# Large Scale E-Waste Recycling Processes Question



## SLKInf (Jul 2, 2017)

Good afternoon;

I have been studying up on this forum since I discovered it over a month ago and really appreciate your willingness to share your vast knowledge. Sorry in advance for the length of the post.

I am 33, have been a Marine helicopter pilot for the past 10 years, and am currently earning my MBA in Madrid Spain. I have been somewhat involved in the recycling industry for several years, and have a small consumer electronics refurbishment and resale company back in the States that is operating in several locations. That experience has made me want to get further into the recycling industry and it has been my plan for several years to determine the viability of an e-waste recycling plant in Latin America once I left the Corps (last Oct), which is one of the main reasons I am in this MBA program.

This forum has given me a lott of knowledge, but at the same time it has opened up a lot more questions. I have been a little hesitant to posting some of my questions for fear of coming off as the classic newb who comes in and asks everyone to solve his problems without doing his research, but I guess I will take the plunge here.

One of the most interesting discoveries has been how many different processes there are to achieve the same end goals. It has been confusing for me to differentiate between processes which are recommended because they are efficient and effective vs processes which are recommended because they are more focused on the small scale refiners who need inexpensive or small processes. It has also been difficult to differentiate between the different members' experiences who have found e-waste recycling unprofitable; whether that was due to small scale or different technology, or just that the items are straight up unprofitable.

My current research and business modeling is around the planned creation of a large, end to end recycling plant capable of recycling minimum 10 tons of ewaste a month, but I havent found much information on processes of this scale and larger. One of my questions is (hopefully I will not get smashed here for asking a "simple" question), there are so many different processes out there, however why not just go with turn-key machinery from one of the companies in China or Canada that make these end to end systems? With my limited understanding, it seems like this machinery with dry grind, air and electrostatic separation which they claim reaches 99% purity just makes things simple and clean, and then smelting and electrolysis for further purification as needed. This seems ideal as it doesn't require chemicals or waste water (besides the electrolysis), but I am sure I must be missing something in my understanding? And if these machines are so good at crushing and grinding, what benefits does pyrolysis have, which I would assume has a much higher energy cost?

http://www.pcbrecyclingmachine.com/pcb-1000-e-waste-recycling-plant.html
http://www.copperwirerecyclingmachinery.com/print_circuit_board_recycling_machine/

Thank you.


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 2, 2017)

Hi Sam,

Here is my thoughts on this,

Large scale prcoess 1: smelting with copper follow by electrolysis
1- Pyrolysis
2- Incineration
3- Ball mill
4- Magnet separation
5- Smelt to make 98+% copper anodes
6- copper electrolysis to recover copper and collect anode slimes (PMs)
7- Chemical treatment of slimes to recover PMs

Large Scale Process 2: Smelting with lead follow by cupelation
1- Depopulation
2- Pyrolysis
3- Smelt with lead oxide and flux
4- Cupel the lead dore
5- Chemical separation of PMs

Large Scale Process 3: Hydrometallurgy
1- shredding
2- milling
3- magnet separation
4- chemical leaching for base metals
5- chemical refining of residue for PMs

These are the actual process I have seen or read about that people or companies do on collected circuit boards.

For processing e-waste like the whole
Desktop, microwave or etc, what I have seen is either completely automatic dismantling and sorting, or manual separations using labour.

Here is some cons and pros I can think of with those processes,

Large Scale Processing 1:
Cons: High eneregy consumption, large volume of feedstocks required, longer time to get the precious metals recovered
Pros: EPA friendly, low wastes.

Large Scale Processing 2:
Cons: Lead fumes, depending on fuel costs where it is operated might have high fuel costs.
Pros: Fast turn around time to get the PMs, can be feasible to process as little as 100 kg per batch or as big as 3 tons of components per batch

Large Scale Process 3:
Cons: Huge waste solutions, chemical costs
Pros: Using resins, recovery of other valuble metals such REEs or base metals as well as PMs might be possible.

This is just my input that I have learned or done so far.

You mentioned 10 metric tons of ewaste per month, is that actual e-waste or scrap circuit boards?

I might have some of the links related to rach process mentioned here, I will find them and post them here for your reference.

I have been doing my scrap circuit boards using lead smelting, but we have an EPA approved lead fume control and scrubber system and fuel costs here are just very cheap compare to other countries.

Regards
Kj


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## Smack (Jul 2, 2017)

Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.


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## SLKInf (Jul 3, 2017)

Great info KJ, thank you very much!
Those were the main processes I had been thinking however as always you added much more insightful detail. I am working to determine the rough energy requirements for the different processes as it seems that the first and second would require much more energy. You have discussed the benefit you have in Iran with your very low energy costs. Maybe we will have to start in Venezuela where fuel is nearly free.......justtt kidding jaja unfortunately Vz is not at a good place right now. That being said, using the plastic as fuel may lower some costs. 

Three seems to be lower energy costs, but I have no experience with the chemicals, which would of course be very large. I would think could also add in copper smelting and electrolysis and leaching just for the PMs which would require less chemicals, but then its a cost benefit analysis of the tradeoff. What did you mean by "huge waste solutions" for process three? As in the resins? I would think that all of these will be able to be sold for scrap? Here is an interesting way that one company is using waste plastic in Colombia; http://inhabitat.com/lego-like-building-blocks-of-recycled-plastic-allow-colombians-to-build-their-own-homes/

Definitely true Smack. I am researching other suppliers but havent found many even in N America who do full turn key. There are definitely things like hammer mills, smelters, separators that can buy second hand or manufacture ourself, but just depends on everything working together.

