# Memory



## Absolutsecurity (Jan 22, 2008)

is it just good for the fingers or is there stuff in the chips and board?

Im just wondering - do I just cut off the finger section and junk the rest or is there anything worth going after other than the fingers?

Glynn


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Glynn,

The memory sticks contain tiny amounts of Palladium in the monolithic capacitors. Some of the very old 'monolithics' may even contain platium (very rare).

The black plastic chips on the memory cards have been reported to contain as much as 1 gram of gold per pound and as little as zero grams per pound. I don't have any real figure on the black ic's yet, but hope to soon.

The circuit baord is obviously copper plate and a few members here have reportedly sold the loftover cards at their local scrap yards for as much as 50 cents per pound.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 22, 2008)

Well I will get them together in like piles and cut off the fingers for gold and snap some photos of black chips and the other surface mount stuff for reference so I dont toss any stuff that may be valuable! Thanks Steve! This is all after I get done with my gold and silver balls! Any news on the stuff I sent you Steve??

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Glynn,

I processed the silver and gold rice together. I haven't dropped the silver yet, but the gold from the rice and silver colored balls weighed 1.65 grams.

I've still got the gold balls left to process. 

I used dilute nitric to strip the rice and silver balls. The silver balls and rice both had gold layers to them. 

There may be a touch of gold and silver remaining on the balls and rice, but they are mostly rusted now.

I'll clean the rust off with some HCl soon and finish processing them.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 22, 2008)

I cant seem to get them down all the way - I use 50/50 nitric and disstilled and no matter what size batch I do even with heat they get down to gold and Im left with gold balls or rice. I did 200 grams of rice and got 1.5+ grams of flake from the rice and there is still more gold and only a few grains of rice have gone to base metal. 50/50 with 70% nitric Steve?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong here?

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 22, 2008)

Glynn,

I diluted my 70% Technical Grade Nitric Acid with distilled water and swirled occasionally. No heat was ever applied. 

The silver dissolved immediately followed shortly thereafter by the gold flakes appearing. After about 30 minutes the silver began precipitating due to the base metals dissolving. 

After all activity ceased (overnight) I began swirling and rinsing the balls/rice with the nitric solution over and over again until 95% + of the powder (silver and gold mixed) was removed from the balls/rice. I added the minimum amount of water required during this process to rinse the vacuum filter as it pulled in the last of the solution and the vacuum vessel.

This filtered solution went back into the reaction vessel to assist with the removal of more powder. I repeated this process unitl the powder was all in the same filter in my vacuum funnel. I rinsed the powder/foils in the vacuum funnel with several washes of distilled water unitl no silver chloride appeared in the rinse water when a drop of HCl was added.

I gave the balls/rice one last rinse with distilled water and dumped them into a milk jug with the top cut out. 

The jug of balls/rice has since dried and rusted out, but gold is still visible on a few of the balls.

I dissolved the silver off of the gold foils with a minimal fresh dose of 50/50 nitirc acid. 

When all the silver was removed from the gold foils, I washed the foils three times with water, then with 31.45% HCl twice to remove any iron residue on the precious metals. 

Finally, I dissolved the gold in HCl-Cl and precipitated as usual. 

I'll post some photos soon.

Steve


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## lazersteve (Jan 23, 2008)

Glynn,

Here's how the stripped balls look today.

[img:607:553]http://www.goldrecovery.us/images/rusty_balls.jpg[/img]

I think I can get another yield of gold and maybe even silver off of them if I'm lucky.

I'll start off with a nice hot HCl bath to remove all the rust. Depending on how that goes and how they look afterwards I'll choose the next treatment.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 23, 2008)

NICE!~

I did the same with 200 g of gold rice and I still have gold rice after straining out over 1,5g of gold flake from 200 g at start maybe its thicker gold on the plain gold rice.

I just put 2080 g of silver rice in 500ml dilute nitric and stripped the silver off, strained the rice out and rinsed, i reintroduced that nitric into another batch of silver balls and I am going to hit the silver rice now gold rice with fresh tech grade 70% diluted 50/50 with distilled and I will let you know how I fair! and maybe post some pics!

The other gold balls and rice dont want to do the same - has to be some thick copper nickle gold layers HUH!

G


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## GeeDub (Feb 8, 2009)

What is silver and gold rice? 
It looks like steel polishing compound from a tumbler or vibrating polisher. I used it for years and never had it coated with gold or silver(?) If it isthe tumbling shot, how about putting it back in the polisher with some ceramic embedded plastic media to scour it, and then refine the filtrate after magnetic separation?


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## lazersteve (Feb 8, 2009)

Gee,

Welcome to the forum.

According to GSP the rice and balls are used in plating baths. Glynn sent me some samples that are shown above after processing. He told me he bought them from an electroplating shop that closed down. I still have a pound or so that have not been processed if you are interested in seeing a photo of them before they are processed.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 8, 2009)

I still have some, I havent finished up either if you want to see! They are conductive media used in plating operations so that the itty bitty small conectors stay conductive and dont stick together at the same time. So they go copper, nickel, gold and sometimes silver to. I got quite good yeilds and ended up with about a half pound of gold and well over a pound of silver closer to 2 pounds if I remember right. I still have a bunch of stuff I left LAST YEAR i have to get back to - I got side tracked by my Pinzgauer and Hummer H1 as well as a Suzuki LJ10 project. I will get back to the gold especially since its going up now in value!

How have you been Steve????

