# Telecommunication boards



## kjavanb123 (Mar 7, 2014)

All,

As I am waiting to recieve result from incinerating 2998 lbs (1360 kg) shredded circuit boards, I decided to disassemble 573 lbs (260 kg) telecommunication boards. This time I am going to track every single boards I disassemble into low grade ICs ( 2-sided legs), medium grade ICs (squared, 4-sided legs), and cermaic CPUs (gold plated), pins, copper, aluminum, and iron and put everything in an excel file, along with photos of each type and quantity of each precious metal containing items.

Telecomm board 1;



Telecomm board 2;



Telecomm board 3;



Here are what harvested so far;

CPUs;



Pins;



I will keep you posted.

Regards
Kj


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## necromancer (Mar 7, 2014)

very dirty boards, read this.



Examples of transmissible bird diseases associated with pigeons, geese, starling and house sparrows:

-- Histoplasmosis is a respiratory disease that may be fatal. It results from a fungus growing in dried bird droppings.

-- Candidiasis is a yeast or fungus infection spread by pigeons. The disease affects the skin, the mouth, the respiratory system, the intestines and the urogenital tract, especially the vagina. It is a growing problem for women, causing itching, pain and discharge.

-- Cryptococcosis is caused by yeast found in the intestinal tract of pigeons and starlings. The illness often begins as a pulmonary disease and may later affect the central nervous system. Since attics, cupolas, ledges, schools, offices, warehouses, mills, barns, park buildings, signs, etc. are typical roosting and nesting sites, the fungus is apt to found in these areas.

-- St. Louis Encephalitis, an inflammation of the nervous system, usually causes drowsiness, headache and fever. It may even result in paralysis, coma or death. St. Louis encephalitis occurs in all age groups, but is especially fatal to persons over age 60. The disease is spread by mosquitoes which have fed on infected house sparrow, pigeons and house finches carrying the Group B virus responsible for St. Louis encephalitis.

-- Salmonellosis often occurs as "food poisoning" and can be traced to pigeons, starlings and sparrows. The disease bacteria are found in bird droppings; dust from droppings can be sucked through ventilators and air conditioners, contaminating food and cooking surfaces in restaurants, homes and food processing plants.

-- E.coli. Cattle carry E. coli 0157:H7. When birds peck on cow manure, the E. coli go right through the birds and the bird droppings can land on or in a food or water supply.

Besides being direct carriers of disease, nuisance birds are frequently associated with over 50 kinds of ectoparasites, which can work their way throughout structures to infest and bite humans. About two-thirds of these pests may be detrimental to the general health and well-being of humans and domestic animals. The rest are considered nuisance or incidental pests. A few examples of ectoparasites include:

-- Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) may consume up to five times their own weight in blood drawn from hosts which include humans and some domestic animals. In any extreme condition, victims may become weak and anemic. Pigeons, starlings and house sparrows are known to carry bed bugs.

-- Chicken mites (Dermanyssus gallinae) are known carriers of encephalitis and may also cause fowl mite dermatitis and acariasis. While they subsist on blood drawn from a variety of birds, they may also attack humans. They have been found on pigeons, starlings and house sparrows.

-- Yellow mealworms (Tenebrio molitor), perhaps the most common beetle parasites of people in the United States, live in pigeon nests. It is found in grain or grain products, often winding up in breakfast cereals, and may cause intestinal canthariasis and hymenolespiasis.

-- West Nile Virus while West Nile is technically not transmitted to humans from birds, humans can get infected by the bite of a mosquito who has bitten an infected bird. The obvious lesson is that the fewer birds there are in any given area, the better. This translates into a smaller chance of an infected bird in that area, a smaller chance of a mosquito biting an infected bird and then biting a human.


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## kjavanb123 (Mar 20, 2014)

Disassembly of telecomm boards finished in 5 working days, 7 hrs a day with 2 labors, total weight was 260 kg (573lbs), recycled 600 grams (1.37lbs) gold cap CPUs, 16 lbs of gold plated pins including the plastic casings, some 2 lbs of tantalium caps and 22 lbs of low yield ICs, and 7.2 lbs of medium yield ICs. Will be processing them separately using different procedure and will post results, if this is economical then due to cheap labor costs here might be a method of recovery.


Here are some photos from couple days ago,



Pins and fully plated connectors



ICs



CPUs





Thanks and regards
Kj


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## g_axelsson (Mar 20, 2014)

Your tantalum capacitors contains a lot of aluminum electrolytes, polyester film capacitors, varistors and resistor networks.

Göran


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## Anonymous (Mar 20, 2014)

Reality check Kevin

7 days labour for 2 people to get those boards depopulated? That's a waste of money. You've just blown the extra money you would have gained from separating the components to that level.

Take out the ceramic procs as you just did, and trade the boards to a refinery. You'll already get a better return than standard PC or server boards so you're making a load of work for no real gain. Unless of course you need to keep people employed and busy?

It's really not worth it. I do this for a living please believe me.


