# Smelted IC's with interesting result.



## GotTheBug (Feb 21, 2016)

In my not so infinite wisdom, I decided to put incinerated IC's into the furnace, no collector metal, thinking the other metals already contained in the ashes might collect PM's successfully.
Equal volume of ashes and borax, and added half volume (of borax, store bought not anhydrous) of sodium carbonate.
After the pour, I ended up with beads, rather than a cone, in the bottom of the mold, about the size of a pencil eraser.
Now here's the fun part: I was thinking that tin would be a primary metal to deal with, and that I could take the beads, boil in HCl to remove the tin, and leave primarily PM's
and a bit of copper. What has happened up boiling in HCl is the bit of slag that went into the beaker dissolved nicely, and the beads are untouched, which I found interesting.

The ash came from IC's, ram chips, and basically all the surface mount chips cherry picked off motherboards.

Near future will be a treatment in nitric, but I thought I would throw the question out here to see what metal I might be dealing with, obviously not tin, that the HCl is not touching.

Thanks as always Gentlemen!


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## solar_plasma (Feb 22, 2016)

Iron, nickel, cobalt mainly from ram chips (kovar)
copper with traces of nickel from bigger chips with many contacts

More massive pieces of kovar are quite hard to dissolve without AR. I think it would have been easier to remove magnetic material and add a more user friendly collector metal.


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## Smack (Feb 22, 2016)

Did you sift the ash before hand and/or run a magnet over the ash?


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## GotTheBug (Feb 22, 2016)

I forgot to mention that I ran a magnet through first, I do that right after crushing as soon as it's cool. I might also mention that when I incinerate, I put the chips, say 2 cups volume at a time, on a steel grating, over my oil fired furnace. The air coming out of the top of the furnace is easily 1000 degrees F. I am thinking kovar and nickel to be likely culprits at the moment. Perhaps I should go straight to AR instead of straight nitric?

Thanks again,
Paul.

Good thing I save all my slags....


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## Smack (Feb 23, 2016)

I spread the powder out on a large sheet of acrylic that about 3'x4' and rake it out uniformly thin so the magnet (in a plastic bag) is more effective and I get done quicker. I've been gonna get one of these http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAGNETIC-SEPARATOR-PICK-UP-TOOL-8-LB-MAGNET-CAPACITY-SPRING-LOADED-QUICK-RELEASE-/200949903388?hash=item2ec98c301c:g:uc8AAOxy7S5R~sSs so I finally just did while I was posting this.


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## kurtak (Feb 23, 2016)

GotTheBug said:


> In my not so infinite wisdom, I decided to put incinerated IC's into the furnace, no collector metal, thinking the other metals already contained in the ashes might collect PM's successfully.
> Equal volume of ashes and borax, and added half volume (of borax, store bought not anhydrous) of sodium carbonate.
> After the pour, I ended up with beads, rather than a cone, in the bottom of the mold, about the size of a pencil eraser.



GotTheBug

I see a couple problems here - first is not enough collector metal & (if I understand it right) your flux mix/ratio (& also that you may not have had your flux "well mixed" with the ash)

The two most important things in smelting are that you have enough metal in the smelt so that when everything becomes molten there is enough metal contacting metal to allow it to form large enough molten beads/globs that will flow & settle down through the flux - in other words there needs to enough metal that metal is in close proximity to metal in order for it to make contact & collect together with the surrounding metal as it becomes molten --- to achieve this you need at least 30% of your total smelt load to be metal --- your "smelt load" is the total combination of ash, flux & metal - so of that total combination you need right in the ball park of 30% of it to be metal

If you did not get your metal to settle to a nice full metal cone in the pour but instead got eraser size beads - then most likely your slag is also full of smaller beads - lots of smaller beads - some being "very" small --- you need to do a re-melt of your slag - you want to put your slag back in the furnace - bring it up to temp & let it become molten "first" - then once the slag is molten - add your collector metal (assuming you are using copper) adding the copper "after" the slag becomes molten reduces the amount of copper that oxidizes during the smelt allowing for better collection & less copper oxide going off into the slag 

The other thing (& this is "very" important) is that when molten - your flux needs to runs fluid - "very" fluid - this is so that during the smelt you have "good" circulation taking place in the crucible - in other words your molten flux/slag needs to be thin enough that it has a "circulating" rolling boil motion to it so that small beads can move, bump & contact one another to collect into large enough beads to settle to the bottom of the crucible in a pool of molten metal

If your molten flux/slag has a bubbling/sputtering action to it - it is to thick & therefor not circulating & therefor not allowing ether popper collection &/or settling --- it needs to be thinned --- this can be helped (to a degree) with the addition of more soda ash - however I highly recommend using a little fluorspar - it doesn't take a lot of fluorspar