We are working to visit a few large scale recyclers here in Madrid this week hopefully.


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## cosmetal (Jul 3, 2017)

Smack said:


> Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.



I couldn't agree more. 

I dealt with a factory in China for over 10 years. The only way I could get consistent quality was having "boots on the ground" answerable only to my company. I also had to stock replacement parts, and provide technical support, here in the USA. If you buy overseas, even in Europe, plan (budget) on sending your technician/maintenance engineer to live at the factory to be trained. Ideally while your line is being built.

James


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## cosmetal (Jul 3, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> Great info KJ, thank you very much!
> Those were the main processes I had been thinking however as always you added much more insightful detail. I am working to determine the rough energy requirements for the different processes as it seems that the first and second would require much more energy. You have discussed the benefit you have in Iran with your very low energy costs. Maybe we will have to start in Venezuela where fuel is nearly free.......justtt kidding jaja unfortunately Vz is not at a good place right now. That being said, using the plastic as fuel may lower some costs.
> 
> Three seems to be lower energy costs, but I have no experience with the chemicals, which would of course be very large. I would think could also add in copper smelting and electrolysis and leaching just for the PMs which would require less chemicals, but then its a cost benefit analysis of the tradeoff. What did you mean by "huge waste solutions" for process three? As in the resins? I would think that all of these will be able to be sold for scrap? Here is an interesting way that one company is using waste plastic in Colombia; http://inhabitat.com/lego-like-building-blocks-of-recycled-plastic-allow-colombians-to-build-their-own-homes/
> ...



I have no affiliation with this company other than asking for a quote on some of their machinery (haven't bought yet).

http://www.mbmmllc.com/

Watch all the videos (including the ones on smelting). I was really impressed with their shaker table. Unfortunately, they aren’t building the smaller version anymore.

Jason (I assume he’s the owner/honcho) seems very knowledgeable and experienced. His smelting approach is very methodical. His use of XRF and then fire assay seems to agree with the GRF board’s consensus of a generally accepted principle and practice. I have found that if this is true in someone’s R&D attempts, it usually follows through to their manufacturing processes.

James


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## SLKInf (Jul 3, 2017)

cosmetal said:


> Smack said:
> 
> 
> > Interesting process and layout. Though I would try to source as much of that equipment locally to where your plant site would be. The closer to you your equipment is made, the more you will enjoy break downs and regular maintenance. I was in Europe in the military and remember what it was like waiting on parts from the US. It was usually 2 weeks from Redstone.
> ...




The distance is definitely a concern. Would you mind sharing more about your experience? What sort of operation were you running / equipment was it that you purchased from China?

I'm not discounting that at all, having a break down with no spare parts or having to spend thousands $ on shipping could be a killer in a company. That being said, I havent found any companies in the Americas making these full solutions. I would guesstimate that prices would be a decent amount more than the prices of the Chinese and therefore on the numbers side it would be a trade off between the initial purchase costs, and the costs to stockpile spare parts which you may or may not need. Strictly speaking from a numbers point of view not looking to get into a political debate about purchasing American vs Chinese.

I have checked out MBMM and they have a very good reputation both here and other places. This is my ignorance speaking so maybe I will get flamed into going back and doing more searches on the forum, but it seems like a process which uses air and electrostatic separation would be preferred over a shaker table which requires continuous water input and seems to operate slightly slower? Again I mean no disrespect here, just asking the question.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 3, 2017)

If you do have to buy from overseas, and dont want to have a bunch of equity tied up in parts that may or may not fail, It would probably be a good thing to have a darn good handy man/machinist/fabricator that could evaluate issues, and resolve them by making the replacement parts himself. 

That probably wouldn't be a "fix" 100% of the time, but, that person could probably get you up and running until the needed part makes it past customs.

My father ran his own machine shop for years and saved many a farmer's butts every harvest, when its do or (let the crop) die. (..i know, apples and oranges.. Its the *point* that I'm trying to make) That, afterall, it was built by man... ...it should be able to be fixed by man. Whether that man is a mile or an ocean away.


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## 4metals (Jul 3, 2017)

Is it your intent to recycle the different plastics, glass, and metal fractions separately and recover the PM values? The equipment you are referring to has less hands on operators and one very talented machinist, engineer to act as a tweaker. 

When the feedstock is fed into the equipment what comes out is a uniform shredded or shattered and classified by size particle. Then a lot of different separation processes are applied, mechanical, magnetic just for starters. The trouble with this system, unless you get very small particle sizes is the precious metals do not always conveniently report to bucket number 1. Depending what the little bit of precious value is alloyed with or soldered with or bonded to all matter in determining where it drops off the line and which bucket it ends up in. 

You may make up for precious metals lost by getting paid for steel, copper, solder, and plastic or glass but then again you may not. The processes Kevin outlined are refining processes which recover more of the values, your process is more of a separation process with many many variables playing a role in the efficiency of collecting the precious metals all in one place for further processing.

And your tweaker, if he is good, is the key to success.


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## SLKInf (Jul 3, 2017)

First of all Happy Fourth Of July to my American brothers and sisters! (are there any females on here? I don't remember seeing any posting.)

