# Average valuables content in e-Waste



## JoeyJoystick (Aug 4, 2019)

Hi All,

Like most newbies investigating the recycling of e-waste to extract precious metal content I also went looking for some numbers as to how much PMs and PGMs and Copper e-Waste contains.

This is not an easy task. Not because there is no information available, quite the opposite actually. And the numbers that you find vary a lot. It seems to me that there are several reasons for the wide variety in the available numbers. The differences between the various processes, the kind of feed stock and the feed stock sample size are but a few of the variables causing these numbers to vary.

And then I came across some numbers from Umicore in Belgium in a research paper from 2014. I am guessing that many of you have heard of this plant, but for those who have not here I go. The Umicore plant in Belgium is (was?) the largest e-Waste recycling plant in the world. They have invested heavily in both the research and the building of the plant. It is as environmentally friendly as you can reasonably get with todays technology and the emissions are well below local and European standards.

Out of the 16 metals which Umicore produces I will highlight just a few of them, though arguably the most interesting and valuable ones. Here are the numbers: 250.000 metric tons of e-Waste is processed per year. The production rate on a yearly basis is 50 tons of PGMs, 100 tons of Gold and 2400 tons of Silver. At today's market prices this translates to well over 7 Billion (USD), and with a feed of 250.000 tons annually this translates to something like 28.000USD per ton. What makes the number a good average is the 250.000 tons feedstock because this is not a sample anymore.

Additionally, this does not include any of the other metals which they extract, most notably copper which is a significant part of e-Waste. If indeed the copper content is higher than 10% as often reported, this would easily add an additional 140.000.000USD to the tally.

p.s. I have been conservative with the prices I took, just to be on the safe side. I took 5.5USD/kg for Copper, 1.400USD/Oz for Gold, 0.5USD/g for Silver and 1.000USD/Oz for PGMs. 

I guess those numbers make even the die-hard pros on this forum look like amateurs. Absolutely no insult intended, because the bottom line is that I truly envy you guys.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting and just wanted to share this with you.


Joey


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## anachronism (Aug 4, 2019)

Joey

Thanks for the OP, however your logic isn't based upon complete data. From their released figures you cannot make the link between 250,000 tonnes and $28,000 per tonne. 

There are holes in that logic that I could drive a Sherman tank through. Sideways. 

Don't work on that number. 

Jon


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## JoeyJoystick (Aug 4, 2019)

anachronism said:


> Joey
> 
> Thanks for the OP, however your logic isn't based upon complete data. From their released figures you cannot make the link between 250,000 tonnes and $28,000 per tonne.
> 
> ...



Hi Jon,

Thanks for the feed-back. I would not work with these numbers for several reasons. The main reason being, that I would work with the lowest reliable numbers I can find and it would be plain stupid to base a small operation on the numbers of the largest operation in the world.

I need to go to work now but I will investigate a little further once I have returned back to my hotel. But can you give me an indicator as to where I have gone off track. You made me curious.

Cheers,


Joey


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## anachronism (Aug 5, 2019)

Sure. Where you've gone wrong is taking the headline figures and applied a direct average across them. 

In reality the range is enormous, from $2,000 per tonne upwards. Also these figures were produced in 2014 when the PM and PGM content of the product being refined included all the older equipment which is only available now in very small parcels.


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## niks neims (Aug 5, 2019)

we have this saying:

the average temperature of a human body in the hospital is 36.6 Co - including the morgue


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## JoeyJoystick (Aug 5, 2019)

Hi Jon,

Thanks.

I was very aware of the 2.000USD/Ton and upwards, but that is why it was an average. What did puzzle me was why the average was so high. But you explained that very well with 'older equipment' comment. But I figured after your earlier post that there must be more to it.

And so I went to look into this a little further as I had indicated in my earlier post. Here is where I went wrong. Yes, the numbers are ok actually. However, I was a little naïve to assume that they only recycle e-waste. The also accept waste from various other industries. Think of jewellers waste, Catalyst (Cars), and they even process ores from a silver mine they own/run in Brazil. They actually opened a plant for catalyst only, just a few kilometres form where I live in Thailand. But that is not applicable to the mentioned numbers. Those numbers are Belgium only.

oh, and by the way. The production has been increased and they are about to expand again now to a total of 500.000tons for this particular plant.

