# Sim Cards



## bswartzwelder (Oct 10, 2014)

I had about 1400 (give or take) SIM cards and decided to try to process them. I pried/cut the foil contacts and the microchips from the plastic cards.

Next, I mixed up some AR and dropped the SIM card modules into it. There was quite a reaction. Finally, after everything settled down I stuck a Q-tip into the dark green almost black liquid. I dropped a drop of stannous chloride onto it and nothing. It did not turn dark like there was any gold in the liquid at all.

A day later, I filtered all the remnants from the SIM cards out and noticed a metallic coating on the inside of the beaker. The coating appeared to be a mosaic pattern. The only conclusion I could come to was that the gold had dissolved and then the copper and any other metals underneath dissolved. Then they somehow deposited onto the inside of the glass beaker. The fact that there is metal on the inside of the beaker and no traces of gold in the solution would seem to support this. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

My next plan of action is to mix a little new AR and use it to wash the inside of the beaker to see if it will dissolve the metallic coating and then test that with stannous.

I have also come across quite a few more SIM card modules and don't want to make the same mistake. Should I give them the AP treatment and try to recover the foils that way first? Open to suggestions.

While I'm on the subject, I have ordered a cast iron pot and intend to incinerate what's left of the SIM card modules after they're dunk in AR. Curious to see if there's any appreciable amount of gold in the microchips.

Thanks,
Bert


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## g_axelsson (Oct 11, 2014)

Did you check for bond wires? If you just dumped the cards in AR the acid can't reach the bond wires that are covered by a protective plastic.
I have a small lot of SIM cards and when I check them in the microscope everyone has six small golden bond wires going between the card and the chip on the back side.

Just as with processing fingers, the best way is to remove the base metals before dissolving the gold. When throwing it all in AR you only made a big mess. Did you remove excess nitric before testing? If you have too much nitric ions in the solution the stannous test could give a false negative as the colloidal gold is redissolved.

In a small batch it's easiest and fastest to use nitric to dissolve the copper but more expensive. In a larger batch I would use the copper chloride process (AP) to dissolve the copper.

My suggestion : (never tried this yet practically)
Small test batch : 
- Incinerate the SIM cards to free the bond wires
- Dissolve the copper with nitric acid
- Decant the copper nitrate liquid via filter to catch fine gold, wash with water until almost colorless.
- Add HCl and a tiny (few drops) of nitric to dissolve the gold. The remaining nitric from the copper leach will dissolve most of the gold when you add HCl.
- Decant / filter / wash to get the gold chloride from the incinerated cards (glass fiber, chips, ash)
- precipitate gold with your preferred method

Big production batch
- Leach SIM cards with copper chloride leach to get rid of base metals.
- Separate the foils from the plastic cards
- Incinerate the cards to release bond wires
- Wash away ash. There's no gold foils here now that makes panning problematic. You would still have fibers and chips mixed with the bond wires. Getting the ash away makes the solution easier to filter.
- Wash the bond wires and fibers with some nitric, removes any remaining copper
- Dissolve gold with AR (foils and bond wires in separate batches)
- Filter off the gold chloride and precipitate as preferred (Keep separate if you want data on how much gold is in the foils and wires)

.. but this is only how I'm planning to do my scrap. Try it if you think it sounds wise or criticize me if you think that I'm wrong.

Recommended reading:
Processing sim cards
Processing smart cards, sim cards
Both links contains yield numbers

Göran


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## kurtak (Oct 11, 2014)

Bert

Ether one of Goran's methods will work - personally if I ever had a large amount of SIMs to process & was going to use a leaching method I would go with the first process (I get my nitric really cheap)

the coating you see on the inside of your beaker is most likely at least some of your gold - also the plastic used in SIMs is some what porous so some could be tied up in or on the plastic (AuCL absorbed into the plastic &/or the same effect you see coating the beaker also coating the plastic) 

Should that be the case - that gold can be recovered by incinerating & leaching the ash - which you want to do to recover the gold bonding wires anyway

Personally (& this is another option) what I do (because I never have enough SIMs to justify doing a batch in & of them selves) is I incinerate them along with my filter papers, anode bags, & other low grade stuff - smelt the metals out of the ash with silver &/or copper as a collector metal - then go to chem processing the metals

first nitric to recover Ag/Pd & some Pt --- then AR to recover Au/Pt & any remaining Pd (other steps required with multiple metals involved including multiple BMs)

So if you are set up to do smelting that is another method to consider - your smelted metals are for the most part going to be gold, copper (already existing) & silver (some added as collector) then dissolve Cu & Ag with nitric leaving your gold powders - a lot like inquarted karat scrap 

Kurt

edit to correct - then AR to recover Au/Pt & any remaining Pd --- instead of Ag/Pt which I first wrote


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 11, 2014)

No. I never checked for bond wires. I was pretty sure the AR could not get to them, so I was planning to incinerate them at a later time. I did pull the modules off the plastic sim card they were mounted to. 

