# Glucose Test Strips



## jmdlcar

I have about 200 hundred that is gold and my wife has about 300 hundred that is silver. Can someone tell about how will it to get 1 gram of gold? The one that looks silver are they silver? And how do you think will it take to get 1 gram.


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## mdghamon

Yield of 10 gold strips is @ .09 grams, silver is a slight bit less but they are silver. Keep saving and make sure you use a nitric bath to remove any organic matter first. It will also act to dissolve the silver for cementing. Very good luck with the process. Mike


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## Pantherlikher

It's amazing what you find at the local $1.00 lot box auctions.
I've found almost 1 set of diabetese testing kits / week. The electronic tester board looks alot like cell phone boards with lots of gold spots and traces.
I need to read more as I thought only sulphuric acid disolved organics and Nitric was metals? Of course the test strips are plastic of some kind so need to be cut out as much as possible.


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## mdghamon

Using Nitric as the first step is done with the acid heated to about 150 F. Found it to be useful in destroying any possible viral/bacterial contamination which may be present. The second step is to incinerate in a covered container or run through a paper shredder to expose as much surface area as you can. Makes the dissolve with follow on baths much faster and complete.


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## hendershotgena

I have so many glucose test strips. They are close to experation date. Do all strips have gold or silver in them?


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## mdghamon

Take a close look at them. Gold will be very obvious on both ends of the gold ones. Silver is on almost all of the others, including the disc type and appears as black traces. Incineration is a helpful step to get rid of the plastic film. Good luck


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## hendershotgena

Thanks!


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## madmax

mdghamon said:


> Yield of 10 gold strips is @ .09 grams, silver is a slight bit less but they are silver. Keep saving and make sure you use a nitric bath to remove any organic matter first. It will also act to dissolve the silver for cementing. Very good luck with the process. Mike


Not trying to be smart but that seems to be pretty high. If my maths is correct it would only take 400 strips to give you 36 grams.
Is that 24k or lower.
I've got around 500 of the little buggers, tried soaking in hot soapy water for 2 days. Ended up peeling the top layer off by hand, then tried boiling them in plain water.
Still no result.
Don't have any acids or such yet so basically just hunter gathering bits and pieces.


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## Auful

madmax said:


> mdghamon said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yield of 10 gold strips is @ .09 grams, silver is a slight bit less but they are silver. Keep saving and make sure you use a nitric bath to remove any organic matter first. It will also act to dissolve the silver for cementing. Very good luck with the process. Mike
> 
> 
> 
> Not trying to be smart but that seems to be pretty high. If my maths is correct it would only take 400 strips to give you 36 grams.
> Is that 24k or lower.
> I've got around 500 of the little buggers, tried soaking in hot soapy water for 2 days. Ended up peeling the top layer off by hand, then tried boiling them in plain water.
> Still no result.
> Don't have any acids or such yet so basically just hunter gathering bits and pieces.
Click to expand...


10 gold strips yielding .09 grams = .09g gold/10 strips = .009 gram gold per strip. 400 * .009 = 3.6 not 36, right?


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## jmdlcar

Auful said:


> madmax said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> mdghamon said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yield of 10 gold strips is @ .09 grams, silver is a slight bit less but they are silver. Keep saving and make sure you use a nitric bath to remove any organic matter first. It will also act to dissolve the silver for cementing. Very good luck with the process. Mike
> 
> 
> 
> Not trying to be smart but that seems to be pretty high. If my maths is correct it would only take 400 strips to give you 36 grams.
> Is that 24k or lower.
> I've got around 500 of the little buggers, tried soaking in hot soapy water for 2 days. Ended up peeling the top layer off by hand, then tried boiling them in plain water.
> Still no result.
> Don't have any acids or such yet so basically just hunter gathering bits and pieces.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 10 gold strips yielding .09 grams = .09g gold/10 strips = .009 gram gold per strip. 400 * .009 = 3.6 not 36, right?
Click to expand...

Your number is right about 3500 strips would be about 32 grams of gold. There no base metal to deal with.

Jack


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## madmax

Yep thats what happens when you try doing several things at once when tired lol.
Now it makes sense.
Any how will still keep them and play around.


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## mdghamon

Max, you can heat the gold strips with a propanne torch or even a cigarette lighter to shrivel them. this will release the glue in seconds rather than hours. The key, as Jack has noted is to accumulate as much as possible and do your preliminary processing as you can. Just put all of it aside until you can get the acids you need. PM me if you have any questions or problems with your process. Mike


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## madmax

mdghamon said:


> Max, you can heat the gold strips with a propanne torch or even a cigarette lighter to shrivel them. this will release the glue in seconds rather than hours. The key, as Jack has noted is to accumulate as much as possible and do your preliminary processing as you can. Just put all of it aside until you can get the acids you need. PM me if you have any questions or problems with your process. Mike


Thanks Mike, I'm gathering all the bits and pieces I can at the moment.
Waiting on a couple of crucibles I ordered.
Got the family and a couple of friends saving their test strips for me so hopefully can get a steady supply.
Just wanting to try little things to see how easy or hard it is.
Also busting to get a little nugget :lol:


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## Palladium

If you search the forum i posted a thread on processing sim cards with sodium hydroxide that will work for this i think.


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## Auful

Has anybody recovered and refined gold from the INR (coagcheck) test strips? i am collecting them now, but don't have enough to test yield. They look to have more gold than the glucose strips, but perhaps looks are deceiving in this case?


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## jmdlcar

I'm up to 700 gold strip when I get 1000 I will start to process them

Here is what I think I need to do.
1. Take Muriatic Acid 32% (HCL) and Clorox Regular Bleach to process the gold
2. Then filter out the junk.
3. Take Sodium Meta Bisulfite (SMB) to drop the gold.
4. Then dry to power.
5. Melt the power to a button.

Do any other have any other idea?


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## etack

The test strips that I've seen have a plastic coating/lamination. you will need to remove this with fire/heat. Also try to calculate the Sq,In of 1000 strips and see if a 20-10 micro inches its worth the time or if you will need more to see gold from them. 20-10 micro inches might be the upper limit on thees cause there not in a wear spot.

Eric

What does it cost for 1000 strips?


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## jmdlcar

Hi etack,

I have remove all I can and all I see now is gold on one side with a little glue. Should I remove the glue? Do I need to change anything what I wrote how to process them? There no base metal to deal with as I can see. I can say 108 strips is about 36 sq. inch.

The strips cost me $0.00 they are free. My brother, my friends and me use Accu-Chek strips. My wife strips are TrueTest.

Jack


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## madmax

I'm in the middle of trying to process around 500 strips. It's been a bugger trying to remove the glue.
The strips are simple enough a plastic base strip layer of gold glue and a cover strip.
I tried sitting in hot water to remove the glue.
Then I tried boiling in Sodium Hydroxide the gold did come of but the glue turned to a jelly like substance and clogs the filters with the gold. 
Did try melting a couple they ignited and burnt down to a black sticky lump with a tiny piece of gold.
I even peeled the top layer off of them while I sat here reading the forum to see if it helped, very tedious job and hard on arthritic fingers and certainly not viable with large batches.
I know I have lost some values, but I figure this is a learning exercise and practise will make better.
Costwise I had to buy the strips to watch my sugar levels as the Doctor told me I was pre diabetic. As such I was not able to get them on the PBBS and had to pay around $60 a box of 100.
Another thing to bear in mind is with the ACCU-CHEK strips is a coded chip that looks like it contains gold as well.
Hope my limited experiences help others and we can find an easy way to process these little things.


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## jmdlcar

madmax said:


> I'm in the middle of trying to process around 500 strips. It's been a bugger trying to remove the glue.
> The strips are simple enough a plastic base strip layer of gold glue and a cover strip.
> I tried sitting in hot water to remove the glue.
> Then I tried boiling in Sodium Hydroxide the gold did come of but the glue turned to a jelly like substance and clogs the filters with the gold.
> Did try melting a couple they ignited and burnt down to a black sticky lump with a tiny piece of gold.
> I even peeled the top layer off of them while I sat here reading the forum to see if it helped, very tedious job and hard on arthritic fingers and certainly not viable with large batches.
> I know I have lost some values, but I figure this is a learning exercise and practise will make better.
> Costwise I had to buy the strips to watch my sugar levels as the Doctor told me I was pre diabetic. As such I was not able to get them on the PBBS and had to pay around $60 a box of 100.
> Another thing to bear in mind is with the ACCU-CHEK strips is a coded chip that looks like it contains gold as well.
> Hope my limited experiences help others and we can find an easy way to process these little things.


How many strips did you melt down? And how big was it?


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## madmax

It was only 2 strips just to see how they behaved and the piece of gold was tiny. Not even sure I managed to pick it up when I added the bits to the other stuff.


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## madmax

One of the filters I used, You can see the gold flakes.
Tried to incinerate the paper but was still damp the glue clumped up.


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## jmdlcar

I wish the weather would get better so I can check the yields on the Glucose Test Strips. There is some other thing I want to check yield on.

Jack


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## mdghamon

Give it a few weeks Jack, the weather will get better. I'm waiting as well. Have almost 10000 Accu checks to do and more mixed silver pieces than I can count.
Keep safe. Mike


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## jmdlcar

Right now I have a total of 1025 of the 2 type I have. They are 50/50 of each type I have. And I can't wait for the weather to get better.

Jack


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## Anonymous

If possible, can any of you post pictures of the test strips so others can know what they look like?

Since there are different types, seeing them would make the world of difference in understanding what to save once we come across them. We may even know people who use them, and seeing images of them may remind us of someone we know where we can get them from.

Kevin


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## Marcel

I am currently collecting the ones from my wife - she is expecting and has to test therefore.
They look like palladium plated to me. Can this be the case? Need to find my testpen...
The brand name is : BAYER "Contour next".


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## Anonymous

*Marcel*, thanks for the picture. I now have a better understanding of what some of them look like.

While looking and the picture, the part that is grey in color, and the other end appears to be where the blood is dropped on for testing, doesn't that mean that those/all strips have an inner connection (connecting from one end to the other, making the strips a two-piece strip, with more values inside of them (a strip at least), and not just on the surface that is exposed?

Kevin


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## mikeinkaty

If you pull the plastic covering back the entire strip has a gold plated circuit.

How many of those strips does it take to make 1 gram of gold?

Mike


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## jmdlcar

mikeinkaty said:


> If you pull the plastic covering back the entire strip has a gold plated circuit.
> 
> How many of those strips does it take to make 1 gram of gold?
> 
> Mike


Mike,

I have over 1000 gold strips so far. One strip has 0.009 of gold so it should take about 111 strips to get 1 gram of gold that my understanding. I will know for sure when I refine mind as soon as the weather gets better. I'm going to do 222 strips at a time to check the yield on. I have 2 type of strips to check. If I don't get these yields then anything is better then not trying at all.

I also have 700 silver strips I will check so day when I get Nitric Acid. I hope to get more silver strips. When people give them to me I don't turn any kinds of strips down.

The picture above looks like silver to me. If he would remove the plastic covering to see how much is there.

Thanks
Jack


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## grance

alot of med supply places will buy back unopend/unused strips for more that what you get refining them


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## resabed01

Picture of the gold strips FYI.


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## jmdlcar

grance said:


> alot of med supply places will buy back unopend/unused strips for more that what you get refining them


grance,


They might pay more but I want to refine them for the gold and I might not get rich and lose money if I don't sell them. I do this for a hobby and not for the money I can make from them.

Thanks
Jack


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## jmdlcar

resabed01 said:


> Picture of the gold strips FYI.


resabed01,

If you are going to refine those in the picture you need to clean them better then that. How many of those do you have? Do you have another type of strips? If you want to sell any send me a PM.

Thanks
Jack


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## kkmonte

I don't think that .009 grams of gold per each is accurate, at least not on the ones I have. I refined 60 test strips, similar to the ones Resabed showed a picture of, I only had 60 test strips (used by myself), so I figured according to those calcs I should get about half a gram of gold. Well I pulled all 60 apart to expose the gold, I dissolved them with HCL and bleach, stirred it up real good, and it barely made my solution yellow. There was a slight tinge of yellow (A stannous test after 5 minutes showed no change, I then looked at the q-tip the following day and it was all black, it just took overnight to show). I then let it sit to let the chlorine dissipate , and the next day I dropped the gold with SMB. (or at least tried to). In a 200ML beaker, I see nothing on the bottom of the beaker, so there is that little bit of gold that I can't even see anything. I'm probably going to just add it to my stock pot for maybe processing the little bit that's in there later.