Anyway, my intentions were good, but the picture is clearly wrong. Very wrong. In part of what you mentioned of course, but also various other reasons.

Still, it's quite interesting that people are doing this on such a scale now and recovering so much metal from all our waste. 13 plants worldwide.

I remember I did some inspection work in a PGM refiner in Belgium some 15 years ago. I do not remember though if this was Umicore. It was quite an experience though. Just getting in there is more difficult than getting into a bank after closing time. :lol: And getting out is even more difficult. Nice to see 5 reactors on a row producing gold, platinum, silver and the likes. We did a Video Inspection of the reactor internals and some associated piping. But details are vague after such a long time.

Joey


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## JoeyJoystick (Aug 5, 2019)

niks neims said:


> we have this saying:
> 
> the average temperature of a human body in the hospital is 36.6 Co - including the morgue



Hi Niks,

You summarised it very well! lol.


Joey


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## anachronism (Aug 5, 2019)

Haha I like Nik's analogy.


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## 4metals (Aug 5, 2019)

I would say that if you could break down the scrap into both age and source you could get a better average but then it comes down to the fact that a specific separation as would be required would probably cost more than the recovery. 

It reminds me of an experience I had 15 years ago in New York City. I was approached to do assys on "sewer sludge" which was actually solids settled in storm drains and periodically cleaned out by the city. The first sample I received ran in excess of 15 ounces per ton. (466 PPM) The guy thought he would get rich quick and I cautioned him to get a larger sample. He ended up with a sample from a drain further down the block which was a fraction of the first drain. These drains were on 47th street, the heart of the jewelry district. I did 4 samples from the street and the average was under 0.15 ounces per ton. (4.6 PPM) 

He went from a (self assumed) rich man, to owing me for the assays pretty quickly. In the end he gave me all of the sludge he had, (dried) which amounted to about 10 kg in payment and it all came from the highest yielding drain which was assayed first. Total gold content was about 1/3 of a gram. That wouldn't even cover the in weight fee's at a smelter. So I got skunked as the guy never came back, but this did serve to point out to me once again the value of sampling properly. 

And proper sampling makes the difference between a successful operation and a mediocre operation.


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## JoeyJoystick (Aug 7, 2019)

4metals said:


> Proper sampling makes the difference between a successful operation and a mediocre operation.



Hi 4metals,

I fully agree with you here. I think most people with comparatively small businesses do exactly this. Hence you see many 'small' operation which specialise in a particular kind of waste. 

My thinking was that on a large scale it would be un-economically to go to deep into the separation of different kind of wastes. As pointed out in the previous post, I had obviously not taken into account that this company did much much more than just electronic waste though... 

Though far from claiming to be an expert on this, I find it hard to believe that a large operation, such as Umicore, will go to separation details to the extend of separating processors from 8-24 pin DIL housing chips. Or even separating chips from capacitors. I actually do not even believe that they will separate cell phones from computer boards and telecom boards and low grade boards such Washing machine and TV boards. Again, I might be wrong, but I really think that all this is treated in one big heap of waste. When working on a small scale this would not be viable because of the equipment required to treat a mixed bag of waste, hence the reason people running small scale operations separate and specialize. The first separation (maybe collection is a better word in this context) starts with the purchase of the waste. The large operators still separate though, but in a much grander scheme. As in main categories such as jewellers waste, electronic waste, ores and automotive catalyst, to name just a few.

Anyway, these were my initial thoughts. both you and Jon made it clear I needed more info though. So what does Umicore do? They get there waste delivered in pre-sorted loads. They have suppliers which Umicore refers to as 'pre-processors'. [edited for grammar] And they will get delivered batches of cell phones, computer boards, automotive catalyst etc. And they, Umicore, still do assays them selves on some or all of there wastes.

I guess at the end of the day it all comes down to economics.

I still think it's amazing that with a relatively low investment they can create such a massive turn over. That, of course, is only half the picture, because the operating costs for them are considerable. Still for their 'green' plant they have invested several hundred million and they have created a turnover of billions. Which is a bit unusual. The high operating costs reduce the profits considerable though, but they still end up with hundreds of millions of profit. I do not know of many industries where you can (not saying the do though) write of your investment in less than a year. And all that makes it an impressive operation. I think few will doubt this.

