# Should I cut off all fingers and smash only micrprocessors?



## tutorus (Oct 31, 2007)

Hello Refiners,
this is the first time I'm going to recover gold from electronic scrap with electrolysis cell using NCL as leach solution (cyanide substitute)
the scrap that I'm about to use is sound cards, pci cards, mother boards, ram cards, Tektronix old oscilloscope cards and mil spec total gold plated aluminum boards. 
Some cards have only gold plated fingers, others have tiny gold threads, some others look heavy plated like those of oscilloscope and the mil spec aluminum ones, and others have only tiny holes with plated borders additionally to their fingers. 
My questions are: 
1. should I cut off and process only the fingers when there is no significant amounts of gold in a card? ( I do not want to degrade very fast my chemical solution).
2. Should I process without cutting off fingers and put all of them in one piece?
3. should I process some types of cards separately?
4. should i smash with a hammer blow only the microprocessors or are there any black smaller chips that have some gold inside.
As you can see these are perhaps a bunch of silly question, I would gladly appreciate any help since this is quite a breakthrough for me.
Sincerely,
Tutorus


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## lazersteve (Oct 31, 2007)

Tutor,

I have no experience with NCL as you have called it. What exactly is it? 

You have called it a cyanide substitute. I've heard of CLS, is this what you are asking about?

As for the answers to your questions here is my stab at them with respect to no particular processing solution:



tutor said:


> 1. should I cut off and process only the fingers when there is no significant amounts of gold in a card? ( I do not want to degrade very fast my chemical solution).


In the interest of yields vs time spent I always remove the highest yield portion of my scrap for separate processing.



tutor said:


> 2. Should I process without cutting off fingers and put all of them in one piece?


 See answer 1.



tutor said:


> 3. should I process some types of cards separately?


Processing different tpyes of *fingers* separately isn't required, but it's not a bad idea. It helps keep your yield information consistent for determining what price to pay for your scrap. Additionally, not all types of finger scrap strip at the same rate and you will run into varing degrees of stripped fingers when it's all said and done with mixed batches of fingers.



tutor said:


> 4. should i smash with a hammer blow only the microprocessors or are there any black smaller chips that have some gold inside.



I have no direct proof of the *amount *of gold inside of the plastic IC's. I'm pretty confindent they do contain gold *to varying degrees*, but not of the level that ceramic cpus do. Crushing, grinding or pulverizing is pretty much a required first step to processing the common plastic ics considering the gold is typically in the form of hair fine wires inside them. Of course there are exceptions to every rule.

Steve


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## tutorus (Oct 31, 2007)

Yes. the leaching solution is CLS. What happens is that my provider always adds up NCL. ( like this: CLS/NCL).
what I meant about to decide of removing fingers, was that if the rest of the card platted content is very few, maybe isn't worthy to retrieve it in case the contamination level left in the solution by the card components is high, and I have more toxic waste to dispose .
please advise,
Tutorus


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## lazersteve (Nov 3, 2007)

Tutor,

Process all your fingers separate from your cards. As you have stated, there would be more impurities introduced with the additonal material. This would further complicate the disposal process.

Steve


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## tutorus (Nov 4, 2007)

Thanks a lot Steve. Will do that, except with those cards with more evidences of golden material.


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