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## resabed01

jmdlcar said:


> resabed01,
> 
> If you are going to refine those in the picture you need to clean them better then that. How many of those do you have? Do you have another type of strips? If you want to sell any send me a PM.
> 
> Thanks
> Jack




I just have the few. I'm trying to get the person to save them for me so I can have more of course :mrgreen: 
I know they'll need to be cleaned up more. The sticky adhesive is still there. I just peeled off the plastic cover for the photo-op.

I want to get more so I can process


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## jmdlcar

kkmonte said:


> I don't think that .009 grams of gold per each is accurate, at least not on the ones I have. I refined 60 test strips, similar to the ones Resabed showed a picture of, I only had 60 test strips (used by myself), so I figured according to those calcs I should get about half a gram of gold. Well I pulled all 60 apart to expose the gold, I dissolved them with HCL and bleach, stirred it up real good, and it barely made my solution yellow. There was a slight tinge of yellow (A stannous test after 5 minutes showed no change, I then looked at the q-tip the following day and it was all black, it just took overnight to show). I then let it sit to let the chlorine dissipate , and the next day I dropped the gold with SMB. (or at least tried to). In a 200ML beaker, I see nothing on the bottom of the beaker, so there is that little bit of gold that I can't even see anything. I'm probably going to just add it to my stock pot for maybe processing the little bit that's in there later.


That's why I want to do the yields to know for sure. Right now I have 550 ACCU-CHEK strips and 510 TRUEtest strips. Plus 3 kinds of silver strips which is a total of 625 strips. I'm going to wait tell April before I do any strips.

Jack


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## jmdlcar

kkmonte,

Think your beaker that might have been the right size. I would have use 20ml and not 200ml. When I do my first run it going to be 222 strips and I will be using 20ml or just enough to cover the strips.

Can I ask 1 question what did you use to clean the sticky adhesive off with or did you just leave it?

Jack


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## jmdlcar

Hi all,

If the weather stay nice in the 40-50 deg and it don't rain or snow I'm going to try and do my first set of 4 test on my Glucose Test Strips. I'm going to try and take picture and if I can a small video. I'm going to use up to 30 ml of HCL31.45% and Bleach there will be 222 strips in each test. If I need to change anything please let me know.

Thanks
Jack


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## kkmonte

I didn't clean the glue off, I just pulled the two pieces apart and put them in the beaker. Well I was doing it in a 200ml beaker but I only put enough acid to cover them. Probably only 30ml or so of muriatic and a few ml's of bleach. I then used my glass rod to stir the test strips around but the very little gold was immediately taken off the strips (probably because its so thin).


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## no1special

Here is what I have been able to find so far, the true test I am pretty sure is gold. the others I am guessing by the looks, but if anyone knows I would love to find out.


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## kkmonte

The true test are the ones I tried and use.


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## jmdlcar

no1special said:


> Here is what I have been able to find so far, the true test I am pretty sure is gold. the others I am guessing by the looks, but if anyone knows I would love to find out.


Hi,

Is there way you could take a picture of the strip only and peeled off the plastic cover to see what is under the cover that way we will know for sure.

Thanks
Jack


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## jmdlcar

Hi all,

Please check my process on how I am going to refine my strips. If anything need to be change or added to please inform me so I can fix it before I start anything.



> DO ALL YOUR REFINING OUTSIDE TO BE SAFE FOR YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE
> 
> This is going to be small runs to check yeilds on Glucose Test Strips. Hope there are good yields.
> 
> Step 1
> 1. Collect all the Gold Test Strip you can.
> 2. Then just peeled off the plastic cover on strips
> 3. The sticky adhesive is still there and it hard to remove it.
> 4. Good luck cleaning them.
> Step 2
> 1. Put 222 Glucose Test Strips in a small glass jar.
> 2. Add 20ml Muriatic Acid 31.45% then add Unscented Bleach (small increments) and Stop adding when Gold is dissolve.
> 3. Filter the yellow liquid into a clean small glass jar. Filter 2 times with a coffee filter.
> 4. Wait 24 hours to sure there is no Bleach smell at all.
> 5. Use SMB (Sodium Metabisulfite) to drop the gold.
> 6. Stannous Chloride for testing for gold in the solution if none then wait over night.
> 7. Three Rinses with Clean Water and siphon off with each rinse.
> 8. Warm HCL bath for 20 min. and siphon off HCL.
> 9. Three Rinses with Clean Water and siphon off with each rinse.
> 10. Put small glass jar on a coffee warmer heat tell powder is dry.
> Step 3
> 1. Melt your powder.
> 2. Show off your Gold button.



Thanks
Jack


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## no1special

Yes that is correct, the true test strips for use with the TRUE2go and TRUEresult meters are the ones I am now hunting for in earnest!


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## jmdlcar

no1special said:


> Yes that is correct, the true test strips for use with the TRUE2go and TRUEresult meters are the ones I am now hunting for in earnest!


Hi,

On those strips make sure you keep both parts cause you can pull gold off the strips.

Thanks
Jack


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## mdghamon

Jack is correct about that. My test results were based on doing 1000 accu-chek strips. After a nitric bath and wash to kill off any organic material I torched the strips slightly ( just enough to wither them) and pulled the upper plastic off. both parts then went into AR to disolve the gold. Allow a day to work as it needs to get under the glue. Precipitate, wash and melt. Total yield on the batch was 9.01 grams or .09 grams per 10 strips. Trying to process anything less than 50 strips at a time you will have a hard time seeing or finding the gold.


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## jmdlcar

mdghamon said:


> Jack is correct about that. My test results were based on doing 1000 accu-chek strips. After a nitric bath and wash to kill off any organic material I torched the strips slightly ( just enough to wither them) and pulled the upper plastic off. both parts then went into AR to disolve the gold. Allow a day to work as it needs to get under the glue. Precipitate, wash and melt. Total yield on the batch was 9.01 grams or .09 grams per 10 strips. Trying to process anything less than 50 strips at a time you will have a hard time seeing or finding the gold.


mdghamon,

I think those little strips have good yields. I know you use AP but I can't get Nitric Acid. I'm going to use HCL/CL but it should yield the same. I was going to do mind this week but to weather turn bad again. By the time I get to do mind I will have about 1500 strips

Thanks
Jack


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## solar_plasma

just got some maybe silverplated ones, but in my first quick tests I could not dissolve the layers with heated 4M HNO3 with a small amount H2O2...I will post as soon as I have solved this little prob.


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## jmdlcar

mdghamon,

I just check Spot Price and I say not bad. Spot on 1000 strips and 9.01 gram was per gram was $51.21 and total was $461.41 total. Good Job and thanks for sharing.

Thanks
Jack


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## jmdlcar

solar_plasma said:


> just got some maybe silverplated ones, but in my first quick tests I could not dissolve the layers with heated 4M HNO3 with a small amount H2O2...I will post as soon as I have solved this little prob.


Hi,

When I do Silver Glucose Test Strips I will try to help anyone out. I know it take Nitric Acid which I don't have. Sorry I can't help you.

Thanks
Jack


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## kkmonte

mdghamon said:


> Jack is correct about that. My test results were based on doing 1000 accu-chek strips. After a nitric bath and wash to kill off any organic material I torched the strips slightly ( just enough to wither them) and pulled the upper plastic off. both parts then went into AR to disolve the gold. Allow a day to work as it needs to get under the glue. Precipitate, wash and melt. Total yield on the batch was 9.01 grams or .09 grams per 10 strips. Trying to process anything less than 50 strips at a time you will have a hard time seeing or finding the gold.



Well i'm sure all strips have different amoutns of gold, maybe the accu-chek strips have alot more then the true test ones which is what I did. Accoring to your numbers, I processed 56 strips which should yield me right around half a gram of powder (now keep in mind, i've processed .25 lbs of fingers before and have gotten .5 grams of gold powder). Well I did the 56 strips and all dissolved, but it barely turned the solution yellow and i dropped everything in it with SMB which was barely anything. I couldn't even see powder on the bottom of the beaker.


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## jmdlcar

kkmonte said:


> mdghamon said:
> 
> 
> 
> Jack is correct about that. My test results were based on doing 1000 accu-chek strips. After a nitric bath and wash to kill off any organic material I torched the strips slightly ( just enough to wither them) and pulled the upper plastic off. both parts then went into AR to disolve the gold. Allow a day to work as it needs to get under the glue. Precipitate, wash and melt. Total yield on the batch was 9.01 grams or .09 grams per 10 strips. Trying to process anything less than 50 strips at a time you will have a hard time seeing or finding the gold.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well i'm sure all strips have different amoutns of gold, maybe the accu-chek strips have alot more then the true test ones which is what I did. Accoring to your numbers, I processed 56 strips which should yield me right around half a gram of powder (now keep in mind, i've processed .25 lbs of fingers before and have gotten .5 grams of gold powder). Well I did the 56 strips and all dissolved, but it barely turned the solution yellow and i dropped everything in it with SMB which was barely anything. I couldn't even see powder on the bottom of the beaker.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Did you refine the part you pull off? If not there is gold on that part to. Did you clean the black and gray that was on the strips cause there is gold under it too. There is a lot of work on those strips to get them ready. I have over 500 of those strips. Just keep watching I will post the yield on them.

Thanks
Jack


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## kkmonte

Yes I refined all, i'll post pics (tomorrow) of the strips before and after if you don't believe me. LOL


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## jmdlcar

kkmonte said:


> Yes I refined all, i'll post pics (tomorrow) of the strips before and after if you don't believe me. LOL


kkmonte, 

I believe you please don't take me wrong. I just to make sure you get all the gold. Are you using Muriatic Acid and Bleach?

Thanks
Jack


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## solar_plasma

> 3. The sticky adhesive is still there and it hard to remove it.



I just laid 50 pieces stripped Aviva into nail polish cleaner (not acetone, but ethyl acetate) some days ago. The glue is almost gone by itself. 

Have ordered 2000 pieces Aviva now :lol: 

THANKS for sharing!!!!!!!


Just to get it right, when you talk about "chlorox" in this forum, do you really mean the leach which is sold as toilet cleaner, in germany called "danklorix" or "domestos"? If so, that must be a very cheap way.... *deeply thinking*


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## Marcel

solar_plasma said:


> Just to get it right, when you talk about "chlorox" in this forum, do you really mean the leach which is sold as toilet cleaner, in germany called "danklorix" or "domestos"? If so, that must be a very cheap way.... *deeply thinking*



Ja, HCl + Cl method means in German:
Salzsäure plus Chlorox (=Danchlorix).
Dont take Domestos, it contains too much other stuff.


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## nickvc

Jack I'm so pleased to hear that you have found materials to process, I remember your first few months here when you couldn't find any material to work with, well done and keep searching you may find other sources of values, as I just posted in another thread the materials are out there you just have to keep looking, thinking and searching, again well done keep up the good work.


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## jmdlcar

solar_plasma,



> I just laid 50 pieces stripped Aviva into nail polish cleaner (not acetone, but ethyl acetate) some days ago. The glue is almost gone by itself.



That I will try this nail polish cleaner is it this type ethyl acetate? The word "Clorox" is the brand of Bleach and it is for washing and not for the toilet cleaner.

Thanks
Jack

EDIT: On my how to refine I took the word out "Clorox" cause it is a brand type.


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## jmdlcar

nickvc,

Thank you. I did find some scrap that I fine easy and free.

Thanks
Jack


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## solar_plasma

jmdlcar


> That I will try this nail polish cleaner is it this type ethyl acetate?



Yes, but as said: they are _almost _clean, so maybe there are more effective thinners like cellulose thinner, which I haven't tried yet. Just the procedure to lay the strips into some kind of bath seems to be the way.


Edit 1: the glue can easily be rubbed of with two fingers after that, but that's still not satifying in order to process thousands. But I just observed something maybe interesting,though it could be occured by happenstance: On one strip there was a rest of the tape that covers the gold and it was detached from the strip now after the bath! Just for fun I laid the 50 strips into iodine- iodide-solution in a small sealed glas. I have used about half as much solution as necessary, because I only wanna watch the expected decolourizing showing if it works. I will recently shake it and observe some days.

Edit 2: ...okay, my iodine-solution must be more concentrated, than I thought. Obviously all gold was dissolved after maybe 10 or 20 minutes (which would match with the optimum of 1 micrometer/minute, if I remember right), not sure, but I can only see clean white strips in the still red-brown liquid. So....it works! The sampling will be processed later together with a bigger amount. It has it's own charm that iodine.


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## jmdlcar

solar_plasma,

This is how I remove the glue can easily be rubbed off with two fingers It just a little time to do it.

Thanks
Jack


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## solar_plasma

I have to add, what I have found out in meanwhile,though it is only indirectly related to the topic:

You can often read that iodine leaching is slow, but then they use only iodine in aqua, the very low concentration of iodine slows the process down.