It also shows that, all my good intentions aside, how easy it is to go wrong with numbers. Not so much the mathematics (in this case), but more what the numbers being used actually represent. And this is exactly what you were saying 4metals.

Lesson well learned on my side I guess.

Joey


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## butcher (Aug 7, 2019)

As the old saying stated, It takes money to make money.


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## snoman701 (Aug 7, 2019)

JoeyJoystick said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > Proper sampling makes the difference between a successful operation and a mediocre operation.
> ...



Proper sampling, as 4metals calls it, is how they know how much to pay you.

You send a 40,000 lb load to them in a container. They dump it out and push it in to a pile with front loaders. Then they take a scoop out of it with the front loader. That is your sample. They burn that separate, process it, determine how much gold, silver, palladium and copper you have...and they apply that fraction to the entire 40,000 lb load. 

It's not quite that simple, but that's the idea.

It's in your best interest to have a homogenous sample...for a lot of reasons. 

Short of someone who has been sending lots to a large smelter, you won't find this information in a public setting...because it's never about how much gold is in your lot, it's about how much gold is in your sample. Thee sampling that 4metals describes is what defines how well metals in your lot correlate to the metals in your sample. It's not a quantitative payout.


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## kurtak (Aug 7, 2019)

snoman701 said:


> You send a 40,000 lb load to them in a container. They dump it out and push it in to a pile with front loaders. Then they take a scoop out of it with the front loader. That is your sample. They burn that separate, process it, determine how much gold, silver, palladium and copper you have...and they apply that fraction to the entire 40,000 lb load.



snowman

per the underlined - that's not how they take the sample from your load

The load is first shredded - it is then incinerated - it is then run in a mill like a ball mill - then run through a mixer to get it well mixed - they then pull their sample's from that mix for their assay's - the assays then determine the pay out on the load

Kurt


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## snoman701 (Aug 7, 2019)

That’s just me relaying what I was told by someone that has been there. 

It doesn’t much matter how they sample...it’s going to be proven out by umicore to be in umicore’s favor. 

And it’s only through multiple loads and multivariate statistical analysis that you start to figure out what’s in your various grades, and just how good your guys are at sorting. 

And by the time people or firms have data back on multiple shipping container loads....they aren’t going to want to share that data for the purpose of academics....nor is umicore going to offer that data up to anyone that doesn’t NEED to know it. 

I don’t personally care how much gold is in small socket boards, or power boards or .......I care about the per pound price. I hope that the guy I sell to is making an absolute killing....and I mean that...because his risk is a heck of a lot higher than mine. I buy right so I can sell and cover my costs to grow. Until I am able to source 500 lbs of boards per business day.....that’s all I can hope to do. 

For some products....I’m the end of the line. For others....I’m just a middle man...and I want both sides of the transaction to be happy with what they get. When I started this Lou told me very specifically, don’t try and do it all....pick a couple things and get good at it. Need to crawl before you can walk. 






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## 4metals (Aug 7, 2019)

> I find it hard to believe that a large operation, such as Umicore, will go to separation details to the extend of separating processors from 8-24 pin DIL housing chips. Or even separating chips from capacitors. I actually do not even believe that they will separate cell phones from computer boards and telecom boards and low grade boards such Washing machine and TV boards.



I did not say that any company, Umicore or any other e-scrap processing refiner will do the separation. I was just saying that if you, the owner of the scrap, wanted to quantify different classes of material, my suggestion is what you have to do. 

And no decent refiner will not just do as snowman suggests!


> You send a 40,000 lb load to them in a container. They dump it out and push it in to a pile with front loaders. Then they take a scoop out of it with the front loader. That is your sample.



A refiner is also concerned that a sample is representative so it is in their best interest to get a good sample, not to maximize your return but to make sure they don't over pay you.

Along time ago when I was new to this forum, I posted about sampling on this thread;
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=3166&hilit=stream
If you scroll down to the section I described stream sampling and the pitfalls. That is what is done if the customer wants a sample. If you have a 20 ton load as snowman suggests it may be processed as a single load without sampling and you will be paid on out-turn. That is never an option I would take. I am a show me kind of guy and I made money in refining by refining what fit my niche and shipping the rest, but I never shipped a lot I couldn't quantify first unless I was going with it.