"Everyone has six small golden bonding wires going between the card and the chip on the back side." WOW. I suspected the bond wires between the foils (contacts) and the chip might not be gold, but wires inside the chip would be gold. I mis-read Palladiums post about processing SIM Cards. He said to put them into a bucket with holes in it like in the AP process, but I didn't see where he said to process them with AP.

I am expecting a package which will be only the sim card modules and not have the entire plastic card. There should be over 6000 in that package and I wanted to use this smaller batch to iron out any bugs in my methodology. Glad I did. Better to screw up a small batch rather than a larger one. I suspect the foils will still be connected to some kind of a plastic piece, but not have the extra plastic. Could be the modules were cut off with shears in which case I will still have an abundance of plastic to deal with. I'll just wait and see.

I didn't remove excess nitric before the first testing, but did add sulfamic acid before subsequent testings. At all times, the tests showed no gold. My stannous if from a fresh batch and I did test it with gold chloride before testing the solution in question. That's one thing I learned from the forum and always follow through even if I used the stannous only a day before and it tested good. Better to be safe than sorry.

I have a brand new 5000ml beaker and I'm not sure if I want to use that for a copper chloride leach on all the modules when they arrive, or just throw them all into my 5 gallon AP bucket for processing. 

Since the mistake I made, I have been thinking quite a bit about how to tackle this issue in the future, so I greatly appreciate your input. Right now, I'll just plan on using AP to release the foils and then process them in AR. Put everything that's left in a cast iron pot and incinerate to a white powdery ash. I have a blue bowl for gold panning and a blue spiral gold panning bowl which would be my preferred choice for wires this tiny.

Again, thanks for the input.


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## yar (Oct 11, 2014)

While I'm on the subject, I have ordered a cast iron pot and intend to incinerate what's left of the SIM card modules after they're dunk in AR. Curious to see if there's any appreciable amount of gold in the microchips.

I believe stainless steel is preferred over cast iron when incinerating.


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## Harold_V (Oct 12, 2014)

bswartzwelder said:


> Put everything that's left in a cast iron pot and incinerate to a white powdery ash.


Not a good idea. Cast iron has way too much mass to heat, although it would be to advantage once hot. However, cast iron is subject to thermal shock, for lack of a better description. Uneven heating can be the cause of cracking. Stick with stainless. It's readily available, and inexpensive when purchased as old fry pans from thrift stores. 

Harold


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## kurtak (Oct 12, 2014)

yup - stainless is a much better choice

Kurt


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 12, 2014)

OK then. My wife will be getting a new cast iron stock pot for Christmas and I'll be getting an old stainless steel pot at the thrift store or flea market wherever I see it first. 

Thanks for the heads up.


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## Harold_V (Oct 14, 2014)

bswartzwelder said:


> OK then. My wife will be getting a new cast iron stock pot for Christmas and I'll be getting an old stainless steel pot at the thrift store or flea market wherever I see it first.
> 
> Thanks for the heads up.


I couldn't help but notice your use of the word pot. Be careful to use fry pans, not pots. The incineration process relies on oxygen. The deeper the vessel, the less chance the contents have of being exposed to oxygen, as the gassing can create an atmosphere void of free oxygen. The shallower the pan, the better. 

Harold


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## Palladium (Oct 14, 2014)

I never used the ap process to do sim cards. I just used some of the same type processes with the equipment, but not the chemicals. Easiest way i found was naoh to get rid of the glue and free the plastic from the chip to get to the bonding wires. Incineration works, but leaves to much ash and mess for me. This way just seems cleaner and easier for me anyways.


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## Anonymous (Oct 15, 2014)

I never bother with recovery. I test a couple in AR complete to make sure the plastic doesn't dissolve then I chuck the lot in. It takes the copper up with the gold so I know I have to deal with that but it leaves behind the part containing the bonding wires quite nicely for other processing. The yields are quite poor on these.


