# need help



## Geo (Aug 25, 2012)

i incinerated over ten pounds of chips from memory cards only. ill describe my setup. a 5 gallon metal can open on the top. i cut a two inch hole in the side at the bottom to blow air into it with a hair dryer. i added 5 pounds of charcoal as fuel. i have a round BBQ grill with legs removed that has a 12 inch hole in the bottom. i set the grill on top of the metal can to force the heat and flames up from the can into the grill.i used a piece of punch pressed steel mesh as a grate to put the chips on. i cut a large hole in the top of the grill as a vent. on top of this, i have another metal can with top and bottom removed with a piece of punch mesh re-enforcing steel rolled up and inserted in the can on top of it all. once it gets to burning, ill light the gasses escaping the top, and the mesh keeps the flame going.

heres my problem. from these ten pounds of chips, i refined around 4 grams of gold. ive looked through all the solutions and the ash and can find nothing. there was around 5 pounds of steel legs. im digesting a sample of the steel legs in AR to see if its holding any gold. if theres no gold in the steel, or at least very little, where could it have gone. is that all i can expect? could the chips being in direct contact with the flames have burned the gold out of the chips? the bonding wires are so small, im worried the gold may have oxidized with so much heat. when the fuel was spent, i removed the lid and the chips were glowing red hot. they cooled and were chalky white and crumbled easily. i crushed many by squeezing them in my hand.


----------



## nickvc (Aug 25, 2012)

Geo you are basically now working with a burnt floor sweep and they can be a pain to process, I'd suggest running a sample of the ash through AR again and allow it to boil lightly to make sure all the material is exposed to the acids, it's possible the base metals consumed all the acids and there's gold still in your material, good water washes through the filter will be needed until it runs clear to ensure all the pregnant solution is removed.


----------



## Harold_V (Aug 25, 2012)

Might help to detail how you handled the material after incineration. 

Had that been my project, I would have sifted the material, sending the steel to the stock pot, and then giving the ash a hard boil in HCl. You most likely had a reasonable amount of oxidized iron present, which would need to be removed before attempting to dissolve the values. Further, there's a fair chance that you melted the gold, although I expect you probably didn't. If the steel rack upon which the chips rested got beyond a red heat in daylight, it is possible, however. At that point, the rack would have been woefully weak, sagging from the contained weight. If it didn't sag, most likely you didn't melt any gold. 

The idea of burning it off isn't reasonable, as it boils at a temperature far beyond the melting point of steel. Remember, gold is very stable and difficult to harm. At the worst, you would have lost the gold in the ash, having oxidized the steel beneath.

The design of your incinerator rivals the design of a blast furnace, or a cupola. By feeding forced air to such a device, you can easily melt steel, by the way. 

Nick is likely on the right track.

Harold


----------



## mjgraham (Aug 25, 2012)

I don't know if this will make you feel any better or not. I have gotten a couple pounds of memory chips and before I started I just torched a few and smashed them, I could not see any visible gold wires, so I started to get worried I wet ashed about 5 and after I cleaned up that mess I did see some, there about maybe 1mm long and of course smaller that anything but they were there. Seems the design on memory or at least this sdram and ddr the legs basically come over to the top of the die so there is only a super small gap to bridge with the wires. In trying to find data sheets on the materials I was never able to find them directly but basically found two types of the same package one use gold bond wires and said the gold content was .99mg and the other used copper wires so none at all. I do hope you find more I have been worried that I made a huge miscalculation when I bought a bunch of stuff.
Jarrid


----------



## Geo (Aug 25, 2012)

thanks guys. Harold, i did screen the material through a kitchen variety sifter. this removed the large square steel and copper bases and any large pieces that didnt crush. then i used a strong magnet and removed the steel legs that made it through the sifter. i washed the ash in tall pots with soap to remove the finer ash. i used a catch pan in case i washed some gold out, but i doubt it as gold is so heavy and the pot is about a foot tall, and too i kept the water at a slow trickle. this reduced the volume of material by a couple more pounds. so 5 pounds of steel and a couple pounds of fine ash left me with around three and over,pounds of workable material. i did boil in hcl. there was some vigorous activity in places with the material but not all reacted. the solution turned dark instead of green. i let it settle and proceeded with the dissolution with fresh chemicals. 

if the gold didnt vaporize, could it have melted and stuck the the steel? im dissolving a sample of the steel legs in AR but its really slow. when i add the tiniest amount of nitrate over a gentle bubbling, i get a runaway reaction.ive been working on this sample since around ten oclock last night, i shut it down at two and started back around seven and theres still about half the legs i started with.