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## niks neims (Aug 8, 2019)

Damn, recently there's an influx of good "e-scrap business learning" threads here, I'm guilty of finding that much more interesting than chemistry 



snoman701 said:


> You send a 40,000 lb load to them in a container. They dump it out and push it in to a pile with front loaders. Then they take a scoop out of it with the front loader. That is your sample. They burn that separate, process it, determine how much gold, silver, palladium and copper you have...and they apply that fraction to the entire 40,000 lb load.





kurtak said:


> The load is first shredded - it is then incinerated - it is then run in a mill like a ball mill - then run through a mixer to get it well mixed - they then pull their sample's from that mix for their assay's - the assays then determine the pay out on the load



As I was recently explained by an industry professional It goes something like that:
Whole lot is shredded, then a small fraction, say 1/10 gets randomly taken (hopefully not just by a guy with a showel, but for example by rotary splitter) and fed to another, smaller shredder, then 1/10 of that gets randomly taken and ball/hammer milled, and so on until you have a finely divided sample which then is fire assayed, I did not discuss it, but it was my understanding that there is a preferred size of few kg for this fire assay, so my guess for the sample size by which you get your pay-out is not a fixed % but rather fixed weight, so If you sent in 3000 kg and your fire assay sample was 3 kg, your lot is represented by 0.1%, but if you sent in 30 000 kg, then your lot is represented just by 0.01%.... I guess if you are sending 30 tons at a time you could witness treatment and sampling yourself or rather hire a professional witness, as sampling is a science on itself, but still - I have a dreadful feeling that during all of the treatment and sampling process there is a lot of ways it could go wrong - improper treatment, mixing of granulate before taking sample, heavier fractions gravity separating due to vibration, etc. I'm cynical by nature so I have a suspicion that whole sampling process is designed by a refiner in such a way that all of the potential random problems to their disadvantage are covered extensively but, any potential deviations to the other side are not that carefully managed... after all they get "all of it" in the end... so that brings up 2 points:
1.


4metals said:


> If you have a 20 ton load as snowman suggests it may be processed as a single load without sampling and you will be paid on out-turn. That is never an option I would take. I am a show me kind of guy and I made money in refining by refining what fit my niche and shipping the rest, but I never shipped a lot I couldn't quantify first unless I was going with it.


You are hands down most knowledgeable (or at least most willing to share) person here on technical details while dealing with large refineries, could you clarify this post for me please; 
A)Are you saying you would not take an option of pay-out on final yield data after all of the refining is done? Say, they shredded, burned, refined JUST YOUR 20 ton PCB load, got 2 kg gold, 15 kg silver, few Toz of palladium and a couple of tons of copper and pay out you a % of a spot price for that amount, minus their charges? Why would you not take such a deal (heard of any refineries offering such a deal?), wouldn't it take out all of the randomness of the sample selection? Is it because you would not trust their "final" numbers and sampling process is easier for you to oversee(witness)? I'm worried that it takes a few PhD of theoretical knowledge and a few lifetimes of practice to confidently witness the treatment, sampling and assay with the limited access the refinery allows you, and even when taking separate samples for yourself and umpire, you are already limited by any shortcomings of treatment pre-sampling and everything that comes before the final samples are selected...
B)Or are you saying that you would not trust any refiner to send them material that you are not 100% sure on composition?? Why trust their treatment and sampling process but not their recovery and refining? I mean if they are honest, they are honest...

If it were me, an option of "final yield settlement" seems much more attractive, heck, let them smelt a dore bar, then sample & pay out on that, it should be much more easier to properly sample 100 kg of copper dore (and sample slag for traces of values) than a ton of boards.... seems to me that whole system (current business practices) is purposely designed to the advantage of the refiner, I mean you have a little leeway, a little sense of due diligence, but not really, just enough to lull your sense of awareness.... there was this saying here on who does what last ;/

And that brings me to my second point:
2.


snoman701 said:


> I don’t personally care how much gold is in small socket boards, or power boards or .......I care about the per pound price. I hope that the guy I sell to is making an absolute killing....and I mean that...because his risk is a heck of a lot higher than mine. I buy right so I can sell and cover my costs to grow. Until I am able to source 500 lbs of boards per business day.....that’s all I can hope to do.
> For some products....I’m the end of the line. For others....I’m just a middle man...and I want both sides of the transaction to be happy with what they get. When I started this Lou told me very specifically, don’t try and do it all....pick a couple things and get good at it. Need to crawl before you can walk.
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Teach me master! Again and again you bring up points about e-waste business I've found to make perfect sense, I want to learn from you


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## snoman701 (Aug 8, 2019)

niks neims said:


> Teach me master! Again and again you bring up points about e-waste business I've found to make perfect sense, I want to learn from you



My knowledge is based upon what I've been able to garner from industry professionals...some reliable, some not so much. As an example of not so much, see above. I put a lot more weight in 4metals experience as his shared experiences have never let me down.

For me, there's not much to it beyond recognizing different grades of material.


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## anachronism (Aug 8, 2019)

I'm on final yield settlement terms. 

It's a tough basis to get from a refinery in many cases. That given I can separate a batch into smaller discreet segments with no additional processing charges and this helps to get yields on particular types of boards. Which in turn allows purchase prices to be developed from hard data rather than blending and guessing (as I call it.)

The other benefit is that we can put a load together of varying products, and given the weight of each type we can get to within a few percent of the out turn before it is even refined.


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## kurtak (Aug 8, 2019)

Sampling & assay of lot sent in explained

:arrow: https://advchem.com/videos/19-videos/64-acc-incineration-process

Kurt


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## snoman701 (Aug 8, 2019)

4metals said:


> Before the material is put into a ball mill, check to see that there are only balls in the mill. Have them install the dump grate and spin the mill to make sure no left over material is in the mill. Add your material to the mill and let it crush for the required time, usually 1 hour.



Why is that? 

Is there something that can be added that's going to throw off your sampling of the fines later? 

And I know that this was not necessarily in reference to e-scrap.


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## niks neims (Aug 8, 2019)

snoman701 said:


> My knowledge is based upon what I've been able to garner from industry professionals...some reliable, some not so much. As an example of not so much, see above. I put a lot more weight in 4metals experience as his shared experiences have never let me down.
> 
> *For me, there's not much to it beyond recognizing different grades of material.*



Hey, that is a *fundamental* part of this business 
More importantly I am at a point that I can see very well that I should seek and listen to your (and other business-savy members) advice, I do apologize for pestering you via PM, towards that regard; perhaps you missed my message 



anachronism said:


> I'm on final yield settlement terms.
> 
> It's a tough basis to get from a refinery in many cases. That given I can separate a batch into smaller discreet segments with no additional processing charges and this helps to get yields on particular types of boards. Which in turn allows purchase prices to be developed from hard data rather than blending and guessing (as I call it.)
> 
> The other benefit is that we can put a load together of varying products, and given the weight of each type we can get to within a few percent of the out turn before it is even refined.



Now that is a sweet deal that I'd love to make some day, how did you manage that?! Is that just a question of monthly volume supplied, or did you had to learn mandarin and drink a lot of Sake  ? One would assume that smaller refineries in particular, rather than mega-corporations would use this angle (to offer final yield settlement terms) to appeal to potential clients... 
also, both benefits that you singled out are just excellent form business perspective...


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## niks neims (Aug 8, 2019)

kurtak said:


> Sampling & assay of lot sent in explained
> 
> :arrow: https://advchem.com/videos/19-videos/64-acc-incineration-process
> 
> Kurt



Great video, I wonder what their treatment and refining charges are 

still, though, does "thieving rod" technology takes a sample that adequately represents whole lot?


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## kurtak (Aug 8, 2019)

niks neims said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> > Sampling & assay of lot sent in explained
> ...




Per the underlined --- yes - that is why the thieving rod is designed to take material from different levels of the drum (bottom, middle, top - note the slots in the length of the rod) 

Keep in mind that as much as you are worried about getting "under" payed --- they are worried about "over" paying you 

Kurt


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## 4metals (Aug 8, 2019)

> A)Are you saying you would not take an option of pay-out on final yield data after all of the refining is done? Say, they shredded, burned, refined JUST YOUR 20 ton PCB load, got 2 kg gold, 15 kg silver, few Toz of palladium and a couple of tons of copper and pay out you a % of a spot price for that amount, minus their charges? Why would you not take such a deal (heard of any refineries offering such a deal?), wouldn't it take out all of the randomness of the sample selection? Is it because you would not trust their "final" numbers and sampling process is easier for you to oversee(witness)? I'm worried that it takes a few PhD of theoretical knowledge and a few lifetimes of practice to confidently witness the treatment, sampling and assay with the limited access the refinery allows you, and even when taking separate samples for yourself and umpire, you are already limited by any shortcomings of treatment pre-sampling and everything that comes before the final samples are selected...



