# Ceramic cpu AMD and k6



## archeonist (Jun 5, 2015)

Hi there,

Just wanted to share a little refining I did last week on some ceramic cpu's. There were 55 cpu's mixed AMD and k6 (the ones with the aluminium lids). 
I first depopulated the cpu's by heating them on a bunsen burner. 
When depopulated I smashed them each in 4 pieces and put them into a beaker, poured concentrated HCl on them and a little water. Now I ramped up the heat and started adding nitric in little increments. I prefere the exhausting method rather than neutralizing using urea at the end. When I noticed the bubbling and fizzing of the solution stopped, I added again nitric untill no more of these obsevations were noticeable.
I let the whole solution cool down and added it to an iced beaker with a few drops of sulphuric acid.
The solution was nou ready for filtering. And after that I put in smb and I finally could see my lovely gold appearing at the bottom of the beaker! 
Next week I will clean, melt and weigh the gold. Pictures I will place later.


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## archeonist (Jun 5, 2015)

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## archeonist (Jun 5, 2015)

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## archeonist (Jun 5, 2015)

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## Anonymous (Jun 5, 2015)

Nice one Archeonist.

Funnily enough I've got 50 of these in HCl to take off the MLCC and the random stuff as we speak. 

Look forwards to your results. 

Jon


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## danieldavies (Jun 5, 2015)

there should be 2 grams of gold in that lot.
good luck


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## Anonymous (Jun 5, 2015)

Possibly....... 8)


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## archeonist (Jun 6, 2015)

danieldavies said:


> there should be 2 grams of gold in that lot.
> good luck



Yes Daniel, I know ( I mean, I hope ). I calculated 0,035 grams per cpu times 55 so I almost should have a yield of about 2 grams .


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## archeonist (Jun 6, 2015)

spaceships said:


> Nice one Archeonist.
> 
> Funnily enough I've got 50 of these in HCl to take off the MLCC and the random stuff as we speak.
> 
> ...



Hi Jon, 

I choose to melt off all the capacitators and stuff rather than soaking in HCl. Do you use the same HCl for the nitric step?


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## Anonymous (Jun 6, 2015)

I store it and use it for more stripping, it strips the solder off so when I use fresh HCl in the AR I have less contaminants to work with.


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## archeonist (Jun 6, 2015)

It was my intention too to soak in HCl, but because I don't do this on a daily basis it would cost me less HCl.
Melting off all capacitators and stuff, was easy and safe for me because I work in a professional fume hood. 
I hope to post the yield results next week.


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## Anonymous (Jun 6, 2015)

I understand you. In the UK the HCl is so cheap that it's easy to use it in quantity and as you said if you don't do it regularly then there's no point having it lying around waiting for the next batch. 

I try to keep digestions from AMD chips like these separate from other types of older ceramics because the pins contain metals that the older ceramic pins didn't.


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## patnor1011 (Jun 6, 2015)

Jon, where do one buy HCl and what is the price for it? Will the same apply for NI? I may go for a drive to NI as what I pay in republic is way too much for way too weak acid.


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## Anonymous (Jun 7, 2015)

I scour eBay Pat. There's always someone with a deal on. You can usually pick it up for around £25 delivered for 25 litres. As you know 25 litres goes a long way.


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## gold4mike (Jun 9, 2015)

Pat,

Here in the US I buy it at our local swimming pool supply store for about $7.00 per gallon. Do you have a similar option?


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## patnor1011 (Jun 9, 2015)

Nope, small city and local weather does not warrant building and use of pools. :lol: 
I do use concrete cleaner but here concentration vareis from 10 to 20% strong. Good for AP but I like to have clean lab stuff for AR.


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## archeonist (Jun 10, 2015)

Well, finally I could weigh my gold...


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## archeonist (Jun 10, 2015)

Well, there we are.... went through the whole process of recovering and refining, guess what... I'm out of mapp gas!!
I still wanted to see yellow gold so i tried melting using two Bunsen burners :mrgreen: ....
The flame of such a burner reaches nearly a 1000 degrees (celcius) and a little bit over, but I was supprised to see that I could actually melt the gold. The result is a big nugget, but tomorrow I'll try again using the right burner. If I can make a nice button I'm able to say a bit more about the purity of the gold. I will post the result later.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jun 10, 2015)

I don't want to sound discouraging but your powder looks dirty. Hope I'm wrong.