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## kjavanb123 (Mar 20, 2014)

Spaceship,

The wage locally is roughly $12 per day, so total of $120 labour costs to depopluate these boards. I am still awaiting to receive my incinerated boards to follow GSP methods of producing refiner bars and pulp, as this was a testing to check out this route.
My objective is to be refiner, collect different boards and refine myself locally or send them out to copper smelter.

Goran,
The workers just disassembled whatever they thought could be Ta caps based on color, I have to sort it out yet.

Best regards,
Kj


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 5, 2014)

All,

Today I got the chance to strip gold from small percentage of pins scrapped from the telecomm boards using sodium cyanide.

Here are the photos,

Pins that were stripped of gold total weight 650 grams (1.43lbs)



During cyanide leaching, it took almost a minute



After gold was removed, all pins were inside a 35% hydrogen peroxide to clean from any cyanide



Checked the pH is 12 dropped gold with zinc until powder becomes gray and foams are white, after 3 hot water rinses I add water, then under fume hood, drop nitric in 25 ml and wait until no more reaction here is what the brown powder looked like after zinc removal



Then I added like 10 ml or so nitric to the hot above solution, and it turned to this very concentrate auric solution,




Two more pictures in my next post since there is only 5 to pictures per post.

Regards
Kj


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 5, 2014)

Continued from my previous post,

Auric solution diluted for SMB addition



Four spoon SMB addition to this solution



After half an hour solution turned clear with lovely brown powder settled at the bottom, rinsed it with hot water 3 times, then added ammonia, boilded, rinsed, then added hydrochloric acid and boiled, rinsed and let dry to b like the following



And the refined auric chloride powder ready to be added to stock to be combined with other parts gold and melted.



I like to thank GSP, and juan manuel for posting great stuff about using cyanide to strip gold from platd items.

Thanks
Kevin


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Apr 5, 2014)

Kevin:

GOOD JOB!!!!!...Congratulations!!!!!!.Have you melted that nice powder?.How many grams did you get?.

All members here in the Forum know that I was really scared about using cyanide process...until the day that Mr.Chris Owen,Great Master of our Brotherhood and worldwide known as GSP,took me under his wise guidance.So I put away fear and worked hard and I learned many many things.I keep working and studying on cyanide process.I am greatly indebted to GSP.

I want to say thanks to Harold_V,(The Genius of the Forum)who also taught me many things about cyanide process and thanks to 4 Metals who gave me many tricks about cyanide too.

Kindest regards.

Manuel


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 5, 2014)

Juan,

I couldnt agree more, those members are truly the gems in this forum learned so many things about using cyanide which is an amazing thing in the refining. 

I have not weighed the powder will have some updates tommorow along with AR leaching 3 lbs of CPUs recovered from some of these telecomm boards.

Thanks
Kj


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## Smack (Apr 6, 2014)

Looks good Kevin, good job.


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 6, 2014)

Thanks guys, the weight of dried and purfied gold powder is 2.4 grams that is from 1.4 lbs pins which picture is here.

The refined gold chlordie powder



Regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (Apr 6, 2014)

Mate well done. 

By the way, it's elemental gold powder not gold chloride powder.


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 8, 2014)

Today I re-refined the gold powder precipatee from the 3 lbs of ceramic CPUs removed from lot of telecomm boards and its weight in the picture is 9.4 grams, there is another guessing 3 grams also which it is drying now.
So 3lbs of CPUs shown in this post yielded almost 12.4 grams of purified gold powder.




Regards
Kj


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 8, 2014)

Good job, Kevin. You're becoming an excellent refiner. I'll try to give you a PM later in the week.

I would have to disagree with Goran on the capacitors. If the colors are right in the photo, those electrolytic capacitors on top look like tantalum ones to me. The Ta ones are grey colored and the Al ones are much more silvery. When you heft one of them, the Ta ones feel quite heavy and the Al ones feel very light. Hard to confuse them. They were quite popular in the early to mid 80's. Some had a Ta slug and some had a Ta mesh. At about the same time, there were a lot of silver/tantalum electrolytics that looked almost the same except they were much whiter and they had a green or red plastic plug on one end. The green ones ran about 25% Ag and the red ones 40%. They had a clear plastic coating on them. The can was Ag and the Ta was inside.

In the late 80's, early 90's, I owned a refinery. I was doing some jet engine scrap, film, and karat gold, but I was mainly doing electronics and the stuff that I got in was from the early to mid 80's. I saw about everything possible from that era. Probably the best lick I hit was when I scrapped out a 50's TV studio. The worst was all the electronics from a Navy submarine. Everything was yellow but the gold was quite thin. Very disappointing.

In general, electronics scrap from the 80's was very good, but 70's escrap was the best ever.


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## necromancer (Apr 8, 2014)

kjavanb123 said:


> 3lbs of CPUs shown in this post yielded almost 12.4 grams of purified gold powder.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Kj



has anyone else had results like this >> :?:


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 8, 2014)

Chris,

Thanks for your comment, I am indeed indebted to you and many others whose posts and excellent refining information has been my mentors in this processes.
I have posted a photo of my incinerated boards and designing a ball mill for it to mill to mesh 10. Your comments are greatly appeiciated.
Ta caps, your description is exact sir.