Good point on the machine shop repair guy. Ideally I would like to build as much of the machinery as possible. Working in some of the countries down south, they are very used to reusing and reusing items (one possible cultural or otherwise challenge to getting a steady stream of e-waste inputs to recycle).

I have the unique opportunity right now to be in a MBA program which focuses heavily on entrepreneurship and for the rest of the year, am in a kind of business creation ecosystem / accelerator. I have two Argentinian classmates and one Colombian who have joined my team, working on this business. We have access to successful entrepreneurs, mentors, other professionals etc through the school's program. The benefit being that I have the remainder of the year as basically time to research different business models and different processes to figure out which theoretically is the best for our situation. All that to say that I have not settled on a specific focus yet because I need to compare and contrast the different returns vs the investments and operations costs.

4Metals, could I pre-separate the components with high pm contents and use chemical leaching to extract the max from them. Then use the referred to equipment for the normal pcbs to pull out the steel, solder, plastic and glass via magnetic and electrostatic separation, and take the remaining metal powder, smelt and perform electrolysis to separate the metals? I'm sure I am missing something here, thank you for your input.


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## 4metals (Jul 3, 2017)

The benefit of the system you are talking about is the fact that you throw in the e-scrap whole so there is little if any up front labor. (with the possible exception of removing CRT's from televisions and monitors) If you want to pull out the components with the gold you are talking a lot of labor disassembling and picking components. 

You also need to factor in the location where you are doing this. Ideally a location (or country) where the regulations allow chemical processing as well as incineration (or pyrolysis) will give you more options. As much as Kevin likes the lead cupellation process, I would steer clear of it as the lead is volatilized (at least 10% of it) and without expensive treatment it goes up the stack. And lead is not too kind on the body. They say it caused the fall of the Roman empire!


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## anachronism (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi there

I read this with interest but couldn't see where you confirmed whether you would be processing 10 tonnes of ewaste or ten tonnes of refinery product per month. 

Could you clarify please? 

Jon


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## SLKInf (Jul 4, 2017)

Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi Sam

Just found this pdf from a German PCB processing that explains the process I mentioned here.

View attachment pcb-engl-03032015.pdf


Also, I suggest you check mbmmllc channel on youtube, Jason from the company, has many videos about e-waste processing using their mining equipments.

Jason and I did some extensive tests on pulverized printed circuit boards, and their system had 86% recovery rate on gold and 90% plus for silver and palladium.

They have improved their system since then, and I think if you choose the copper smelting methods their system can be good replacement for pyrolysis and incineration methods.

As for the fuel or electricity costs using their system which is mechanical separation, vs pyrolysis follow by incineration, I think their system uses more electricity per hour compare to that in pyrolysis/incineration again depends on the gas prices vs electricity kwh prices.

Our lead smelting operation has been approved as we have installed filtering scrubbing system for all our furnaces and twice a year we collect the bag filters and melt to recover the lead from the yellow lead oxide powder that is collected in the bags.

But I like to do a test of copper smelting follow by electrolysis for myself.

Regards
Kj


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## anachronism (Jul 4, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.




Yes, however as per my previous question 10 tonnes per month of what? Board product or ewaste? When you mention the 0.3% of the city's annual ewaste I'll assume that you mean raw product unless corrected. 8) 

I think you should strongly consider whether to gear up with plant and machinery for this amount per month given the massive difference in grades of ewaste along with the actual yields of refinable product associated with these. 

You would need to be processing hundreds of tonnes per month of raw material (non stripped ewaste)to make it a viable ROI over sending the stripped product to a refinery.


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## SLKInf (Jul 4, 2017)

anachronism said:


> SLKInf said:
> 
> 
> > Thank you for the replies. Sorry for skipping over KJ's question, 10tons of input per month as a easy to reach starting point based on the market size and companies located there. That would = less than .003% of the city's annually generated e-waste. But really, this is just a random number that doesn't matter until we have the deeper research of startup and operations costs solid.
> ...




Jaja yes, sorry for not being more specific. Lets just ignore any of the previous numbers I have thrown out as far as input and start from scratch.

First and foremost, this is just a feasibility exercise so you are watching as I crunch these numbers. Most everyone on this board has much more experience than I and so I will be making public mistakes as I work on this lol. I am not saying the plant makes sense one way or another, but lets go through this first iteration of public math. This is for straight PCBs. Regular e-waste would require much more than this, however would also provide us with many more base metals and resins.

Calculations:

Prices: http://coinapps.com/silver/scrap/calculator/

Avg yields per 1mt PCBS:
160g Au = $6,290.23
850g Ag = $438.89
60g Pd = $1,645.48
150kg Cu = $879.31
= $9,253.91 per mt of pcbs. 

