# Gold Recovery Computer Scrap Complete Process - VIDEO



## kadriver (Sep 13, 2015)

Here is a new video that I just completed.

It took just over 24 hours from start to finish.

Computer scrap is something I don't mess with much because it is so low yielding.

But making this video was fun.

Any comments and critique are always welcome.

The only way that I was able to make this was due to the help and encouragement that I received on this forum.

https://youtu.be/2sZUAprS5KI

Thanks for looking,

kadriver


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## glorycloud (Sep 13, 2015)

Interesting! I learned some things that will help streamline the process I use to do the same thing and reduce
the volume of waste solution as well. I enjoyed watching the video! 8) 
Thanks!


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## Shark (Sep 13, 2015)

Great video and I enjoyed watching it. I also picked up a few small things. I will be watching it again, probably several times as I have quite a problem getting my filters folded as neatly as yours.


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## Mikestaf35 (Sep 14, 2015)

Hi and thank you kadriver for you video very informative, but can I ask a few questions again sorry I am a newbie and just trying to learn.
You mention your stock pot, full of copper to cement out the precious metals from the waste, how does this work and can you reuse the ap solution again ?

You rinse the gold flakes with hydrochloric acid what does this do?

Is there a specific amount of sodium metabisulfite to add

What do you add to the gold and the filter and what does it do when smelting and does it alter the purity of the gold

What does the molten borax do

Thank you again


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## kadriver (Sep 15, 2015)

Mikestaf35 said:


> Hi and thank you kadriver for you video very informative, but can I ask a few questions again sorry I am a newbie and just trying to learn.
> You mention your stock pot, full of copper to cement out the precious metals from the waste, how does this work and can you reuse the ap solution again ?
> 
> You rinse the gold flakes with hydrochloric acid what does this do?
> ...



Hello, welcome to the forum

I just posted a new video showing my stock pot, its in this forum - tutorials - entitled "The Stock Pot"

click here - it's at the very end of the thread: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=21273

I put all my gold refining wastes into my stock pot.

If there are trace amounts of platinum group metals then they will cement out onto the copper in the stock pot and accumulate there, instead of trying to precipitate 1/10 gram of platinum that happened to be in with my gold, I let the stock pot do it for me.

I do jewelers waste and there is always some platinum and palladium there, but too little to recover and refine. The stock pot gets it for me.

I think you can re-use the AP, but my AP solution was brown and loaded with junk, and there was so little of it that I just added to my stock pot.

The HCl rinse will remove some contaminants that water wont (not sure what they are) so just to be safe I rinsed the foils with HCl.

If you are good at chemistry then you can calculate the amount of SMB needed per the amount of gold you expect. I have NO chemistry training at all, so I just add until the solution looks barren (all the color is gone) or until the foam (if present) turns white instead of yellow.

In this video I added some borax out of the box during the melt. As it melts it holds the paper in the dish so i can completely burn the paper until it completely disappears. The paper has tiny bits of gold and they could fly out of the dish from the force of the flame impinging on it. The molten borax glues the paper in the dish so I can burn it and keep those tiny balls of gold in with the main melt.

The paper does not affect the purity or the appearance of the resulting gold - it completely disappears in the melt. My gold, melted in this way, always assays 999. Plus the bars look beautiful.

Hope this helps

kadriver


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## Grelko (Sep 15, 2015)

That was one of the best videos for processing fingers that I''ve seen, thank you for making it.


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## goldenchild (Sep 16, 2015)

It's almost saddening when these videos are finished because of how well they are produced. They leave you wanting more. kadriver, have you ever heated the solution containing the filters with foils in them? When I used to do it similarly to this I would heat the gold bearing solution disintegrating the filter papers. It would work so well that when hot you couldn't even see the paper in solution. Then when it cooled a small amount of pulp would collect at the bottom. This makes filtering super easy as the pulp will make a nice cake and is very easy to flush the gold bearing solution out of. I used a Buchner funnel with vacuum so it would leave behind a nice white cake of filter paper pulp. It also ensures that any oxidizing agent used would be driven off while heating. I did it this way for speed's sake. It's especially handy when you don't want to make precise measurements of chemicals as you did in the video.

Also, again this is with speed in mind, have you ever gone straight to AR with fingers? I find that it produces much less waste and ensures you get 100% of the foils in the first run. The end solution will be a thick black solution that needs to be thinned out. To achieve this you can simply add some concentrated peroxide to the solution making it a nice crystal clear (green) color. Then once the peroxide is driven off you can ppt the gold. This of course will be a dirtier gold but a second refining will clean it right up.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Sep 16, 2015)

goldenchild said:


> It's almost saddening when these videos are finished because of how well they are produced. They leave you wanting more. kadriver, have you ever heated the solution containing the filters with foils in them? When I used to do it similarly to this I would heat the gold bearing solution disintegrating the filter papers. It would work so well that when hot you couldn't even see the paper in solution. Then when it cooled a small amount of pulp would collect at the bottom. This makes filtering super easy as the pulp will make a nice cake and is very easy to flush the gold bearing solution out of. I used a Buchner funnel with vacuum so it would leave behind a nice white cake of filter paper pulp. It also ensures that any oxidizing agent used would be driven off while heating. I did it this way for speed's sake. It's especially handy when you don't want to make precise measurements of chemicals as you did in the video.
> 
> Also, again this is with speed in mind, have you ever gone straight to AR with fingers? I find that it produces much less waste and ensures you get 100% of the foils in the first run. The end solution will be a thick black solution that needs to be thinned out. To achieve this you can simply add some concentrated peroxide to the solution making it a nice crystal clear (green) color. Then once the peroxide is driven off you can ppt the gold. This of course will be a dirtier gold but a second refining will clean it right up.



This is true, but if you use copperas for your first drop the gold is not as dirty and one might think.


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## goldenchild (Sep 16, 2015)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> This is true, but if you use copperas for your first drop the gold is not as dirty and one might think.



Interesting! I've not worked with copperas almost at all. I've actually only every used it to drop elemental silver from silver chloride. What is the gold's consistency using copperas on a dirty solution? A bit more cohesive I take it. I'll definitely give this a go the next time I ppt a very dirty solution.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Sep 16, 2015)

goldenchild said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
> 
> 
> > This is true, but if you use copperas for your first drop the gold is not as dirty and one might think.
> ...



Actually pretty good. A lot less tendency to drop contaminants then SMB does on the first drop. IMHO as far as I have found.


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## Shark (Sep 16, 2015)

I recently tried copperas on a very dirty solution. I was very impressed. I knew there should have been at least 1 gram of gold and nearly as much in copper. In the past, I would get a very fine drop of nearly black powder, this time it came down as clean looking as my second refine normally does. In the past, I had the solution go clear after adding the smb, and with the copperas it kept that greenish look, similar to copper chloride. With the copperas, the powders were a paler brown, and when tilted, they moved around in the container as a group, no chasing stray, ultra fine particles from that process. One other plus for me is I can get 5 pounds of copperas here for the price of one pound of SMB. I think I am going to really like using copperas for the first drop and SMB for the second. I have some oxalic acid as well, and one day hope to try it, it should at least be an interesting experiment.


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## MarcoP (Sep 17, 2015)

Yes Shark, when the main contaminant is copper, Copperas works better then SMB, Hoke and many posts says that so I did make sure to find, learn how to make and store Ferrous Sulfate.

Marco


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## kurtak (Sep 17, 2015)

And its another job Very Well Done kadriver 8) 8) 8) 

Your videos are absolutely awesome :!: 

There should be a single post in the Library that provides links to all of your videos :mrgreen: (hint, hint) titled "Links To Videos By kadriver" 8) 

Kurt


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## g_axelsson (Sep 17, 2015)

Seriously, the old economics argument comes up for copperas versus SMB...

We are talking about dropping hundreds of thousands dollars worth of gold and the price of a few pounds of copperas or SMB is taken into regards?

After dropping that pound of gold with copperas, how much of the remaining four pounds is still fresh? If it's gone bad then the price per pound of usable copperas would end up at the same level as SMB which is easily stored.

How about purity? If you use a product that adds impurities to your gold then you works against the goal of producing a pure product. Personally I'm using food grade SMB for my refining.

The decision of which precipitant to use for gold should not be based on a few dollars saved because that is short sighted. Ease of use, speed, quality of the gold precipitate, which contaminants is eliminated and so on, that is what the decision should be based on.

Sorry about going onto a rant, but I have heard that argument one time too often... often from someone that is saving a few dollars if they buy a 25 pound bag of copperas... :shock: 

:mrgreen: 

Göran


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## MarcoP (Sep 17, 2015)

I agree with you Göran, personally I would choose SMB or Copperas based on the contaminants dissolved, not the price. I had good results using Oxalic acid at the end. I have all three of them and I would use them looking at their characteristics, not their price tag.

Marco


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## Barren Realms 007 (Sep 17, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> Seriously, the old economics argument comes up for copperas versus SMB...
> 
> We are talking about dropping hundreds of thousands dollars worth of gold and the price of a few pounds of copperas or SMB is taken into regards?
> 
> ...



Well first off if you are dropping hundreds of thousand of dollars worth of gold chances are you are probably not using SMB or copperas you are using bottled SO2 gas. so that statement is a mute point IMHO.

The second thing is that if you learn to use copperas the correct way it is not for savings of cost it is because of the type of drop and the quality of gold you drop and have to work with after the drop.

If you learn to use copperas in the correct way cost is not a factor. 

If you learn to use copperas in it's correct way you will come to find out that it does not add enough contaminants to cause any problems.

Copperas can be mixed up. let it settle, filter and stored for periods of time and still be very effective for a recovery method.

If used correctly ( and this comes from experience ) it does not introduce contaminants if used correctly.

