# MLCC's



## mdghamon (Dec 22, 2011)

This is my first post. Having been a systems operator and maintainer for 30+ years gave me a rather good perspective on most of the PM's in computers...or so I thought. The information on several of the sources is more valuable than gold. In 3 days I have removed 5 pounds of MLCC's among other parts from circuit boards that were accumulated over the years. My compliments and thanks to the members and staff on an on going and very well done job. I will be processing and photographing the entire refining process and will post when done. Michael


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## Claudie (Jan 26, 2012)

How is this working out, any updates?


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## mdghamon (Jan 30, 2012)

So far, so good. Have run all through an initial Sodium Nitrate bath to remove any lead solder, and washed all pieces after filtering. This has been followed with an HCL bath to remove the tin solder and this was followed by the same. Currently in a nitric bath and disolving the base metals, silver and paladium. I will keep you up to date..For now...back to the salt mine...Mike


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## mdghamon (Feb 29, 2012)

Final totals..5 lbs of raw, desoldered caps produced 321.7 grams of silver chloride and 126.9 grams of palladium powder. Entering the final refining now. Mike


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## Claudie (Mar 1, 2012)

That was 5 pounds of starting material? So is that equal to about 25 grams of Palladium powder and 64 grams of Silver Chloride per one pound of material?


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## gold4mike (Mar 1, 2012)

Michael,

I'm very encouraged by your results - I've accumulated roughly two pounds of MCC's so far. 

Do you have any pictures of your starting material?


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## mdghamon (Mar 1, 2012)

I will be posting a full series of pictures when done. Yes the numbers seem high but include the silver from the HCL bath. Remember that these are not the final fully refined metals numbers, I anticipate a 10-20% reduction in the totals. Mike


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## Claudie (Mar 2, 2012)

Even with a 20% reduction, that sounds like a pretty good yield. I am interested in the pictures, and how this turns out when completed. Keep us posted!


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## mjgraham (Mar 11, 2012)

Did you depopulate the boards with the chemical baths, or by hand? Was the baths just to clean off the base metals to keep out of nitric?


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## mdghamon (Mar 12, 2012)

To answer several questions the boards were desoldered using a propane torch at low heat. and the components scraped of en masse with a 1/2" wood chisel. The initial bath with a concentrated Sodium Nitrate solution at 150F was to eliminate any lead present. After rinsing well a bath in Muriatic acid 32% was at the same temp to disolve the tin and partially dissolve the base metals. Rinse well again and place the parts in 50% Nitric acid at room temperature for 6 days. This dissolves all of the silver and palladium along with most of the remaining metals. The mud from the HCL bath was filtered, washed 3 times and added to the nitric bath. The silver and some of the Pd was dropped using pure sodium chloride solution, decanted and washed until clean. The main nitric solution was evaporated down to about 20% of original volume and the Pd precipitated with ammonium chloride and sodium chlorate. After filtering this reduction and precipitation was done 3 more times to recover as much as possible. The Silver Chloride was dried and mixed with an equal weight of sodium carbonate (soda ash) and a tablespoon of borax in a 30 Toz. fused silica crucible slowly brought up to the melting point in 45 min. the resulting silver was poured into a 5 oz bar mould and is being run through a silver cell at the present time. The palladium powder is awaitind the palladium from the silver processing before being finalized. Thank you all for the interest and I hope this will help you when you try it. Mike


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## mjgraham (Mar 13, 2012)

Thank you for this information!


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## mdghamon (Mar 20, 2012)

Final results of the process are 249.3 Grams .999 silver and 101.3 grams Palladium. I will be posting pictures of the entire process in the processes section of the forum shortly. The results surprised me greatly, but the credit has to go to the members who provided the information on "how to" so graciously. Best wishes to those who follow. Mike


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## patnor1011 (Mar 21, 2012)

Roughly 10% Ag and 4% Pd from weight of material. Very nice.


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## mjgraham (Apr 4, 2012)

After working on collecting my material I got to hand it to you, 5Lbs. of them is quite a lot of material, do you have any pictures of what the wad looked like? I have extracted a couple boards and only have 17g of them, a long way from 2kg.


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## notchormama (Sep 23, 2012)

mdghamon said:


> Final results of the process are 249.3 Grams .999 silver and 101.3 grams Palladium. I will be posting pictures of the entire process in the processes section of the forum shortly. The results surprised me greatly, but the credit has to go to the members who provided the information on "how to" so graciously. Best wishes to those who follow. Mike


101 grams ! Over $2,000.00 USD , not bad .


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## Anonymous (Sep 29, 2012)

Thanks I'd be very interested in hearing more about the complete process you followed as I have a good quantity of high grade server motherboards here with 95g (just over 3 oz) of MCC on each unit.

They also have over 26 surface mounted IC's per board too.

Regards

Jon


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## maynman1751 (Sep 30, 2012)

mdghamon said:


> This is my first post. Having been a systems operator and maintainer for 30+ years gave me a rather good perspective on most of the PM's in computers...or so I thought. The information on several of the sources is more valuable than gold. In 3 days I have removed 5 pounds of MLCC's among other parts from circuit boards that were accumulated over the years. My compliments and thanks to the members and staff on an on going and very well done job.* I will be processing and photographing the entire refining process and will post when done. *Michael


Mike, did you ever post a follow up on this process? Pictures!!!!!!!???????


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## necromancer (Apr 20, 2014)

bump, lots of people waiting for an update.


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