# Ceramic Cpu's



## goaldspektre (Oct 29, 2011)

Having a problem doing an HCl/peroxide dissolve with 25 lbs of ceramics.It seems that one of the metals in kovar is plating to all the gold surfaces and won't dissolve.I was thinking maybe the iron in kovar is causing the nickle to cement to the gold surfaces?Anyone else ever had this problem?Also the HCl is dissolving the ceramics and may be using up the acid before it can work on the metals?


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## samuel-a (Oct 29, 2011)

Ceramics are impervious to mineral acids and bases with only few exceptions.

Have you tried heating the AP solution?


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## patnor1011 (Oct 29, 2011)

How long do you have them in solution? AP can take days to dissolve pins in CPU. I think he is observing what I saw too. When you put CPU in solution after some while pins appears to be rusty or covered with something. All it takes is just wait some time as I did. At the end I had nice golden hollow foils.


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## Geo (Oct 29, 2011)

the tin in the solder dissolves first because it is lower on the reactivity scale, then it plates back out onto the gold making it look like that.


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## goaldspektre (Oct 29, 2011)

It's been 2 months and the ceramics aren't impervious!


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## Geo (Oct 29, 2011)

i just processed a little over a pound of ceramic IC packages in poor mans AR and it worked fantastic,this will be the process i use for IC's and cpu's from now on.


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## qst42know (Oct 29, 2011)

AP is best for copper alloys and it can be rejuvenated. 

Iron from kovar possibly saturated your solution and depleted the ability to dissolve more. 

Test with stannous then replace the acid. 

Are you using heat?

And. Double check the definition of impervious.


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## goaldspektre (Oct 29, 2011)

I've used heat to no avail,perhaps it's time for nitric.


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## Dr. Poe (Oct 29, 2011)

A metal that plates to the surface of gold without the aid of a dc current? Sounds like osmium or iridium.


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## samuel-a (Oct 30, 2011)

goaldspektre said:


> It's been 2 months and the ceramics aren't impervious!




Well.. now you owe us a picture. :shock: 
And better explain what you are processing and how...


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## Harold_V (Oct 30, 2011)

Dr. Poe said:


> A metal that plates to the surface of gold without the aid of a dc current? Sounds like osmium or iridium.


I was scratching my head with that comment, too. Makes me wonder if, maybe, gold is being dissolved and the surface witnessed is what's beneath the gold? 

If that's the case, can't imagine why the gold remains in solution with base metal present. 

A real mystery :!: 

Harold


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## patnor1011 (Oct 30, 2011)

He is processing 25 pounds. 
How much of HCl did you use to make AP? Maybe it is really acid saturation. I never had a problem but I have used (and reused) about 5-6 litres of AP dissolving less than a kilo of them at a time.


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## goaldspektre (Oct 30, 2011)

Well 42know I looked up smart ass remarks and there was a picture of you right there in the dictionary.Do not ever try to give me a lesson in English!I know what impervious means .That said it's 6 lbs of 496's ,8lbs of Cyrix and 11lbs of Pentium MMX etc...


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## goaldspektre (Oct 30, 2011)

Same here Patnor , I have no idea why this is happening.Done this process before and had no problems?


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## Palladium (Oct 30, 2011)

So if he was being a smart ass being one in return makes your behavior any different in what way?

Think i'll leave this one to Harold.


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## Harold_V (Oct 30, 2011)

goaldspektre said:


> Well 42know I looked up smart ass remarks and there was a picture of you right there in the dictionary.Do not ever try to give me a lesson in English!I know what impervious means .That said it's 6 lbs of 496's ,8lbs of Cyrix and 11lbs of Pentium MMX etc...


Your comment is not acceptable on this forum. I advise you to retract your statement. 

If you can't say something positive, with manners, don't post. 

Do not escalate. It will be expensive if you do. 

Harold


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## samuel-a (Oct 30, 2011)

We were all trying to help you...
I guess we'll stop now... i know i will.

Good luck solving your own problems.


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## qst42know (Oct 30, 2011)

Dr. Poe said:


> A metal that plates to the surface of gold without the aid of a dc current? Sounds like osmium or iridium.



He has reached the saturation point of his acid without dissolving all the iron in the kovar alloy. Any metals that were briefly in solution (nickel, cobalt and a trace of gold) are cementing to the remaining iron, but I don't expect ceramic CPU's contain any platinum group metals.

AP is a copper chloride process efficient on fingers but is a slow troublesome choice for iron alloys.


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## goaldspektre (Oct 30, 2011)

I agree,i'm pretty sure the iron is causing the other base metals to cement out of the solution as well.No harm no foul on my comment,my apologies.