Best regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (Apr 9, 2014)

necromancer said:


> kjavanb123 said:
> 
> 
> > 3lbs of CPUs shown in this post yielded almost 12.4 grams of purified gold powder.
> ...



I've had some very good results with these chips but I've not had 12g from 3lbs. I've only had those results from DEC chips


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 9, 2014)

Actually make that weight to 13.5 grams of pure gold powder as I dried and weighed the last part of brown powder from the same CPUs batch. So far that batch has been the highest yield.

Regards
Kevin


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## necromancer (Apr 9, 2014)

kjavanb123 said:


> Actually make that weight to 13.5 grams of pure gold powder as I dried and weighed the last part of brown powder from the same CPUs batch. So far that batch has been the highest yield.
> 
> Regards
> Kevin




amazing !!


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## CBentre (Apr 10, 2014)

Very well done Kevin, glad to see the positive turnaround. I think you just added a few bricks to that empire.


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 10, 2014)

OTB

Thanks for your comments. Pins have not yielded much, but there was some gold fingers as following picture which I stripped with cyanide.

260g of gold fingers removed from telecomm boards,



In cyanide leach,



Fingers after being stripped,



Yield for this 260g fingers was 0.4g not so pure powder.


I will post results on silver recovered from digesting CPUs in AR.

Regards
Kj


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## Anonymous (Apr 10, 2014)

You're not likely to get a gold yield from non gold pins Kevin. Why didn't you separate those out before processing. They are clearly visible. 

Edit: Maybe that's the light so I'll apologise for that assumption. There is one thing I'd ask though. You're new to using AR and basic processes, what on earth possessed you to jump to cyanide processing when you haven't mastered the basics of the chemistry in the other processes? 

If you get this process wrong the way you messed up the equations and chemistry on the processors then you'll die. Plain and simple. Stop it now until you know what you're doing because right now you're a liability to yourself and anyone with you.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 10, 2014)

Kevin does just fine. He's been on here for 5 years and has always been active. He knows a lot more than you're giving him credit for. 

Kevin, those numbers on the fingers look quite low to me. You need a way to analyze the solution after zincing to make sure the gold is all out. There's a go-no go method in the Hoke book that takes a small amount of sample, acidifies it with HCl (under the hood), and then tests it with stannous chloride - I've never tried this. In my experience, though, zinc will not remove 100% of the gold. Every time I have checked it on an AA, around 1 to 4 ppm, or less, remained. That's not really enough to worry about, but it might show positive on the Hoke test. The best method for testing refining solutions is an AA (Atomic Absorption). You might find an old used analog one for a few $100. I actually prefer the analog ones. The digital ones are much more complicated. It's great to have a AA in a refinery - instant results. Personally, I wouldn't do without one. The only rub is that you need a lamp for each element and they run about $100 and up.

You might consider plating out the gold instead of using zinc. I can help you on this if you're interested.


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## Anonymous (Apr 10, 2014)

Fair enough GSP, but I'm sure you won't mind if we respectfully agree to differ mate.


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## skippy (Apr 10, 2014)

The member Arthur from Brazil would process cell phone board with a combination of depopulation, incineration, cyanide, etc as appropriate, and 
from a certain perspective, it would maybe make more sense to have them processed by a smelter, but who can say what local considerations may affect such decisions. As I recall Kevin is an Iranian national, and may not be able to do business at all with the western smelter. If he tried to have boards processed abroad, he might never see the money or boards again,

Kevin, very glad to see you doing well on this, and your determination is commendable. I know there has been a lot of naysaying on some of your approaches - a fair deal justified and warranted cautioning, and some maybe reflexive. It's no small task to do these things on the scale you have been working in a manner that maintains a safe and non toxic working environment. Be careful with the cyanide, and do what you can to look after your workers - dust control is important for the areas where these materials are disassembled. With all those conditions, you have my blessings!


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 11, 2014)

Skippy,
Thanks for your words of support on my ventures.

GSP,
Thanks a lot for your valuable information you have been sharing with all us, I would look into AA machine as I will need them to assay my future Dore bars.
Cyanide solution plating gold using 2 steel sheets connected to power supply? Please advise on detail.
Samuel also in one post mentions using steel wires to drop the gold.

Spaceship,
I have followed every safety instructions given by pro members here when handling cyanide and I truly find cyanide method very fast and reliable, and have stored a gallon of rinses and left over to be converted to a safer cyanate according to 4metals.

Regards
Kevin


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## nickvc (Apr 11, 2014)

Kevin just make sure you mark any containers of cyanide waste very well and be sure they are kept separate from your acid wastes and that any staff know the difference, maybe a locked storage area for any cyanide just to be sure.
I know cyanide works but it gives no second chances please be very careful especially around your staff if you continue to use it and keep it carefully contained and stored.


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## skyos (Apr 11, 2014)

HI, 

I read this few weeks ago, maybe can help .

Best regards


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 11, 2014)

Nickvc,

Thanks for your comments, I have put all my cyanide left over solution inside 5 liter buckets with tight seals, and tag them cyanide waste solution and kept separated. I will decompose them after I have completed my recovery from items, following 4metals posts.

