# How to refine fibre cpu's AP or AR



## Anonymous (Apr 2, 2009)

Just got some fibre cpu's need help to refine them if I can ? Do I use AP or go with AR to refine ?

Keith


See pic's


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## KCGreg (Apr 2, 2009)

Either one of those processes will work for those chips. If you have more time than nitric then AP is the way to go for removing the base metals and recovering your gold. On the other hand if nitric is readily available, you can process the chips in 35% nitric which will do the same thing in less time. Either way will remove the majority of your base metals, leaving gold foils and pins to be processed by AR. You could skip that step tho and go straight to AR and just dissolve everything together and then precipitate your values. I think you'll find if you remove the base metals before you go to refine your gold, you will have much better luck and much cleaner gold.


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## glorycloud (Apr 2, 2009)

Keith,

I have a batch of these same CPU's going right now in AP. The pins come off right away which is good but the gold foils are still bonded to the steel legs. I am just letting the legs soak in the AP as I am in no rush. It's been about 4 days and I freshened the AP yesterday with more H2O2.

I will process the rest of the CPU chip later when I get the right kind of fume hood to even consider using nitric or AR. I will try and keep you posted on how the soak is going but it may be a while as steel doesn't seem to dissolve too quickly in AP.


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## Despotic (Apr 3, 2009)

I thought these CPU's have values in side of them as well.
Wouldn't the CPU's need to be crushed or milled before processing, at lease the core's broken open, 
or is that just the ceramic and "lid type" CPU's?

I have several pounds of these waiting to be processed when I know the correct method for using 
AP on them so keep this threat going plz.

btw glorycloud, I'm in GA also.

-Craig

*Edit:* I'm also wondering if ball grid array IC's should/can be processed with the CPU's?


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## KCGreg (Apr 3, 2009)

I think there are some values inside but you would have to grind or mill them to a powder to get to all of it. I have a small mill for cats and small lots of processors and stuff but I have never put in the plastic processors, I didn't feel there was enough inside to warrant doing so. I'll rephrase that, theres not enough inside I to make me want to listen to that mill for a couple hours! 

Steve's AP video that he has for recovery from fingers will also work on cpus'. I found though, that it tended to make the foils very fine and a little more difficult to work with so I give everything a nitric acid run before going to AR. 

For the "ball grid array" processors you can run those the same way as the other plastic ones. Be sure though to remove that heat sink on the back of it to save your acid some work. You can knock those off pretty quick with a heat gun (please use pliers to hold the chip over the heat) or you can go old school and use a vise with a screwdriver and hammer.


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## shyknee (Apr 10, 2009)

gold1861
first there is not a lot of gold on them so you what to do a big lot or you will think you lost gold
step 1(this is what i do if it is right or not i don't know but it works)I soak them in hcl heated this loosens the pins and removes a lot of tin
collect the pins and wash and dry with propane torch to remove all traces of hcl. Save top for processing buy crushing(i save them to sell one day when silicon price goes up due to urgent production of solar cells because we ran out of gas)javascript:emoticon('8)')
step 2 soak pins in nitric until only foils are left. there maybe some silver to claim so after you filter out the gold foils drop a copper bus bar in the filtered nitric to drop the silver this my not be worth wile if you are not doing a big lot
(the pins can also be processed in a sulfuric cell to deplate th gold)
before step 3 wash foils well then heat with torch do not melt them just dance the flame over them 
step 3 (this is what i do ) hcl and clorox and precipitate with smb (you can use AR if you like )
this works for me and for a lot of messy E-scrap my first rule is to get rid of tin and other solders or any thing hcl hot gets rid of


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## oldtimmer (Apr 10, 2009)

I have found that there is almost no gold other than the pins. I have done two batches of 25 and found no gold.

I believe that these type of processors, the silion is soldered directly onto pads on the board. I have a 45 power microscope at work and I have taken a few of the boards that had the pins removed and removed one or layers of the fiberglass at time to where all I had left was the silicon wafer. I could not find any gold bonding wires on any of the ones that I had looked at. The pads on the fiberglass board may have been gold plated to start with, but any gold would be lost into the solder and very hard to recover.

On these type of processors. I recover the gold from the pins and scrap the rest.


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## rainmaker (Apr 10, 2009)

I found that if I leave the fiberglass CPUs in nitric for several weeks it completely delaminates. Any silver will be absorbed into the nitric, but gold and plataniun wires remain in the nitric to be filtered and further processed.

Rainmaker


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## qst42know (Apr 10, 2009)

shyknee said:


> gold1861
> Save top for processing buy crushing(i save them to sell one day when silicon price goes up due to urgent production of solar cells because we ran out of gas)javascript:emoticon('8)')



Don't save silicon it will never be expensive. The process of purification and forming into chip wafers is the main cost of production. You may as well save sand :wink: 

From the wiki.

"As the eighth most common element in the universe by mass, silicon very rarely occurs as the pure free element in nature, but is more widely distributed in dusts, planetoids and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide (silica) or silicates. On Earth, silicon is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the crust,[1] making up 25.7% of the crust by mass."


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## Anonymous (Apr 11, 2009)

it worked will post pics soon.....not alot of gold on the cpu's


Keith


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## shyknee (Apr 12, 2009)

qst42know

:? like aluminum ,silicon is very abundant
we just need to learn to recycle silicon to save on refining cost
look up silicon ingot price ? may be worth something some day ?
buy for know 8)


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