Iodine/iodide has mostly a iodine concentration between 1-10 %. I asked my manufactorer for the conc of the solution I used, it had 1,3% iodine. As said before, about 50 strips (unfortunately my dad had cuttet the probe side at 1/3 off) in about 5ml were leached after 10-20 minutes. Today I dissolved about 2g of goldplating from cutted RAMs etc. in about 100ml I/KI till the leach got almost colorless (lightly yellow-green though) it took 40 minutes and there was still goldplating left. That is not slow for my understanding. I've ordered new iodide for 17€/50g. Thats ok for me, since it will dissolve about 75g Au if no other dissolvable metals are present. 

I haven't precipitated yet, so I'm very curious. Maybe I/KI will be the easiest and safest method, though not the cheapest one (in the beginning) for glucose strips as long as you own a pH-meter for precipitation.


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## Marcel

I dont understand why you try iodine. It has been tried in this forum before without success. Theoretically you only have to heat it and iodine and gold will fall apart, but the users who tried it had no luck with that.
I use HAP (hot Ap), it is the easiest and cheapest way and safest also. Just use 1:1 HCL+H2O2 heat it to 50°C and the gold will dissolve within seconds. Precipitate it by using a piece of pure copper or any other BM. No need to buy expensive iodine, with uncertain process.


----------



## solar_plasma

> 1:1 HCL+H2O2



I think I ve read it in your book, that this dissolves gold after some time (more to avoid this if you're after the gold foils). Sounds very interesting, save and easy, indeed. I did not stumble over this method in the forum, but now I will keep my eyes open. 

Iodine/iodide charms with it's optical behaviour and Its non-corrosiveness, which makes it interesting for very special cases. Ofcourse most can be done by only one tool. Sometimes I use some pliers as a hammer, but that is not really smart and aesthetic and doesn't pay one item's respect. Maybe I'm not right. But then, I have learned more about the item's phenomenal character, than by using a sledgehammer for cutting tiles, though it surely would be easy for a real mason. Maybe he could do this with his bare fingers as well.

Iodine is old and proven as well, as far as I can read. And I'm sure in most cases AP or HCl/CL are the ways of choice. Now, I have started to learn this method and I will finish this attempt. Frustrations will always occur. What would be the worst case? The worst case would be, that I knew to the point just everything why not to use this somewhat bohemian method. Not really bad, I think. 

My Hoke-style lessons I do along with all the other attempts. I have time, my treasures will not run away.  As long as I keep my wastes, losts and dangers low, everything should be ok.


----------



## jmdlcar

solar_plasma,

The way your doing your strips can you check your yields and post them? That way we will have more then 2 types of yields. So if other want to refine them they can pick which way they want to do it.

I just hope it works for me and I found my little gold mine it's a nice hobby.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

Sure I will 

My iodine order comes tomorrow I hope and the strips too, then I can finish the leaching and will raise the pH slowly against a bit under 7 with KOH and a pH-meter. As far as I read, the pH will also raise along with the gold gets precipitated, so I will give it time. If it works, I'll do a recovering that is comparable to the other Aviva-experiments. I'm so curious! :lol:


----------



## necromancer

jmdlcar said:


> solar_plasma,
> 
> This is how I remove the glue can easily be rubbed off with two fingers It just a little time to do it.
> 
> Thanks
> Jack



thanks for this, looks good !!

my thought was to use a bucket with a top inside the bucket put sand / rice / small rocks and tumble ??
wont know until i try it


----------



## Marcel

I find iodine also very interesting but for another "class" of materials. In glucose you have gold plated on plastic. That is the most simple way, because there are no BMs that interfere. In such cases I have learned to use low tech methods, because they reduce the costs the work and the risks of loosing values. All it takes for pure gold to dissolve is some chlorineatoms. Iodine is more a mercury alternative , at least to me. But I am very interested in your project and eager to see how you recover the gold. Please keep us updated.


----------



## solar_plasma

> That is the most simple way, because there are no BMs that interfere.



and that's the point: perfect for me as a nearly bloody beginner to learn this method 

yes,I will keep you updated, not to convinceanybody, since I myself first will be convinced when I have finished with success, but to gain information others can get profit of. Not at least if I'm wrong. That is science work 

And sure I am as sceptic as all of you


----------



## solar_plasma

My lot of 2000 pieces of out-dated Aviva, - plus one chip per unit, has arrived yesterday :lol: all in all with shipping and duties about 75 €. It's like christmas to me! Just been lucky, I've never seen such an offer in the bay again.

I scratched the green polish from one of the small chips,- they are fully gold-plated! So that makes about 40 cm2 extra (will be processed together with cell phone boards, much later).

I've decided to process only 111 pieces with iodine for a science occasion, since there are no disturbing basemetals to mess around with, this may give a better result, than my other experiments. The rest I want to process in a more easy way, so I can ask for help, if anything doesn't work as it should. I don't know yet, if it will be AP (is it really strong enough to dissolve all gold?) or HCl/hypochlorite (which seems to be most popular). I would hardly use standard AR, because this nitric excess thing I would like to handle with an extra gold button in near future, but untill now I haven't any 999 gold, so I could not measure exactly the gained gold weight. On the other hand, I know the exact content of gold, so I could calculate, howmuch HNO3 will be necessary.

So....AP or HCl/hypo...that is the question. But I guess, you guys will have different points of view, right? ...or standard AR? :roll: ...or all of them for a reason of learning? (ofcourse in different vessels :lol: )


----------



## Geo

if theres no base metal to worry about and the gold is thin, id say use hcl/Cl. no chance of over doing the nitric and it takes way less solution than AP (from what ive read as ive never used AP for the purpose of dissolving gold).


----------



## solar_plasma

Thanks, Geo, that's what I wanted to hear! *woaaah, it's so exciting!*

...I am just trying, if univeral paint thinner is more effective to clean the strips from the glue,than nail polish cleaner. And it is. Fastest is to take the covering strip off, putting the test strip into the thinner, waiting an hour and cleaning it with a piece of cloth. I looks like it is possible just to put the whole strip into the thinner for some days and the work will be done by itself. but I surely can'twait so long


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi,

I would just use your 2 fingers cause if you use any thing else it will remove the gold. And that will be a lost of gold. Trust me.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

I trust you. Thank you for that important advice! Then I will wait longer to see, if the glue will dissolve in the thinner.


----------



## jmdlcar

I never tried thinner but if the glue will dissolve in the thinner please let me know. And tell me what type of thinner it is.

Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

Ok, my choice is:* ethyl acetat like acetone-free nail-polish-cleaner *for some hours or days, then rubb it off with the fingers (3 sec. per piece) 

Gasolinelike paint thinners just make the glue more and more slimy and sticky. And the fumes are not very good for health.


----------



## jmdlcar

This is good to know.

Jack


----------



## Marcel

solar: Why you always try to make thinks more complicate than they have to be??

aceton+H202 + X = TATP / APEX , a highly explosive compound. Very popular among terrorist. So if later you add AP you are making an explosive compound! Never use aceton. Some of the strips can even be prepared, by cooking them in plain hot water for some hours.

Even HCl+Cl is difficult for a firsttimer because you have to drive out chlorine, chlorine is dangerous and FULL precipitation not as easy as reading on the internet might suggest.
In addition it takes longer.

Use 1:1 HCl + H2O2 , heat it to 55°C and you are good to go. It will take a minute or two and precipitation can be done with zinc or any other BM.

Please, why dont you follow the good examples that one can read here in masses. Always you try to do it differently but your tryouts are dangerous.


----------



## jmdlcar

Marcel,

Thanks for the info. I will stay with my 2 fingers to remove the glue. And use HCL/CL to remove the gold. Then use SMB to drop the gold. That should be safe.

Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

> aceton+H202 + X = TATP / APEX , a highly explosive compound. Very popular among terrorist. So if later you add AP you are making an explosive compound! Never use aceton. Some of the strips can even be prepared, by cooking them in plain hot water for some hours.



Yess, and therefor I wrote acetone-*FREE* nail polish cleaner, called ethylacetat, a compound which builds when adding CH4COOH to C2H5OH. You know its smell from "UHU" - glue

There are more than one reason, why you not should use acetone. It can be used to form some chemical warfare compounds, it's a neuro toxine by itself (forbidden at schools in germany) and if stored to long and uncorrect it can form explosive precipitate, if I remember right.



> Use 1:1 HCl + H2O2 , heat it to 55°C and you are good to go. It will take a minute or two and precipitation can be done with zinc or any other BM.



Definately I will use this method,too. It sounds really nice. But first I do like Geo adviced. This is quite simple material, perfect for improving the skills, because there is no great amount disturbing kations expected AND I know how much the others have got out of it, so I can compare my results with those.

Why I do it more complicated than necessary, well, if it just was for the gold, I would buy it. No, I want to learn and improve my skills. I read the great headline on this forum, that shouts: Let Hoke be your teacher and my teacher said:


> Half an hour spent making these tests with his own hands will tell him more than a thousand words in print.


 (p. 15)
and


> The reader should in time acquaint himself with* several procedures*,
> then adopt the one that best fits his needs.


(p.33)

Though cutted out of the context, I assume a general philosphy in it. I try to do what, I think it was, Harold not long ago said to another new member, as I remember: Read Hoke, read the whole book, read it twice and understand, what it is saying to you!


----------



## solar_plasma

> Some of the strips can even be prepared, by cooking them in plain hot water for some hours.



Thanks, Marcel, this makes a great mess with Aviva Strips. The not-glue-covered gold flakes around and the glue is completey uneffected. Some gold flakes linger to the glue.



> Always you try to do it differently but your tryouts are dangerous.



Ofcourse it is dangerous. When I clean up my three school laboratories, it is dangerous. When I have to handle a hazmat incident, it is dangerous. Your kitchen or your bathroom and your garage are in fact chemical depots. I was working 30 years with dangerous chemicals. I still live. I know, you just mean it good. Thanks for caring. As a studied chemistry teacher and hazmat squad leader, I will know to be cautious.


----------



## craigmotyka

From 93 grams of nova test strips I got I 1.5 grams I soaked in in goof off to remov3 the glue in between the gold and paper then bleached and hlc worked great


----------



## jmdlcar

craigmotyka said:


> From 93 grams of nova test strips I got I 1.5 grams I soaked in in goof off to remov3 the glue in between the gold and paper then bleached and hlc worked great


Hi,

How many strips did you refine? And did you take any picture of the strips if you did can you post them?

Jack


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## poudouche

jmdlcar said:


> mikeinkaty said:
> 
> 
> 
> If you pull the plastic covering back the entire strip has a gold plated circuit.
> 
> How many of those strips does it take to make 1 gram of gold?
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> Mike,
> 
> I have over 1000 gold strips so far. One strip has 0.009 of gold so it should take about 111 strips to get 1 gram of gold that my understanding. I will know for sure when I refine mind as soon as the weather gets better. I'm going to do 222 strips at a time to check the yield on. I have 2 type of strips to check. If I don't get these yields then anything is better then not trying at all.
> 
> I also have 700 silver strips I will check so day when I get Nitric Acid. I hope to get more silver strips. When people give them to me I don't turn any kinds of strips down.
> 
> The picture above looks like silver to me. If he would remove the plastic covering to see how much is there.
> 
> Thanks
> Jack
Click to expand...



Hi Jack
did you process the 700 silver glucose test strips 
if yes what was the yield in gold and in silver
regards,
poudouche


----------



## jmdlcar

poudouche,

I haven't process any yet. I'm up to 1225 gold strips and 900 silver strips. I had to work this weekend plus Monday and weather was nice. I hope the weather hold out. I will be doing the gold strips. The silver will need Nitric Acid which I don't have any yet.

Thanks for asking
Jack


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## solar_plasma

Proper cleaned accu chek aviva strips from 2008, shipped from USA, didn't yield as much as 1/10 of the 1g/111 strips expected.
I used HCl/chlorox and potassium metabisulfite to precipitate, the left over filtrate is absolutely colourless, SnCl2 is Au-neg.

Now I test again, 111 non-cleaned strips, with AR. Covered with 33% HCl, added 1 ml 65% HNO3. If the amount of extracted gold still doesn't fit to your yields, then I will incenerate all left overs and process them by AR.

What did´you guys use for reduction/precipitate? If you have cemented, could it be, that your gained amount is not only gold? Could it be a gold/pgm alloy on the strips? My SnCl2 test got a little brown, but I thought I had a little excess SO2, that made it brownish. I'll retry after heating off any SO2.


