# Processing mobile phone circuits



## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

I have got 3kg of mobile phone PCBs (Iphones,Samsungs, Huaweis, etc). (Images attached)
What process should I use to extract copper, silver , gold and palladium out of them ? Are there any steps in a form of a checklist ? Like "do this, then this, then that, and etc. So far what I have found googling about it , it is this process:
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/how-to-use-aqua-regia-to-purify-gold
But it doesn't say anything about copper or palladium. This is going to be my first gold extraction, so I am still learning . I am reading Hokes book (on the page 69 currently), but I do not have enough knowledge yet to build a process for such complex extraction. I also have a lot of questions, for example, should I grind this PCBs ? I don't have milling machine nor the money to buy it so I was thinking to cut the PCBs and pass them through the meat grinder. Increasing the size of the lever it will work. Not a standard solution, but it is the only thing I have.

Will appreciate very much your comments and recommendations.

Thanks


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## Geo (Mar 6, 2017)

This is a short video of how I remove the components from phone boards.

https://youtu.be/Pn5LjwnmYFg


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## g_axelsson (Mar 6, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> I have got 3kg of mobile phone PCBs (Iphones,Samsungs, Huaweis, etc). (Images attached)


Keep saving up while reading more. I saw a few memory sticks in your picture, try to get a couple of kilos and use them to learn the process. The easiest electronic scrap to refine is gold plated fingers using the copper chloride process. The second would be to use the memory chips to recover bonding wires. The forum is covered with how to process those two.
Shredding and throwing all in aqua regia is just a fast way to create a big mess and lose your gold. There are people on this forum that might get away with it but you need experience to navigate all the traps on the way.

And concerning the article you have found...


Zolotov said:


> What process should I use to extract copper, silver , gold and palladium out of them ? Are there any steps in a form of a checklist ? Like "do this, then this, then that, and etc. So far what I have found googling about it , it is this process:
> https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/how-to-use-aqua-regia-to-purify-gold


It was a long time since I saw a such bad instruction. Just forget it, the chemistry might work but it is nothing like anything I've seen. Formic acid to check for remaining nitric in aqua regia, does that even work? And dropping the gold as a sulfide, don't think it would be especially selective for gold.
And dont get me started on his silver extraction, it's obvious that he's never tried this himself.



Zolotov said:


> But it doesn't say anything about copper or palladium. This is going to be my first gold extraction, so I am still learning . I am reading Hokes book (on the page 69 currently), but I do not have enough knowledge yet to build a process for such complex extraction. I also have a lot of questions, for example, should I grind this PCBs ? I don't have milling machine nor the money to buy it so I was thinking to cut the PCBs and pass them through the meat grinder. Increasing the size of the lever it will work. Not a standard solution, but it is the only thing I have.
> 
> Will appreciate very much your comments and recommendations.
> 
> Thanks


My recommendation is that you continue to read Hoke and doing research on the forum while collecting more scrap. Then when you have enough of easy scrap (preferable gold plated fingers) you start with that, you will find that the first time you refine it will expose every misconception you have about refining.

Don't think that you can treat electronic scrap as ore. that's two totally different beasts.

I don't want to discourage you from refining, I'm only trying to help you from making a mistake.

Göran


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## kernels (Mar 6, 2017)

This is certainly not a easy recovery to start with, Geo is onto it, get the components off the board and start by sorting the components. Almost all the gold there will be in the components, processing the PCBs will be a lot of hard work for not much gold. 

Extracting the gold from the smaller BGA chips on those boards is not trivial, but you will likely at least end up with some visible gold. Plenty of information on the forum and youtube about recovering bond wires from ICs.

I always recommend people wanting to start at this game get a kg or two of RAM modules and recover and refine the gold fingers first, it's much nicer because your gold always visible along the way.


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

Geo said:


> This is a short video of how I remove the components from phone boards.
> 
> https://youtu.be/Pn5LjwnmYFg



great idea!! You save me 50 bucks, I was about to buy a heat gun today.


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Keep saving up while reading more.


Thanks, I definitely will. BTW, with your experience, and roughly estimating, how much gold do you think is in this sample? (without the memory modules)


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## kernels (Mar 6, 2017)

A few grams best case. Your 3kg includes a lot of metal shield, connector and fibreglass weight


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

kernels said:


> A few grams best case. Your 3kg includes a lot of metal shield, connector and fibreglass weight


Thanks! I am surprised it is that low. What is the average yield per mobile phone ? I have about 60 mobile phones in both pictures and they are all smartpones.


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## kernels (Mar 6, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> kernels said:
> 
> 
> > A few grams best case. Your 3kg includes a lot of metal shield, connector and fibreglass weight
> ...



