# Processing Mobile phone boards for gold .



## gaurav_347 (Mar 28, 2017)

Dear Members,

Hope you find the video useful. These videos are made by Umar, an Ewaste recycler from pakistan. I usually share them here as his processes are interesting and we can all learn a thing or two from them. I know safety is the biggest issue in his processes. But we can always have sound discussions here on how to avoid accidents and instead learn and implement his ideas in our daily refining activities with all the safety required. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD1X1CieE4o&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

https://youtu.be/RD1X1CieE4o

Regards,
Gaurav


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## tortuga09 (Mar 28, 2017)

Good evening.

Superb video, I like very much!

But can not reproduce it as it hurts.
Bonsoir.

Superbe vidéo, j'aime beaucoup !

Mais ne peut pas le reproduire telle qu'elle dommage.


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## m.iftikhar447 (Mar 28, 2017)

In his videos he is showing fast methods for big scrape lots . He is using to much acids because, here in Pakistan very very cheep chemicals and other equipments, but he should use safety equipment first. 



Sent from my A8 using Tapatalk


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 28, 2017)

tortuga09 said:


> But can not reproduce it as it hurts.
> 
> Mais ne peut pas le reproduire telle qu'elle dommage.



Sometimes translators don't do too well. It's been a long time since I studied French in high school, but I know that "qu'elle dommage" mean "what a shame", not "as it hurts"  

I still don't know about the "pico" in your other post, but I hope someone else will be able to help.

Dave


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## tortuga09 (Mar 28, 2017)

"pico" veut dire les ingrédients qu'il composent les prises dorées.
traduction google
"Pico" means the ingredients that make up the golden dots.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 28, 2017)

m.iftikhar447 said:


> In his videos he is showing fast methods for big scrape lots . He is using to much acids because, here in Pakistan very very cheep chemicals and other equipments, but he should use safety equipment first.
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my A8 using Tapatalk



Fast methods are not best methods and he is losing quite a lot of values in the process. Also his yields are questionable, they are much inflated in some of his videos. My take on this is that he is doing it for "entertaining" purposes, classic youtube channel with aim to get many people viewing his videos. He is clever, he may make more off youtube than from processing material. Or at least make up for the losses in his "processes". 
Incinerating cell phone boards in open fire + AR on whole boards = loss of values guaranteed.


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## tortuga09 (Mar 28, 2017)

FrugalRefiner said:


> tortuga09 said:
> 
> 
> > But can not reproduce it as it hurts.
> ...


Oui, car je suis quelqu'un de responsable même si cela peu par être bizarre je ne peux pas où ne veut pas le reproduire.
traduction google
Yes, because I am someone responsible even though it may be odd I can not where does not want to reproduce it.


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## gaurav_347 (Mar 28, 2017)

patnor1011 said:


> m.iftikhar447 said:
> 
> 
> > In his videos he is showing fast methods for big scrape lots . He is using to much acids because, here in Pakistan very very cheep chemicals and other equipments, but he should use safety equipment first.
> ...



Patnor,

If you look closely he mentioned two processes. 1st smelting where the whole boards will be incinerated , smelted with lead or litharge followed by cupellation. The 2nd method is where he is performing AR on the depopulated boards and treating depopulated components accordingly. One more thing that I noticed is that the scrap mobile boards he has treated are of good quality. By this I mean the boards that he acquired are non-chinese. Prices are different for chinese mobile boards and non chinese boards atleast in India, Pakistan and i believe in most of the Asian countries. Where chinese boards go for 20 usd per kg, non chinese boards can fetch 30 dollars per kg in the Indian scrap market. I am sure in the other videos his values are inflated but people usually do recover atleast a gram of gold per kg of non chinese boards hence the scrap prices.

Regards,
Gaurav


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## anachronism (Mar 28, 2017)

Don't waste your time on this as a home refiner. Sell the boards and use the money to buy other product.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 29, 2017)

gaurav_347 said:


> patnor1011 said:
> 
> 
> > m.iftikhar447 said:
> ...