----------



## poudouche

jmdlcar said:


> poudouche,
> 
> I haven't process any yet. I'm up to 1225 gold strips and 900 silver strips. I had to work this weekend plus Monday and weather was nice. I hope the weather hold out. I will be doing the gold strips. The silver will need Nitric Acid which I don't have any yet.
> 
> Thanks for asking
> Jack


Hi Jack
Thank you for answering, when you are done , please let us know the yield of both : gold and silver glucose test strips
regards,
poudouche


----------



## solar_plasma

solar:


> Now I test again, 111 non-cleaned strips, with AR. Covered with 33% HCl, added 1 ml 65% HNO3.



...after 111 strips my AR looked still pretty sharp,so I added a new batch of 50 pieces. an hour later all gold was dissolved. I added 50 more, - dissolved. Now, 50 again Still dissolving.* [Edit: and 50 more.]*

So...in the thread "How much nitric..." Oz found out, that:



> To digest 1 gram of fine gold requires 0.79 milliliters of nitric



then* the 1ml HNO3 should be used after adding 1,26 gram gold* (in fact after adding 1,17 gram,since I use 65% HNO3). And I haven't even calculated the NOx that evaporate by the days. Based on this calculation, 261 pieces accu-chek aviva US 2008 *do not contain as much as that*. ....given, that the strips don't contain nitrates or other compounds, that are able to form nascend chlorine atoms with HCl or in some other way interacts with the AR. It could be in the glue or in the yellow coloured stuff, that is contained in the probe edge. Though only conc. HCl does not dissolve the gold within 30 min, I've tested.

*Edit: between 261 and 311 strips the reaction slows down and may have found its ending. Still a good deal!*

When some of you guys really get 1 gram gold out of 111 strips, I would really appreciate to know, which strips accurately you have used.


----------



## solar_plasma

nope...I could dissolve 561 (surely many more if I had tried) and I got again about 0,1-0,2 gramm gold (about* 0,237 mg per strip*), from *accu-chek aviva, US, 2008*
I checked with SnCl2 positive before precipitating and negative after ppt. DMG was negative. The processed strips are clean and white.

Conclusion: they aren't worth paying for them. But now I have improved my AR-skills.  The good news is, you don't have to clean the avivas, AR is completely unimpressed by the glue, just let the used strips sit in water with rests of acid until they are clean white.

Now, I ask every diabetic I know, for collecting his glucose strips for me. Not much gold, but too much to throw away :lol:


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

I'm doing 250 strips today. I just cover the strips with HCL and when I added the bleach it started to smoke. My question is can I add to much bleach? Hope not I put about 15 drops to start with.

Thanks
Jack

EDIT: I change it to a total of 500 strips. The bleach did it in just a minute or two now that fast. I will try and take a of it later.


----------



## Geo

i have tried to find a way to remove the glue under the plastic strip covering some of the traces. ACCU-CHEK aviva has gold from one end to the other with a nice gold color. EASY TALK has an off gold color.after pulling the top plastic strip off, the sticky glue covers the traces. im trying to remove the glue to get to the gold. sodium hydroxide solution will separate the clear plastic piece with the metal traces from the white plastic base on the EASY-TALK but has no effect on the ACCU-CHEK glue. it did release the gold traces on the finger type end.i will try GOOF-OFF in the morning to remove the glue.after the glue is removed, im sure the gold traces will be dissolved in hcl/Cl.


----------



## jmdlcar

Geo,

How many strips do you have? I have remove all the glue with my 2 fingers and they do get sore. So I do about 50 at a time wait a day then do 50 more. I have done this for 1250 strips. If I use anything to help me out it just remove some of the gold and that a lost of gold.

My first update on 500 strip.

When I wakeup I going to add SMB to my yellow liquid and hope for the best yield. Hope I don't add to much SMB.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## Geo

i am doing a test batch consisting of two batches of 1300 strips.one half of the gold strips is the ACCU-CHEK and the other half of the gold strips is the EASY-TALK strips.the other 1300 are a mix of silver traced PRODIGY, diabetes care club and embrace no-code. way too many to scratch off the glue. :lol:


----------



## jmdlcar

Can I ask but where did you get your strips at? I have about 900 strips that are silver. When you get ready to refine them can you tell me how you are going to refine them? All my gold strips are clean and most of all of the silver are already clean and ready to refine. One day I might trade my silver strip for gold strips or gold finger but not sure yet.

Jack


----------



## Geo

i am doing a test batch for another member of the forum.there seems to be an open niche for this type of thing.if the glue can be broken down and washed off with another chemical (soap maybe) then the PM's can be reclaimed several different ways. one way i have in mind with the silver strips, is to go about it like they were keyboard mylar's. the yield may be close to the same as in silver to total weight ratio. nitric acid comes to mind. maybe melt and incinerate.not sure which will be better until i get the glue off. ill find out tomorrow if the sodium hydroxide will effect the silver strips at all. anything short of boiling them in gasoline.


----------



## solar_plasma

AR works diffusing right through the glue without warming.The glue remains a bit yellowish. The leached strips I laid into a second vessel with a little water and the glue was leached clean white, the water became yellow and was used later to dillute the AR before precipitating. I needed very little nitric! 1ml was almost too much for 500 pieces.


----------



## Geo

solar_plasma said:


> AR works diffusing right through the glue without warming.The glue remains a bit yellowish. The leached strips I laid into a second vessel with a little water and the glue was leached clean white, the water became yellow and was used later to dillute the AR before precipitating. I needed very little nitric! 1ml was almost too much for 500 pieces.



thanks, ill try that.


----------



## solar_plasma

Since, there is not that much gold in it, I've always putted only 100-200 piexes in the acid,filled the acid of and run the next batch in it. Then you haven't to use that much acid to cover the pieces.


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

I added SMB after an half hour it is still a little yellow. What do I need to do? I don't want to mess anything up.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

chlorox or nitric?

be patient, this tiny little bit gold needs some many hours.


----------



## jmdlcar

It was chlorox I use. I just check it and now it is tan color or light brown. Can't wait to see a small gold button.

Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

My two batches went both colourless next day. And remember to test with SnCl2!

How many pieces?


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

There were 500 strips. And it stay yellow for over 24 hours. After 1 hour of adding SMB it started to turn clear the color of mud on the bottom of the jar. I will keep checking through out the day.

Jack


----------



## solar_plasma

I sounds to me,like it redissolved by excess of chlorine. Does it smell? Then just warm it up a bit and let it stay longer. At 0,2g gold it is hard to us freshmen not to get an excess. Remember: 1g gold, about 1g nitric. I can't remember the relations for chlorine. But there won't be the great difference...just the one,that chlorox is only about 3% sodium hypochlorite compared to 70% HNO3 in conc.nitric.


----------



## jmdlcar

No it don't smell like chlorine. It smell like Muriatic Acid. I will let you know the yield of my 500 strip when I get done.

The 900 silver strips I have I will have to find a way to refine them cause I don't have any Nitric Acid.

Jack


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

My wife receive her TRUEtest strips today and they went from Gold to Silver strips.

UPDATE: I had a mishap today my jar got hit today and lost about half is gone. I'm on my 2nd rinse and it looks like about 1 grams of powder I hope.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## Woodworker1997

Previously I was just a browser on this thread. Two weeks ago I told my wife about the gold and silver in test strips and she got a blank look on her face. She is a RN at a home healthcare agency. They get test strips given to them on a daily basis from patients families, pharm suppliers, ect. For the intent of giving them to patients who cant afford thier supplies. Well when the strips expire they cannot be given away. Thus the blank look on her face, three days prior she threw away twenty boxes! :shock: 
And the trash had already been picked up.
She now brings them to me. I now have 6 boxes of gold, and 6 boxes of silver. I should have a very large collection fairly soon. These things expire every day.

I will now reread this entire thread.

Guess this incident will be a bonus for the future landfill miners! :lol: 

Derek


----------



## solar_plasma

20 boxes make maybe 0,25g...not a catastrophy...

congratulations to your new gold mine!


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi,

I just check my gold powder and it is stuck on the bottom of my jar. How can I fix it my problem?

When I start to add heat to melt it how long should it take to melt it?

Jack


----------



## Anonymous

jmdlcar said:


> Hi,
> 
> I just check my gold powder and it is stuck on the bottom of my jar. How can I fix it my problem?
> 
> When I start to add heat to melt it how long should it take to melt it?
> 
> Jack


If you have gold powder, you have to dry it first. It'll stick to the glass as long as the gold is still wet. What you can do is take a flat wooden stick or similar, like a shish kabob stick a move it enough to release from the wet part of the glass. Once it release from the wet part of the glass, while on the heat, turn the glass with the powder moving around to pass over the stuck powder. move it back and forth and the wet powder will release from the glass because the dry powder will absorb the moisture and you'll add more dry gold to the already flowing gold powder. Keep doing that until all the gold is not around the walls or stuck to the bottom of the glass.

Melting. It depends on how much gold powder you have and how your melting setup is setup. Are you using Propane or MAPP gas. What type of melting dish do you have? How windy or cold is it where you're at? All of those factors will determine how long it will take to actually see your gold powder melt into a blob of liquid.

Kevin


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

I haven't forgot about the strips but the yield don't sound to good. I'm going to try and get a few hundred more tell I do my test. If the yields are not good at lease some Gold is better then none.

Thanks
Jack


----------



## kkmonte

jmdlcar said:


> Hi,
> 
> I just check my gold powder and it is stuck on the bottom of my jar. How can I fix it my problem?
> 
> When I start to add heat to melt it how long should it take to melt it?
> 
> Jack



After you dropped the gold, you decanted the liquid off the top (and tested the liquid first with stannous), then did you boil (3) times with HCl and (3) times with water? I find that after I decant the liquid and boil for 5 minutes with HCl, that frees up the gold powder from the bottom. Every subsequent boil frees it up more. The water gets rid of the salts and then it shouldn't really stick to anything anymore. I kind of knock it around as it is drying to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.

Be careful with using anything to "unstick" it from the bottom, if you use a glass rod, you can knock it aruond but then you'll have some stuck to the glass rod you can usually use a spray bottle and carefully spray the gold back into the beaker.


----------



## jmdlcar

Well its been a while for this but I remove the glue on 1000 strips with my fingers. And the other 1000 strips I use HCL to remove the glue its not done yet. In a few days I will do 2000 strips with HCL/CL. I'll take some pictures if I'm able to do it. When I'm ready for the next I'll be back.

Jack


----------



## jmdlcar

Hi all,

This is what I got so far out of 1000 strips.

Jack


----------



## jmdlcar

Here Is some more pictures. Any help would be great. All you seen here was 2000 strips


----------



## FrugalRefiner

Jack,

What is it you need help with? You haven't asked a question...

Dave


----------



## jmdlcar

Right now I don't need any help. I just wanted to show what I did so far. If someone see something wrong I hope they will say something to me. This is the first time I got so far with refining. The last 3 picture were Glucose test strips the total was 2000. The first 2 was drop with SMB. The other was not drop yet.


----------



## solar_plasma

Pease tell us your yield, when you have finished and tell which brand of strips you processed.


----------



## jmdlcar

solar_plasma said:


> Pease tell us your yield, when you have finished and tell which brand of strips you processed.


I put both jar into 1 jar. All the strips were ACCU-Chek. I will let you know the yeild. I will take another picture later if I can.


----------



## solar_plasma

What yield did you have?


----------



## Pantherlikher

This seems to be like alot of effort for so little return. I get 10x or so powder, spending 3 days washing dishes and glassware to remove the tiny gold trim.

So far, I'm thinking pyrolize it all and add to other questionable pyrolized material and HCL + Clorox as a whole after grinding to a powder. After of course, warmed HCL with a few drops of made AP for about a week to dissolve all base metals.

Since I gather everything and anything, I process like items until I get first gold drop, then add to the dirty powder beer glass which I will add spent HCL + Clorox or any AP when I need to cut it down in volume. For me, as I'm only collecting gold powder, as the best and most effecient way to process anything and everything. Any solution after this goes into my settling glass, very tall, and then into my copper bearing crock pot which does have gold missed.

I'm becomming comfortable doing different materials different ways. But in my "Work Smart Not Hard" thought process, It makes sense to me to get powder as quickly and cheaply as possible without polluting. Thus pyrolizing to reburn gasses and then dealing with the carbon mix.

Thoughts on pyrolizing these and other simm card type of material together?
I have alittle of alot of different things to get processed so wouldn't see any powder from each if done seperately.

B.S.
...There's a method to my kaotic madness. Just wish I knew what it was...


----------



## solar_plasma

I would read this thread once more: There are no basemetals on glucose strips and the goldplating goes through the whole of the strip. The yield was 0,4g/1000pieces, if I remember right. 1000 pieces weight is 186 g or so their yield is in fact comparable to flatpacks.