I would not take this option only because of the elapsed time it would take makes it difficult, to say the least, to witness. If they chose this option they would prep the material by granulating to a uniform size and proceed with the processing. This would be to accomodate their production schedule and it is what most refineries would prefer as it is un-witnessed. 



> B)Or are you saying that you would not trust any refiner to send them material that you are not 100% sure on composition?? Why trust their treatment and sampling process but not their recovery and refining? I mean if they are honest, they are honest...



My own personal preference has been trust and verify. In the e-scrap business you will never be able to be 100% sure of composition. So sampling, while witnessing, is the best option. If you have a representative sample procured by a method you are comfortable with, you don't have to trust their recovery and refining because their payout is based on the sample that you both have. So it comes down to assay. Any problems with recovery costs them money not you.



> If it were me, an option of "final yield settlement" seems much more attractive, heck, let them smelt a dore bar, then sample & pay out on that, it should be much more easier to properly sample 100 kg of copper dore (and sample slag for traces of values) than a ton of boards.... seems to me that whole system (current business practices) is purposely designed to the advantage of the refiner, I mean you have a little leeway, a little sense of due diligence, but not really, just enough to lull your sense of awareness.... there was this saying here on who does what last ;/



What you are missing here is the fact that proper sampling involves making that ton of boards into the 100 kg of copper doré. When I did circuit boards I did the granulation and incineration and melted into copper based bullion in house so all I had to do was sample the copper bars that I shipped. I never received more than a few thousand pounds of boards at a time as that was far from my niche as a refiner. We did not have the cash or the desire to invest in stream sampling required for larger lots to do it properly so when the odd lot came in that was large enough to need stream sampling I packed my suitcase. 

I am not trying to say that you will not get a reasonable settlement by shipping without witnessing and being paid on out-turn. What I am saying is the analytical chemist in me wants to see a good representative sample. We have members here, Jon (anachronism) comes to mind, who say they do settle on turn out. And apparently that works for him. But he has, as his posts point out, a vast knowledge of e-scrap and he likely can segregate his material so the turn out payment is acceptable based on his knowledge of what each load contains (from history) vs actual representation at the refinery. I, on the other hand don't know a Nintendo board from a high end telecom board so my segregation skills would be limited. So for guys like me, which I believe vastly outnumber guys like Jon, refineries need to allow for proper sampling. For guys like me, with limited skills in the value of different circuitry, an unscrupulous refiner would see from what I shipped in as a lot, that my separation skills are limited and if I didn't witness, they could have their way with a settlement.


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## 4metals (Aug 8, 2019)

> 4metals wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:34 pm
> Before the material is put into a ball mill, check to see that there are only balls in the mill. Have them install the dump grate and spin the mill to make sure no left over material is in the mill. Add your material to the mill and let it crush for the required time, usually 1 hour.
> _________________________________________
> Snoman wrote: Why is that?
> ...



When I go to witness a lot being sampled I try not to leave anything to chance. Putting material into a dirty ball mill indicates to me sloppy work. That residue in the mill belongs to the lot processed before mine. If they don't clean the mill before you get there, then what are the chances they will clean the mill when dumping your lot? So seeing the mill clean before is just an indication to me that the processing is coughing up all that was contained. I also look inside a mill after it is dumped because you can tell by looking at the balls if the load has fully dumped. The weight going into the mill should not grow or diminish from the milling process. 