Good job though.


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## archeonist (Jun 10, 2015)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> I don't want to sound discouraging but your powder looks dirty. Hope I'm wrong.
> 
> Good job though.



No you don't, if I look at the picture I would say that also. The color in the picture is a bit different than in reality, but I am confinced that it could be more pure, I didn't make a second drop.

The nugget weighs 2,22 grams and that is far more than I expected, but maybe the unexpected weight is due to some impurities. But even then I am very happy with this result!

But we'll see what the melt of this nugget will bring tomorrow. Let's hope it will be a shiny button with a nice pipe, and hopfully not a buttun with a cracked icy surface and no pipe at all :roll:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jun 10, 2015)

archeonist said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't want to sound discouraging but your powder looks dirty. Hope I'm wrong.
> ...



That is good I hope for the best for you.


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## FrugalRefiner (Jun 10, 2015)

archeonist said:


> But we'll see what the melt of this nugget will bring tomorrow. Let's hope it will be a shiny button with a nice pipe, and hopfully not a buttun with a cracked icy surface and no pipe at all :roll:


Either ways, it's gold! Good job.

Dave


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## patnor1011 (Jun 11, 2015)

Cracked icy surface is a pipe too.


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## lanfear (Jun 11, 2015)

It looks like you have a picture of a small chubby boy i your gold  
To bad it was not madonna, you could have sold it for 3 times it's worth 8)


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## archeonist (Jun 11, 2015)

lanfear said:


> It looks like you have a picture of a small chubby boy i your gold
> To bad it was not madonna, you could have sold it for 3 times it's worth 8)



Haha, thats funny, I see it too. To bad the chubby boy is dissolving in AR as we speak 8)


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## archeonist (Jun 11, 2015)

patnor1011 said:


> Cracked icy surface is a pipe too.



What is the exact meaning of the word "pipe" patnor?
I'm dutch, so English is not my first language.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jun 11, 2015)

archeonist said:


> patnor1011 said:
> 
> 
> > Cracked icy surface is a pipe too.
> ...



The indention in the center of the button is known as a pipe.


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## archeonist (Jun 11, 2015)

Yes barren, I know that, but partnor says the cracked surface of a gold button is also known as a pipe, so I wondered what the word itself means


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## machiavelli976 (Jun 11, 2015)

Cracked icy surface is not the same with frozen-like surface. When you got the so called frosted surface , you won't see any pipe. That's the prove of serious contamination.

Instead, a cracked shiny surface with no pipe could be a sign of high purity gold.


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## patnor1011 (Jun 12, 2015)

machiavelli976 said:


> Cracked icy surface is not the same with frozen-like surface. When you got the so called frosted surface , you won't see any pipe. That's the prove of serious contamination.
> 
> Instead, a cracked shiny surface with no pipe could be a sign of high purity gold.



Exactly. Frozen like surface is something like on your avatar button, the one on bottom left corner. Contaminants like to present itself on surface when button is cooling, if you have to pickle your button and you see uneven not smooth surface.


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## Anonymous (Jun 12, 2015)

My avatar pic shows a deep pipe, cracked surface and fern patterns all of which can be linked to gold that's pretty clean. (I hope.) 8) 8)


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jun 12, 2015)

spaceships said:


> My avatar pic shows a deep pipe, cracked surface and fern patterns all of which can be linked to gold that's pretty clean. (I hope.) 8) 8)



Oh is that what that picture is of. I have been trying to figure out what that was. 8)


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 12, 2015)

Usually, in my experience, fern patterns indicated PGMs. When I got a fern pattern, I re-did the gold. Too low melting temperatures can produce ferns.


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## machiavelli976 (Jun 13, 2015)

spaceships said:


> My avatar pic shows a deep pipe, cracked surface and fern patterns all of which can be linked to gold that's pretty clean. (I hope.) 8) 8)



There's a cracking which looks like a mosaic of polygons or jigsaw puzzle and that one is always fern free . With or without any pipe , I guess that's the goal of refining.

Curved cracks goes usually with icy surfaces and weird flat bottom pipe if forming it occur.