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## goaldspektre (Dec 1, 2011)

Finally refined the lot and got 21 grams gold.I figured out it was silver cementing to the remaining iron(thanks quest , it made me think) I incinerated the lot and used nitric on the remaining pins and foils, after that I dissolved in AR and dropped the gold with smb.I re-refined the powder with hcl-cl and did the washes as per Harolds instructions.Now to do the lids in my sulphuric cell


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## qst42know (Dec 1, 2011)

> I figured out it was silver cementing to the remaining iron



Silver in ceramic CPUs? 

Which CPUs have silver?

And how did you determine it was silver?


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## goaldspektre (Dec 1, 2011)

Unfortunately I dissolved all the processors together to eliminate base metals.So I'm unsure which had silver content.When filtering though I noticed the filter was turning purple under my shoplight.I dissolved all the sediment in the filter with nitric again and cemented with copper plate.Not much silver but it still made processing harder.


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## qst42know (Dec 1, 2011)

HCL peroxide to start with. Silver chloride dosen't then dissolve in nitric. 

Something dosen't sound right to me. 

Coloidal gold perhaps? 

Any tin solder on your CPUs?


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## goaldspektre (Dec 1, 2011)

I'm sure there was a lot of sn/au solder in the Cyrix cpus . All I know is it's a nitric dissolve of base metals from here on in because of the hcl/ap process making toomany problems!


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## butcher (Dec 2, 2011)

Tin and lead troubles will follow you around; you need to know how to deal with these in whatever process you use with electronic waste.
See what Hoke's book teaches.


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## goaldspektre (Dec 2, 2011)

I've read it all but the amount of metals in E-waste seem to complicate all the methods in Hokes' teachings .


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## Harold_V (Dec 2, 2011)

goaldspektre said:


> I've read it all but the amount of metals in E-waste seem to complicate all the methods in Hokes' teachings .


The basic processes still work, you just have more "garbage" to address. So long as you limit the amount of tin (solder) from the material you process, it shouldn't present too much of a problem. If you do encounter a mess you can't handle, incineration followed by a digest in HCl will often eliminate much of the problem. 

In my limited experiences with escrap, what I found to be the most trouble was filtration of the gold chloride. I found that to be a common issue with gold filled objects, too, such as a large number of eye glass frames. I used incineration and the HCl wash I spoke of, routinely, which totally eliminated any issues with filtration. 

Harold


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## butcher (Dec 2, 2011)

goaldspektre.

How are the members getting pure gold, and other valuable metals from electronic waste?

Studying Hoke's book, and learning to deal with all of these metals.

Studying the forum, and following Harold's, GSP, Laser Steve, and the other members advice.

Doing the homework needed.

And practice.

You have not read enough yet, keep reading till the light comes on.


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## qst42know (Dec 2, 2011)

Nitric added to a filter from a chloride solution, makes Aqua Regia.

Test this solution for disolved gold, not silver.


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## glorycloud (Dec 2, 2011)

Unless I am missing something, no one here recommends processing
ceramic CPUs with HCL / peroxide. Most here use nitric acid or poor
mans AR to FIRST dissolve the base metals. Then after washing with
water or incinerating to rid the cpus of the nitric acid, they will possibly
use HCL / peroxide to dissolve the gold into solution.

I have done this method and I know it works. Trying to dissolve the
gold AND everything else with it before eliminating the base metals will
only lead to problems. 

Just my two cents worth. I hope you're not impervious to suggestions. 8)


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## goaldspektre (Dec 2, 2011)

Agreed Glorycloud, I wanted to try it.Big mistake and am sticking to nitric from here on in.


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## qst42know (Dec 2, 2011)

> Then after washing with
> water or incinerating to rid the cpus of the nitric acid, they will possibly
> use HCL / peroxide to dissolve the gold into solution.



As I recall acid peroxide doesn't respond well to precipitation with SMB, neither is it a first choice for base metals containing iron. Iron in AP is not self perpetuated with air in the same way that copper is. With copper base metals you continue using it until saturated or cement with copper.


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## johnny309 (Dec 6, 2011)

Just a thoght....Ap process....and CPU....mainly kovar pins plated with gold.....where is the copper?
A HCl boil was best suitted for the process.


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## Anonymous (Dec 7, 2011)

goaldspektre said:


> Finally refined the lot and got 21 grams gold.


This does not sound close to accurate.You mentioned Kovar earlier,was all 25 pounds ceramic?Or did you have pentium 2's and 3's in there?If they were all ceramic,then you did not recover all of the gold.


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## goaldspektre (Dec 9, 2011)

They were all ceramic , I haven't processed the lids yet.


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## glondor (Dec 9, 2011)

MY thoughts as well Mic. I thought it was low as well. even taking the lids into account.


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