----------



## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 25, 2012)

Once your sediment settles bring your heat to 140-160 and add your nitric and reaction shuld not be as vilolent.


----------



## Harold_V (Aug 25, 2012)

Geo said:


> i washed the ash in tall pots with soap to remove the finer ash. i used a catch pan in case i washed some gold out, but i doubt it as gold is so heavy and the pot is about a foot tall, and too i kept the water at a slow trickle.


While I don't know that you lost gold in that operation, it's a distinct possibility. The gold in question is very thin, and can easily float, in spite of its specific gravity. That's one of the problems common to the recovery of placer gold. The fines float readily, in particular if there's traces of oils present. 



> i did boil in hcl. there was some vigorous activity in places with the material but not all reacted. the solution turned dark instead of green. i let it settle and proceeded with the dissolution with fresh chemicals.


I would have given the material a hard boil in HCl, followed by rinses (tap water), until the rinse water was free of color. 



> if the gold didnt vaporize, could it have melted and stuck the the steel?


A distinct possibility, especially if the atmosphere in your incineration was free of oxygen, so the ferrous material didn't oxidize. That's why I suggested that I'd have sent the magnetic material to the stock pot.*



> im dissolving a sample of the steel legs in AR but its really slow. when i add the tiniest amount of nitrate over a gentle bubbling, i get a runaway reaction.ive been working on this sample since around ten oclock last night, i shut it down at two and started back around seven and theres still about half the legs i started with.


I expect that it's not just steel, and isn't easy to dissolve. That doesn't mean it won't dissolve, however. Adding a nitrate is a slippery slope, but will work fine so long as you have solids (that are not values), remaining. I'm sure you can see that when you introduce nitrates, you dissolve values, too, at which time they are no longer recognizable. So long as you have base metals present, the values will cement, so they are not lost. At some point, all base metal would be gone, so any values that might have been present will remain in solution, along with base metals. Be certain to test before discarding anything, which I'm sure you know to do. 

* The stock pot means something different to most of the readers here than it meant to me. I used scrap steel in my stock pot, and recovered even copper, as my material was targeted for the furnace. By doing so, the stock pot becomes an excellent place to send items such as the magnetic pieces you are now processing. Any copper recovered simply served to act as a collector, so it performed a necessary and important function. 

The reason I'm making mention of this is because the material you are processing would lend itself VERY well to that purpose. Any gold that hitched a ride would eventually be recovered, and you'd eliminate the steel without effort. Surprisingly, the amount of base metal recovered isn't significant, so, in the end, you have achieved your goal and don't have to spend time unnecessarily in dissolving material that doesn't respond well. Best of all, there is no risk in losing traces of values. 

I was handsomely rewarded by using my stock pot as a savings plan, by the way. It, single handedly, allowed me to retire when I did. 

Harold


----------



## Geo (Aug 25, 2012)

Harold, that is very nice. i too have plans for my stock pot. right now its a plastic 55 gallon drum. the reason i didnt go straight to the stock pot with this material is it belongs to someone else. i was stumped as to what i might have done wrong to have misplaced what could be the majority of the gold in this lot.i am happy to post that i did as nickvc advised and tried the ash(just a few ounces of material), these are the results from the ash.


im still dissolving the steel legs to test them. i will chase down every speck. i wont give up until i have it all.


----------



## ericrm (Aug 25, 2012)

i can confirm what harold was saying about the gold being light enuf to flot around easily... im reading your post witch most interest,and i hope you do find it back...