As a moderator of the forum I feel you are looking at this aspect of a recovery method with blinders on and don"t feel you are providing the proper service of the members in your guidance and your statements of the use of copperas.

Now not to take any respect away from you as a moderator lets put the cards on the table how much gold have you actually refined.

I've got a lot respect for you because of your grasp of the processes. And don't think I don't take that into consideration from this post.

My first drops are with copperas followed by a second refine with SMB used and seldom to I come under .9995. I'll produce the sales tickets if you need proof.

No offence but I generally keep quiet but you struck a nerve with me in your statement since I'm probably the biggest supporter of the use of coppers as a home refiner.


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## Shark (Sep 18, 2015)

Normally I would leave those comments alone, but I feel I am having words put in my mouth this time. Please go back and read what I posted. I made no mention of using copperas because they are cheaper, I did refer to the price as an additional plus. I made mention of my observations, and how I felt it would help me with later recoveries. I also thought it could be a bit useful in answering the question here. 



goldenchild said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
> 
> 
> > This is true, but if you use copperas for your first drop the gold is not as dirty and one might think.
> ...




I would also like to apologize to kadriver for hijacking his very useful thread.


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## g_axelsson (Sep 18, 2015)

Barren, I don't think there are any differences in our views here. I fully agree with you here. If you choose to use copperas it should be on other merits than price.

I'm glad you posted, I hope my position as a moderator on this board isn't keeping people from pointing out my mistakes and in the same way I hope that I'm allowed to make a mistake once in a while. I'm only a moderator when it comes to cleaning out spammers and keep the peace on the forum.

I'm not a very experienced refiner, that I fully agrees with and I haven't tested copperas yet. My refining is a bit restricted as I need to work outside and the short summer here makes that a short season. I'm working on getting a place where I can work all year around but I'm not there yet and I had a major setback yesterday.

Shark, I'm sorry if it looks like I put words into your mouth. That was not my intention and I didn't want to single you out. The only thing you said was that copperas is cheaper, and it is. Another pro is that we can make it ourselves from sulfuric acid and some old iron nails.
I have read all of the forum and over the years I've seen a lot of small time refiners making the argument that "SMB is so expensive but if I buy this 25 pound bag of copperas I get it for just a bit more than two pounds of SMB".
I apology if I made it look like I was attacking your post. The gist of my post was meant to be that we should be aware of the values we are working with here and it could be a bad decision to let a few dollars saved on equipment and chemicals affect our refining where the content in our beaker could easily run into thousands of dollars.

I'm actually more interested to test copperas after reading this thread, mostly the statement about a good drop from dirty solutions. That is one thing I sometimes have problems with, after SMB the gold comes down as a fine black silt that almost never settles.

Now back to the discussion about kadrivers video. 8) 

Göran


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## Barren Realms 007 (Sep 18, 2015)

g_axelsson said:


> Barren, I don't think there are any differences in our views here. I fully agree with you here. If you choose to use copperas it should be on other merits than price.
> 
> I'm glad you posted, I hope my position as a moderator on this board isn't keeping people from pointing out my mistakes and in the same way I hope that I'm allowed to make a mistake once in a while. I'm only a moderator when it comes to cleaning out spammers and keep the peace on the forum.
> 
> ...



Hey were all good. Copperas will stop those black drops.


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## Shark (Sep 18, 2015)

> I'm actually more interested to test copperas after reading this thread, mostly the statement about a good drop from dirty solutions. That is one thing I sometimes have problems with, after SMB the gold comes down as a fine black silt that almost never settles.




Another thing I was impressed by was the speed with which the powders settled in this batch. I have ran this process several times and dropped it with smb, and it always took at least overnight to settle out, and always very dirty. With the copperas I was shocked at the speed with which it settled out, and how much cleaner it appeared to be. I know this may not be a surprise for most here, but as new as I am at recovering and refining, it was a major break through for me, and has made a world of difference in time as well as quality for my efforts. 

OK, back to kadrivers video, I am still having problems folding a neat filter that well,  .


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## FrugalRefiner (Sep 18, 2015)

Shark said:


> OK, back to kadrivers video, I am still having problems folding a neat filter that well,  .


I have to agree, I've never seen anyone fold a filter paper as quickly as he did. I'll be watching that a few more times to see just how he did that!

Dave


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## Barren Realms 007 (Sep 18, 2015)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Shark said:
> 
> 
> > OK, back to kadrivers video, I am still having problems folding a neat filter that well,  .
> ...



Experience.  

Nothing beats it. :lol:


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## kurtak (Sep 19, 2015)

Shark said:


> > I'm actually more interested to test copperas after reading this thread, mostly the statement about a good drop from dirty solutions. That is one thing I sometimes have problems with, after SMB the gold comes down as a fine black silt that almost never settles.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Correct :!: 

Butcher has posted much about the benefits of using copperas :!: 

try it you will like it :mrgreen: 

Kurt


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