# Incinerated printed circuit boards



## kjavanb123 (Apr 29, 2014)

All,

I finally receieved 100 kg of printed circuit boards that were shredded and incinerated using a waste incinerator, the ICs have turned to white color as you can see, and all other plastic materials are turned into ash, here are some pictures;

Incinerated boards;



ICs incinerated;



Now should I;

1- Put everything in a blast furnace and add another 100kg of copper to it to lower the melting temp and also increase the copper content to 98%

2- Ball mill the materials, pass them through a mesh 20, melt the metals, and run the ashes through a blue bowl to recover anything heavy and melt them along with other metals?

Thanks and regards
Kj


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## alexxx (Apr 29, 2014)

interesting.

I am no expert, but it looks like the material is not completely incinerated.
I believe there is still some values trapped into the organics.
I would incinerate more / again...

Than I would personally ball mill / hammer mill everything and sieve pulp from metals.
magnetic separation should also be conducted prior to smelting...


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## kjavanb123 (May 3, 2014)

All,

I just received a sample of ball milled incinerated boards, please advise on color and size, I did a magnetite separtion and some metallics removed from this fine powder, which I put it back to the mix to wait till tommorow to receive the rest of 100 kg of ball milled boards, following the sieving.




And it is spreaded to have a better look at the color,


Thanks
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

All,

The guy who was suppose to incinerate my 2600 lbs of boards, told me he threw them away after completing the process???????? What a bummer. So the incinerated boards that are suppose to be in my shop are in landfill somewhere .

On that note, I just thought about another method to maybe do smaller volumes of PCBs, by using labors which is low wage compare to a lot of places, remove all the gold related items, process them separately, then crush and grind the remaining PCBs then use a blue bowl to separate the plastic from the rest, melt the metllics in the induction furnace, pour to anode, copper refining cell, get the copper, and any silver or palladium will end up in slimes.

Regqrds
Kevin


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## johnny309 (May 10, 2014)

The guy who was suppose to incinerate my 2600 lbs of boards, told me he threw them away after completing the process???????? What a bummer. So the incinerated boards that are suppose to be in my shop are in landfill somewhere .

So nice...5-6 Oz of gold....100+ Oz of silver....2+ oz of Pd....
Add copper until 98% and after clean copper you should do work with small quantities of precious metals...


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## g_axelsson (May 10, 2014)

johnny309 said:


> The guy who was suppose to incinerate my 2600 lbs of boards, told me he threw them away after completing the process???????? What a bummer. So the incinerated boards that are suppose to be in my shop are in landfill somewhere .
> 
> So nice...5-6 Oz of gold....100+ Oz of silver....2+ oz of Pd....
> Add copper until 98% and after clean copper you should do work with small quantities of precious metals...


What do you mean by "Add copper until 98%"? Are you suggesting to dilute the copper melt to run it through a copper cell?
If that is what you are saying then it is just wrong. You want more pure copper to not foul the electrolyte too fast but diluting is the wrong way to go.

For an example:
- if we have 8 kg of copper with 2 kg of base metals mixed in (80% copper) and can run that in a cell in one day before we have to change the electrolyte.
Then if we add pure copper to get 98% we end up with...
- 90 kg Cu added gives 98 kg of copper with 2 kg of base metals mixed in (98% copper) and can run that in the same cell in ten day before we have to change the electrolyte.

Dilution only makes more work handling the larger amounts of cathodes and anodes and it would take longer time and cost more in electricity.

The only way to upgrade the copper content is via pyrometallurgical methods, for example distilling off zinc or oxidize base metals as iron, aluminum, tin and led. This will raise the percentage of copper without dilution.

Göran


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## Geo (May 10, 2014)

After milling and magnetic separation, I would be surprised if there were 2% of any other metal than copper. I would think more like 99% copper and 1% everything else. Tin and zinc and aluminum would volatilize in the melt to make the anodes. Without the iron, I would think the copper would dominate the total share of metal.


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

All,

After separating ferrous and non-ferrous metals, would it be better to melt them separately, the ferrous ones, what metal has the highest content in the mix? If it is nickle or iron can we set up a nickel refining cell?

Just a thought
Kj


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## alexxx (May 10, 2014)

kjavanb123 said:


> All,
> 
> After separating ferrous and non-ferrous metals, would it be better to melt them separately, the ferrous ones, what metal has the highest content in the mix? If it is nickle or iron can we set up a nickel refining cell?
> 
> ...



Not sure I would melt the magnetic fractions. What about cyanide leach for that part ? All the pms are mainly plated and exposed.


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## johnny309 (May 12, 2014)

Geo said:


> After milling and magnetic separation, I would be surprised if there were 2% of any other metal than copper. I would think more like 99% copper and 1% everything else. Tin and zinc and aluminum would volatilize in the melt to make the anodes. Without the iron, I would think the copper would dominate the total share of metal.




Geo got the "hint" of what I want to say....


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## g_axelsson (May 12, 2014)

Geo said:


> After milling and magnetic separation, I would be surprised if there were 2% of any other metal than copper. I would think more like 99% copper and 1% everything else. Tin and zinc and aluminum would volatilize in the melt to make the anodes. Without the iron, I would think the copper would dominate the total share of metal.



Some boiling points
Tin : 2270.0 °C (2543.15 K, 4118.0 °F)
Aluminum : 2467.0 °C (2740.15 K, 4472.6 °F) 
Lead : 1740.0 °C (2013.15 K, 3164.0 °F) 
Beryllium : 2970.0 °C (3243.15 K, 5378.0 °F) 

How about stainless steel, wouldn't that end up in the non-magnetic part? Then we have chromium, nickel and iron too.

Göran


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## Anonymous (May 12, 2014)

So for a quasi amateur guy this really isn't worth the grief nor the cost. (edit: grammar)


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## Geo (May 12, 2014)

I dont know. Rusty (no longer a member) used to do this very thing and seemed to be successful at it.


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