Yeah but that is what I have said. 
First method was open air incineration - that is where he lose values and second method AR on whole boards and components - and that is where he also lose values. Chinese and non Chinese boards is nonsense probably invented by middle man to squeeze more money off waste collectors. Most of phone boards are made in china so they all can be called chinese. For this claim being illogical mean that red colored motherboards are regarded as low value if they are from computer but somehow they are regarded as high value if they are from cell phone? 
You say that "non chinese" boards yield at least a gram from kilo yet he somehow managed to get nearly double of that in a process which guarantee loss of some degree... I call it Magical youtube refining. 
I am only saying that 99% of people here are not equipped to recover all gold from cell phone motherboard at a profit when reagents and time are counted in no matter how hard they try.


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 29, 2017)

I totally agree with anachronism. I just read about some big refiner that was running many tons of cell phones at a time and was not quite breaking even. If they can't turn a profit, you can't turn a profit. Except for certain items you might cherry-pick from them, circuit boards are a loser. I didn't care much for that video. Besides the obvious multitude of safety problems, the idea that you can make a profit chemically processing most circuit boards is a false one, especially in the US, where pollution laws exist and are enforced. In Pakistan, it may be different.


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## rickbb (Mar 29, 2017)

Even in 3rd world countries it is doubtful you could profit from cell phone boards. Labor cost to dissemble them, depopulate them, soak them to remove solder, then AP to separate the gold foils. And that is using the least chemical cost method.

As a hobbyist I do cell boards all the time and get a good yield, but no way would I get enough to pay for my time. I could sell the phones off whole and turn a decent profit, but I process it for the fun and learning. Plus I get small quantities of phones so the incentive to sell is low.

To process tons at a profit, someone will have to invent an automated process that you can dump whole phones in one end and gold bars come out the other end. :wink:


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## gaurav_347 (Mar 29, 2017)

Here is the costing of chemicals labour and disposal of waste chemicals. I do this on large scale aswell but according to the pollution control board norms not like the guy in the youtube video mentioned above. You need to get a license before you start processing e-waste scraps in India. 1st is the consent to establish where you setup all your machineries, labs etc second consent to operate followed by registration and authorization from the board. Routine checks are done to see if everything is in compliance with norms set by the central pollution control board. If not the licenses are terminated and your plant is locked up by the authorities! So here goes the costing 

contract labour 4 usd per day (8-9 hour shift)

Nitric acid 0.20 usd per litre ( 200.42 usd for 1000 litres)

hydrochloric acid 0.14 usd per litre (138.75 usd for 1000 litres)

dmg 20 usd per kg

soda ash 0.39 usd per kg

borax 0.62 usd per kg

litharge 1.93 usd per kg

cost to dispose off 2000 litres per month of chemicals 100 usd roughly at the (Common Effluent Treatment Plant)

Cost to process one ton of pcbs that is to depopulate with our automatic system and separate the components , recover solder along with running the bare pcb boards in another machine to recover copper roughly costing us 115.63 usd per ton.



So now compare the same pricing and costing with any western country. It's obvious that it will be impossible to do such activities on larger scale and get profits. But we do! we recover all precious metals including copper, solder, aluminum, plastics even the waste epoxy from pcbs gets recycled to make bricks after recovering copper from it. I know it's impossible for a hobby refiner to get such a setup but there is no harm in trying to recover values that can be recovered with above mentioned video. Just do it in a safer smarter and much efficient way. 

Regarding mobile phone board pricing they vary a lot . When i meant Chinese and non chinese what i meant was branded (samsung nokia blackberry sony etc) vs non branded phones eg ( micromax, lava etc). once you start processing these boards according to their types you will see the difference in their recoveries. The same way when you process single sided rams and double sided rams separately. 

Sure the videos are hyped up when you see the recoveries in his previous videos but try to focus on his processes and not the recoveries. My main objective of posting such videos on this wonderful forum is to make people aware of other processes too which are being done to recover precious metals from junk electronics.

Best Regards,
Gaurav


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