After adding water to AR solution and collecting the white percipitant I turned them to silver oxide using lye method, however a very gray residue left which is not dissolving in neither ammonia or nitric acid, could this be tungsten? Since I processes ceramic CPUs, AR could have dissolved the tungesten in them and adding water precipitated its salt along with silver.

Regards
Kevin


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## nickvc (Apr 11, 2014)

Kevin I'm pleased to hear of your precautions and my warnings are a general one aimed at anyone reading this thread.


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## Anonymous (Apr 11, 2014)

Good luck Kevin.

Please take my comments as being genuinely worried for your health as opposed to anything else.


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 11, 2014)

Spaceship,

Your comments are greatly apperciated and accepted. I am going to dissolve the unknown gray precitpitants in AR to see if it dissolves, test for Tungsten.

Regards
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 14, 2014)

All,

I should thank GSP again for his valued posts, since I ran out of m-NBSS for the pins, I tried susbtitue peroxide per his instructions in his posts, he metnioned 2-3 oz of NaCN for every 2 gallons of hot water, then start with 30ml of 35% hydrogen peroxide, so I scaled it down to the following numbers since I was using 1 liter of tab water, here are the calculation for peroxide and cyanide salt:

Cyanide needed for 1 liter soultion = (1000 ml x 28.349g) / 3765 ml = 7.52 g, but I used 20g of NaCN. Then filled up a beaker to 25 ml of hydrogen peroxide, dissolved that amount of cyanide in one liter hot tab water, put the parts inside a bucket that has holes around it, and put them inside the beaker, then slowly dropped a few ml of peroxide and boom immidiately most of the gold was stripped, some of the pins still not stripped, so I shook the beaker and after 2 mins all pins were cleaned from gold.
Amazing, so I put the bucket in 2 rinses and combined all of them, to be processed tommorow keeping my fingers crossed for the result.

Here are some photos, first the pins removed from the telecomm boards that are being stripped,



After 3 mins in cyanide leach, and rinsed twice,



Here is rinses and main solution prior to combining them,



And combined solution ready for zinc addition tommorow, please note as the color of solution using peroxide and cyanide is diffent from using m-NBSS, the later one is more yellow to orange.



Your comments as always are very constructive.


Regards
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 16, 2014)

Update on my last post, processing 2kg of pins and their plastic casing, using sodium cyanide and hydrogen peroxide, here is the brown powder after zincnwas removed using nitric acid, results were not that good only 0.5g of pure gold powder,



Here is another batch of 6.660 kg of pins and their plastic casings, this time I used 3.4 liter of water added 120g of sodium cyanide and 50ml of peroxide, extraction was completed without any issues except for one part that gold plated back on the pins as black powder as you can see the following;



I put the filter papers and whatever gold I could squeeze every nano grams of gold from them, boiling in AR using minimal amount of nitric acid,



Ready for SMB addition



Gold plated back to the pins, as black powder,



Tommorow, I have to purify and weigh the gold powder produced from 6.6kg of pins and their casings, and come up with a creative idea to process the rest of pins that got coated with this black gold.

Regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (Apr 16, 2014)

Guys

Since cyanide processing appears to be openly discussed on the forum these days, do you think it would be appropriate for a decent thread/post to be put up from someone reputable such as GSP (sorry for stitching you up there but I know that you're utterly proficient at this) so that the membership sees the right way to do this if they choose to follow this path?

If it's now out in the open then at least we should ensure that it's done safely.

Jon


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## nickvc (Apr 16, 2014)

It's an old process with many advantages if you can source the chemicals, it has many dangers as only one mistake is deadly and it has many advantages as in it tends only to dissolve gold, silver and copper, used with proper care and with attention to detail it really is simple and easy, but.....
Not to sure how far I want to promote this process, there are no second chances, it will kill you if your sloppy or unaware, realising your mistake is usually to late!
Now we are discussing this process perhaps an A-Z maybe advisable but the problem is due to the fact that 40% of the population can't smell the stuff, careful and precise use of cyanide is a must, I repeat yet again there are no second chances....


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## necromancer (Apr 16, 2014)

nickvc said:


> It's an old process with many advantages if you can source the chemicals, it has many dangers as only one mistake is deadly and it has many advantages as in it tends only to dissolve gold, silver and copper, used with proper care and with attention to detail it really is simple and easy, but.....
> Not to sure how far I want to promote this process, there are no second chances, it will kill you if your sloppy or unaware, realising your mistake is usually to late!
> Now we are discussing this process perhaps an A-Z maybe advisable but the problem is due to the fact that 40% of the population can't smell the stuff, careful and precise use of cyanide is a must, I repeat yet again there are no second chances....




how many people will read through the whole thing ?

i dont think i would use cyanide, unless i had proper training first. maybe a cyanide training and safety thread and let users get the other info already posted

would think it would put a whole lot of burden on GSP to post this, you never know who will try this & where they will try this, let alone store the cyanide :!: 

no one wants to start seeing headlines on the news about "e scrapper poisons neighbourhood with cyanide cloud"


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## CBentre (Apr 16, 2014)

Probably not a good subject to be promoting even if proper procedures are followed.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 16, 2014)

Don't eat it!!! 
Don't mix it with acids unless you have a damned good fume hood!!! 
Learn how to treat the waste!!!

