# Do cd's contain silver?



## danny987 (Aug 28, 2009)

I heard this rumor once. Any merit?


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## donnybrook (Aug 28, 2009)

Danny,
I don't know about silver on DVD's but I did experiment with the hard drives in computers once. I broke them up with cutters and put them in hydrochloric acid. I finished up with a black powder and someone said that could have been palladium??? Just a rumour probably?? Never had this assayed. Just a dissolution in nitric, filter, and drop with salt or hydrochloric would determine if they have silver associated.

donnybrook (Don Buckley)
Australia


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## Fournines (Aug 28, 2009)

According to the all knowing Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Expected_lifespan



> Burned CD-Rs suffer from material degradation, just like most writable media. CD-R media have an internal layer of dye used to store data. In a CD-RW disc, the recording layer is made of an alloy of silver and other metals — indium, antimony, and tellurium.[6] In CD-R media, the dye itself can degrade causing data to become unreadable.
> 
> Recycling
> The polycarbonate material and possible gold or silver in the reflective layer would make CD-Rs highly recyclable. However, the polycarbonate is of very little value and the quantity of precious metals is so small that it isn't profitable to recover them.[8] Consequently, recyclers that accept CD-Rs typically do not offer compensation for donating or transporting the materials.[9][10]



But maybe if you had thousands of pounds of them....


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