----------



## g_axelsson

Pantherlikher said:


> Thoughts on pyrolizing these and other simm card type of material together?
> I have alittle of alot of different things to get processed so wouldn't see any powder from each if done seperately.


Why not incinerat the strips? It would remove the carbon too.

I would probably incinerate and then leach the ash. I wouldn't mix it with simm cards, those I would process quite differently.

Göran


----------



## manorman

in some bottles of Bayer Contour test strips is a little plastic bag, i had never paid it any mind until today i read the writing and it says "DO NO EAT Contains Palladium".
I see the newer bottles of test strips do not have the bag, but its looks like the new 50 count containers have the same material in a built in compartment in the bottom of the contianer. might be another source to look out for.
i assume its to keep the test strips from going bad.


----------



## Richard NL

In my quest to learn, a few points of interest.

In the new glucose strips there are no base metals, only carbon based materials.
On the Used glucose strips there cut by some old blood, base metal iron, hemoglobin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemoglobin

"Dan Klorix" also contains: Sodium Carbonate 4-6% (washing soda, soda ash).
http://www.metro-haccp.com/at/data/at/upload/product/security_notice/7524.pdf

Ethyl acetat/Ethyl acetate still dangerous: Incompatibility with various substances:
Reactive with oxidizing agents, acids, alkali.
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927165
But if you completely evaporate it (Ethyl acetate)and wash with water before you go to the next stages, i think you are OK.

Please correct me if I'm wrong or made a mistake, i am still learning.
Best regards Richard.


----------



## solar_plasma

I stay corrected, on used strips there is iron because of the hemoglobin. :lol: Good point!


----------



## jtechian

I been reading this forum and interested since I am diabetic and use these strips. The ones I have are "Accu-Chek" and they have gold trace from end to end, with a plastic layer over the trace lines. This plastic layer peels off easy leaving the glue like cellophane tape glue. My thoughts would be to use the glue remover called (goo gone) that will soften the glue so you can simply wipe it off. Has anyone tried and had any problems of contamination from chemically removing the glue? I would also think soaking these in isopropyl alcohol would loosen the glue fairly well. 
I get these strips free from VA Pharmacy so this seems a no brainer to give this a go. Good luck to us all...


----------



## solar_plasma

Incineration makes a lot of fine white ash, needs to get leached several times for quite little gold.

I have not been satisfied by any "household"-solvents, still too much work.

Only removing the blue tape and leach the white pieces directly two times in AR (second one only water) until no more yellow left in the glue was lowest effort and gave good results for me. Incompletely stripped pieces can be saved for the next batch.

2500 pieces should yield 1 g gold.


----------



## jtechian

solar_plasma said:


> Incineration makes a lot of fine white ash, needs to get leached several times for quite little gold.
> 
> I have not been satisfied by any "household"-solvents, still too much work.
> 
> Only removing the blue tape and leach the white pieces directly two times in AR (second one only water) until no more yellow left in the glue was lowest effort and gave good results for me. Incompletely stripped pieces can be saved for the next batch.
> 
> 2500 pieces should yield 1 g gold.


I was meaning to remove the glue that is on top of the traces, not the traces itself. With glue over the traces the acid bath can't touch the metal. Thanks.


----------



## solar_plasma

I did it, removed the blue tape, then put the white pieces with gold AND glue one by one into HCl, added 1-2ml HNO3 per g gold and the acid worked right through the glue dissolving the gold.


----------



## Nostradomus

Hey I am in the middle of reading all the posts on refining glucose strips. As for what I have read so far there is a lot of problems with people and removing the glue off the strips prior to putting them in the HCL+Clorox. I was wondering has anyone tried rubbing alcohol which I know will break down most glues that I have encountered. How to use it I am not sure I was thinking first thought to soak it in the alcohol or maybe mist and scrub or something was just wondering if anyone has tried it???


----------



## jtechian

solar_plasma said:


> I did it, removed the blue tape, then put the white pieces with gold AND glue one by one into HCl, added 1-2ml HNO3 per g gold and the acid worked right through the glue dissolving the gold.


Did the nitric acid dissolve the glue into the solution? And if so would that not contaminate the solution? I know it would be a pain to singly soak and rub the glue from 1000 or so strips, but if it saved all that glue residue from getting into the hydrochloric/nitric acid solution with the gold - I would do it. But if it don't dissolve, and can be filtered as clumps - so much better.


----------



## solar_plasma

The glue stayed. Probably there might be some organic contaminants, but the yield of precipitated gold matched to my samples, where I had removed the glue before dissolving the gold. The only problem is, that even if you put the strips into the acid one by one, some will cling together, preventing some strips to strip completely. They were added to the next batch.

I used enough HCl to cover the strips and only enough nitric as needed. I leached the strips with water until white. Using the same AR on several batches reduces the amount of liquids to handle. When I do it next time, I will only use 100 pieces per batch and use 10-25 batches on the same AR, doing 1-2 batches per day.


----------



## jtechian

solar_plasma said:


> The glue stayed. Probably there might be some organic contaminants, but the yield of precipitated gold matched to my samples, where I had removed the glue before dissolving the gold. The only problem is, that even if you put the strips into the acid one by one, some will cling together, preventing some strips to strip completely. They were added to the next batch.
> 
> I used enough HCl to cover the strips and only enough nitric as needed. I leached the strips with water until white. Using the same AR on several batches reduces the amount of liquids to handle. When I do it next time, I will only use 100 pieces per batch and use 10-25 batches on the same AR, doing 1-2 batches per day.



Thank you for your insight! I am still collecting and didn't want to re-invent the wheel per say. This forum is a great benefit to me as beginning, and your answers are much appreciated.


----------



## solar_plasma

I can only tell what worked best for me since I tried all variants which have been discussed in this thread. I got the gold every time. There is nothing wrong in trying those variants in small batches on your own and choose the best for you. Also in science theories need to get confirmed or disproved by other teams in other locations. I am glad if I could help a little.


----------



## necromancer

http://googone.com/

you can buy it in a lot of big stores


----------



## solar_plasma

jmdlcar said:


> mdghamon said:
> 
> 
> 
> Jack is correct about that. My test results were based on doing 1000 accu-chek strips. After a nitric bath and wash to kill off any organic material I torched the strips slightly ( just enough to wither them) and pulled the upper plastic off. both parts then went into AR to disolve the gold. Allow a day to work as it needs to get under the glue. Precipitate, wash and melt. Total yield on the batch was 9.01 grams or .09 grams per 10 strips. Trying to process anything less than 50 strips at a time you will have a hard time seeing or finding the gold.
> 
> 
> 
> mdghamon,
> 
> I think those little strips have good yields. I know you use AP but I can't get Nitric Acid. I'm going to use HCL/CL but it should yield the same. I was going to do mind this week but to weather turn bad again. By the time I get to do mind I will have about 1500 strips
> 
> Thanks
> Jack
Click to expand...


@jmdlcar and mdghamon

How do you explain, that you got 9,01 grams/1000pieces from accu-check, when I got constantly 0,4g/1000pieces from several batches with expiration dates from 2008 to 2014, both from USA and Germany? I say, maybe you two had gotten an older batch, that yielded 20 times as much as all of mine, who knows, but obviously that is not true for 2008-2014.

I want to caution anyone against believing, there is that much gold in those accu-checks!


----------



## resabed01

Yesterday I did a AR leach on a batch of 2500 accu-chek strips that were peeled. I did all 2500 at one time and have a nice yellow solution from that. I didn't look through the strips yet but they all look free of gold. Today I'll drop with SMB and see what I have. It only took about 2ml of concentrated nitric to strip the batch so I don't expect big yields.


----------



## joekbit

Hi every one, I found this to be very interesting, no I have not read all the posts and have no intention to. So what I am about to say may have already been said. It would seem only logical that the original cost for the strips would likely dictate the quantity of PM. The age would also play a big part just as it does with any E Scrap with precious medals.

Why do I make this statement? Well I have been married 27 years to a type 2 diabetic. Test strips vary in price based on the brand. Of course the brand name has a bit to do with the price but the material used in the strip would make the biggest difference. 

Having said that, it makes me want to cry. let me do the math. 27 years 365 days a year 4 tests a day, minimum 39420 test strips thrown in the trash. No telling the loss. Wow wow wow is all I can say. To add insult to injury, most of the time we had the financial ability to purchase very high end test strips. The average cost was around $160 US per month, the best there was in short. If my statement above about cost verses content is correct. Well you can see my point. We do however have about 10 test machines in a drawer.

If anyone cares to make me more sick to my stomach. Post an estimated value of what we have thrown away. I cant bring my self to do it...lol

Joe


----------



## solar_plasma

Maybe 16g.

I do not believe that the PM content dictates the price. 0,50 € in gold per 50 pieces can't make the difference if this package would cost 20 or 40 €.


----------



## FrugalRefiner

joekbit said:


> Hi every one, I found this to be very interesting, no I have not read all the posts and have no intention to.


 :shock: :shock: :shock: 



> It would seem only logical that the original cost for the strips would likely dictate the quantity of PM.
> 
> If my statement above about cost verses content is correct. Well you can see my point.


I spent 20 years in the medical billing business. The retail price of test strips has a lot more to do with the amounts insurance companies will pay for them than the cost of manufacturing them.

Dave


----------



## joekbit

Ya, never thought about that, "insurance ". I did do something shortly after my initial post on the topic. This has nothing to do with test strips but I thought I would post it given it is related to diabetes. 

I pulled 4 of the old meters from the dust pile. So to speak, and cracked them little vaults open. those meters are like vaults, no screws in the 4 I grabbed. I was surprised the amount of gold in them. I made jokes with my wife. Told her they looked to nice to process, just hang them on the Christmas tree. LOL Attached an image. The 2 in the middle showed up best but all the boards just sparkle on both sides. The gold on the edges on the 2 middle ones is double sided. The round platter at the lower left is completely plated both sides, larger than a US dime. It could be a ear ring with the addition of a hook.


----------



## Arlea

Over the summer I had acquired some Accu-Chek strips and was trying to get the plastic off from the glue.... I placed about 40 strips in concentrated sulfuric and forgot about it. Today I stumbled across it and there seemed to be a lot of flakes of gold in it so I strained off the acid rinsed and filtered.... it seems all the gold has fallen off the ends and it seems to bit quite a bit of gold looking at me. I then removed the plastic cover/strip by hand and the gold under the strips was still intact,although now some of the gold is on the removable plastic covering. I am now putting the rest of what is left of the strips into fresh sulfuric acid. My guess is I am going to get a gooey mess.....

Adding this after a couple of hours of working with the strips I have I have found that denatured alcohol seems to take the stickiness away..... but I don't see any residue in the container... hmmm is the glue gone? or just not sticky any more?


----------



## kurtak

Arlea said:


> Adding this after a couple of hours of working with the strips I have I have found that denatured alcohol seems to take the stickiness away..... but I don't see any residue in the container... hmmm is the glue gone? or just not sticky any more?



No the glue is not "gone" - it has just been dissolved by the alcohol so is now just very dilute glue in the alcohol

you can decant the alcohol off & then do a couple more alcohol washes to rid trace glue from solids - then evaporate alcohol down to recover the glue :lol:

Its not worth as much as the gold though :twisted: :lol: 

(process intended as a joke one refiner to another)

Kurt


----------



## Arlea

Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved... 

So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)


----------



## MarcoP

Arlea said:


> Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved...
> 
> So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)



Using AP 2:1, yeah, gold would go in solution. As I remember you could use SMB, but I'd prefer to saturate the solution with copper to push the gold out of the solution as dark powder.


----------



## Anonymous

Arlea said:


> Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved...
> 
> So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)


I mentioned this same thing earlier, but on a different thread.

*No# 1*. *Do NOT* rely on a *ratio*. that's why your gold dissolved. It happened to me earlier this year.
*No# 2*. If you're going to get the gold to float away from the strips, you only need no more than 1 cap full of peroxide. *DO NOT* use ratios doing this. Just one cap full. If you have an abundance of solution, maybe 2 cap fulls. But don't do like I done... a 50/50 of Muriatic Acid and Peroxide. You WILL dissolve the flakes for sure, which means it will dissolve a gold button.

On the same note: I never read or researched on how to recover the gold once it's in the AP solution. That's next on my "to learn list".

Good luck and stay safe.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

All in all, this thread is developing in a way, that makes it hard to beginners to see through the misunderstandings! If anyone wants to comment, he should be sure to have read the whole tread, so that he knows, what it is saying!