I've used it so much without incident that I believe it is safer than almost any other processes we use.

It is the miracle chemical for what we do.


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## necromancer (Apr 16, 2014)

goldsilverpro said:


> Don't eat it!!!
> Don't mix it with acids unless you have a damned good fume hood!!!
> Learn how to treat the waste!!!
> 
> ...



you are a* trained professional hydrometallurgist*, maybe a quick reminder for all the new people here about your education & experience in the industry.

or link to a previous post will do. 

some of us have read your posts about new trainees "being nervous around chemicals" and the outcome of there training. some of us have not


EDIT: added the word "hydrometallurgist" + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometallurgy


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 17, 2014)

I got all the info I needed for a safe cyanide processing by reading posts made by the master GSP, and it has been working out great. I vote for a single post with all related topics so if someone chooses the cyanide path it can be studied in one consolitated post.

I also got 5grams of pure gold powder processing 6.60 kg of pins, the weight includes the plastic covers.



Regards
Kj


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## kjavanb123 (Apr 29, 2014)

All,

Per instructions provided by GSP, I tried to process these transistors removed from telecomm boards so here is a stepby step with pictures;

1- The batch of transistors that were processed;



2- First added dilute 50% nitric acid to cover the materials and 2 inches on top of them, boiling;



3- After boiling for 20 minutes here is what it looked like;



4- Decanted, added fresh nitric acid and let it boil;



5- Decanted, there were some minor kovar left, so I added hcl and let boil, added small amount of nitric untill all gold foils dissolved;



I will have the yield tommorow

Thanks
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 4, 2014)

All 

These are incinerated ICs removed from telecomm boards, I only processed small amount to use Patnor methods, here is the picture show.

Incinerated ICs being crushed to fine powder;



Removing ferrous metals from the pile,



Fine powder left;



Ferrous metals after rinsing;



Non-ferrous portion rinsed clean,



I tried use panning for a small sample of fine powder, not so succesful so I dumped that into the beaker with non-ferrous metals, and added hcl put it on heat dropped few ml of nitric and added a pinch of hydrogen peroxide, to see the result tommrow.

Regards
Kevin


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## Geo (May 4, 2014)

kjavanb123 said:


> All,
> 
> Per instructions provided by GSP, I tried to process these transistors removed from telecomm boards so here is a stepby step with pictures;
> Thanks
> Kevin



kjavanb123, I just did a small batch of those myself. Mine was slightly more than a half kilo. I skipped the pre-wash and went straight to AR. Other than to remove tin, pre-washing is great for people that are unsure and inexperienced with AR. An experienced refiner can pretty much nuke just about anything in AR and recover the gold. Just don't expect the solution to be nice and clean and do expect to have to re-refine the gold recovered. By skipping the pre-washes it saves time to the finished product. Just remember that when using AR without pre-treating, ALL the metal has to be dissolved without exception. An excess of free nitric in this circumstance is not that bad and even helpful. Just be mindful that there will be excess nitric and know how to deal with it before starting. I use sulfamic acid dissolved in water. It works very well to dispel nitric from solution.


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## kjavanb123 (May 5, 2014)

Geo,

I couldnt get anything out of those transistors, had I used cyanide it wold have been a lot less mess to deal with, just had to cut the hat off or crack them open so cyanide could get to under the hat.

Regards
Kj


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

All,

I got 3 kg (6lbs) of Ta caps off of the telecomm boards, I read first they are incinenrated, but since I mixed them up during scrapping, I put all of them to incineration, is this a right move? Or should I sort them ceramic types, can types and etc?

Here is a batch of mixed types of Ta caps,



Here the same batch after incineration, I just let them turn white or powdery brown,



Here is a close shot of what remained after incineration, I believe those cylender items are Ta??



Now my plan for processing these would melt them all with excessive copper to make a copper anode, and use copper refining cell to recover copper and Tantalium in anode slime. Please advise.

Regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (May 10, 2014)

Kev

Tantalum melts at 3020 degrees celsius. We separate it and sell the caps on their own. 

Regards

Jon


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

All,

I also did a small batch of ICs which was scrapped off the telecomm boards, and after incineration to white color, powder them, used a magnet to remove all the ferrous, and separate the non-ferrous from the ash, panned the ash, got some gold, have not dissolved it in AR yet, but it looked really nice und the loop, I tried to melt non-ferrous using a cupola furnace but since I did not have the crusible, and borax it just turned to beads. Here are the picture show;

My cupola furnace,



Incinerated ash after copper wires were removed by nitric acid, spots with light brownish are gold wires,



A close up view of the light brownish spots in previous photo, it is all very tiny gold bonding wires,



Here came out cupola furnace, these were non-ferrous pieces separated from the ash, and ferrous ones, my plan for the whole batch is to melt the ferrous and non ferrous items all together with extra amount of copper to make a copper anode and use electrolysis to recover copper and if any gold bonding wires are trapped in them, it should be at the anode sludge,



More pictures when I am done with whole 26 lbs of materials

Regards
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

Spaceship,

I am aware of the melting temperature, this was just incineration, I am guessing tantalium would dissolve when melting with copper to make the copper anode.

Regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (May 10, 2014)

No problem, what kind of furnace are you looking to use to do this?


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

Spaceship,

My induction furnace is not ready yet, so I have to use this cupola furnace to melt the beads, I just need insulating materials to put on top of it to keep the heat inside.

Regards
Kevin


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## g_axelsson (May 10, 2014)

kjavanb123 said:


> All,
> 
> I got 3 kg (6lbs) of Ta caps off of the telecomm boards, I read first they are incinenrated, but since I mixed them up during scrapping, I put all of them to incineration, is this a right move? Or should I sort them ceramic types, can types and etc?
> 
> ...


There is a lot of random components mixed in that lot. The big blue one is a MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor), small blue rectangular looks like MLCC:s, elongated yellow ones, resistor arrays, ... and so on.


kjavanb123 said:


> Here the same batch after incineration, I just let them turn white or powdery brown,
> View attachment 1


Doesn't look like much Ta, incinerated tantalum capacitors leaves a black Ta pellet.


kjavanb123 said:


> Here is a close shot of what remained after incineration, I believe those cylender items are Ta??
> View attachment 3


That looks like a perfect shot of a resistor, the metal film wrapped around the ceramic base. No Ta there.


kjavanb123 said:


> Now my plan for processing these would melt them all with excessive copper to make a copper anode, and use copper refining cell to recover copper and Tantalium in anode slime. Please advise.
> 
> Regards
> Kevin


A large part of tantalum capacitors is made up of Ta oxide, that would not dissolve in molten copper and would end up in the slag. My prediction is that almost no tantalum would dissolve in copper at normal copper melting temperatures.
You have taken your scrap from easily sorted components into not so easily sorted incinerated mess, and if you would get any Ta into a copper alloy and electrolyzed it you would have it mixed up in a toxic mess instead. You are moving in the wrong direction.

Recommended reading for deeper understanding of tantalum capacitors : http://www.avx.com/docs/techinfo/bsctant.pdf
Security information : http://www.avx.com/docs/Catalogs/safety.pdf

Göran


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## kjavanb123 (May 10, 2014)

Goran,

There are a lot of Ta caps in this mix, but they are the ones removed at the beginning of scrapping, at near the end workers pretty much removed anything that resembled the yellowish Ta caps. So another sorting the 6lbs mixed batch is required to get the right Ta caps.

Regards
Kevin


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## Anonymous (May 10, 2014)

Kevin

Goran is talking sense here. You're making life more difficult than it needs to be.


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## kjavanb123 (May 11, 2014)

All,

As for Ta caps, due to my location is not worth to send them to the US buyer, so I will procees them at a later time. 

Back to ICs, I melted all non-ferrous metals separated from ash, into the following, so I can use electrolysis, and as suggested by Goran in other threat, use cyanide leach for the ferrous parts.

The empty crucible with added 1 part sodium carbonate, and 1 part borax,



Melted non-ferrous parts into an ingot,



Tomorrow will post photos of my copper refining cell in action.

Regards
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 11, 2014)

All,

This is just an idea, so please advise, after scrapping the items from this 100 lbs of telecomm boards, and incinerator company messed up my boards and dumped them in landfill after incineration, I was thinking the following system;

(Considering $12 per day for labors to disassemble boards manually)

1- Manually remove all the ICs, N/S bridges and fingers, CPUs, and pins
2- Manually remove Fe, steel, and Al as much as possible.
3- Grind the remain of boards to fine powder, assuming at that size, the copper embeded within the plastics is free, 
Use a blue bowl to spearate plastics, and metallics,
4- Use magnet to remove ferrous parts
5- Melt all non-ferrous into anode
6- Cyanide leach all gold plated items, along with ferrous parts in item 4.
7- copper refine electrolysis the anode produced at number 6.

Obviously, this is not a full scale, last time I did with 202kg telecomm boards, with 2 labors it took them 5.5 days to completely remove items from the boards, but left all MLCCs and boards.

Thanks
Kevin


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## Anonymous (May 11, 2014)

Kevin, why in the face of all the advice from experienced members are you still hell bent upon reducing everything you get to a pile of mixed metal?

There are professional IT recyclers on here ( and I include myself in that) who are saying to you that this isn't the best way yet you won't listen. 

Can I ask a couple of pertinent and valid questions please to clarify some points?

1. Is this a commercial venture -i.e. do you have plenty of cash to throw at it or is it a one man hobby venture? I ask for genuine clarity reasons and not for any other reason.
2. Do you have a refining licence and a sponsor over in the UAE? i.e. Are you doing this on the radar or off the radar? 

If it's a fully commercial venture with all the boxes ticked then you need to take a commercial view on it, instead of throwing mud at the wall and hoping some will stick. The basics need to be nailed on, and working soundly but at the moment it appears (at least to me) that it's a clusterbomb scenario with "flavour of the week" projects cropping up with random regularity.

Please please excuse my bluntness here however it's extremely hard to give any kind of sensible advice without being in full possession of the facts. Speaking for myself I could help an awful lot more if I knew.

