# Sources of Precious metal



## hoardpm (Apr 1, 2009)

I am new to refining gold and other precious metals. I am trying to learn all I can about the chemistry of extracting the metals before I attempt to give it a go. God, I wished I payed more attention in Chemistry class when I was in school Anyhow, to my questions... Can gold be extracted from gold ore slag? If so, is it worth the time and is the process any diffrent from extracting gold from a circut board? Also, on a circut board... I see several small capasitors and diodes. Is there any precious metal in them or should I discard them? And finally...I have been told that after stripping the board I should soak the whole board in Nitric Acid because there is silver in all the solder.


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## butcher (Apr 3, 2009)

solder would not be worth the nitric even if they did use silver in it, most solders used lead tin, the gold slag is this from a mining operation, usually they would get the gold out of slag, and slag would be glass type stuff they discarded as not value,if you think there is gold you can assay it. circuit board best processed by removing valuble parts and processing them, capacitors and diodes have value to hobbiest, diodes are siklicone some glass germanium types, capacitors come in many flavors, electrolytics can have value ti electronic hobbiest, refining you want monolythic for PGM, and some older types were high in silver, some tantalum types, hoardpm youll get more information reading through the posts, bet youll find a gold mine in them, good luck.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Apr 3, 2009)

Hoardpm:

Do not worry too much about Chemistry...as stimulus you have to know that Harold_V,The Genius of the Forum in my opinion,has no formal studies in Chemistry , he has posted more than 2476 posts,he is an open book and a source of wisdom.Look carefully at his teaching.

Regards.

Manuel


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## hoardpm (Apr 4, 2009)

Thank You all. This site is great. I have learned a lot. One thing I can't find is a post about other electronic devices content of precious metal. I have found that people just discard DVD and CD players, VCR's, TV's, CRT monitors, simply because it is cheaper to buy a new one than it is to get it fixed. Are there any precious metals in these sources of E-waste? Prehaps the heads on the VCR or the lazer diodes on DVD/CD players? What abou all the PCB's in this stuff. Any input would be appriciated.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Apr 4, 2009)

Hoardpm:

Steve,The Greatest,has posted all information (with many pics) about what to recover in computers.The most important gold content is in microprocessors,pins and fingers.

DVD,CD players,VCR,TV or CRT do not have gold.If you are looking for alternative sources for recovering precious metals then take a look to other kind of scrap,i.e. hard disks,keyboards,some kind of industrial electronics and so for.

I hope it helps.

Regards

Manuel


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