I have see so many dishonest tricks played with sampling that I learned to be thorough. I knew of a refiner who always screened a portion of the sample to a finer mesh as a finer mesh yields a better assay. and he would always have his stack of screens for the RoTap all prepared and taped so no dust would escape. Which in itself is a red flag because if you have ever been in a sweeps plant there is dust accumulating everywhere. But what he did was add about 10-20% no yield powder to the screen before you got there and when your sample was screened into the receiver tray it was diluted. Lowering your assay and essentially stealing from your entire lot by messing with the sample. I have seen the same trick with small sample vee blenders having dirt inside to cut the sample in the refiners favor. So I always check the screens and vee blenders before my sample goes in. It's just a habit but I have seen a lot of tricks in my day. 

I sleep better when I know that a refiner is thorough and he has passed all of my little inspections. And when I leave a refinery with my samples I need to go back to the hotel and shower and change my clothes. I never said properly witnessing a sampling operation should be done in a white shirt and tie!


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## snoman701 (Aug 8, 2019)

4metals said:


> I knew of a refiner who always screened a portion of the sample to a finer mesh as a finer mesh yields a better assay. and he would always have his stack of screens for the RoTap all prepared and taped so no dust would escape. Which in itself is a red flag because if you have ever been in a sweeps plant there is dust accumulating everywhere. But what he did was add about 10-20% no yield powder to the screen before you got there and when your sample was screened into the receiver tray it was diluted. Lowering your assay and essentially stealing from your entire lot by messing with the sample. I have seen the same trick with small sample vee blenders having dirt inside to cut the sample in the refiners favor. So I always check the screens and vee blenders before my sample goes in. It's just a habit but I have seen a lot of tricks in my day.



So no mass balance to say 10 lbs of sweeps went in, 5 pounds made it through 100 mesh, 4 is on under 60 and 3 is under 40...wait a sec, we have 12 lbs coming out but only 10 going in? 

I guess a better question for you is this...when you come across these shenanigans, do you simply politely walk away after collecting your material, do you call them on it, or do you take your lump (assuming it's not too expensive) and just know that you won't do business with them again?


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## anachronism (Aug 8, 2019)

niks neims said:


> Now that is a sweet deal that I'd love to make some day, how did you manage that?! Is that just a question of monthly volume supplied, or did you had to learn mandarin and drink a lot of Sake  ? One would assume that smaller refineries in particular, rather than mega-corporations would use this angle (to offer final yield settlement terms) to appeal to potential clients...
> also, both benefits that you singled out are just excellent form business perspective...



It took a lot of work Nik. Where you're slightly off base is that this is one of the larger refineries ans I am extremely fortunate to be in this position with them. It's taken time. The harsh reality of the situation is that whether we like it or not, nobody gets the best deals sending in a couple of tonnes per month of 60-120ppm material. 

That's not being holier than thou - its honestly just commercial reality. Nobody can get the best rates without being able to commit to deliverables.


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## snoman701 (Aug 8, 2019)

niks neims said:


> snoman701 said:
> 
> 
> > My knowledge is based upon what I've been able to garner from industry professionals...some reliable, some not so much. As an example of not so much, see above. I put a lot more weight in 4metals experience as his shared experiences have never let me down.
> ...



Nah, I got your message, I just didn't have much to say...and it came at a pretty busy time.

I'm not someone to envy with business, I'm still young in the field and making my share of mistakes. 

But the sort isn't about you setting up a sort that has anything based upon actual values in boards...you are just sorting based upon how your buyer sorts....and you only have to get close. If you send in 100 lbs of telecom, 50 lbs of mid grade and 50 lbs of power board, you don't want them to be separating power board from telecom. You want to be putting your high grade board and anything in the mid grade that you think could go telecom in one lot. Then your mid grade lot with anything in power that you can upgrade by pulling off transformers or heavy crap. Then your power grade. [this advice is only good for the board seller, not the board refiner]

There's a saying amongst scrap yard owners...your buyer will always look for a reason to downgrade your lot, but rarely offer you an upgrade. 

But there are operators that will upgrade your material...those are the guys that can offer the most in terms of education, and seem to understand that their success is correlated with your own. 

In the states, I've found that to be the case with Mario at Cash for Computer Scrap. He's a good guy.


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## 4metals (Aug 8, 2019)

> So no mass balance to say 10 lbs of sweeps went in, 5 pounds made it through 100 mesh, 4 is on under 60 and 3 is under 40...wait a sec, we have 12 lbs coming out but only 10 going in?