Any gold coating on those PCBs will be "ENIG" which is incredibly thin gold. This is why I said it's probably not worth the acid to recover that. Most of the value will be in the BGA type chips on the boards, these will yield up to 6 grams of gold per kilogram of chips when you get some experience with the process. I estimate from all those phones you may end up with 0.5kg of chips if your lucky, probably less.

There is also a little bit of gold plating on the battery connectors, but this requires some other processes to recover.

There was some very good comments on this thread, basically, if you want to get into gold recovery / refining, make a loss at first and buy some cheap ram and start with the fingers, then move onto the chips. Keep on saving up e-waste and eventually you will process it all.


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

kernels said:


> start with the fingers, then move onto the chips


yes I will, not going to skip the steps, I am just looking further for preparation.



kernels said:


> I estimate from all those phones you may end up with 0.5kg of chips if your lucky, probably less.


Thanks, it is all clear with the chip value now.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 6, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > Keep saving up while reading more.
> ...


Almost impossible to say... here are some yield numbers reported by other members.
http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Yield_numbers
There is one post with mobile phone data there, but it can vary a lot in composition compared to your scrap.

I have 20-30 kg of mobile phones in my scrap heap but I haven't messed with it yet. Still collecting.
If I get enough to send out to an external refinery then it will go with all my scrap boards.

Göran


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Almost impossible to say... here are some yield numbers reported by other members.
> http://goldrefiningwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php/Yield_numbers


Nice numbers, thanks!



g_axelsson said:


> I have 20-30 kg of mobile phones in my scrap heap but I haven't messed with it yet.


So, this guy (Todor) have got 311 grams out of 17,000 phones. That's a very good (precise) statistics, they even aren't doing such amount of sampling for a president campaign. 17k is a good data. Of course it is region biased but that's enough to do some projections. This means my gross profit will be 284% because each phone costs me 0.25 cents, and the gold value per phone is 0.71 cents (311g/17,000pcs*($1210/31.19))

Then this means, that you (with a very high probability) have 510 phones (30kg * 17, if they are without battery of course and assuming you have got exactly 30 kg) and they are worth 362 USD . (Right not using spot gold)


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## anachronism (Mar 7, 2017)

If he only got 311g out of 17,000 mobile phones then he didn't recover most of the gold. "Precise" is not quite the way I would describe his data. I promise you that the data is completely wrong. If you sold me the phones with a price based on 311g in 17,000 I would be a very happy man.


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## Geo (Mar 7, 2017)

From my own experience, it's more like 2200 phones for an ounce of gold. This was four years ago and phone technology has changed. There could be less gold per phone now.


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## canedane (Mar 7, 2017)

anachronism said:


> If he only got 311g out of 17,000 mobile phones then he didn't recover most of the gold. "Precise" is not quite the way I would describe his data. I promise you that the data is completely wrong. If you sold me the phones with a price based on 311g in 17,000 I would be a very happy man.


.
Todor diddent recover the gold himself, he used the company Umicore , and i trust both Todor and Umicore.
Todor was disappointing with the yield,but he accept it.


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## anachronism (Mar 7, 2017)

canedane said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > If he only got 311g out of 17,000 mobile phones then he didn't recover most of the gold. "Precise" is not quite the way I would describe his data. I promise you that the data is completely wrong. If you sold me the phones with a price based on 311g in 17,000 I would be a very happy man.
> ...



I refine these by the tonne. I wouldn't send to Umicore unless you don't have a better alternative. That way you don't need to be "disappointed."


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## daddysank (Mar 10, 2017)

there may be some hidden gold on some boards 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEe9kKgncc


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## patnor1011 (Mar 10, 2017)

Snipet from one interview:

To learn more about gold and how it is removed from discarded devices, I spoke to Sean Magann, vice president of sales and marketing for Sims Recycling Solutions—North America, a division of the global re-use and recycling firm Sims Metal Management.
How much gold is in a smartphone?
Magann: In very rough numbers, there are 10 troy ounces of gold (or about three-fifths of a pound) per ton of smartphones. Ten thousand phones weigh one ton.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 10, 2017)

daddysank said:


> there may be some hidden gold on some boards
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEe9kKgncc



While this process is covered here in great detail video you linked is unbelievable careless demonstration. That guy did everything wrong. Anyone with a bit of self preservation instinct would never try to replicate what he did. Example of youtube-can-kill-you at its finest.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 10, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> Then this means, that you (with a very high probability) have 510 phones (30kg * 17, if they are without battery of course and assuming you have got exactly 30 kg) and they are worth 362 USD . (Right not using spot gold)


I said 20-30 kg, that means that it is very unsure at how much it is, some are totally disassembled, some with the batteries still remaining. All spread over several different boxes and a whole different models and dates. Some has come in as broken parts from a company that repairs phones. It is impossible to say exactly how many there is or how much they are worth. Only refining them will tell.

Göran


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