# Incineration



## glondor (Apr 7, 2011)

Well I am pleased to say I finally found a company willing to incinerate for me! We will do a trial run tomorrow. I am taking 15 lbs of flatpacks off of memory, 10 lbs of hard drive boards, 10 pounds of pin blocks from cell boards and 10 pounds of fingerless memory.. 850 degrees in oven, 1700 degree afterburner. Other than putting a loose cover on the steel pails is there anything else i should know? The oven operator has not done this type of material before and is very interested. Interested enough to do the first run for free! It is a commercial oven for industrial parts burn off. Now if I only had a ball mill.....


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## Barren Realms 007 (Apr 7, 2011)

What kind of memory do you have that has flatpacks?

I would be more concerned loosing values from the boards than the pins.


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## Harold_V (Apr 8, 2011)

That's not hot enough. You should heat to the point of combusting carbon, or about 1.100°F.

Harold


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## Frankk12 (Apr 8, 2011)

When I incinerate I use an old hot plate and it gets very hot and the stainless steel pan turns orange and the polishing dirt also turns orange.



> point of combusting carbon, or about 1.100°F.


Is my way good or is it not hot enough


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## glondor (Apr 8, 2011)

Good morning BR007. I should rephrase my statement re: flatpacks. Substitute memory chips? Thought memory chips were flat packs. We are trying 4 different types of material as an experiment. If all goes well with this I will try a small lot of boards and see how it goes. I would love to go "balls to the wall" with this but will take it slow as I don't want to violate any environmental laws, As I as well as the operator have no prior experience we will take it easy at first. If all is cool then we can expand the envelope to see what his system can handle. 

Harold, Thanks for pointing out my omission. While I was writing the post I reminded myself to quantify my temperature and for some reason I did not. I believe it was 4metals that told me 850 was an ideal temp, hot enough to do the job but not so hot as to vaporise any PM's. My error was not including the scale used. Degrees Celsius.

The scale for temperature here in Canada is Celsius. 850 degrees C is 1562 degrees F.

Frank 12 I believe the advise here put forth by Harold is to also play a torch around on the material while heating on your burner. When it is good and hot, use the oxygen (unlit) from your torch and play that around and you will see bright spots as the oxygen completes combustion of the carbon based waste.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Apr 8, 2011)

glondor said:


> Good morning BR007. I should rephrase my statement re: flatpacks. Substitute memory chips? Thought memory chips were flat packs. We are trying 4 different types of material as an experiment. If all goes well with this I will try a small lot of boards and see how it goes. I would love to go "balls to the wall" with this but will take it slow as I don't want to violate any environmental laws, As I as well as the operator have no prior experience we will take it easy at first. If all is cool then we can expand the envelope to see what his system can handle.
> 
> Harold, Thanks for pointing out my omission. While I was writing the post I reminded myself to quantify my temperature and for some reason I did not. I believe it was 4metals that told me 850 was an ideal temp, hot enough to do the job but not so hot as to vaporise any PM's. My error was not including the scale used. Degrees Celsius.
> 
> ...



Flatpacks are the square fiberglass chips with black ceramic top and gold on one corner, they are found on video cards, mother boards, network cards, satelite and dvr receivers.


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## shyknee (Apr 8, 2011)

glondor
let us know how much he plans on charging per pound and what the minimums are and if it is ok to refer him to us. I would like to use him some day .


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## glondor (Apr 8, 2011)

Well the experiment has begun. I was in error Harold, After meeting with the company, Their incinerator is indeed 850 degrees F. What issues will this cause in further processing? Learning curve steep!

The operator is approaching the project with care and thought to produce a good product for me while protecting his interest in his business. He put forth some good ideas that we may implement if he finds he can successfully incinerate with no negative impact to his operations. 

I will meet with him again Monday morning to see the results of the first round of testing. Memory chips are the first in the oven. I think they will have the least impact pollution wise and will be the most value per pound when rendered down.
If anyone has any cautions or suggestions or practical knowledge to share please post or PM me if you can.


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## Harold_V (Apr 8, 2011)

Frankk12 said:


> Is my way good or is it not hot enough


So long as carbon is burned off, it's hot enough. I used the same system, although I enhanced heat with my rosebud Hoke torch tip. When oxygen is applied and there are no bright spots in the incinerated waste material, the job is done. The whole idea is to eliminate carbonaceous materials. 