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## Anonymous (Jun 13, 2015)

goldsilverpro said:


> Usually, in my experience, fern patterns indicated PGMs. When I got a fern pattern, I re-did the gold. Too low melting temperatures can produce ferns.



Oooh oooh thanks for that Chris! Glad I said "I hope!"


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## archeonist (Jun 13, 2015)

Well, the nugget I recovered from the cpu's is almost dissolved again. Before I drop the gold, is there anything I should do to improve the purity?


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## Geo (Jun 13, 2015)

Try the word "frosted" . A button with a frosted finish will be impure. Pipe is a cylinder, hollow tube. Though pipe (tubing) doesn't necessarily have to be round. It can be square, oval or almost any pattern as long as the piece is longer than it is wide and is hollow, it is a tube (pipe).


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## Geo (Jun 14, 2015)

Add a drop of sulfuric acid to drop any lead as lead sulfate. Dilute the volume of solution you have by roughly double using ice to chill the solution. After the ice has dissolved, filter the solution and shine an LED light through the solution to make sure all solids has been removed. If you can see the light beam, there is still solids floating around. Allow the solution to settle over night and draw the solution off of the sediment being careful not to suck up or otherwise disturb the sediment. Stop a little short of the bottom. This small bit of solution can be diluted and then re-settled to get even more pure solution off the top. The final bit can be added to your stock pot for later.


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## archeonist (Jun 14, 2015)

Geo said:


> Try the word "frosted" . A button with a frosted finish will be impure. Pipe is a cylinder, hollow tube. Though pipe (tubing) doesn't necessarily have to be round. It can be square, oval or almost any pattern as long as the piece is longer than it is wide and is hollow, it is a tube (pipe).



Thanks for the explanation, very clear!!


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## archeonist (Jun 14, 2015)

Geo said:


> Add a drop of sulfuric acid to drop any lead as lead sulfate. Dilute the volume of solution you have by roughly double using ice to chill the solution. After the ice has dissolved, filter the solution and shine an LED light through the solution to make sure all solids has been removed. If you can see the light beam, there is still solids floating around. Allow the solution to settle over night and draw the solution off of the sediment being careful not to suck up or otherwise disturb the sediment. Stop a little short of the bottom. This small bit of solution can be diluted and then re-settled to get even more pure solution off the top. The final bit can be added to your stock pot for later.



Thanks for the advice Geo! I did these steps already but I think I didn't cool the solution enough so not all impurities got out of solution.
Very interesting technique this recovering and refining. Parts of the theory behind it I will use in my chemistry lessons, I am a chemistry teacher.


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## machiavelli976 (Jun 14, 2015)

Don't play too much with the filter paper .

Fold it like a flower but don't re-size the bents if you somehow are not satisfied. If you insist ,too many cellulose fibers may loose and float into filtered solution. Yes , they might burn totally at melting but an ash is an ash and once trapped inside the gold powder , it doesn't mean automatically will float above liquid gold according to the laws of physics (density difference ).


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## archeonist (Jun 15, 2015)

machiavelli976 said:


> Don't play too much with the filter paper .
> 
> Fold it like a flower but don't re-size the bents if you somehow are not satisfied. If you insist ,too many cellulose fibers may loose and float into filtered solution. Yes , they might burn totally at melting but an ash is an ash and once trapped inside the gold powder , it doesn't mean automatically will float above liquid gold according to the laws of physics (density difference ).


 Yes thats correc,t and if you re-size the bent too much there is also a risk of tearing the filter paper.


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## archeonist (Jun 17, 2015)

i finally could clean my gold powder. Therefore I dissolved my gold nugget again, I added a few drops of sulphuric acid, and I diluted the solution with ice. 
After filtering I dropped the gold with smb. After a few washes I melted the gold using a bunsen burner, no mapp gas again. This time the gold melted totally and a beautyfully shiny surface was formed. The flame of a bunsen burner is a little bit to low in temperaturen to get a good round button, but I am very satisfied with the result. The button weighs 2.19 grams. And before the cleanup this was 2,23 grams. I still have some gold left that I recovered from my washes. I have dropped this gold too, and I estimate that it will be about 0.1 or 0.2 grams.


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## MarcoP (Jun 18, 2015)

Nice clean button, congrats!


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