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## kurtak (Oct 16, 2014)

spaceships said:


> I never bother with recovery. I test a couple in AR complete to make sure the plastic doesn't dissolve then I chuck the lot in. It takes the copper up with the gold so I know I have to deal with that but it leaves behind the part containing the bonding wires quite nicely for other processing. The yields are quite poor on these.



Maybe I am missing something here but I don't quit get the concept on running these in 2 different process --- one to recover the gold from the foils - then another one to recover the gold from the bonding wires ?

to recover the bonding wire gold you need to incinerate - so why not just incinerate & then ether leach the ash or smelt with silver the as a collector metal, dissolve the silver & let the gold settle - much the same process as inquarting 

personally I don't ever get enough of them to process on there own so I incinerate them with may filters & anode bags etc. then smelt the ash with silver as a collector & then do the chem work on the metal recovered from the smelt --- even if I ever got a large amount of them (enough to process on there own) I would most likely go with the incinerate/smelt process - it recovers both the foils & wires in the same process 

if you incinerate just the chip its not a lot of ash


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 16, 2014)

I had a small batch which I just dumped into AR. It was a mistake because I still had the copper underneath to deal with.

A second batch (over 6000) which consisted of only the modules and not the entire card was going to be my primary focus. They did have adhesive on the back side. I put some in denatured alcohol with little effect, put some in mineral spirits with no effect, and some in lacquer thinner. The lacquer thinner turned a dark orange color, but did not get rid of all the adhesive. I took all of them and put them into several bottles with a lot of dishwashing soap and water. Capped the bottles and shook the crap out of them. Dumped off the water, added fresh water and shook them again. Repeated the process until all the soap had gone down the drain. 

Then I put all of them into a deep stainless steel frying pan and started the process over using the method outlined by Palladium in the Tutorial section of the forum. The hot NaOH made a difference. It turned the adhesive from a sticky mess into a rubbery mess which is still attached to the boards. It also made the tiny drop of clear plastic holding the microchip to the back of the card disappear. The microchip may still be in the bottom of the wash bucket, but and bonding wires are most likely lost forever. I still have about 6000 of the little pieces with the contacts and gold plating on one side. Strange, but any exposed metal on the back side also has gold plating on it. However, to get rid of the old adhesive (now rubbery), I must rub it off.

I think unless I get SIM cards for free in the future, I'll just sell them to some other lucky person. I suppose I could just incinerate everything, but I don't know what effect that might have on the foils.


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## Anonymous (Oct 16, 2014)

To be honest Kurt I use two processes because I have never been able to see the point of mixing up visible gold that's easy to recover with a pile of ash.

Faffing about recovering gold from ash isn't one of my favorite past times at the best of times so if I can avoid it with easy to recover gold I do. The copper under the gold really isn't a problem with these.

Edit: for typo


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## Palladium (Oct 16, 2014)

You didn't use a high enough concentration of naoh or you didn't heat them long enough. It will break the glue and epoxy down into black powdery stuff. The chips will seperate. Dump them into a strainer bucket with holes and shake. All the small chips and wires will fall into the bucket below and after a couple of minutes its settled and you can tip the bucket and pour out the rinse leaving nothing but small chips and bonding wire that are easy to process with ar.


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## lanfear (Oct 17, 2014)

I have seen a youtube video from the philipphines of guy that used xxxxxx and xxxxxxc to dissolve the epoxy layer on P2 chips. Just a thought.
This has never been an option to me because of the prices on xxxx an xxxxxx in my country. So I have no personal experience. This mix could also be dangerous i would think. These philippihne guys don't always put safety first.



edited for safety

Jon


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## g_axelsson (Oct 17, 2014)

lanfear said:


> I have seen a youtube video from the philipphines of guy that used xxxxxxx and xxxxxxx to dissolve the epoxy layer on P2 chips. Just a thought.
> This has never been an option to me because of the prices on nitric an sulfuric in my country. So I have no personal experience. This mix could also be dangerous i would think. These philippihne guys don't always put safety first.
> 
> Jon


This is one of the reasons we don't recommend people to learn refining from youtube.

It is much easier, cheaper and above all safer to incinerate. Anything that can easily dissolve plastic will eat the flesh of your hand with vengeance. This process has no value for a refiner and is not usually discussed on the forum because of the dangers associated with it.