This post is written with the best intentions in mind.

Regards

Jon


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## kjavanb123 (May 11, 2014)

Spaceship,

This is a commercial scale for me, and I read all about what pros do on large scales, but I cant trust this incineration company who has a permit to do ewaste, so I thought about using low wage locally to cherry pick, and since I am too far from boardsort and such, shred and grind the boards After Cherry picking, to use gravity separation blue bowl to remove plastics that can also be part of recoverable materials.
So maybe I should have rephrased my question to ask what is the size that boards need k be grinded till all copper foil embded in them liberated, and can blue bowl separate the foil copper and other non ferrous metals from this grinded boards?

Again, I am looking at this on commercial scale, maybe 3 or 4 tons of boards per month, taking advatnage of low wage labors locally, that separate things better so when it comes to electrolysis the anode would be a lot more copper and less junk.

Regards
Kevin


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## Geo (May 11, 2014)

Kevin, the quickest way to the finished gold is incineration, milling, washing, magnetic separation and melting the non-ferrous material into anode bars for a copper sulfate parting cell. All your PM's will be in the anode slimes.


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## kjavanb123 (May 12, 2014)

Geo,

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you on that processing methods, but for 4 tons of boards per month following advantages,

1- Assuming 20 working days in a month, 4 tons in a month means 200 kg of boards per day, each workers can scrap 50 kg of boards per day, 4 workers each $12 per day work, that is $48 everyday for labor costs, for 20 days that is $960.

2- Cyanide locally costs $20/kg ($10/lbs).

3- Acid costs is in range of $0.80 per kg ($0.40lbs).

But advantage in doing manual labor is process each components spearately, and my copper anode is going to contain mostly copper and traces of silver and palladium, as most of the gold containing parts were removed manually. If we I can grind them up to fine size, liberate the copper sheets, then I have the ABS plastics that can be sold in the market.

I am going to try this method with another 200 kg of mixed boards, and show results soon.

Regards,
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 13, 2014)

All,

After melting all nom-ferrous parts into an anode, I tried a very small cell, with the following setup, reference is a post by GSP,

1- Copper sulfate, the blue crystals, 120g
2- Tab water, 1000ml, boiled and already in the beaker
3- Added 15ml of hydrosufluric acid to the solution above
4- Cathode, stainless scrap from computer parts, size 8x9 sq.cm 
5- Since there should be 120A for every sq meters of cathod, I adjusted the ampers to 0.9A,

Here are result in picutre, I am sure something I did not do right that a lot of copper got deposited on anode, so please advise.

Here is the copper sulphate crystals I dissolved in 1 liter of tab water,



Electrolyt after addition of 15ml of hydrosulfuric acid to the above solution,



Cell as it started to run, there were some tiny particle of copper floating on top,



Stainless steel sheet cathod after few minutes,



Anode after half an hour running the cell,



This was my very first try with running a copper refining cell, so please go easy on me, Also i forgot to bag the anode.

Regards
Kevin


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## Geo (May 13, 2014)

Try using copper as the cathode and dont add sulfuric acid to the electrolyte.The sulfuric will dilute and attack the copper. Saturate the water with copper sulfate so that it will not absorb more copper.


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## butcher (May 14, 2014)

I suspect your power supply, or a problem with it.
I would check your power supply, to make sure it is DC (also use the AC scale of a volt meter to test it).
Even with a DC power supply, you could have AC if diodes were shorted.
A DC power supply can also have a ripple current(acting as AC), filter capacitors in the power supply can smooth the ripple current.


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## kjavanb123 (May 18, 2014)

All,

I did a small batch of ICs removed from telecomm boards. Incinerated first, just used a mortar pestel to grind part it, seieved it, and used the blue bowl to concentrate the ash. I noticed blue bowl does not work on ash, ashes need to be prepared by washing it, rinse it to another bucket, until water becomes clear. Make sure after adding water to ashes, swirl it then wait for few seconds until gold particles settled, then pour off the black water to another beaker until it is clear after addition of water. Please note to add a few drops of dish washing soap to it before rinsing.

The ashes,



Blue bowl in action, this is what happens when I dropped the ashes using small amount into bowl,



The concentrate after few minutes of runing the blue bowl,



Closer look at the concentrate,indicating bright yellow color fines,



Then I decided to smelt 7g sample from above concentrate with 10g borax, and 7g of copper in my cupola furnace, here is the result button,



More in the next post


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## kjavanb123 (May 18, 2014)

I dissolved the copper button produced by smelting concentrates from IC ash with copper in dilute nitric acid, 

The solution after copper button got dissolved in hot dilute nitric acid,



The residue after copper alloy is dissolved, I am going to incinerate it again and try the AR.



Since most of the gold bonding wires end up in the ashes, please advise if smelting the ashes using copper as collector metal, and equal volume of borax.