Harold


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## Acid_Bath76 (Jun 13, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> Frankk12 said:
> 
> 
> > Is my way good or is it not hot enough
> ...


 Harold, what's the benefit of burning in a standard 02 environment versus a very low 02 environment? Doesn't subjecting something to really high temperatures in the absence of/or very little 02 produce charcoal... or something really close to it? If this is the case, why not just go that route and gather the bits of metal from the mulched up "ash/charcoal"?


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## Harold_V (Jun 13, 2011)

Acid_Bath76 said:


> Harold_V said:
> 
> 
> > Frankk12 said:
> ...


I can't speak for you, but I had much better things to do with my time than pick fly specks from pepper. The idea of creating carbon instead of eliminating carbon makes no sense, in particular when you consider that activated carbon has an affinity for gold in solution. 

It is my opinion that as long as you relegate yourself to hand picking, you will never produce enough value to make it worth your time. That's the chief reason that people don't process boards. It's not because they don't have value---it's because they must be processed in volume, with little or no manual labor involved. In my opinion, sorting incinerated materials by hand is a losing proposition. 

Harold


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## celticsfan (Jul 27, 2011)

I observed an interesting and surprising process when I attempted to see what would happen when I washed my incinerated and crushed IC's in water. Fine powder was floating on top and remained there after stirring. It seems that the powder is hydrophobic or it has a lower specific gravity than water. It also seems to be attracted to itself and binds together. I was able to skim the floating powder with a hand held strainer and as the water run out through the 3/16" holes the powder spanned the holes and did not run through. The more I stirred the mix the more powder would gather on the surface to be skimmed off. I removed most of the powder from the mixture this way and was left with metal and pieces of chips that had not been completely broken up and contained metal. 
I have only done this procedure one time but it seems easy enough to repeat and I plan to do that while keeping measurements and more accurate observations. My research said that the specific gravity of the ceramic would be around 2.5 to 3.1 and I was thinking about what would be a good separating liquid so I didn't think it would separate in water. Apparently it does. If someone has more insight into this I would like to hear it.
Take Care,
John


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## glondor (Jul 27, 2011)

Very interesting.


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## kurt (Jul 29, 2011)

Harold you posted the following – “The idea of creating carbon instead of eliminating carbon makes no sense, in particular when you consider that activated carbon has an affinity for gold in solution.”

So what you are saying is that if you don’t get “complete” incineration of the epoxy casing when incinerating flat packs &/or chips – there by ending up with a carbonized material (which will crush down fine enough) & then if you process with AR to dissolve the gold wire & there is epoxy that has only been carbonized in what you are processing – value is going to be lost in the fact that it will be retained in the carbon, much the same as activated charcoal works to remove chlorine from chlorinated water.

And if that is the case – is there any way of recovering that value once this has occurred. I ask because I still have some material hanging around from some of my very first attempts at trying to recover gold from chips that would fit this case & it would be interesting to see how much value was lost due to such an over site. (if it can still be recovered)

Kurt


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## butcher (Jul 29, 2011)

Carbon in acids will use up your acid making carbonic acid and CO2 gas.
Carbon can precipitate your gold that you thought you held in your leach liquid, you cannot test for it so you have no idea it is still in ash.

Incinerating cherry red hot is not that much of a problem, the air (oxygen) will help to burn off carbon, and lower pollution, completing combustion, instead of producing carbon monoxide you will produce carbon dioxide, and this red heat if kept hot for about an hour can also oxidize metals, assisting you in your separation steps later, and remove acids, or salts of acids from the incinerated materials.

These fumes can be very deadly, fume hood and scrubbing smoke produced, or re-burning the fumes in flue gas chamber and then scrubbing is recommended, you sure do not want to send smoke signals to the EPA saying come to my house and see what you may want to fine me for, or worse jail me for.

You have been given answer of to burn off carbon, and avoid that headache.
Or you could use flux and collector metal and smelt buttons, which cost you more fuel or acids?

as far as separating floating ash, even though gold is very heavy and sinks in a gold pan, remember fine gold floats, especially in that ash, your losses could be high unless you reprocessed the floating ash.