$4 per kg PCBS = $4,000 kg

$9,253.91 - $4,000 = $5,253.91 profit per ton

Yes, this is very subjective. I used personal experiences of several people I am in contact with as well as a general postings online such as the below, and then cut off a good amount to make it worst case;
http://www.vertatique.com/mining-ewaste
http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/23.6/Pol.J.Environ.Stud.Vol.23.No.6.2365-2369.pdf (I dont remember seeing this paper referenced on this forum but I found it interesting. Beyond the fact that it took me 10 minutes to figure out they use MG as MegaGrams = 1,000,000g = 1ton lol)

$4,050: 10 employees working 40rs week for one month

http://www.pcbrecyclingmachine.com/pcb-1000-e-waste-recycling-plant.html
Machine uses 160KW. 
1kwh = $.17
160*.17= $27.2 per hr of use
$27.2*40= $1,088 per week
$1,088*4.5 = $4,896*1.5for additional indirect electrical expenses = $7,344 per mo

Chemicals: $5,508 (no idea on this so I just took 75% of the electrical expense since we will only be using chemicals for the high PM content components

http://www.century21global.com/property/bogot%C3%A1-cundinamarca-colombia-C21111262821-USD
Lease = $5,258 per mo

Financing: This is a black box right now, depending on what we need for startup, what I can get from SBA as disabled military vet, etc etc. Lets take worst case scenario of [email protected]%for120mo = $12,667.58

So fixed costs = $34,827.58*1.5 for safety margin = $52,241.37

$52,241.37 / $5,253.91 = 9.944mt of pcbs to break even.

This assumes that all e-waste would be purchased, which definitely should not be the case. It does not take into account any income we earn from data destruction, CSR consulting or refurbishment and resale, which should add at least a moderate amount of $. It also does not take into account any income or benefit from plastics, glass, fe, al, sn etc. Nor does it take into account any income from providing these end processes to other competitors who do not have them. 

jajaja now this is of course very basic, back of the napkin calculations, but I tried to take all worst case scenarios. Hopefully none of my assumptions were completely off. Now, please tear this apart and show me what I took for granted / messed up lol.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 4, 2017)

160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
...man, looks like I'm selling my crystals for WAY too little! :lol:


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## SLKInf (Jul 4, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> 160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
> ...man, looks like I'm selling my crystals for WAY too little! :lol:



Nooooo idea what you're talking about


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## anachronism (Jul 5, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> 160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
> ...man, looks like I'm selling my crystals for WAY too little! :lol:



Hey Toph it's 160g of gold mate 

SLK you need to do more homework on your yield calculations because they are not realistic I'm afraid. Unless of course you are looking at taking a specific type of ewaste discretely and basing your figures upon that type of stream. The vast majority of ewaste yields less that 160ppm, and the vast majority doesn't contain Palladium. 

In counterpoint I think your copper percentage may be low however the trade off between copper and precious metals will not balance out financially.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 5, 2017)

anachronism said:


> Topher_osAUrus said:
> 
> 
> > 160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
> ...



He fixed it.


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## anachronism (Jul 5, 2017)

Ahh I hate it when posts get amended without a note. 8)


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## cosmetal (Jul 5, 2017)

On July 4th, 2017, 10:23 am, SLKInf wrote:

" . . . . Financing: This is a black box right now, depending on what we need for startup, what I can get from SBA as disabled military vet, etc etc."

This is off-topic and I apologize to the board.

You mentioned the SBA. I am assuming that is the US Small Business Administration. Are you a US federally verified and certified SDVOSB (Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business)? If not, you should look into it.

If SLKlnf would like more information, please send me a PM.

James


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## SLKInf (Jul 5, 2017)

anachronism said:


> Topher_osAUrus said:
> 
> 
> > 160g of silver is almost $6,300?!?
> ...



I was running these calculations as if we were only buying pcbs from sources. That way I could calculate a rough break even on how much we would need to Buy. My assumption is that there will be lots of other e-waste as you mention, but that this will either be purchased at a much lower price or free. Therefore we would require much more volume of them but our % return would most likely be higher. This was a worst case scenario where we have to purchase all the pcbs. That being said it is also an assumption that the market there can provide at least 10mt of straight pcbs per mo. If the market cannot, then we may have an issue jaja. Do you mind sharing more of your thoughts on the yields from pcbs if they are different than what I put up? I made my numbers purposely quite a bit lower than any other data I have found, to ensure that they were worst case scenarios. Even the many different posts here on the forum all have higher numbers than I put up, but you have personal experience, I have none, so I value any input you care to share.

I haven't been able to get complete pricing from any of the Chinese suppliers so far, so I put up $1m, but I am hoping that machinery is possible below $500k. I need to research different machinery companies outside of Asia.

Toph, really, I have nooooo idea what you are talking about ajaja 

Cos, thank you very much. I am not yet certified because I left the Corps at the end of last year and came over to Madrid shortly after. That and this is a new company that I am working on setting up, so it is not actually in existence yet. But definitely a good point, I know the process takes some time, so I should work on setting it up while I am here, in the dead time before I plan on starting operations, I will add that to my to-do list. Thank you for the reminder.

Come on guys, destroy my business model! Give me like Shark Tank, make me cry because my idea is stupid, assumptions are flawed and I need to go back to work at McDonalds.


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## anachronism (Jul 5, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> anachronism said:
> 
> 
> > Come on guys, destroy my business model! Give me like Shark Tank, make me cry because my idea is stupid, assumptions are flawed and I need to go back to work at McDonalds.



Well I wouldn't necessarily want to destroy your model because seeing people get on and better themselves and make a go of this is something I personally like to see. However I'm happy to tell you straight where it's flawed. 

You cannot base a business model upon the yields posted "on t'interweb" as we say in the UK. Why? Simply because 99% of the posted yields are rubbish. They are rubbish because the guys who really know the yields won't post their results because it would remove commercial advantage, and the vast majority of what you see is similar to Wikipedia data which is often completely unsubstantiated. 