----------



## Palladium (Aug 25, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> I was handsomely rewarded by using my stock pot as a savings plan, by the way. It, single handedly, allowed me to retire when I did.
> 
> Harold



I understand what Harold wrote in his post is important, not to take away from that by any means. But the most important thing i would like to point out to me is what he wrote in the last sentence. After processing more and more material and understanding things from a more full time refining perspective i can understand just how important his advise is. Not only that but collection of your filters both exhaust as well as buchner, and anything that comes in contact with your gold solutions. I can see without a doubt the value of this. I to have plans for the same avenue as Harold.


----------



## 4metals (Aug 25, 2012)

All of my filter residues, stannous test papers, stock pot solids, slag buckets, floor sweepings, assay liquids, sink sludge, bag house solids, furnace linings, crucibles, and the list goes on, were always processed in lots which were differentiated from customer lots by being identified as "house" lots.

House turned out to be our best customer!


----------



## ericrm (Aug 25, 2012)

geo any update? to know if gold fused on steel?


----------



## Harold_V (Aug 26, 2012)

Geo said:


> Harold, that is very nice. i too have plans for my stock pot. right now its a plastic 55 gallon drum.


My opinion?
Not a good idea. 
My stock pot was a 5 quart ice cream bucket. I kept it loaded with small bits of scrap steel at all times. The cementation process was rapid, so greater volume wasn't necessary. Do keep in mind, I refined on a daily basis, and handled a respectable amount of material. By keeping the volume low, it could be handled with ease, and was easily cleaned out on occasion, by removing anything large, and small bits with the magnet. They all went back to the stock pot after it was cleaned out. The remaining solids were filtered (by gravity, using a Sharkskin filter paper), then incinerated. The volume was reduced considerably by incineration, and all potential fumes were eliminated, so the resulting solids could be stored without problems. 

The best part of using the ice cream bucket was that it could be incinerated, to recover the rather impressive amount of value that accumulated on the surface. That will most likely be lost to you unless you use a large volume of aqua regia to dissolve the film that is sure to develop. 

I have commented, previously, and on many occasions, that I did NOT use plastic buckets in the refining process. I did use them to handle waste solutions, however, and there's good reason for my decision to avoid them. It was just mentioned. Plastic has a way of accumulating values on the surface. Precipitating gold in a plastic container can be the source of considerable trouble, for that very reason. 




> the reason i didnt go straight to the stock pot with this material is it belongs to someone else.


A good reason if there ever was one. I agree. 



> i was stumped as to what i might have done wrong to have misplaced what could be the majority of the gold in this lot.


While I won't predict a large volume was lost in the floatation process, I will suggest that you lost gold there, and that it was a mistake. Regardless of the nature of material I processed, all ash got processed for values, as I know from incinerating all manner of waste materials that gold tends to follow the fines, and there's not much you can do to prevent it from happening.

One of the toughest of items to process is a carpet. It must be thoroughly burned, then further incinerated, to eliminate all traces of carbon. Once accomplished, the ash is often a slight violet color, indicating the presence of finely divided gold. You expect that from polishing wastes, but perhaps not a carpet, but it proves the fact that gold that is worked in an area is transferred to pretty much everything in the room. How much may be up for grabs, but you quickly learn to discard nothing. 



> i am happy to post that i did as nickvc advised and tried the ash(just a few ounces of material), these are the results from the ash.


What is important in that test is what remains in the spoon (or spot plate cavity) after the sample is removed. If there's gold present, you should witness a purple stain. If there is no stain, it is most likely there is no gold, but I woudn't ignore the possibility of palladium being present. Did you test with DMG?



> im still dissolving the steel legs to test them. i will chase down every speck. i wont give up until i have it all.


That's the right attitude, as you must be fully accountable for your customer. However, in a case such as this, what I'd have advised would be to give a reasonable sized sample of the items a going over in a mortar, then to remove just a few, perhaps a half ounce, and dissolve them, to determine if any values have followed. If not, there's not much to be gained by dissolving the entire lot. Further, if the gold had been hitching a ride, but not firmly attached, it's very possible that it would have been removed in the mortar, so it would then be recovered from the fines. Much easier than dissolving a huge amount of steel for no good reason. 