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## celticsfan (Jul 29, 2011)

Thanks Butcher,
It would be a good idea to process some of the discarded ash and test the liquid for gold. However I do not think that any substantial amount of gold wire fragments are passing through because I can't see them reflect on the surface and I didn't find but a few pieces in the ash when I examined it. The amount of time I saved (and the cost of acid not used) will keep me working with this process for the near future.
Take care,
John


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## Harold_V (Jul 30, 2011)

kurt said:


> – is there any way of recovering that value once this has occurred.


For those that used carbon in pulp extraction of gold (cyanide), it was acceptable to incinerate the loaded carbon to extract the values, so I'd assume that you could incinerate to eliminate the carbon in this case, which would allow the recovery of any values that may have been absorbed. I'd likely try a small amount first, to make a determination if the process is warranted. It could be that there are no values tied up. 

Harold


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## kurt (Jul 31, 2011)

Thanks Harold I will give it a try someday when I have a little free time - more out of cureousity then anything else

Kurt


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

i live in the country and have a burn pit which i use to set up a incineration occasionally.i use wood pallets as fuel with a steel frame to suspend a metal five gallon bucket on.i incinerate about 10 pounds of ICB's at a time, some have gold legs and some dont.not the same as a flatpack and not as large as the ceramics but still holding plenty of gold.i incinerate long enough to bake the oils out of the plastics and then use a homemade mortar and pestle to pulverize.i don't want to grind or turn into a powder because i use a gold pan to seperate the carbon from the metal.


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## Harold_V (Aug 6, 2011)

Geo said:


> i live in the country and have a burn pit which i use to set up a incineration occasionally.i use wood pallets as fuel with a steel frame to suspend a metal five gallon bucket on.i incinerate about 10 pounds of ICB's at a time, some have gold legs and some dont.not the same as a flatpack and not as large as the ceramics but still holding plenty of gold.i incinerate long enough to bake the oils out of the plastics and then use a homemade mortar and pestle to pulverize.i don't want to grind or turn into a powder because i use a gold pan to seperate the carbon from the metal.


It is my opinion that you are likely losing values. When you incinerate, there's no reason for some of the gold to not shed from the plated surfaces. How much might be the question. 

It is for the above reason that ash is processed, along with the solids when material is incinerated, as both typically contain values. Thus, I highly recommend all carbon be eliminated in the incineration process. That's really the easy part in that the oil has long since been burned off, so there's little contamination liberated with the process. 

Harold


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

i really don't have access to a furnace that has the temperatures needed to remove the carbon.I've looked at building my own and have found some plans online i believe i could follow but other issues are more pressing at the moment.i built a smelter to pour aluminum ingots,although small at five pound ingots, it works just fine.i made it from a 100 LB propane bottle and a canister type vacuum cleaner as the blower.i thought it may work to remove the carbon but it runs at too low a temperature to do the job.i checked with my hand held laser thermometer and it stays between 900 and 1,000 degrees F.im afraid if i add oxy to the fuel ill melt the end out of it as it isnt insulated.
edited after checking notebook on temps.


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## Palladium (Aug 6, 2011)

Geo said:


> i built a smelter to pour aluminum ingots,although small at five pound ingots, it works just fine.i made it from a 100 LB propane bottle and a canister type vacuum cleaner as the blower.



You got any pictures?


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## rusty (Aug 6, 2011)

Palladium said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > i built a smelter to pour aluminum ingots,although small at five pound ingots, it works just fine.i made it from a 100 LB propane bottle and a canister type vacuum cleaner as the blower.
> ...



Here is the furnace I built


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## Geo (Aug 6, 2011)

actually i dont.i will try to remember to snap a few when i can.


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## qst42know (Aug 14, 2011)

> i really don't have access to a furnace that has the temperatures needed to remove the carbon.I've looked at building my own and have found some plans online i believe i could follow but other issues are more pressing at the moment.i built a smelter to pour aluminum ingots,although small at five pound ingots, it works just fine.i made it from a 100 LB propane bottle and a canister type vacuum cleaner as the blower.i thought it may work to remove the carbon but it runs at too low a temperature to do the job.i checked with my hand held laser thermometer and it stays between 900 and 1,000 degrees F.im afraid if i add oxy to the fuel ill melt the end out of it as it isnt insulated.
> edited after checking notebook on temps.