There are no base metals, well, maybe some traces of iron from the tiny amounts of dried blood. So for recovering you can go straight to the dissolving of gold and you will get a fine yellow solution that will be colorless after precipitation. Since we can see, what happens, we are fine with AR, only using the calculated amount of nitric and/or adding enough drops until all gold is dissolved withing some hours.

I don't know, why someone would choose HCl/H2O2 at all for those. HCl/NaClO works well, too, though tending to be more liquid volume to handle.

The glue is no problem. Wasted time to try to remove it.

Incineration has the disadvantage of making a lot of very fine white powder compared to the tiny amount of gold.


----------



## solar_plasma

testerman


> On the same note: I never read or researched on how to recover the gold once it's in the AP solution. That's next on my "to learn list".



This is a good example, why we should differentiate between AP and CuCl2-leaching. You can dissolve pure gold powders or thin, pure gold layers with AP and use your reductant of choice. CuCl2-leaching is used to dissolve base metals, ideally mostly copper, freeing gold foils for example from plated circuit boards.

It is this CuCl2 solution, you are talking about. If you have dissolved any gold by mistake or consciously, you will recover it, just by going on dissolving copper. The dissolved copper will push out any dissolved gold by electron transfer. To all, who are confused about this: Search for butcher's many explanations of how AP/CuCl2/copper II chloride works, read and live it.


----------



## andysuth

So if the strips have no base metal on them, why do we need to use AR? 

Can't we just remove the gold and then heat up to 1000°C to reform into a solid block?

Cheers,

Andy


----------



## solar_plasma

1) We don't need to. It's just fast at leaching through the glue, less work and less liquids. HCl/cholox works, too.

2) No. You end up with a lot of white ash with a tiny little content of gold.

By the way, in my understanding AR is used on thick pieces (with not too much silver), hard to dissolve otherwise alloys, base metal free ashes or pure gold and best if you have a clue about the weight of gold to dissolve. So, there are only a very few exceptions, where your AR will meet base metals (ceramic cpu's might be one).


----------



## solar_plasma

I see, you did mean to scrape off the gold. Should work...after some years of scraping.


----------



## andysuth

solar_plasma said:


> I see, you did mean to scrape off the gold. Should work...after some years of scraping.


Hi,

Thanks Solar Plasma.

I'm a quick scraper.....

Did you mean I get loads of white ash when heating the entire strip?

I'll do an estimate in the volume of gold in the tracks later, but the question is more if the tracks have any impurities other than gold.

They look like slightly more complex strain gauges to me, and I don't think strain gauges are alloyed / plated / bimetal.

Andy.


----------



## Anonymous

Depending on how your test strips are made (with a shield covering most of the metal or some of it), you would have to peel off the covering, and if it doesn't have any covering to the strip, you can.... Uhhmmm... *DO THIS OUTSIDE!!!*

Take a glass jar, and then put a 50/50 of 91% isopropyl alcohol and 3% peroxide into it, AFTER you have the test strips in there. If you have a plastic lid to the jar, you can punch a few holes in the jar to let the gasses escape. Let it sit for a day or so, with every now and then (4 hours or so) swirling the jar, or taking off the lid, and using a clean wooden stick to stir up the mix. The glue, will come off and once you decant the jar, rinse well with hot water a few times.

After rinsing well, pick up a few pieces and there should be no stickiness when you rub them in between your fingers.

Your strips are now ready to be refined.

Don't incinerate because without the proper incinerator, you will not only lose your values, it'll let off too much toxic pollution and it can be deadly.

AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.

Just make sure you're wearing protective gear on every part of you for safety reasons.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

> AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.



I can't say anything about your other advices, other than that you don't need to remove the glue. *But* once you are advising that AR and AP will dissolve silver, I get doubts. Sorry, but I think you should be more careful giving advices. It should be more clear, what you are assuming, what you know from reading (source) and what you know by experience.

@andysuth
Yes, at least akku-cheks have pure gold traces, no evidence of base metals. Scraping isn't a good idea, I tried. You need more than 2000 pieces to get a gramm of gold. How many hours do you want to work for 30$....60h? 120h? - Or only one? If you scrape, you need to remove the glue or you will be forced to incinerate.

If anyone likes to add something new, then examine the grey strips. There has not been posted a lot about contents and processes for those.


----------



## Anonymous

solar_plasma said:


> AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I can't say anything about your other advices, other than that you don't need to remove the glue. *But* once you are advising that AR and AP will dissolve silver, I get doubts. Sorry, but I think you should be more careful giving advices. It should be more clear, what you are assuming, what you know from reading (source) and what you know by experience.
> 
> @andysuth
> Yes, at least akku-cheks have pure gold traces, no evidence of base metals. Scraping isn't a good idea, I tried. You need more than 2000 pieces to get a gramm of gold. How many hours do you want to work for 30$....60h? 120h? - Or only one? If you scrape, you need to remove the glue or you will be forced to incinerate.
> 
> If anyone likes to add something new, then examine the grey strips. There has not been posted a lot about contents and processes for those.
Click to expand...

My advice was to the fact that someone was wanting to strip *gold test strips*. What advice I gave was wrong this time?

Also, like you should know, not everyone does the same thing, yet we can achieve the same. Maybe my methods don't hold up to your standards, but they work. I've read other people's suggestion on certain processes, and even though I knew that was their way of doing things, I didn't post replies to them stating that they're giving bad advice or doing something wrong. Maybe my process is longer to you, but at least it gives a person to try to see if it works for them or not. Let that person decide if they want to take that route. I guess alcohol and peroxide is bad advice to use to strip glue off of test strips. I know of different ways to do the same thing, and I could have suggested every one of them, but why would I do that when the one (I) feel would be more comfortable and less dangerous to do. 

Oh, and for the record, I have pounds of the Bayer "SILVER" test strips that I removed the glue EXACTLY from the process I'm posted about. My post was to simply remove the glue without having to spend money if the chemicals were readily available. And, from the 1 lb of test strips I did so far (SILVER), I had the silver stripped off of all of them within 1 hour. So, on that note, I'm not giving bad advice. I'm telling how something can be done, and I'm not telling anything less safer than using goo gone crap and other chemicals. I'm talking about something probably already in the home. You should try it one day. You might find it easier than you think.

*I forgot an important note to add.* If you do NOT remove all the glue from your test strips, you will not get all your gold or silver out of them because they will get trapped in the glue. I tested this theory with nitric acid before and when I didn't get my expected silver out, I did a batch removing the glue, and then I processed my silver with my other method, and I recovered more silver than using nitric. Don't believe me?.. try it. The same with the gold too. You can't just process that stuff like that and think you're going to dissolve that glue away. Your gold will get caught in that glue once you go to filter the solution.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

My doubts evolved, when you were saying AR and AP will dissolve silver. AR will hold a very little amount of silver complex. AP not. Both would in the best case make silver chloride, if at all.

I tried with and without glue, every kind of household solvents, hot water, hot water with NaCO3, scraping, AR, HCl/chlorox, even iodine, with and without incineration. I got the same yield each time.

You are right, many roads lead to Rome.


----------



## Anonymous

solar_plasma said:


> My doubts evolved, when you were saying AR and AP will dissolve silver. AR will hold a very little amount of silver complex. AP not. Both would in the best case make silver chloride, if at all.
> 
> I tried with and without glue, every kind of household solvents, hot water, hot water with NaCO3, scraping, AR, HCl/chlorox, even iodine, with and without incineration. I got the same yield each time.
> 
> You are right, many roads lead to Rome.


you answered your own question, and that is everyone does the same thing differently, yet, you achieve the same results. But, I'll say to you, that you aren't doing something correct if you're getting the same yields and still using different chemicals/methods. I have been getting different results, and the one that gave me the highest yields was the method I stuck with. 

*Hint*.... Nitric acid does not get 100% of silver off of test strips or mylars. When you use nitric, do you see traces of that silver still there, whether black or a darker grey, or even near white? If so, you're probably leaving some silver behind. You see, we all can learn different techniques to achieve the same thing. I hardly use nitric acid, except for inquarting or making AR, or other testing. Other than that, I've learned to spare the Nitric.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

You just can't compare the gold traced glucose strips to silver mylars, two different things. And saying I do something wrong when I get the same yields from different processes from glucose strips is somewhat entitled. When you didn't get the expected yield from golden glucose strips with glue, then you just didn't leach properly.


----------



## Anonymous

solar_plasma said:


> You just can't compare the gold traced glucose strips to silver mylars, two different things. And saying I do something wrong when I get the same yields from different processes from glucose strips is somewhat entitled. When you didn't get the expected yield from golden glucose strips with glue, then you just didn't leach properly.


Strips and mylars have the same principle to them. Something is underneath that metal you're trying to recover, not unless the gold or silver is cooled some before adding to the test strips or mylars. The same principle applies. There is some kind of adhesive or something under the metal or it's cooled before (probably stamped on the mylar or test strips).

But my point is simply what I said, if you have any residue on the mylar or test strip, you did not get all the metal off. That's what I'm saying. My mylars and test strips are completely clear, or white. Nothing at all is on them. Crystal clean. Now, that way, you know for a definite fact you got 100% off your strips or mylars. Either one, it makes no difference. You have residue, you didn't get all of it. This is all coming from my own test experiments.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

Complete nonsense: As I said, I have tried the route to remove the glue completely, then I dissolved the gold until the strips were absolutely white and clean and I didn't get a higher yield, than with glue or with incineration. 

I have processed mylars and they are different from glucose strips. Silver ink contains binder material, the gold traces on glucose strips not. Also the glue on the strips is different from anything I ever saw on mylars.

You still didn't explain how you want to dissolve silver with AP.


----------



## Anonymous

solar_plasma said:


> Complete nonsense: As I said, I have tried the route to remove the glue completely, then I dissolved the gold until the strips were absolutely white and clean and I didn't get a higher yield, than with glue or with incineration.


Well, then that's all you're going to get. If you stripped the strips completely clean, then you've recovered all there is to get. I never disputed that. If your yields are the same even with incineration as with the AR, then you're getting all there is. Your incinerator must be built pretty good because I tried incineration before and I recovered 50% less than a wet refining. 



solar_plasma said:


> I have processed mylars and they are different from glucose strips. Silver ink contains binder material, the gold traces on glucose strips not. Also the glue on the strips is different from anything I ever saw on mylars.


I said their principles are similar or the same. Binder or glue, there is something attaching silver to strips and mylars, just as there is the same principle attaching gold to the strips. That's all I am saying. There has to be some kind of bonding to make them stick like they do. If not, chances are if you bent the strips or mylars, the gold and silver would probably flake or peel right off. The glue on the strips I believe is some type of rubber glue. Not sure, but they do gel up the solution once they come off.



solar_plasma said:


> You still didn't explain how you want to dissolve silver with AP.


This is a good one. How could I explain it? I never said anything about using AP to dissolve silver. I don't even know if it can be done. Even if it could, I wouldn't try it. Maybe you misunderstood me on that one or I said something to make you think that I suggested using AP. I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. 

How is your incinerator setup? Could you post a picture in the "Processes" forum somewhere? I would like to give the incineration another try.

Kevin


----------



## FrugalRefiner

testerman said:


> solar_plasma said:
> 
> 
> 
> You still didn't explain how you want to dissolve silver with AP.
> 
> 
> 
> This is a good one. How could I explain it? I never said anything about using AP to dissolve silver. I don't even know if it can be done. Even if it could, I wouldn't try it. Maybe you misunderstood me on that one or I said something to make you think that I suggested using AP. I'm sorry if you misunderstood me.
Click to expand...

Earlier in this thread:


testerman said:


> AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point.


Dave


----------



## Anonymous

FrugalRefiner said:


> testerman said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> solar_plasma said:
> 
> 
> 
> You still didn't explain how you want to dissolve silver with AP.
> 
> 
> 
> This is a good one. How could I explain it? I never said anything about using AP to dissolve silver. I don't even know if it can be done. Even if it could, I wouldn't try it. Maybe you misunderstood me on that one or I said something to make you think that I suggested using AP. I'm sorry if you misunderstood me.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Earlier in this thread:
> 
> 
> testerman said:
> 
> 
> 
> AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Dave
Click to expand...

Yep. My bad on that. I meant the AP/AR for the gold and Nitric for the silver. Sorry about that.

Kevin


----------



## solar_plasma

If you've got fine white ash, your incineration has been perfect. But it's so fine, that you need a lot of washing to get the gold out. Even a small test is a pain. That's why I do not recommend incineration as the first choice! 

Don't know how many times I wrote this in this thread.


----------



## jungle_Dave

My child has diabetes for over a year now.
One thing I notice is how inaccurate these tests can be. 
In general Accu chek is a bit more reliable depending on the model.
Bayer has a silver foil and is medium accurate, I think the better models have gold foils.
Something tells me that the better the conductivity the more accurate the test would be.
If you could choose one brand over another (there are too many to list here) which test strips would you pick for gold recovery?