To do this you would need to invest a few hundred thousand in buying refinery product, striking up a refinery deal, and over the course of a number of months determining your own yields BEFORE even considering the route of refining yourself. 

When you've bought your own yield data, (which effectively you will need to do) then you need to look at the maths long and hard of yield from refinery vs yield from refining yourself. 

Would lashing out $500k on equipment give you an ROI on it's own? No. Because you need to add the cost of people who really know what they are doing on top of your CAPEX. Those people are not cheap. 

So bottom line is as follows- would you make enough extra money over sending it to a refinery to justify doing it yourself? Personally speaking no you wouldn't. By all means buy it and have it refined. Selecting a more honest refinery with the skill to get the whole range of metals out will be an enormous challenge in itself but that is your first step to being able to determine whether or not this will work because without your own yield data you have nothing. Zip. Nada. Nothing. 

Jon


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## nickvc (Jul 5, 2017)

I have to say that Jon nailed the point, once you are in the hands of refiners you are at risk.
If you have no yield data you will be robbed and excessively it's the nature of the business, if you think you can beat the system with no knowledge it's going to be a very expensive learning curve before you finally find the real figures, assays are your friend but come with great expense for varied products and are only as good as the samples submitted.


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## SLKInf (Jul 5, 2017)

nickvc said:


> I have to say that Jon nailed the point, once you are in the hands of refiners you are at risk.
> If you have no yield data you will be robbed and excessively it's the nature of the business, if you think you can beat the system with no knowledge it's going to be a very expensive learning curve before you finally find the real figures, assays are your friend but come with great expense for varied products and are only as good as the samples submitted.



Perfect. This is the kind of thing I do not know as I am on the outside looking in right now. And this is exactly the kind of information that will help mould the decision making over the next months. One of the biggest questions is; How far up the refining process makes commercial sense. 

One possibility I've always been open to is that perhaps at first the business is strictly collection, data destruction, CSR, dismantling, and then selling to an end refiner. This would require less initial investment and would build up cash flow, allowing us to invest in end refining capabilities in the future.

However one question for both you and Jon is, what about people like KJ who have built their own refining equipment for affordable prices? Certainly they may be smaller and unable to handle many tons per day, but couldn't there be a middle ground between investing millions in refining equipment or only doing dismantling and then selling the product to end refiners? Couldn't you dismantle and sell the majority of that output to refiners, but keep the known high PM content components like cpus and refine those ourself? Maybe I am confusing different things here and am totally off?

Sam


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## cosmetal (Jul 5, 2017)

If I read you correctly, you are describing the same dilemma that I currently face. Even though I have no intentions to pursue the scale that you have been describing.

I am in my “proof-of-concept” phase of development so that I can ultimately do what the others are suggesting – know your methods and numbers from personal exposure and effort.

I have spent months data-mining about PCB, etc. recycling and the equipment needed. I have determined what course I am going to follow as far as getting the PCBs, etc. ready for the refining phase. Now, the big question I still face is - do I want to attempt my own refining or do I want to densify my PMs by smelting into a bullion bar – then XRF and fire assay. I am leaning toward the bullion bar if I can find a trustworthy refiner. Still, everything I am doing now, including the building of my equipment, is going to be prototype with process engineering pilot runs to debug and improve.

Perhaps you may be better served to first plan on building a test facility – do your test runs and get first hand data. I can tell you for a fact, if you are seeking outside financing (private or government) to have concrete data, personally acquired and documented, is very impressive and persuading.

James


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## nickvc (Jul 6, 2017)

The idea of cherry picking your scrap is what we recommend to all of our members as much e scrap is simply not a viable proposition for recovery and refining.
I would suggest looking at what I would call the secondary refiners, these simply buy or treat large volumes of scrap by granulation, sorting, incineration and finally melting large copper based bars which are assayed and then sent on to the copper refineries where they get paid for certain metals and penalized for others, this sort of operation is still costly to set up especially with the environmental controls they now have to use and the laws about release of toxic gases and materials.
The other route is to know your product, this means having knowledge of the actual value of each type of scrap you handle, assays are always good but remember that in much scrap the base metals can have a greater value than the precious metals, there are members who know this information but will not share which is understandable considering the costs of gaining this knowledge and the fact that it is the basis of their business.
If you had all that information and ran a recycling business would you willingly share it?
If you can source quantities of scrap then perhaps your way forward is to strike a deal with such a member or company and cherry pick the better scrap for home recovery.


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## anachronism (Jul 6, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> However one question for both you and Jon is, what about people like KJ who have built their own refining equipment for affordable prices? Certainly they may be smaller and unable to handle many tons per day, but couldn't there be a middle ground between investing millions in refining equipment or only doing dismantling and then selling the product to end refiners? Couldn't you dismantle and sell the majority of that output to refiners, but keep the known high PM content components like cpus and refine those ourself? Maybe I am confusing different things here and am totally off?
> 
> Sam



Hi Sam

Building equipment for affordable prices is one thing. Making a profit from said equipment over and above sending it to a refinery is a completely different proposition. What I have seen is people trying and ending up worse off financially.

I can refine. I can recover the values from most types of ewaste however I cannot handle the volumes I get effectively and efficiently whilst getting all the values from it. In over 5 years I've not seen anyone on here who can demonstrate that they can achieve the same results as an experienced refinery in volume. That's the bottom line, and if you have the capital to invest then I urge you to follow the advice I made in my previous post rather than throw it away.