Thanks,
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (May 20, 2014)

All,

After I got my ball mill working. I had an idea for recovering most of the gold from ICs, the motor that runs my ball mill has two speeds, one is 3000rpm, and another is 450rpm, I was thinking after incineration and milling, separate non ferrous from ash and ferrous, as you can see in the picture below, some of the ferrous ones are gold plated, and gold in the ashes are so tiny, to mix the ash and ferrous section and put it in a sealed bucket, add sodium cyanide leach and peroxide to this mix and let it roll for few minutes so everything gold dissolves, then vaccume filter, drop the gold with zinc powder.
I know in mineral labs they have rolling bottle test for cyanide leach for minerals, please advise if similar applys to ICs ashes.
I can see a lot of losses using gravity separation ot water washes for the ashes.

Gold plated item in the separated ferrous pieces of the ICs ash,



Non-ferrous with partially melted to little buttons,



Thanks 
Kevin


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## macfixer01 (May 20, 2014)

Kevin,
I assume you must have meant your ball mill runs at either 300 RPM's (not 3000) or 450 RPM's? There are certain optimal parameters for each ball mill such as the speed, and the proportion of grinding media to the item being ground. The best rotational speed depends on a lot of things such as the jar diameter, the total weight of the contents, the size and type of grinding media, and so on. Running it too fast does no good since the centrifugal force would just hold everything against the sides and no tumbling action or grinding would occur. Of course the inside shape of the jar figures into this as well.

Macfixer01


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## macfixer01 (May 21, 2014)

macfixer01 said:


> Kevin,
> I assume you must have meant your ball mill runs at either 300 RPM's (not 3000) or 450 RPM's? There are certain optimal parameters for each ball mill such as the speed, and the proportion of grinding media to the item being ground. The best rotational speed depends on a lot of things such as the jar diameter, the total weight of the contents, the size and type of grinding media, and so on. Running it too fast does no good since the centrifugal force would just hold everything against the sides and no tumbling action or grinding would occur. Of course the inside shape of the jar figures into this as well.
> 
> Macfixer01




In response to a PM and just to clarify... I do realize he's talking about the motor speed and not the final barrel speed which would be slower, perhaps only 100 RPM's or less. I'm just saying that while a dual-speed AC motor capable of running both 3250 or 1725 RPM's is quite common, that to find one offering native speeds of both 3000 and 450 RPM's is unheard of in my experience.


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## kjavanb123 (May 21, 2014)

Macfixer,

I meant to use the 450rpm motor to make the mill roll slower, then cyanide leach the ashes and magnetit parts. The rotation makes it easier for cyanide to extract all the PMs.

Regards
Kevin


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## ashir (Feb 23, 2019)

how traise or lower the H of cyanide solution? 
if 
sodium cyanide dissolved in tap water with hydrogen peroxide!?


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## kjavanb123 (Feb 23, 2019)

ashir said:


> how traise or lower the H of cyanide solution?
> if
> sodium cyanide dissolved in tap water with hydrogen peroxide!?



Please don't do anything with cyanide yet, meantime read posts by GoldSilverPro in his search.

If you read the first page of this threat you can see an example of use of cyanide on gold plated. You


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## ashir (Feb 23, 2019)

thanks kj, i read goldandsilver's post ,
i am not going to use cyanidation, i was asking about pH for knowledge! i am fan of iodine/iodide leaching. cyanide is "you have last chance" every time! 
i was looking for some posts on iodine leaching with complete mathod to prepare the solution
and reget the iodine from solution. percipating gold from iodine solution! many post but all keep thier secrets!


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## anachronism (Feb 23, 2019)

ashir said:


> thanks kj, i read goldandsilver's post ,
> i am not going to use cyanidation, i was asking about pH for knowledge! i am fan of iodine/iodide leaching. cyanide is "you have last chance" every time!
> i was looking for some posts on iodine leaching with complete mathod to prepare the solution
> and reget the iodine from solution. percipating gold from iodine solution! many post but all keep thier secrets!



You're not looking at this the right way. 

Firstly cyanide leaching is not as dangerous as people make out IF you understand what you are doing. Now that's a big IF. Understanding the chemistry behind it and the risks is based upon knowledge, and knowing those things comes from a good understanding. The fear instilled in people is warranted but given how many people would be risky with hot water, I'm not surprised how few experienced people will share.

If you're coming here to learn a process like Iodine/Iodide leaching, which is a great process then you need to read the posts and ask the people who made them and see if they will help. Remember though that it's not risk free, and you will need to be set up to deal with waste.

Please don't expect that you'll get a straightforward line by line "how to" roadmap straight from the get go. You need to establish relationships, and not many people are going to just spoon feed you.

Jon


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## ashir (Feb 23, 2019)

thanks anachronism
i ask iodine related question in cyanide , because kj did a reply and i want ask him more out of a topic, 
cyanide will not dangrous for me may be but i am trying to keep safe people around me! as i am not using any dangrous stuff like cyanide! 
i will try it but untill i not understand it, i can not proceed! 
i am feeling in iodine leaching post that every professional is hiding a same logic in thier answers and post, though some are very clear, but with same secrets. well i am have bookmarked at least 13 posts about iodine leaching, reading and reading, after that i will must try cyanide. as i have 100 g sodium cyanide to test , but i never try this because it need more time to learn! 
thanks to mention one reality , no way to go straight to the way in jesy few lines!


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