Göran


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## kurtak (Oct 17, 2014)

Palladium said:


> You didn't use a high enough concentration of naoh or you didn't heat them long enough. It will break the glue and epoxy down into black powdery stuff. The chips will seperate. Dump them into a strainer bucket with holes and shake. All the small chips and wires will fall into the bucket below and after a couple of minutes its settled and you can tip the bucket and pour out the rinse leaving nothing but small chips and bonding wire that are easy to process with ar.



Interesting process you came up with Palladium - as they say there's more then one way to skin a cat :mrgreen: 

I personally have become a real fan of incinerate/smelt - but then again I have two furnace's - the big one takes a #40 crucible & the small one a #4 crucible

I don't leach anything from ash any more & haven't for a couple years now 

I really like being able to do my chem work on whole metals (poured to shot) instead of trying to leach it from some other media that's a pain to get all your chem washed & recovered back out of &/or even extra chem work to get to the metals your after

I realize not everyone is set up to smelt but it sure has made my life of refining easier 

Kurt


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## lanfear (Oct 17, 2014)

g_axelsson said:


> lanfear said:
> 
> 
> > I have seen a youtube video from the philipphines of guy that used xxxxxxx and xxxxxxx to dissolve the epoxy layer on P2 chips. Just a thought.
> ...





Thank for the correction Gøran. I knew the other process of oxydizing the sulfuric was bad and I had my suspicions about this one. I don't learn off youtube I just can't resist watching the processes and the gold drop.
I have edited my post acordingly.


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 17, 2014)

Palladium, I used 1 liter of water and 200 grams NaOH. Put it on the heater at 1:38 and took it off at 3:18. Perhaps the extra 20 minuts might have made a difference. It was boiling slowly the whole time with a lot of stirring.

Edit:
Perhaps this batch had some different type of glue.


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## Palladium (Oct 17, 2014)

It could have something to do with the glue type. I've had some stubborn glues before, but the naoh always wins in the end. You might have to try a higher percentage or a longer duration or maybe a combination of both. How old are the chips? Age could play a part. I researched and found somewhere, god if i can remember where, that most modern glues are made from organic sources to comply with the new epa standards about voc's and disposal issues. Naoh breaks down organics well, but not so much for polymer chained adhesives. Glues are generally made from organic or bio-based compounds, while adhesives are chemical-based.


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## MarcoP (Oct 17, 2014)

Sorry to jump in, but where do you find such a big quantity of sim cards.
I've also tested hot 30% NaOH on PCBs for up to twenty minutes, but what made it through was letting it sit, cold, for other twenty-four hours, next time I'll try a longer hot bath and see how it goes.


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 17, 2014)

Tomorrow I will have a little free time and will approach the problem once again. I have already measured out 250 grams of NaOH. Should have enough time in the afternoon to devote a couple of hours to it. I forgot to mention that the time I tried this with the 200 grams NaOH and 1 liter of water left me with a brown ring around the ss pan and some brown residue floating on top of the sim cards. It was all drained/washed off.

Do you think I will need even more NaOH than the 250 grams?


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## Palladium (Oct 18, 2014)

You can try it. Maybe try heating it over a couple of hours and then let it cool over nite and see where your at then. I use to cook some of them for 4-5 hours. Not only would the chip come out of the plastic sim card, but the plastic package the sim was embedded in would wrap and separate also. It made my life easier because if you don't heat the chip long enough the plastic will separate from the sim, but it's kind of stuck in the cavity and the liquid behind the plastic and the chip will create a vacuum effect that makes washing and separating the chip a pain in the butt. Yours may be designed different. Just please watch that hot stuff !!!!


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## joekbit (Oct 18, 2014)

spaceships said:


> To be honest Kurt I use two processes because I have never been able to see the point of mixing up visible gold that's easy to recover with a pile of ash.
> 
> Faffing about recovering gold from ash isn't one of my favorite past times at the best of times so if I can avoid it with easy to recover gold I do. The copper under the gold really isn't a problem with these.
> 
> Edit: for typo


 Spaceships

I hear you on the recovery from ash. After trying a few things on a very small amount of ash I found HC/CL to be very effective but it will have a bit of contamination. After an initial wash of the ash I dried it and broke it back up to powder. The ash has to be in a thin layer for oxidation. Then I basically turned it to mud with HC and added the CL slowly with a syringe, a dropper would work as well. Just something that will hold the amount of CL you need. So pay attention to how much HC you use to create the HC mud and get 1/3 CL to add to it. It will very quickly dissolve the gold. The reaction is fast but short lived. Its nasty stuff (SAFTEY)

Dilute, after it settles, filter or pour off the fluid to keep and repeat. Pouring it off saves time, and filters. Remember carbon in the ash will absorb some of the CL, trapping it. Not sure what the effects might be, it may lengthen the reaction or it may weaken it requiring a bit more CL. (Still up for debate) lol In short, do it till you get a negative test for gold. I had some burned filter ash in a jar. I now have 4oz of gold solution.