If you can melt aluminum you can certainly eliminate carbon irregardless what your thermometer says. Aluminum melts well above the point carbon oxidizes. Your furnace lacks the second stage to consume the soot in the smoke.


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## Geo (Aug 14, 2011)

qst42know said:


> > i really don't have access to a furnace that has the temperatures needed to remove the carbon.I've looked at building my own and have found some plans online i believe i could follow but other issues are more pressing at the moment.i built a smelter to pour aluminum ingots,although small at five pound ingots, it works just fine.i made it from a 100 LB propane bottle and a canister type vacuum cleaner as the blower.i thought it may work to remove the carbon but it runs at too low a temperature to do the job.i checked with my hand held laser thermometer and it stays between 900 and 1,000 degrees F.im afraid if i add oxy to the fuel ill melt the end out of it as it isnt insulated.
> > edited after checking notebook on temps.
> 
> 
> ...


would i just place the material in a sturdy steel container then place inside the furnace for X amount of time? the highest temps is just in front of the blower pipe. would i need to rotate the container?


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## butcher (Aug 14, 2011)

I incinerate with hand held torch, and either hot plate or propane burner, I have tried stainless steel pan, but I prefer a white square corning ware casserole dish or one of those violet glass type skillets, a lot of the stuff I incinerate are salts of metals and acids, so I will neutralize them and rinse them well first, I will start heat low because they can bubble and splash out material, once dry they will usually cake up here I crush them to powder, I have a large piece of Pyrex boiler sight glass that works like a mortar to crush them with, then I raise the heat to high(usually several hours on stove), now they will fume off gases, and a lot of the times go back into a liquid syrup form, once they dry again they are crushed and ground back to powder, now with the burner still on high I use the hand held torch to roast these powders, consistently stirring powders, until no more gas is released, and they glow red hot, I keep this red hot temperature for about an hour, stirring and exposing them to air to oxidize them.

For larger batches, dig a hole fill with charcoal some wood to get fire going and roast them on charcoal fire.


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## amosfella (Nov 30, 2011)

would placing the boards in a stainless steel container work to incinerate, without the PMs plating or adhering to the steel?? Can one melt gold and silver in a stainless container without it plating out?? Or does one need a crucible??


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## Geo (Nov 30, 2011)

never use anything metal to melt gold and silver in.molten metal acts like a solvent to other metals and will mix readily.


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## butcher (Dec 1, 2011)

amosfella,
you do not want to incenerate circuit boards, the resin are very toxic and deadly fumes form from many of the metals and chemicals used in making circuit boards.
very bad Idea.


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## AndyWilliams (Jan 7, 2013)

butcher said:


> I incinerate with hand held torch, and either hot plate or propane burner, I have tried stainless steel pan, but I prefer a white square corning ware casserole dish or one of those violet glass type skillets. . .
> 
> For larger batches, dig a hole fill with charcoal some wood to get fire going and roast them on charcoal fire.



I'm wondering if a small, old, propane grill would work, could even use some lava rocks to keep heat. What temp would I need to get too?


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## ericrm (Jan 7, 2013)

Glondor, how did it ended ?


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## Jimmy (Jan 7, 2013)

I have an oven that can do almost 3000F if anyone is interested. Got ball mills too.

The eaisiest fuel fired crucible furnace to make is one using a oil burner from an old furnace. Beckett and blue flame sell them for about $500. These will do about 200,000 btu. If you need a really big one Beckett makes them up to about 3.000,000 btu's 
You can burn straight used motor oil as fuel after temp is up and there wont be any smoke. You just need to filter it and fun diesel thru it as you shut down. Used motor oil gets really stickey.
They are much eaisier to use than propane or nat gas.


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## cejohnsonsr (Feb 23, 2013)

I had an idea for an incinerator. I'm hoping someone will be able to give me confirmation that it's a good idea or explain why it won't work before I build it. (Actually, my Son, who is a master welder, will build it for me.) 