----------



## solar_plasma

Are you sure the Bayer gray ones are silver? I tried to dissolve the metal layer in 4 M HNO3 in a short test, maybe 10 min and nothing happened.

I did not test them later anymore, because I don't know where I have put them. I hoped, they were palladium. :lol:

I think until now we only have accurate yield data for akku chek.


----------



## Anonymous

solar_plasma said:


> Are you sure the Bayer gray ones are silver? I tried to dissolve the metal layer in 4 M HNO3 in a short test, maybe 10 min and nothing happened.
> 
> I did not test them later anymore, because I don't know where I have put them. I hoped, they were palladium. :lol:
> 
> I think until now we only have accurate yield data for akku chek.


As for them being Palladium, I'm not sure. I need to check to be sure it's either palladium or silver. 

When I first tested a few of them, I placed them in diluted NH03 and after I placed a copper rod in the beaker, it started collecting grey instantly. I never took out the powder to wash because it such a small amount, I wanted to do more of them to be enough to dry and melt. If it is palladium, then it shouldn't melt into a metal when I try to melt it, because I only use mapp and propane gas, which isn't hot enough to melt it properly.

Since I never refined for palladium before, I'm gong to have to go through the threads and search some more info to show me how to test for palladium. I do have some DMG which I never used before, but I think I read that it would drop palladium out of solution? 

But, other than doing the NH03 stripping of the test strips, I can't tell if it's silver or palladium, but I can tell you this much, the powder is grey. It does look like palladium powder now that I remember what it looks like. I hope those strips are palladium. I have nearly 2 lbs of them.

I also forgot to post my weight yields of them. I'll post the info in my next post. Since I haven't refined them all yet, I don't know the yields just now, but I'll post them too once I get them.

Kevin

*[UPDATE]* Would a stannous test tell if the solution has palladium in it?


----------



## butcher

The stannous test will give a reaction with palladium, but the DMG will give the best results in a test for Pd.

I think you are talking about nitric acid HNO3 in the above post, NHO3 almost looks like an ammonium compound or oxide, something that I have not heard of.


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## Anonymous

butcher said:


> The stannous test will give a reaction with palladium, but the DMG will give the best results in a test for Pd.
> 
> I think you are talking about nitric acid HNO3 in the above post, NHO3 almost looks like an ammonium compound or oxide, something that I have not heard of.


Thanks for the info. I did take a small amount of strips before and when I used the *HNO3* to dissolve the material, I added a few grains of salt and the solution started getting a white milky color to it and it settled on the bottom of the vial.

Is non iodized salt or using copper the only ways to know if silver is in a solution, mainly *HNO3*?


Kevin

*[ADDED INFO]* With my waste solution of AR, would the DMG work to test for palladium?
*
[CORRECTION IN FORMULA] *Changed *NHO3* to*HNO3*. Thanks for the correction butcher. I did mean HNO3, but I didn't spell it that way.


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## jungle_Dave

Could well be palladium, 
Im saving them up, 4 tests + per day adds up over time.
I imagine your referring to accu chek avivia ( the ones I don't get for free from the state )

We are still getting the accu chek active which has been discontinued in the 1st world.
No foils, but the chip is the same as a sim card.

Im pretty sure that the strips with the most stable results will have the highest PM content.
Those PCB's and connectors look promising too. I remember a specialist telling me that the device sells for well under fabrication cost as you will have to buy the expensive strips specifically for that device.


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## butcher

Kevin,
It does sound like you used nitric acid HNO3 to dissolve silver, and then added sodium chloride to form a precipitant of silver chloride.

Kevin,
Nitric acid is HNO3, not NHO3, O3NH, NO3H, or some other combination of hydrogen nitrogen and oxygen.
When you jumble the letters around in the chemical formula, it makes it confusing as to what chemical your using.


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## Anonymous

butcher said:


> Kevin,
> It does sound like you used nitric acid HNO3 to dissolve silver, and then added sodium chloride to form a precipitant of silver chloride.
> 
> Kevin,
> Nitric acid is HNO3, not NHO3, O3NH, NO3H, or some other combination of hydrogen nitrogen and oxygen.
> When you jumble the letters around in the chemical formula, it makes it confusing as to what chemical your using.


Thanks for noticing the mistake I made. I did go back and fix it. I don't want to put anyone in harms way. Sorry.

Kevin


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## g_axelsson

It's easy to spot palladium in nitric solution if there isn't any copper or other colorful salts in it. The palladium would color the solution yellow - red - brown if there were some. If the solution is colorless then there is no palladium in it. Silver nitrate by it self is colorless.

Göran


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## kurtak

g_axelsson said:


> It's easy to spot palladium in nitric solution if there isn't any copper or other colorful salts in it. The palladium would color the solution yellow - red - brown if there were some. If the solution is colorless then there is no palladium in it. Silver nitrate by it self is colorless.
> 
> Göran



Correct - & if its silver plated on copper it will be blue - drop of HCL to confirm Ag --- if its Pd plated on copper it will be green or at least a greenish tint to the blue - stannous test &/or DMG to confirm

If its tin plated on copper you will get the normal white tin paste (stannic acid) precipitate 

Kurt


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## kurtak

Keven 

DMG is the best test for Pd - it needs to be prepared (dissolved) first - it does not dissolve easily though - you can do it per the instructions in Hokes of boiling it in water but it takes a lot of boiling to get it to dissolve - adding a little NaOH will make it much easier to dissolve - I will post the actual ratio (water/NaOH/DMG) later (its in my lab notes out in the lab) when prepared this way the NaOH will cause a hydroxide precipitate of other metals when it is first added but this dissolves quickly leaving the fluffy canary yellow precipitate of Pd - the one problem here is if the solution is to dilute the hydroxides of other metals may take some time &/or heat to re-dissolve to then expose the yellow Pd precipitate - so its better used in strong acidic solutions

The other method of preparing DMG is to dissolve it with methanol or ethanol (the easiest way to dissolve DMG) - but DO NOT use DMG prepared this way to precipitate Pd from a silver nitrate solution - it will also precipitate silver fulminate which is a VERY pressure sensitive explosive - more sensitive then mercury fulminate - if enough silver fulminate is precipitated it can self detonate under its own weight & wet --- if prepared this way it should ONLY be used to test (a drop in a ml) of a silver nitrate solution you are testing for Pd

With a Stannous test Pd will "first" appear red/orange in color & then shift to a green - emerald green to even almost black green depending on concentration - if you get a light green stannous test - then you want to test with DMG to confirm the stannous test is in fact Pd as other metals will also produce a light (lime) green stannous test

Kurt


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## Anonymous

Below is a scan of the Bayer Contour test strips I have. Although I haven't put them in solution yet, below are the weight yields.

*100* test strips with both sides = *10g*
*100* test strips without blank side = *5.6g*

_(approximate weight + count)_
*158g* = *1,580* strips
*194g* = *1,940* strips




I'll post the yields once I process and melt the silver. According to my earlier notes and earlier tests, they are silver.

Kevin


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## solar_plasma

Found something new: The adhesive layer of accu chek could be a pressure sensitive silicone adhesive, which is often used for such applications. This would match to my observations:

http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/jaic/articles/jaic22-02-007.html

Concentrated HCl degrades it and what is left can be washed away with water, they say. This would be an explanation, why both AR and HCl/chlorox do not mind the glue when dissolving the gold. Next time I do a batch (collected nearly 3000 again) I will let the solution do its work for a long time and see, what will happen to the glue after a week or two, before I decant and filter off.


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## Bluebloomer

So what is the final verdict on the gold glucose strips ?

AP, AR, HCL-CL, Acetone, or Alchohol to remove the gold ?

And a while back I read about sodium hydroxide to soak off the silver from keyboard mylars, did anybody try that on these glucose strips ?


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## solar_plasma

Remove the blue strip by hand craft, then the white strips go to AR or HCL/Cl. (Hobby)

or

Incinerate and AR. (Reasonable effort)

Forget everything else!


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## g_axelsson

What do you think of a boil in HCl after incineration but before aqua regia to make it easier to filter the ashes?

Kind of like how we treat sweeps.

Göran


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## Bluebloomer

Just removed 337 strips by hand, they are now soaking in a "safe" anti graffiti removal liquid (no benzeen or other harmfull stuff).

After an hour the glue can be removed by rubbing on it.

Assuming the 0,009 gr gold per strip is accurate, I should need (337 strips * 0,009 = 3,033 grams) 3,033 x 0,8 ml hno3 = 2,43 ml of nitric acid.

So the idea is to cover the strips with just enough HCL, then drip in the nitric in small increments to see the gold dissolve.

Somehow I like AR better than HCL/CL, and I believe that AR has a slighty higher efficiency over the HCL/CL method.. ?

Later on today I will wash the strips with hot water to rinse them clean, and tomorrow I will use AR to reclaim the gold. 

I am curious to see if the 0,009 gr / strip holds up or comes close.

After that I will try to do the same with over a 1000 smaller glucose strips with the silver layer (if indeed it is silver...)


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## solar_plasma

> Assuming the 0,009 gr gold per strip is accurate, I should need (337 strips * 0,009 = 3,033 grams)



I would wish people would read the whole thread! This is complete nonsens. And until the person who claims this yield, comes with proofs, I call it a lie. Those claims should be removed.

1000 strips accu chek aviva yield 0,4g.


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## resabed01

I processed 2500 Accucheck strips (about 454 grams) last year and obtained less than 1 gram of gold.
That said, those results are inaccurate, I had a incident where a ladder fell onto my vessel with the gold bearing solution and broke. There was some spillage and I tried to recover as much as I could but i assume I still lost some values.


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## Bluebloomer

> I would wish people would read the whole thread!



I did read the whole threat, but I keep hoping for the best.. 



> I had a incident where a ladder fell onto my vessel with the gold bearing solution and broke.



Sorry to hear that, allways shitty when such dumb accidents happen...

Last night I decanted the graffiti remover; it's color was yellow and the liquid was more like a syrup. Rinsed it twice with hot water and dishsoap. So later on today I will try to recover the values and then we'll see how much gold we get. What ever the yield might be, it's free gold, and the easiest recovery ever. To me it's the adventure of reclaiming the values and not the value itself that drives me.


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## edsikes

i could have sworn i posted on this thread....

to help everyone here out with some numbers 

gold for test strip manufacturing for most major distributors is put on in three thicknesses 200 angstroms, 320 angstrom and 500 angstrom thickness depending on the brand and specifications. 

500 angstrom thickness is usually on a 10 mil polyester film the yield from film alone is .08 grams per square foot on master rolls, this is before the strips are cut and etched with their circuit boards. 

palladium is definitely used as a conductive application as well in many instances directly in conjunction with gold. most times it is 150 angstroms of palladium the 200 angstrom material is roughly .038 grams per square foot yield on master rolls. 

i cant say whether the yields that have been mentioned previously are anywhere near correct but those are the numbers for raw rolls

as for silver. where i work they do not manufacture silver diabetic strips even though silver is the ultimate conductor it oxidizes too much and isnt as reliable. i dont know how the conductive inks are manufactured but they may be made with some silver in them...


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## scrappappy

There was a company called GSI that did some market research on the manufacturing of glucose test strips a few years ago. I thought some of their findings might be helpful here. 

They found that most of the industry was moving to test strips made only from carbon electrodes. Most are now either printed carbon or printed carbon and silver. The Carbon type was was used nearly twice as much as any other type.. and that was back in 2013. That jives with what I'm seeing as a diabetic also. All of the options through my insurance are either the carbon or carbon silver type now. I've tried several times to have them cover the old gold type that i prefer using but they've phased them out from the prescription plan.

Anyway, for those still recovering the old gold and palladium strips I thought some of this might be useful.

http://www.biosensingconference.com/resources/downloads/GSI%20Technologies%20BioSensing%20Technology%202013%20Workshop.pdf


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## edsikes

scrappappy said:


> There was a company called GSI that did some market research on the manufacturing of glucose test strips a few years ago. I thought some of their findings might be helpful here.
> 
> They found that most of the industry was moving to test strips made only from carbon electrodes. Most are now either printed carbon or printed carbon and silver. The Carbon type was was used nearly twice as much as any other type.. and that was back in 2013. That jives with what I'm seeing as a diabetic also. All of the options through my insurance are either the carbon or carbon silver type now. I've tried several times to have them cover the old gold type that i prefer using but they've phased them out from the prescription plan.
> 
> Anyway, for those still recovering the old gold and palladium strips I thought some of this might be useful.
> 
> http://www.biosensingconference.com/resources/downloads/GSI%20Technologies%20BioSensing%20Technology%202013%20Workshop.pdf



Gold strips aren't "old" they are currently the most reliable on the market the electrostatic inks have a much higher error rate than gold test strips. I know this might sound a little eccentric and narcissistic, but I'm Pretty sure I'm the closest thing to an expert on blood glucose test strips that there is on this forum.