Jon


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## 4metals (Jul 6, 2017)

The world of e-scrap is evolving, new types of circuitry are constantly being engineered to use less PM's and new processing technologies are also evolving. So what is a start up to do? First off you must know your feed materials. Second you need to have up close and personal experience with refiners who process this material so you can witness, first hand, the different processes involved. 

The reason so many experienced refiners incinerate (pyrolyze) and melt the metallic fractions is because that gives you a means to generate representative samples. Most refiners of moderate size already have equipment to do the pyrolysis and melting in house so it is a good fit. The ability to generate a representative sample is the most important thing. Whether or not you process the powders or copper based bullion in house is secondary to knowing what is in it. You can always grow into the processing. First, the ability to generate good representative samples while sending out assays and refining, second learn the assaying process to do it yourself and third, after crunching the numbers for a benefit cost analysis, processing the copper based bullion yourself. If you follow these 3 steps, you will minimize your risk, avoid excessive capital outlays until they prove their value to your operation, and grow your business with working capital you generate rather than going to a bank for financing. 

Your question is not unlike questions asked time and time again here on the forum, and my answer always centers on the critical importance of knowing what your material is worth. Without that knowledge, you stand little chance of getting a maximum return shipping un-sample-able material to a refiner. When you know what you ship, your odds improve. 

Get a few tons of material, shop around for refiners who will let you visit and sample, and get up close and personal with the methods being used. That witnessing and sampling will be as valuable, if not more valuable than any course material you cover in a university class. There is no class in university called Refining Precious Metals 101, that knowledge is hard learned from hands on experience and study. 

The closest you will ever come to a class in Refining Precious Metals 101 is right here on this forum.


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## knofan (Jul 6, 2017)

Hey guys

This is indeed a very interesting thread. Im in the same boat as the Owner of this thread. 

I just say i have come to the same conclusions as 4metals and other on this forum. If you dont assay you are screwed. 

As SLKInf wrote i have also taken numbers on the contents of the PCBs from the internet to have something to think about. But i did not look at forums or company websites. I took them from a research paper done in 2013-2014. This has little more "weight" than numbers on a website or a forum. But not much. Need for assay is great any way. I have attached one of them it here if some is interested. 

Im from Sweden and we have the largest e-waste recycler in the world here, Boliden - Rönnskär. They do this by smelting, about 120 000 metric tons a year. One interesting thing about them is: they assay every single shipment they get. Every single one. And they put that cost onto their suppliers and they don't do payouts until the assay is done. That way they take risk away from their business. 

When i have done some calculations i come to the same conclusions that SLKinf has done. If you want a extremely lightweight operation you can do breakeven with som very low tonnage. This is the numbers that i have used, they are in % of the pcb weight when its unprocessed. 

Cu	Copper 14,600%
Zn	Zink 5,620%
Pb	Lead 2,960%
Fe	Iron 4,790%
Ni	Nickel	1,650%
Cr	Crome	0,356%
Ag	Silver	0,045%
Au	Gold 0,021%
Sn	Tin 5,620%

Then if we think that we can only sell Cu, Au and Ag and the rest gets wasted then we have something to build our thoughts around. 

I will do assay on circuts board shortly i have bought a few pounds and will ship them off to a company that helps me. Then i will have some more definitive numbers to work on. But when i buy i think that assaying the shipment is necessary for me to do for every shipment we buy. 

The thing i ask myself. If i find a guy that wants to sell me 25 tones of e-scrap. With that kind of volume, why would he not go to Dynamic or another big scrap buyer? Why does he want to sell to me? The obvious reason: he thinks i will pay better. Our interests are in conflict and i need to be careful not to get screwed, you know...the bad way  I have seen sellers that sell PCBs for 250-360 usd per metric tone and others that sell for 2000 to 5000 usd per tone. This is a jungle and a very thick one!

Calculating income is difficult without assay but calculating cost is much easier. Labor here in SE is really expensive and then there is the matter of electricity and things. I have just started to look into this and it will be on another post if it can interest someone 

If you are interested i can put some more numbers when assay is done. There is a lot more to talk about and my post starts to get long now. So i will stop now and hope you guys don't fall asleep 

Peace 
/Håkan


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## knofan (Jul 6, 2017)

One last thing: SLKInf you write in you post that 10 ppl for a month cost 4000 usd? Can this be right? Where i live ONE guy costs 3 357usd per month...  They then work for about 10,5 months effectively per year and cost 12 * 3357 usd = 40 284 usd. 

Ten ppl in Sweden with low salary would then be $403 000 per year :G :shock: . 

/Håkan


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## SLKInf (Jul 9, 2017)

Sorry for the delay guys. Was busy wrapping up last week's projects and then decided last minute to head up to Pamplona and run with the bulls yesterday morning. Was definitely an unique experience jaja. I haven't had many near death experiences since I stopped flying in 2015 so it was nice to have a little adrenaline rush, but this type left too much to luck, I'm not sure I'll run it again.



> Just found this pdf from a German PCB processing that explains the process I mentioned here.
> 
> pcb-engl-03032015.pdf
> E-waste processing
> ...