The basic recommended "starting" flux is 50/50 borax/soda ash - personally when making up my flux (for IC chips) I go with about 40/60 borax/soda ash & for every 3 cups of this flux I add one "heaping" table spoon fluorspar --- then I also mix up a flux of just soda ash & some fluorspar - one "level" table spoon fluorspar per cup soda ash --- then if my smelt is not running fluid enough I will make additions of this flux till it gets a good fluid circulating motion going

You need to "mix" your starting load of flux to ash ratio "at least" with 2 parts flux to 1 part ash - if not 3 flux to 1 ash --- this depends somewhat on how concentrated your ash is going into the smelt --- in other words how much of the ash you have washed off before going to smelt - the more ash you have going into the smelt the more flux you need in the smelt --- & you need the flux "well mixed" with the ash when you load the crucible

Keep in mind that when going with the smelting method of recovering you gold bonding wires from IC chip ash - you then need to part the gold from your collector metal --- Chemical leach parting is NOT the way to go because (1) you are going to create a huge amount of waste dissolving away the collector metal & (2) because the ratio of collector metal to gold is so great you are going to end up with "ultra" fine gold that will be hard to settle &/or filter --- you really need to run it in an electrolytic parting cell & then treat the anode slimes for the recovery of the gold from them - or sell your smelted dore metal to a refiner that deals with such & they will only pay around 80 - 85% of the gold --- but you create no chem waste other then your slag 



> Now here's the fun part: I was thinking that tin would be a primary metal to deal with, and that I could take the beads, boil in HCl to remove the tin, and leave primarily PM's and a bit of copper



I am sure you had at least "some" tin in your final smelted dore metal - the reason the HCl did nothing to remove it is because it is "alloyed" with what ever other metals are in the final smelted dore metal (copper, nickel, zinc, silver, gold, cobalt, iron, etc) in order for the HCl to dissolve the tin - the tin would need to be the predominant metal & predominant by "a lot"

Another thing to think about when smelting is that you can use silver as your collector metal instead of copper - I mention this because if you intend to part your gold from your collector with chem leaching (nitric) it will take MUCH less nitric to do so --- 1 gallon of (68 - 70%) nitric will only dissolve about 2 pounds of copper but it will dissolve about 8 pounds of silver --- also it is easier to set up & run a silver cell rather then a copper cell & a silver cell runs faster then a copper cell --- the down side to using silver as your collector is having a lot of silver on hand & tied up for use as your collector 

Hope this helped

Kurt


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## GotTheBug (Feb 23, 2016)

Kurt, wow Thank You. That one post just doubled my knowledge of smelting. I was a halfwit, now I'm a complete idiot. Lol. Seriously though, that was awesome, and Thank You again.

Paul.


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## gaurav_347 (Feb 23, 2016)

@Kurtak

This is exactly what I wanted to learn. Thank you for the in-depth details you have provided.

Regards,
Gaurav


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## kurtak (Feb 24, 2016)

gaurav_347 said:


> @Kurtak
> 
> This is exactly what I wanted to learn. Thank you for the in-depth details you have provided.
> 
> ...



That's just the tip of the iceberg :shock: :lol: :mrgreen: 

Kurt


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## gaurav_347 (Feb 24, 2016)

kurtak said:


> gaurav_347 said:
> 
> 
> > @Kurtak
> ...



I would love to learn every bit of it. Waiting for you to start a thread on smelting soon ! 

Regards,
Gaurav


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## Barren Realms 007 (Feb 24, 2016)

gaurav_347 said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> > gaurav_347 said:
> ...




Search through his post's. Kurt has shared a lot about what he does with the forum.


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## alexxx (Feb 24, 2016)

Kurt,

I like idea of using Ag as a collector instead of copper and running a silver cell.

What about the "life span" of the electrolyte considering that at least 20% of the anode will be made out of other base metals? Especialy copper that reacts well in nitric? The copper in the anode might cement some silver within the electrolyte, taking the place of the silver into the solution? Any risks of codeposition? 

How would you deal with an anode made of, lets say ;
80% Ag
10% Cu
3% Au
1% Pd
1% Fe
1% Sn
1% Ni
1% Al
1% Zi
1% other contaminant traces

Really curious to know what you think.

Cheers.

Alex


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## GotTheBug (Feb 24, 2016)

Iceberg? How about "tip of the cone mold"?


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## NobleMetalWorks (Feb 24, 2016)

You never attained temperatures that would melt iron and other metals. These metals will instead fuse, and then the metals that do melt, because of expansion in the fused beads, will make it's way to the outside and coat the fused metal so that they look like shiny little beads. I should have explained this better, like this. "Metals that do not melt, will fuse into a spongy matrix. Because of heat and expansion, then metals that do melt will be all throughout this matrix. As the fused metal cools, the other metals will be forced out of the spongy matrix due to contraction/cooling and will deposit on the outside of the fused metal ball. This will create a ball of metal where the outside is shiny, and the inside is grainy and crumbly."

At this point, if you milled the material, you would have to mill to a mesh that will free all the metal, meaning everything that is still caught in the fused metal. If you do not, and run a magnet through the material, it will pick up magnetic material but also values. This probably would not be a good option.