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## scrappappy

edsikes said:


> Gold strips aren't "old" they are currently the most reliable on the market the electrostatic inks have a much higher error rate than gold test strips. I know this might sound a little eccentric and narcissistic, but I'm Pretty sure I'm the closest thing to an expert on blood glucose test strips that there is on this forum.



Agreed. From my experience as a diabetic the gold test strips are more reliable but unfortunately insurance companies phasing them out of most policies, I would assume it's mostly because of cost rather than effectiveness. I was only calling the gold strips "old" in the context of them being covered by most insurance plans, which will unfortunately limit their use.. and eventually their availability in a refining sense.


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## solar_plasma

> 200 angstroms, 320 angstrom and 500 angstrom thickness



Estimating 1cm² plated areal per strip this makes ~0,9g, ~1,5g and ~2,3g (+/-0,1g) per 2400 strips. The first one is what anyone (including myself) confirmed by any method processing accu-chek strips.


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## Anonymous

edsikes said:


> Gold strips aren't "old" they are currently the most reliable on the market the electrostatic inks have a much higher error rate than gold test strips. I know this might sound a little eccentric and narcissistic, but I'm Pretty sure I'm the closest thing to an expert on blood glucose test strips that there is on this forum.



Wow- - just wow.


----------



## Jacks

jmdlcar said:


> Hi etack,
> 
> I have remove all I can and all I see now is gold on one side with a little glue. Should I remove the glue? Do I need to change anything what I wrote how to process them? There no base metal to deal with as I can see. I can say 108 strips is about 36 sq. inch.
> 
> The strips cost me $0.00 they are free. My brother, my friends and me use Accu-Chek strips. My wife strips are TrueTest.
> 
> Jack


Is it silver in the True test strips? My husband uses them also.


----------



## solar_plasma

g_axelsson said:


> What do you think of a boil in HCl after incineration but before aqua regia to make it easier to filter the ashes?
> 
> Kind of like how we treat sweeps.
> 
> Göran



First now I saw your question, Göran. Sorry.

I think the ashes contain nothing soluable by HCl, because when it is leached with weak AR, the solids do not change their shape or behaviour. I can only assume it is something like super fine SiO2 as a filler.


Right now I am scrapping 4800 strips (700-800 pieces/h 8) ), that a family clan member is saving for me, in return she gets a bottle of Pernod every christmas :lol:


----------



## solar_plasma

Bluebloomer said:


> I would wish people would read the whole thread!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I did read the whole threat, but I keep hoping for the best..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I had a incident where a ladder fell onto my vessel with the gold bearing solution and broke.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Sorry to hear that, allways shitty when such dumb accidents happen...
> 
> Last night I decanted the graffiti remover; it's color was yellow and the liquid was more like a syrup. Rinsed it twice with hot water and dishsoap. So later on today I will try to recover the values and then we'll see how much gold we get. What ever the yield might be, it's free gold, and the easiest recovery ever. To me it's the adventure of reclaiming the values and not the value itself that drives me.
Click to expand...


Can you tell us some yields now after you dissolved the plastic by the good stuff? It is a pitty it is impossible to get the graffiti remover in Germany anymore (precurser). I've never seen anything else that is such a nice solvent for plastics.


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## edsikes

Jacks said:


> jmdlcar said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hi etack,
> 
> I have remove all I can and all I see now is gold on one side with a little glue. Should I remove the glue? Do I need to change anything what I wrote how to process them? There no base metal to deal with as I can see. I can say 108 strips is about 36 sq. inch.
> 
> The strips cost me $0.00 they are free. My brother, my friends and me use Accu-Chek strips. My wife strips are TrueTest.
> 
> Jack
> 
> 
> 
> Is it silver in the True test strips? My husband uses them also.
Click to expand...



it is not silver in the test strips. silver oxidizes and makes it a poor choice for blood glucose test strips. tru test is a nipro company and they use sputtered palladium in their test strips.


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## edsikes

spaceships said:


> edsikes said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gold strips aren't "old" they are currently the most reliable on the market the electrostatic inks have a much higher error rate than gold test strips. I know this might sound a little eccentric and narcissistic, but I'm Pretty sure I'm the closest thing to an expert on blood glucose test strips that there is on this forum.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wow- - just wow.
Click to expand...



wow what? 

does anyone else here work for a thin film deposition company that manufactures diabetic test strips? because i havent seen them post on this thread.


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## edsikes

solar_plasma said:


> 200 angstroms, 320 angstrom and 500 angstrom thickness
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Estimating 1cm² plated areal per strip this makes ~0,9g, ~1,5g and ~2,3g (+/-0,1g) per 2400 strips. The first one is what anyone (including myself) confirmed by any method processing accu-chek strips.
Click to expand...



solar you're estimates would be spot on if the test strip was still completely coated but the strip leaves us and goes to the manufacturer and the goes through laser ablation where they etch the circuit board onto the strips thus removing a portion of the pm i dont know the exact amount they remove but i would be willing to estimate 50% is ablated to create the circuit.


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## solar_plasma

Now I used Gimp to enlarge the picture of a strip in order to get a more precise number on the areal: 1.6 cm² (x 2400 => 1,4 g gold)

So my estimation was on the safe side (I always trying to guess low). I can hardly imagine, there have been 40% losses, since the strips were clean and white after leaching. On the other hand, with such small amounts most tests were done (1000pieces, 0.4g from maybe 500ml or even more liquid) it seems not impossible.

I wonder what the 4800 pieces batch will yield plus now I have a better weight, that is pretty exact in 0.01g steps. And this time I think I will concentrate the solution by vaporizing before I precipitate.


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## solar_plasma

@Göran, I found something about the filler:



> BaSO4 is commonly used as a white coloured filler and carbon and oxygen are the main constituents
> of the polymer.


 http://www.oxford-instruments.com/O...ble-electronics.pdf?width=0&height=0&ext=.pdf

this could be treated in a equilibirum reaction:
Na2CO3(aq. conc) + BaSO4(s) = Na2SO4(aq) + BaCO3(s)
and the BaCO3 could be dissolved by HCl or HNO3
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=25708.0

a lot of effort, but obviously a possible way


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## g_axelsson

Nice research Björn, it's probably not worth the hassle to reduce the amount of ash any further. 8) 

You should test some ash in a flame to see if you get the nice green barium flame. Take some with you next time you have a camp fire, always amazes people to see colored fire.

Göran


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## solar_plasma

It depends on how fast the BaSO4 will react to BaCO3. If it works fast, than I could imagine to pass conc. hot NaCO3 solution by vacuum filtering through BaSO4 in a büchner funnel. Then changing to acid until nothing dissolves anymore and if there is BaSO4 left (and there will, because of the equilibrium), then start with NaCO3 again. Only gold should be left back in the filter...if not the gold is too fine.


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## Anonymous

edsikes said:


> spaceships said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> edsikes said:
> 
> 
> 
> Gold strips aren't "old" they are currently the most reliable on the market the electrostatic inks have a much higher error rate than gold test strips. I know this might sound a little eccentric and narcissistic, but I'm Pretty sure I'm the closest thing to an expert on blood glucose test strips that there is on this forum.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wow- - just wow.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> wow what?
> 
> does anyone else here work for a thin film deposition company that manufactures diabetic test strips? because i havent seen them post on this thread.
Click to expand...


True, but then again the information I had to hand didn't include your occupation so your post read badly. Thanks for filling me in though, I now know where to come to if I need diabetic test strips or feel the need to collect them to refine.


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## Shedhead

solar_plasma said:


> Estimating 1cm² plated areal per strip...





solar_plasma said:


> Now I used Gimp to enlarge the picture of a strip in order to get a more precise number on the areal: 1.6 cm² (x 2400 => 1,4 g gold)



I have recently taken to the precious metal recovery hobby. After learning that these test strips contain gold, I always feel sad at the thought that my sister has been throwing them out for the past 15 years. Meh.

Anyway, I scanned one of the strips she currently uses (Accu-Chek Performa) and wrote a little script to count the number of "gold pixels". I calculated them to have a gold area of 1.0314 cm². Just my two cents for now. Have only 250 strips saved up at the moment.

Regards,
Shedhead


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## solar_plasma

Shedhead said:


> solar_plasma said:
> 
> 
> 
> Estimating 1cm² plated areal per strip...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> solar_plasma said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now I used Gimp to enlarge the picture of a strip in order to get a more precise number on the areal: 1.6 cm² (x 2400 => 1,4 g gold)
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I have recently taken to the precious metal recovery hobby. After learning that these test strips contain gold, I always feel sad at the thought that my sister has been throwing them out for the past 15 years. Meh.
> 
> Anyway, I scanned one of the strips she currently uses (Accu-Chek Performa) and wrote a little script to count the number of "gold pixels". I calculated them to have a gold area of 1.0314 cm². Just my two cents for now. Have only 250 strips saved up at the moment.
> 
> Regards,
> Shedhead
Click to expand...



Thank you! Very valuable info! This was exactly, what I wished to do, but I could not find any software capable of this. Great job!

Maybe if we would post scans of all kinds of teststrips, you could use your script to count the gold pixels?


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## solar_plasma

How about this one (accu chek aviva):


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## Shedhead

solar_plasma said:


> Maybe if we would post scans of all kinds of teststrips, you could use your script to count the gold pixels?



I would be happy to contribute to the thread! I just need to know the resolution with which you scanned, solar_plasma. The resolution of your scan isn't included in the file's EXIF data so I can't get the actual area. For example, I scanned mine at 2400 ppi. This resolution isn't strictly necessary though.

Also, I attached the scan of the Accu-Chek Performa strip for comparison.


Regards,
Shedhead


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## solar_plasma

I can only tell I used my EOS 600D at 18Mp or 5184x3456, cut, but did not scale it down.

The strip itself is 9,00mm x 38,00mm

It should work with gimp, too, by indexing colors, select by color, histogram...but it doesn't show the number of pixels, like it should do as they have shown in a gimp forum.


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## Shedhead

solar_plasma said:


> The strip itself is 9,00mm x 38,00mm



Alright, I've run the numbers. For the Accu-Chek Aviva, with the dimensions you've given me, I calculated a gold area of 1.3413 cm².

Regards,
Shedhead


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## Shedhead

solar_plasma said:


> It should work with gimp, too, by indexing colors, select by color, histogram...but it doesn't show the number of pixels, like it should do as they have shown in a gimp forum.



Oh, I just pulled up the histogram window now and sure enough, it shows the pixel count... And it's pretty much what my script spits out. Well, at least the script took only 2 minutes to write, so no biggie. I'm just a casual GIMP user.

Regards,
Shedhead


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## solar_plasma

Thank you!!! Then my yields are quite fine. That's calculated ~1,17g/2400pieces and actually I get ~1g/2400pieces. 0,17g loss might be pretty much the same when doing bigger batches, so I expect 2,17g from the next 4800 pieces batch. Just need to strip the last 200 pieces and we will see if this ist correct..


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## solar_plasma

8508 strips collected so far:
5666 pieces with removed tape.
2842 pieces without removed tape.
Expected yield minimum 3.5g (calculated theoritical maximum content 4.15g)

But removing the tape is annoying. So I research other possibilities again. Since there is used BaSO4 as a filler, I try to let cold Na2CO3 solution do its work without removing the tape. The equilibrium reaction might destroy enough of the structure to let the whole thing fall apart after some weeks. We will see.


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## Chirou

Hello everyone, i know this is older thread but maybe someone will still answer, i took to precious metals recovery around 3 years ago, but unfortunately in my area there isn't a lot of free easy electronics to get maybe like a printer here and there and you have to be fast. Lately i talked my friend to put aside used glucose testing strips for me if i'm correct they are Accu Check Performa and it seems they are quite silvery ones, i read on some other threads that they started making them with Pd but someone else claimed that it might be silver, so i'd like to consult this with you here. Also any ideas how to get more of those i don't have a lot of friends with diabetes(actually glad they are healthy) ? I'm from Poland (Europe) trying my best at recovery i even started recovering zinc from batteries cause i was borred with no gold/silved etc to recover XD.


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## solar_plasma

Obviously some test strips not only have BaSO4 but also ZnS as a filler. So watch out and be careful! Most safe it is still not to treat the incinnerated material but to pull the tape off by hand.


----------