Somehow I missed this initially. Thanks for the info, I hadn't seen this German company yet. KJ, when you say mbmmllc's "system" had those recovery rates, are you talking about the hammermill, shaker table, hydrocyclone process? That seems like quite a high recovery rate for not a very heavy investment. \



> Perhaps you may be better served to first plan on building a test facility – do your test runs and get first hand data. I can tell you for a fact, if you are seeking outside financing (private or government) to have concrete data, personally acquired and documented, is very impressive and persuading.





> Making a profit from said equipment over and above sending it to a refinery is a completely different proposition. What I have seen is people trying and ending up worse off financially.





> Get a few tons of material, shop around for refiners who will let you visit and sample, and get up close and personal with the methods being used.


This seems to be the consensus, thank you for the input guys. I certainly am not throwing any of this info away. This had been my initial expectation, typically it isn't a good idea to jump knee deep into technical processes that require lots of investment, with no experience or expertise. But I wanted to do more research on just how much that investment would be, crunch some numbers, and get yalls feedback.



> One last thing: SLKInf you write in you post that 10 ppl for a month cost 4000 usd? Can this be right?


Yessir, that is correct. LatAm labor is slightly different from socialist Europe (just joking, but seriously  )

Nothing new to report right now. Heading to an e-recycler a few hours away tomorrow and a second one on tuesday.

Adios

Sam


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 9, 2017)

Hi Sam

When I first sent a sample of pulverized boards to mbmmllc which was 2 years ago they just had their shaker table.

Those recovery rates are based on assaying the discharge of concentrate, middling and tailing when running my materials on shaker table.

Their latest turn-key system has magnet separator, also they modified their hydrocyclone and shaker table feed so I am sure their recovery rate has greatly increased.

Regards
Kj


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## SLKInf (Jul 10, 2017)

Well we just spent three hours at a large ewaste recycling plant here. They contract with some large technology companies and also for the local municpalities that collect individual consumer waste and process around 1,200metric tons per mo. 
They have a large multi stage shredding, grinding, electrostatic and wet shaker table separation. They were processing lots of crts, white label appliances as well as cable boxes and things like that, and then whatever random consumer electronics they receive. 
The trip was in Spanish which I am not fluent, but my team is so they did most of the talking. Their processes seemed decently refined, it was large and clean and seemed efficient. However they dont process any further than the shakaer table output, which was between plastics and then all other metals (remaining after their magnetic separation). I was really surprised that they said their primary incomes are from cu and plastic. They said that the amount of gold, silver and palladium were basically inconsequential. I was flummoxed by this. I understand that the items they are primarily recycling are much lower in precious metals, but I find it hard to believe that they cant recover any consequential amount from over 1,200mt per mo??? 
Because of this their margins were quite a bit lower than I would have expected. 
If smaller companies and many of you on this forum are able to access tons of high pm content pcbs, I'm at a loss as to why a company of this size wouldnt do the same thing? 

Im at a loss lol.


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 10, 2017)

So what do they do with PMs?


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## SLKInf (Jul 10, 2017)

Honestly I dont know. I dont inderstand it. Im going to follow up with some questions to clarify some things. 

They did have a cool idea where they grind up crt glass and sell it to companies who use it to make bricks for xray rooms in hospitals. That was a really creative idea.


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## anachronism (Jul 10, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> Honestly I dont know. I dont inderstand it. Im going to follow up with some questions to clarify some things.
> 
> They did have a cool idea where they grind up crt glass and sell it to companies who use it to make bricks for xray rooms in hospitals. That was a really creative idea.



It's creative however the money has long left the building in that particular game. There used to be plants everywhere in the UK doing it and they closed one by one. They were taking the lead from the glass because leaded glass from the CRT necks is classed as hazardous waste. 

To answer your other point. Given that "mixed WEEE" sells for around £45 per tonne in the UK, 1200 tonnes of low grade WEEE doesn't generate a massive amount of profit from precious metals. At UK buy prices that's only £54,000 per month of raw product. Product which is labour/machinery intensive, and lower margin/high waste stream to boot. You can't be a jack of all trades unless you're really going large scale and can afford to stream your operation.

Cost each different part of the business and build up a more complete picture. Don't be scared to vet the people you rely upon for advice before you start laying out money. Hearing what you want to hear from someone is worthless compared to hearing the frank truth from people who can show and prove that they have walked the walk. Talk is cheap.

Jon

Edit for grammar.


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## patnor1011 (Jul 11, 2017)

It was mentioned here several times over that recycling or recovery operations do make a bulk of their profit from metals (mostly non-ferrous) and plastics. Whatever precious metals or high-grade material is encountered is just icing on a cake. 
That company you are puzzled about - they do good, getting 1200 tons of waste where let's say about 10% of that volume could be the copper. That means they get 120 tons worth of copper which is about 700,000$. 

Focusing on precious metals is quite common mistake or misconception, I would say a symptom of gold fever :mrgreen: (no offense intended). In this kind of operation precious metals should be treated as a bonus and not primary goal otherwise you will end up spending dollars chasing around pennies.

Here is similarly sized operation I visited several times. I was exactly like you when the owner gave me a tour, I was interested in boxes of pins or gold plated material and he was just laughing. He took me to containers with copper, aluminium, iron, steel and told me this is where money is and he was right. To be honest, he accumulates quite an amount of high-grade material like various gold plated connectors, CPU's, ram.... but as I said that is just a bonus and not what makes him the most of the money in day to day operations.

