and I came across this from the Royal Canadian Mint ; 

99999
Describes gold of extremely high purity (only 10 parts per million impurity). 

9999
Describes 24-karat gold of high purity (only 100 parts per million impurity). Used to designate Gold Maple Leaf bullion coins.

From this page ;

http://tinyurl.com/78x6lqx

So if I'm reading this correctly , 100 ppm impurity is still permissable as 24k , and as this is from from the Royal Canadian Mint this would be correct ? :roll: 
Qst42know , thank you for the links and the heads up on the possible presence of Berylium , I will have a good look into it! :shock: 
Many thanks for the replies guy's , I only wish that I had of listened in maths lessons at school ! 
All the best for now , and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## Geo (Jan 12, 2012)

honestly,i depends on your intentions.if your going to sell your gold to a jeweler then i imagine your gold will need to be a certain purity.if you want to sell bullion grade on Ebay and you want to be ethical then it needs to have a certain purity.if you will most likely send it to a refiner for resale value or even a stamped round or bar you can do that at any purity.if i were going to make bars to horde i would want it to be as pure as i could make it.


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## kuma (Jan 12, 2012)

Hi Geo , how are things?
I hope your well!



Geo said:


> honestly,i depends on your intentions.if your going to sell your gold to a jeweler then i imagine your gold will need to be a certain purity.if you want to sell bullion grade on Ebay and you want to be ethical then it needs to have a certain purity.if you will most likely send it to a refiner for resale value or even a stamped round or bar you can do that at any purity.if i were going to make bars to horde i would want it to be as pure as i could make it.



Well , my long term intentions are to refine any gold that I recover to as pure as I can possibly get and basicly just horde and save it , for sure! 8) 
The only real reason that I was wandering at what actual level of purity gold can be considered 24k is because for quiet some time I have believed that bonding wires are a full 24k , and I've told my girlfriend and a couple of friends that it is too.
Basicaly it would just be good to know the actual carat , if it can still be classed as 24k with up to 100 ppm contaminants , that's good enough for me for the sake of conversation , at least I wouldn't have to backtrack and tell people that it's only 22k , or even 18k.
In a nutshell , free 22k gold is cool , very cool , but not as cool as free 24k , 8) :lol: 
Thanks again chief!
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris :mrgreen:


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## sebass (Jul 16, 2012)

My name is Sebastian, are new forum, and I started to get gold recycling, I began a process same as you, I selct around 600 grams of large and small faces, Chipsets on the motherboard, then we burned in the fire, until they become white and easily broken. after that we smash with a hammer, and now I have a black powder with visible gold thread. What is the next process? To make nitric acid and let boil 1 hour? then wash and put the remaining waste hydrochloric acid and nitric acid to make aqua regia. then SMB.? forum I saw that someone managed to pull the threads of gold proceeds without chemicals, know any way? you how much gold you out? in all your process. Sorry for my English, I use google transalte


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## butcher (Jul 16, 2012)

Sebastian, welcome to the greatest place to learn refining in the world, here is my answer to help you, do not try anything more, until you know exactly all of what you need to know to make your gold pure (I feel at this point you would lose your gold if you do not take this advice),

If there was solder involved (nitric would give trouble with tin, a gelatin that gives many troubles), if the tin was roasted to a red hot it should be oxidized and can be washed with an HCl boil and rinses, then you can dissolve the base metals (you do not want to dissolve gold until the other metals are removed, there is tons of information on processes on the forum for just about any precious bearing material you can think of search and reading are your best bet for learning.

I suggest you do not do anything with the material you have until you read Hoke's book and perform the experiments, her book will teach you what you need to understand to be able to recover and refine your values.

We can answer a question, but you would not learn the whole process or all of the problems you would run into along the way, basically we cannot tell you how to refine, to learn how you must study, but we can help after you study and gain an understanding of the basic principles, then we can help fill in the gaps you may not quite understand.

On the surface it seems as though it should be simple to recover and refine these metals, well this is not true, there are many complications and facts you need to understand, this is an art and a science that takes a lot of hard work to learn, it is not hard to learn but you have to be willing to read and work for your education, we cannot put it in your head even if we answered the next ten thousand questions you had on how to do this or how do you fix a mistake you made.

Keep reading the forum everything you need is here free for you to learn, as long as you are willing to study the information you will be successful.

Welcome to the forum, this is the best answer I can give you to help you get started to learn to recover and refine, it is up to you now to help yourself with the information we have provided here for you


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## g_axelsson (Nov 30, 2012)

Great thread but I found two things that I just have to correct.



kuma said:


> So , I had pyrolyzed , crushed and ground...


Pyrolyzing is heating without oxygen, driving off gases and leaving coal, ashes and gold. What you did was incinerating the chips, adding oxygen that also burns off the coal, leaving only ashes and our gold. Okay now I've gotten that off my mind, time for the next point...



samuel-a said:


> Meh said:
> 
> 
> > Or perhaps 99.9985% pure
> ...


I think you still misses something...
1 ppm = 0.0001% and 15 ppm = 0.0015% correct so far, but you forget that % means *0.01 so
1% of 100g = 1g which means 15 ppm = 0.0015g and we got 99.9985g gold. You got it right at the end but the middle part was wrong by a factor of 100.

We could get really close to five niners purity by just an acid clean and melting. Cool! :mrgreen: 

/Göran


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## samuel-a (Dec 1, 2012)

g_axelsson said:


> I think you still misses something...
> 1 ppm = 0.0001% and 15 ppm = 0.0015% correct so far, but you forget that % means *0.01 so
> 1% of 100g = 1g which means 15 ppm = 0.0015g and we got 99.9985g gold. You got it right at the end but the middle part was wrong by a factor of 100.



Right, i see it now. Thanks.


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## patnor1011 (Dec 2, 2012)

sebass said:


> My name is Sebastian, are new forum, and I started to get gold recycling, I began a process same as you, I selct around 600 grams of large and small faces, Chipsets on the motherboard, then we burned in the fire, until they become white and easily broken. after that we smash with a hammer, and now I have a black powder with visible gold thread. What is the next process? To make nitric acid and let boil 1 hour? then wash and put the remaining waste hydrochloric acid and nitric acid to make aqua regia. then SMB.? forum I saw that someone managed to pull the threads of gold proceeds without chemicals, know any way? you how much gold you out? in all your process. Sorry for my English, I use google transalte



:arrow: http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11827


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## larryb (Dec 14, 2012)

Geo said:


> for some reason i cant put my finger on yet, i feel as though you may have washed some of your gold out of your pan. when your done with the first panning, collect your gold and re-pan your material and see if anything comes out.here's a trick i used to collect gold fines from concentrates, its not new and alot of people do it when prospecting.get a piece of solid corrugated pipe and slice it length wise into two pieces (about five foot).use one half and fasten to a board with a screw in each end.incline will depend on size of the material and water flow.pass water down the middle of the pipe and spoon your material into the stream of water (a garden hose will work).use a tub to catch material coming out the end. this is a makeshift mini sluice.it will speed the process up so much you will be amazed.



I've seen that mentioned on another forum. Sounds like it works very well, even for fines. Thanx for sharing.  lb


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## evL (Dec 25, 2012)

Hello Folks, 
I wanted to thank you Kuma for the Wire Bonding .pdf that you gave us. I think in was in 
your ninth post from the start. I enjoyed that information. Good Day... 

[ evL ]


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