It doesn't work that way. Once a refiner has drums of blended sweeps he uses a thief sampler to take samples from all layers of every drum. Then that is mixed well and a portion of that is sieved to get to whatever mesh they prefer, usually -80. Everything that didn't pass to -80 is milled in a disc mill to get as much of the material to -80 as possible. So everything goes to -80 and what doesn't is melted and assayed because it assumed to be a metallic and of potential value. The material that has been screened is divided up into individual samples. If that small sample was cut by a few percent, that refiners gain is multiplied by the weight of the entire job that sample represents.

And I did catch the guy with the taped screens. They had a name on some masking tape on one of the screens and he claimed he screwed up and picked a used set of screens. (Likely a built in excuse if caught.) I have never had either the taped screens or the vee blender with powder in it ever be successful while I was witnessing. 

I would never send to one of those refiners without witnessing though, for all of the reasons I've been talking about.


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## Shark (Aug 8, 2019)

Not to nose in to much, but what are some pointers in choosing an honest refiner. Some of the things that shows the refiner is being honest in the earlier negations of a business proposition. While I have backed away from a large part of the escrap materials, I am becoming more interested in collecting it and sending to a refiner.


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## markscomp (Aug 9, 2019)

would like to start by saying that I wish this info had been posted years ago. There is some great stuff going on here - I like reading about the other stuff, but this is some good info 

I read about the -100 mesh and the -80 mesh 
I had some samples in December that were the -100 mesh and had glass tube pin samples from the poured bars of +100 mesh or oversized material and could not get a lab assay from the US partial refiner 
we are still working out detail

last month I had another company run a batch of material
they screened material to -35 mesh and created the fines 
Prior to the melting process - they performed a copper wash on the furnace
the +35 mesh material was poured into bars and samples of the pour were pulled after stirring and during the dump process 
the material hit a chunk of wood in a water bucket and produced flake samples 

what is some of the concerns with the 35 mesh and the flakes in and of itself and which procedure is better for the board hoarders out there 
I will try to attach some pics of the samples

is it a simple time concern - does it make a different out come?
the weight being processed is one of my biggest concerns, along with board quality - we try to remove all steel and oversized materials as much as possible


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## anachronism (Aug 9, 2019)

Shark said:


> Not to nose in to much, but what are some pointers in choosing an honest refiner. Some of the things that shows the refiner is being honest in the earlier negations of a business proposition. While I have backed away from a large part of the escrap materials, I am becoming more interested in collecting it and sending to a refiner.



I don't think any refiner is completely honest. That given if someone is so worried about getting 100% of the value of their material then I think they are being unrealistic. 

Commercially you deal with it and move on, whilst working within ones own data and returns. That's life. Speaking personally everyone has to make money and those that can't accept that will forever be bitter twisted, and never get on in life. 8) 8) 

I know that's not you Shark, I just thought I would put it out there. 

Jon


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## Shark (Aug 9, 2019)

anachronism said:


> Shark said:
> 
> 
> > Not to nose in to much, but what are some pointers in choosing an honest refiner. Some of the things that shows the refiner is being honest in the earlier negations of a business proposition. While I have backed away from a large part of the escrap materials, I am becoming more interested in collecting it and sending to a refiner.
> ...




I agree with everyone making money, that is just the way it goes, and I don't have a problem with that. In fact I think it is good for business when your working with the more honest people. If everyone in the chain is making good and are happy, that chain is harder to break. As for how much I expect from say, one ton of small socket mother boards, I honestly have no idea simply because I have never worked with that amount before. Now that I have access to them in quantity the interest is there, but mainly as material to move on up the food chain. I have no interest in processing boards of any kind in large quantities as it would be to much for me and keep up the materials I am working with now. To sort, maybe clean some base metals from them and concentrate them into more profitable bulk lots wouldn't be so bad.


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## markscomp (Aug 14, 2019)

is there really a big difference in the mesh size down for fines and bullion - got results back from basic assay at a us refiner / sampler and sender ……... 

and why not just melt all together into a big slug? (bullion block) and take samples from that?

why must the ball mill and fines and oversized be separated if a fire assay is needed anyhow to get true results?

it would save the cost of time on the lab performing the assay

it would save the cost of having two independent samples done --- fines and powders 

does anyone have experience here? I am probably an idiot and would like to or should have started with that line.
Mark


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