It's going to be interesting to hear how this all shakes out for you. 

Harold


----------



## Geo (Aug 26, 2012)

i appreciate your interest Harold, the test did leave a purple stain.i dont have DMG. i know i should be using it, but i store my spent precipitated solutions in a 5 gallon bucket until its almost full and then cement everything of value with copper.all of the material from this is saved until i have enough to try a couple of different processes on. right now, i only have a couple of ounces of raw material.i have considered sending it to another member to refine once i get enough or tackle it myself.
eric, i finished the dissolution of the steel sample. while not as dramatic as the test on the ash, i did get some nice purple stain from the sample. there is gold in the steel legs.ill take a couple of pictures of the test from that in the morning and post them too.


----------



## kurt (Aug 26, 2012)

Geo - have you checked for Pd - I ask because i did some IC chips awhile back & I didn't get as much gold as I expected but I got "a lot" more Pd then I expected - also don't forget about the Ag

Kurt


----------



## Geo (Aug 27, 2012)

sorry im late posting the pictures. this is the test from the steel legs that i dissolved in AR.


----------



## Geo (Aug 27, 2012)

kurt said:


> Geo - have you checked for Pd - I ask because i did some IC chips awhile back & I didn't get as much gold as I expected but I got "a lot" more Pd then I expected - also don't forget about the Ag
> 
> Kurt



thanks Kurt, i have been collecting the silver chloride and it seems like about as much as CPU's of the same weight. the palladium is being collected as a dirty powder cemented on copper. i have a bucket i add all my spent, precipitated solution in. i know theres still PM's in it because the stannous says there is. after i recover the gold, i put the solution in the bucket. i keep copper in the bucket. right now, the bottom of the bucket is covered in black powder. ill go through the powder again to reclaim any gold that got through and cement whats left again in a 1 gallon pickle jug. this powder, i rinse and dry. when i feel i have enough, ill either try to tackle it myself or send it to one of our other members to refine it for me.


----------



## ericrm (Aug 27, 2012)

geo are you sure that it is a positive? it seem still very green...maybe just my color...
have you find any little melted ball?


----------



## Geo (Aug 27, 2012)

eric, it left a purple stain just as Harold described. im sure its gold and it was on the steel legs. what im thinking is two possibilities. (1) the gold bonding wires melted and fused to the steel. (2) the bonding wires did not become detached during incineration. ive looked at some diagrams and the bonding wires are just pressed on to the legs. i dont think they are soldered on in any way. it may be the action of grinding or milling that separates the wires from the legs. i dont know for sure but its worth thinking about. in all, i have (that belongs to me) close to a thousand pounds of boards that have chips on them. i havent been in a big hurry to process them for this very reason. i want to know for sure that i have a firm understanding of how this stuff will react when worked in volumes i will need to work in to complete it all at relatively the same time. i have well over another thousand pounds of milspec type boards that have no chips but have alot of other PM bearing material. im hoping for enough from it all to purchase a double wide mobile home or a good down payment on having a Jim Walters home built on my ready site.


----------



## patnor1011 (Aug 27, 2012)

Legs do contain gold - that bonding wire was soldered on them. Also your "lost" gold will be inside any small not crushed piece of plastic from chips. I do crush every last single grain of it if I want to get gold out of IC chips.


----------



## patnor1011 (Aug 27, 2012)

Sometimes if plastic is not properly crushed there may be some wires still inside, they are not visible and if it is a lot of that plastic in AR or HCl/Cl and if it is not heated (AR) and agitated often and not enough time for dissolution some values may still be trapped inside.

If you did AR on that material, I would do this. Save material from filter, dry, incinerate and grind to powder again, then wash carefully with water.

I do not put uncrushed bits of plastic in AR or HCl/Cl. I always go for "total destruction" but that is just me, I do have time and I do it in smaller lots like 500g - 1 kg of chips at a time.