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## Harold_V (Oct 18, 2014)

joekbit said:


> After trying a few things on a very small amount of ash I found HC/CL to be very effective


I dunno. It may be just me, but it's not clear what you're trying to say here, especially for those who may not use English as a first language. 

Would you please clearly identify what you mean by HC, as well as CL?

Harold


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## kurtak (Oct 19, 2014)

joekbit said:


> Remember carbon in the ash will absorb some of the CL, trapping it. Not sure what the effects might be, it may lengthen the reaction or it may weaken it requiring a bit more CL.



joekbit

First off as Harold pointed out - not sure what you mean by HC/CL &/or HC --- I can only "assume" you mean HCl/Cl &/or HCl

as for the carbon absorbing CL yes that is true enough but that is not the real problem with having carbon in the ash - the real problem is that as gold is dissolved the carbon actually absorbs some of the gold chloride ions as well - in fact carbon can (& is) used to recover gold (& other metals) from "very" dilute solutions - once the carbon is "loaded" with the dissolve metal ions it can then be incinerated to recover the metals

Just as a heads up joekbit - you are new here (only been here a few days) spaceships has been here a couple years so he is way ahead of you on how these things are done - he wasn't looking for advise - he was simply answering my question as to why he does it a bit different then I would (there's more then one why to skin this cat) his answer was fine - I don't like leaching stuff from ash ether - that's why I use a smelting process - not everyone is set up to smelt - which is why spaceships use's another process

My point (& I believe Harold's point) is that you really need to spend some more time reading & doing some research here before you start posting - you may have learned "some" things watching youtube videos & from other places on the net - but I can assure you that you also learned "a lot" bad stuff & down right wrong stuff from those other sources - so you are going to need to get all that BS out of your head

Not trying to be rude &/or insult you - just pointing out that you need to spend more time reading & researching to learn more of the facts about this before you start posting --- as of now what you post clearly shows you still have a lot to learn before you try telling other how to do it

Just trying to get you on the same page as those of us that have been here for awhile & have taken the time to read & research & learn about this - this isn't something you learn in a few days &/or from watching some youtube videos - it takes "research" - & lots of it --- I have been at it for 4 years & am still learning

Kurt

Edit to correct spelling


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## joekbit (Oct 19, 2014)

Kurt

Thanks, I will read and keep my mouth shut.

Joe


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## patnor1011 (Oct 22, 2014)

Only about a year ago I posted process along with pictures. It pays to search forum even when you think you read it all. :mrgreen: 

:arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=19050


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## bswartzwelder (Oct 22, 2014)

Patnor, I did read up on SIM cards and saw that thread. Incineration is a problem as I live in a heavily populated development. I have to do most of my work when the neighbors are not at home. I am better now at panning than I was earlier because I bought a Blue Bowl and a Spiral wheel panner. 

My chips looked a good bit like the ones in your post. They had never been used and were the chip with the gold plated contacts on them. On the back, the chips were embedded in a clear drop of epoxy (or something like that). 

I dislike using NaOH more than words can adequately express. I saw a post by Palladium where he used NaOH to separate the chips from the card and decided to give it a try. I actually tried it twice since the first attempt didn't bring the expected results. The results from the second cook in NaOH were similar to the first. It dissolved the epoxy around the chip and the chip and bonding wires dropped off into my bucket. The glue turned to a rubbery type substance which still adheres to the back of the chip assembly, but it can be rubbed off fairly easily. That's where I am at this point.

I took a dozen chips, six with the glue on them and six without the glue and have them in a 1000 ml beaker with 450 ml AP and an air stone as a test. I don't want to go to AR immediately because of all the surface area of the plastic and the glue could trap some gold.

Thanks for the reply, but I did learn my lesson from not doing so previously. I may end up incinerating what's left of a previous batch, though.


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