As was suggested, your best option is probably to remelt with the correct flux and use a collector metal. Copper works well, personally I prefer silver but either will work. Melt into a homogeneous melt, pour and you should get a nice button at the end of the cone.

Dissolve this in Nitric Acid, decant the pregnant Nitric Acid solution and process accordingly. The left over material at the bottom will be your values along with other metals.

Rinse as many times as needed to ensure the material has no acid, dry then use a magnet to remove any magnetic material. Then process as anode slimes, remove base metals with an HCl solution, rinse until all HCl is removed, process with AR and the rest you should know.

There is a lot of good solid advice in this thread. You should probably be able to do this without too much issue I would think.

Scott


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## NobleMetalWorks (Feb 24, 2016)

It might be easier to just dissolve in Nitric Acid unless you have a huge amount.

Scott


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## kurtak (Feb 26, 2016)

alexxx said:


> Kurt,
> 
> I like idea of using Ag as a collector instead of copper and running a silver cell.
> 
> ...



Alex

The copper in the anode will not cause silver to cement out of the electrolyte - it will corrupt the electrolyte which will then lead to co-depositing of the copper with the silver

There is "a lot" posted on the forum about needing to have your anodes (whether silver or copper) at least at 95% & preferably even higher when running a cell (silver or copper) & that is true when you are running the cell for the purpose of purifying the silver or the copper --- & the reason being is that if you run your anodes anything under 95% your electrolyte becomes corrupted with the other metals in the anode & then there comes a point where the balance between the silver (or copper) in the electrolyte & the other metals in the electrolyte becomes up set - & so instead of "displacing" only silver (or copper) "from the electrolyte" (which then deposits at the cathode) it starts to displace the metals corrupting your electrolyte as well - leading to co-depositing of those metals with your silver (or copper)

So the more metals - other then the metal you are trying to purify - that you have in the anode - the quicker it corrupts the electrolyte & in turn the quicker it leads to co-depositing & therefore also corrupting the metal you are trying to purify --- therefore it is "always" recommended that your anode be "at least" 95% & preferably higher

That is when the goal of running the cell is to purify ether silver or copper

However - when I run a cell where I have used ether copper or silver as my collector metal (for gold) in smelting --- my real goal is "not" so much to purify the silver or the copper --- rather my real goal is to part the collector metal from the gold --- therefore - I really don't care about co-depositing (getting impure) metals at the cathode

Why ? --- because simply put - its going to be reused as collector metal again - so if my silver is contaminated with some copper (or my copper is contaminated with some silver) I really don't care - I haven't lost anything - it just keeps getting "recycled" through the process serving as my collector 

I have run anodes from both silver as my collector & copper as my collector as low as 67% (silver - or - copper) (higher is better of course) co-deposit takes place due to electrolyte corruption - but I don't care because I am really after the gold - not pure silver or copper

What you DON"T want in your anode is much over 6 % iron/nickel/cobalt (kovar) in your anode - that is 6 % iron/nickel/cobalt "combined" --- as Scott said ----------



> You never attained temperatures that would melt iron and other metals. These metals will instead fuse, and then the metals that do melt, because of expansion in the fused beads, will make it's way to the outside and coat the fused metal so that they look like shiny little beads.



These metals (if to high) will cause "hard spots" in your anode that don't part in the cell (& they can sometimes be quit large) The silver or copper will part out around them - but you will end up with "chunks" of un-parted metal in your slimes --- you are well served by doing a "good job" with your magnet before going to smelt - if these metals get to high - they can shut the parting down completely - get them out before smelting

The bottom line is the higher the silver (or copper) the better - but you can "get away" with as low as around 70% (plus/minus "a bit")

Kurt


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## alexxx (Feb 26, 2016)

Kurt,

Again, very well explained.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to elaborate on the subject.

Removing the magnetic fraction remains easy.
What about other non ferrous elements such as Zn , Al & Sn?
Any idea on how these 3 are going to cause problems in your Ag cell?
How do you deal witb other non ferrous contaminants? How do they impact the cell operation?

Cheers,

Alex


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## 4metals (Feb 26, 2016)

One way to effectively deal with the bar collected using silver as a collector is to digest the metal in a nitric solution and recover the insoluble gold by filtration and then cement the silver with fine copper powder. I remember a thread which I put in the library in which I had this discussion with Kurt. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=22203

He used the fine copper powders he generated by sawing copper bars and collecting the dust but he did see the benefit of the powders in cementation. 

When using the powdered copper to drop silver it will come down very clean if you stop before it is all out and filter off what has dropped. Then some additional cementation will bring down the rest. It is an easy test to leave just a small amount in solution and have the lion's share come down clean. The clean silver then can be processed in a cell to make a very clean .999+ product or used as is as a collector. The silver collected from the second drop is strictly for collector use. 

This is a very effective process for recovering all of the metals and if your scale is large enough, the copper as well.


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