It's a 2 chamber arrangement with the outer chamber being made of 1/2" steel & the inner chamber of 1/4" or 3/8" steel. The inner chamber is roughly the size of a 5 gallon bucket. There is a 3 legged stand for the inner chamber to sit on. The outer chamber is big enough to allow for 1' of coal under the inner chamber and 1' all the way around. The idea is to lay the bottom layer of coal, place the inner chamber & then fill the area around the inner chamber with coal up to the level of the top lip of the inner chamber. I plan to put 3 air inlets equidistant around the bottom of the outer chamber. The exact design isn't carved in stone, but basically it entails 3 steel pipes extending from the outer chamber about 4'. Then steel braided hoses to a manifold connected to a regulator or valve. An air compressor is the supply. It will be topped with a lid that is conical with a small opening in the top for exhaust/draft. I figure I can fill the inner chamber with whatever needs to be incinerated, cap it. light it, feed it some air once it's burning & just wait until all the coal is gone.

I'm really interested to hear what you guys think. 

Ed


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## Geo (Feb 23, 2013)

cejohnsonsr said:


> I had an idea for an incinerator. I'm hoping someone will be able to give me confirmation that it's a good idea or explain why it won't work before I build it. (Actually, my Son, who is a master welder, will build it for me.)
> 
> It's a 2 chamber arrangement with the outer chamber being made of 1/2" steel & the inner chamber of 1/4" or 3/8" steel. The inner chamber is roughly the size of a 5 gallon bucket. There is a 3 legged stand for the inner chamber to sit on. The outer chamber is big enough to allow for 1' of coal under the inner chamber and 1' all the way around. The idea is to lay the bottom layer of coal, place the inner chamber & then fill the area around the inner chamber with coal up to the level of the top lip of the inner chamber. I plan to put 3 air inlets equidistant around the bottom of the outer chamber. The exact design isn't carved in stone, but basically it entails 3 steel pipes extending from the outer chamber about 4'. Then steel braided hoses to a manifold connected to a regulator or valve. An air compressor is the supply. It will be topped with a lid that is conical with a small opening in the top for exhaust/draft. I figure I can fill the inner chamber with whatever needs to be incinerated, cap it. light it, feed it some air once it's burning & just wait until all the coal is gone.
> 
> ...



overkill. you will wind up melting your container.too, incineration is a process that needs oxygen. without a good supply of oxygen,its just pyrolizing the material leaving alot of carbon behind. perhaps a better design would be a thick walled tank like a 100# propane bottle with a door cut in one side facing up. affix a length of steel pipe inserted through the bottom horizontally. add a 1/4 inlet to the steel pipe to attach a small copper fuel line to. attach a small blower the the open end of the pipe and a bottle of propane to the fuel line. add a short piece of pipe at the front end as a vent. 
now you can load almost anything (electronic's, IC's, jewelers buffing wheels, rugs) turn on the blower, turn on the gas and toss in a light.


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## cejohnsonsr (Feb 23, 2013)

Hi Geo. You really think I'd melt 1/4" steel inner container? I didn't think it would get that hot. I was trying to make something that worked along the lines of the incinerator I saw in your video, but that would last longer. I guess I'll have to give it some more thought.

Thanks,

Ed


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## Anonymous (Feb 23, 2013)

glondor said:


> Well I am pleased to say I finally found a company willing to incinerate for me! We will do a trial run tomorrow. I am taking 15 lbs of flatpacks off of memory, 10 lbs of hard drive boards, 10 pounds of pin blocks from cell boards and 10 pounds of fingerless memory.. 850 degrees in oven, 1700 degree afterburner. Other than putting a loose cover on the steel pails is there anything else i should know? The oven operator has not done this type of material before and is very interested. Interested enough to do the first run for free! It is a commercial oven for industrial parts burn off. Now if I only had a ball mill.....


i have a furnace for sale just listed it today on here


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## Anonymous (Feb 23, 2013)

cejohnsonsr said:


> Hi Geo. You really think I'd melt 1/4" steel inner container? I didn't think it would get that hot. I was trying to make something that worked along the lines of the incinerator I saw in your video, but that would last longer. I guess I'll have to give it some more thought.i have a furnace for sale i just listed it today on here
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ed


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## butcher (Feb 23, 2013)

Coal and coke with forced air can get hot enough to blacksmith, weld iron, or melt iron.


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## Geo (Feb 23, 2013)

the incinerator in the video i made used wood and still melted the bottom out of the steel bucket in the video. the incineration occurs with direct flame on the material. you couldnt see the inside but there was a steel mesh sheet with the components just poured into it.


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