# Rhodium in read/write head of HDD



## niks neims (May 6, 2020)

I am getting ready to dismantle a few thousand HDDs, and my question is about the tips of read/write heads;
evidently there's a little tiny bit of rhodium there:

http://boardsort.com/escrapforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19245#p34693
http://boardsort.com/escrapforum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3978&start=20#p13286

(I hope it's ok to link outside forums)

It's no bother to snap them off and stockpile.... but I definitely don't want to process them chemically myself;

So does anyone have had any experience selling these? any known buyers/refiners?

also any idea of yields, value EUR/g of them? Any information, starting point at all?


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## mls26cwru (May 6, 2020)

That guy on the BS page is mostly full of BS... if you read a number of his posts, he knows everything about everything... and guys like that generally tend to not know what they are talking about. I would take what he has to say with a grain of salt.

Any pm in the heads would probably be from gold bonding wire/plating near the read head device which are generally so small there is almost nothing there... most of them are fabricated by photolithography utilizing copper and ferrite... or at least that is what google says 

I have read about use of Rhodium in the layers of the platters in amounts similar to the platinum the use... on the order of 10nm thick. But that is about all I ever found. 

In all, probably not worth your time to go after them... I would be interested in seeing what other have to say though, just in case.

M


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## ywctrade (Jun 24, 2020)

For selling rhodium you can contact ESG a german Rheinstetten based company. I'm used working with them, they are serious and pretty well paying. Cash possible up to 10,000€. 
Here's the link to the actual price 
https://www.metaux-precieux.fr/cours-dachat-rhodium/


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