Glynn


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## nicknitro (Feb 10, 2009)

I have seen the balls, for electroplatiing. Never any rice. LOL Very interesting. I thought the balls were used for polishing as well. Cool Idea for the Types of PM scrap. Keep up the good work Steve. 

Nick


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## GeeDub (Feb 11, 2009)

Guys, 
I could swear (from your pictures) that this is what we jewelers call "tumbling shot""

http://www.ottofrei.com/store/product.php?productid=5769&cat=1064&page=1#DetImage

If so, the most economical way to process it would be to use a vibratory polisher with a coarse cutting compound: 

http://www.shorinternational.com/TumblingMedia.htm

The heavy cut plastic should work fairly quickly. They last a really long time . The PMs will be removed as fine powder, along with the sanding grit. Filter the wash water and dissolve the metals in the filtrate. The rice can be rinsed in a strainer and tossed, or be run again with itself (alone) to burnish it for reuse in the plating process.

You can make a vibrating polisher pretty simply. It's a barrel, bucket or tub, set on 4 or more springs. An electric motor with a mis-balanced fan (put a bolt in one blade) provides the vibration. Go to a jewelers supply shop, look at one and study it. You will be amazed at how simple the construction is.

Glad I found this post. I have been a refiner and jeweler since 1977, and didn't know this use even existed. I love new sources of PMs!
-G


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 11, 2009)

It was called conductive media by my friend and my friend used it in his companies connector plating operation - it tumbles with the connector pieces while in the plating bath to allow conductivity and stop clumping!


It looks identical to the posted link

http://www.ottofrei.com/store/.....1#DetImage 

and very well may be the same stuff used in his plating operation - I first hand witnessed the connectors being placed in the teflon baskets with the conductive tumbling media and going from a copper plate solution for a certain amount of time then to a nickel then to a gold bath! Over and over and over again - then the connectors where removed and the media was used again for the next batch untill it grew too big to be used any more.

The easiest way was the way Steve taught me - I processed 75+ pounds of the stuff and have a few pounds left that I havent touched

- I have 5 to 10 pounds in a extra large rock tumbler (SEVERAL GALLONS) that tumbled for about a week non stop with coarse grit oxide grit and it didnt do as the previous poster suggests. I left it soaking in water for the last year now and I am hoping when I get back out to it in this month that it has rusted nicely and the PM's have fallen away from the steel balls.

I will keep this post updated with my future ball recovery as well as a mercury amalgamation project I was trying as well!

Glynn


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## nicknitro (Feb 11, 2009)

need small amount of mercury?

Old thermostat, I don't need.

PM Me , pay shipping, and advice on shipping. All I ask.

Nick


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 11, 2009)

Thank Nick - I have enough Mercury!

Glynn


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## GeeDub (Feb 12, 2009)

Absolutsecurity said:


> I have 5 to 10 pounds in a extra large rock tumbler (SEVERAL GALLONS) that tumbled for about a week non stop with coarse grit oxide grit and it didnt do as the previous poster suggests.



Did you tumble with the plastic media embedded with the grit (like in the second link), or just loose grit? 
From my experience you won't get any sanding action with plain grit, it will just polish the grit. Seems the stuff you are sanding AKA de-burring needs to slide along the media as if it were small pieces of sandpaper.


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 13, 2009)

So the plastic media holds the grit and helps its abrasive action on the object you are trying to cut?


I ran grit with the media and after half a week I added some sharp ceramic processor cracked chips to see if that would help cut (it didnt seem to help)\

Glynn


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## GeeDub (Feb 20, 2009)

Absolutsecurity said:


> So the plastic media holds the grit and helps its abrasive action on the object you are trying to cut?Glynn


Yep, it's like thousands of little sanding blocks being rubbed against the other objects (and also themselves; that's why they wear down and give you sediment).


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 20, 2009)

I might have to get some of that!


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 23, 2009)

Often, small parts are plated in a rotating plating barrel in bulk. The barrel is immersed into the plating tank and rotated slowly. There are several methods used to make electrical contact to the parts. The configuration of some parts is such that the plating is distributed unevenly. Also, some parts have non-conductive plastic or ceramic areas. The media is added to make better contact to the parts and to balance out the plating. Depending on the parts, different type media is used. The most common are small plastic balls that have been metalized with copper. Also, steel shot, of different shapes, is used.

The media builds up with the same plating layers that are put on the parts. The media is used over and over and goes through many plating cycles. There could be hundreds of layers of various metals on the media. When the media gets too big, it is scrapped. 

If PMs are present, a large refinery would simply melt the steel media, along with added copper. The plastic balls would be burned and the residue melted. The bars are then shipped to a primary smelter for recovery.

For the little guy, acids are usually used to dissolve the layers. This is difficult because there is no definite sequence to the layers. One has to keep changing acids, depending of what the top layers are.

I have always liked the idea of using abrasion to remove plating and plating media might be the perfect application for this. The vibratory finisher, mentioned by GeeDub, might just work very well for this.

A crazy possibility that just occurred to me. In the past, I have mentioned my experiments with using shot peening for removing plating from plated parts, such as pins. The peening stretches the plating laterally and it breaks into flakes and falls off. What if you could load the plated media into a blaster inside of a hood and shoot the media against a heavy steel plate. Would the same thing happen? I have no idea how one could blast these parts.


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## Absolutsecurity (Feb 24, 2009)

Could happen but I think I am going to finish with the tumbling I started a year ago!LOL!


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