Mute sound as music there is annoying.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix_uG64H_3Y[/youtube]


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## 4metals (Jul 11, 2017)

I agree with Pat 100% with one slight addition. The steel, aluminum and copper are also commodities whose prices are posted per pound daily, sure there are grades but it is relatively easy to grade the base metals and be paid consistently. 

Now take a bucket full of gold plated pins, not refined. You could take that bucket to 10 different refineries and get 10 different payouts because if you don't know what's there, shame on you. That is why we stress putting the material into a homogeneous form so you can sample before shipping or better yet refine yourself. Then you take the question mark off the high value metals and get paid fairly. 

While there are big dollars in the non precious, there is no sense in getting less than you deserve for the metals that are harder to quantify.


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## SLKInf (Jul 18, 2017)

> It's creative however the money has long left the building in that particular game.


I'm sure its not a high margin business, but I meant that if they are being stuck with CRTs either way, this was a creative way to at least not lose money on them.



> In this kind of operation precious metals should be treated as a bonus and not primary goal otherwise you will end up spending dollars chasing around pennies.


I understand your point, any business that makes its money in commodities is inherently a volume business, and the plastics, copper and resins make up the largest volume of saleable commodities. My point was more that even if the pms make up a small % of the volume, when gold sells for 6,666 times the amount of copper, a small % still makes a big impact. IE 1G au makes them the same amount as 6.66KG cu. IEx2, if we estimate they are extracting 160kg of cu per ton (a moderate estimate), they would need to extract only 24g of au per ton to match the amount of value from cu (not including any other pms). 

Whenever you have a higher profit margin input, you work to maximize that, because it is much less impacted by market fluctuations and externalities. Therefore I would have expected this company which appears very efficient and streamlined, to be maximizing the amount of pms they extract, even if they are processing lots of low pm content inputs. But they were throwing their shaker table outputs on the ground to dry them etc.



> Mute sound as music there is annoying.


jajajaaj this video rocks and the music is killer! Damn, after living in New Orleans, Fl, Tx, San Diego and Madrid for the past 15 years, the thought of working with this kind of business in the middle of a snow, is justttt notttt attractiveeee. Which is what I think every time I return to MI for Christmas and remember roofing and siding houses with my dad as a kid.


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## goldrecovery (Jul 22, 2017)

We are also working on the large scale E-waste recycling process.
watch our 150 kg ic chips recycling at one time
youtu.be/Xhz0sgfYD8M


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## 4metals (Jul 22, 2017)

Goldrecovery, 

Your methods are crude and you are doing a great disservice to members who watch your video's. You make no attempt explain any of your chemistry or to to capture any fumes and I wonder what happened to the volumes of waste you generated. 

I am requesting you describe your details of how you treated the waste, although I would prefer to see a video to actually show you did something. Anyway, if we do not hear from you in a week you will be banned for spamming the board, unless of course you post more of this crap before then, in that case I will ban you immediately.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> ...I wonder what happened to the volumes of waste you generated.
> .




They didn't show it in this video, but one of his other ones that was almost identical to this one, showed them dumping it right down the drain.


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## 4metals (Jul 22, 2017)

> They didn't show it in this video, but one of his other ones that was almost identical to this one, showed them dumping it right down the drain.



Oh yeah, try that in Kansas! Not a behavior we want to encourage.


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## Shark (Jul 29, 2017)

The second member to join recently using the same signature line. Sound almost like advertising for some collage entrance aids.


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## Geo (Jul 29, 2017)

It's spam. 2 post and both are spam. I reported both post.


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## butcher (Jul 29, 2017)

He has left the building.


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## SLKInf (Aug 11, 2017)

Thanks again for all of the valuable feedback and input gentlemen. 

The business development went quite well over July, thanks in large part to ya'lls input. However it was still very general. Now until the end of the year we will be working to hammer down on details and turn assumptions into validated points. From the business modeling I know that e-recycling in LatAm is an opportunity, but I dont know if this is the right time. Stay tuned. 

We have the month of August off so I am traveling through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech, Austria, Slovenia and Monaco for a few weeks in Italy. Getting back to my roots in Wroclaw Poland right now, eating paczkis and reading on the bank of the Oder river.


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## niks neims (Aug 11, 2017)

SLKInf said:


> so I am traveling through Latvia



Hey man, glad to hear it, not every day you see your little homeland mentioned on a global forum, i suggest that you take a day or two and really take in all the fun that Latvia has to offer, our beer is great (really, on par with checz in my learned opinion on that particular matter...) and cheap (relatively), girls are beautifull, and with great warm weather we are having, you must check out some of our nice white sand beaches... 

I am sorry to say i probably cant help you much regarding gold recovery (just starting myself, really), but feel free to PM me with any Latvia related questions, i Will be more than happy to answer them


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## SLKInf (Aug 14, 2017)

Jaja I had a fun couple of days in Riga and rode bikes out to Jurmala. I couch surfed at the house a guy from Siberia and had a lot of fun. Really nice town. And I was definitely impressed with the women. Went to the Radisson club at night and it was packed with beautiful women. Friendliness was hit or miss, but I think with a few more days to get the lay of the land and the local courting rituals, and things would work out. And lol I was not on Tinder because I am traveling with a lady friend, that always increases the odds of making new friends. 
I would like to spend more time traveling the country.


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## niks neims (Aug 16, 2017)

glad to hear you liked it here 

if you ever plan to visit Latvia again, feel free to PM me ahead


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