----------



## Geo (Aug 27, 2012)

i have a two quart porcelain mortar and pestle, i also use a cast iron skillet as a mortar and a 1"X12" steel bolt with a 2" steel plate welded to the end as a pestle. but to be honest, once the magnetic's was removed, i ran all the ash through a blender. i buy them cheap at the thrift store. after a few minutes, the slurry is like a soup. thats glass and all. i know the blender wont last long, but really it doesnt have to. i ran this ten pounds worth of ash through it and it seems to be fine. i think the trick is to add water before blending. the first blender i tried it with, i accidentally added a chip with a copper top and it knocked a hole in the bottom of the pitcher.


----------



## etack (Aug 28, 2012)

Geo said:


> i have a bucket i add all my spent, precipitated solution in. i know theres still PM's in it because the stannous says there is. after i recover the gold, i put the solution in the bucket. i keep copper in the bucket. right now, the bottom of the bucket is covered in black powder.



I do this too I found that when you get out your powder most will be copper sulfide. I Googled black copper sulfide and got Copper monosulfide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_monosulfide

Not trying to bring you down but when you run that powder it is a bit deflating :lol: 

Also as of late I have put my chips in my used copper nitrate it eats the legs right off. It takes some time but I get the Cu out and the Fe gone. The Cu just washes right off. I put that in the stock pot too.

Harold didn't do computer scrap so his copper volume probably was'n as large as yours. however 55 gal is a lot to deal with at once.

I have a three step process.

1-Cu pot 
2- Fe pot CLEAN sheet metal no paint 
3- limestone or chunks of cement takes a while but is cheap. Limestone works faster but its a waist of good limestone.  

then I test Ph and dispose of it in the drain/creek I know some will have issue with the creek bit but its not a lot and the corn field behind me gets a lot more sprayed on it than that.

Eric


----------



## kurt (Aug 28, 2012)

Geo said:


> kurt said:
> 
> 
> > Geo - have you checked for Pd - I ask because i did some IC chips awhile back & I didn't get as much gold as I expected but I got "a lot" more Pd then I expected - also don't forget about the Ag
> ...



Ok this is interesting - I just had what I figured was Pd cemented from the above mentioned chips XRF'ed - 38.79Pt -33.65Pd - 4.88Rh with traces of Cu & other base metals --- Like I said above I got what I thought was more Pd then I figured & less gold from that batch of chips - but now with this XRF read out of Pt, Pd & Rh & the fact that I got more PGMs & less gold then expected from this batch my question is - do they use PGMs for bonding wires in ICs as well as gold?


----------



## Geo (Aug 28, 2012)

ive done a few different types of searches on bonding wires and ive never seen mention of PGM's for bonding wires. i have seen it mentioned for the pad the chip sits on. they may use it in the die as well. maybe someone will have better luck than me when they search for information.


----------



## Palladium (Aug 28, 2012)

Funny you should mention that. I have a customer who is processing chips by breaking them just in half. He has about a 100 lbs of the left overs that he needs milled and run to recover the rest of the values he's been missing ( so claimed ). He claims up one side and down the other it contains Pt wires. He's sending me two lbs as a sample for me to look at. We shall see.


----------



## patnor1011 (Aug 29, 2012)

Kurt, I got few packets with black IC chips where they state on label that they contain Ag/Pd plating. So that confirms that there is Pd in some of them. Not in form of wires but inside legs will be plated with it.


----------



## kurt (Aug 30, 2012)

The thing that was a bit of a supprise to me was the 38.79% Pt & the 4.88% Rh

The Pd I expected to get from the chips 

Kurt


----------



## Geo (Aug 30, 2012)

ive been checking my spent solutions before adding them to my bucket. each one from this batch has given either orange or brick red results. im assuming this is Pt. the only problem i have with this is, it had to carry over from AR that i first dissolved the metal with to hcl/Cl that i refined with. will hcl/Cl dissolve Pt if its finely divided?


----------



## kurt (Aug 30, 2012)

Geo -Yes HCL/CL will dissolve both PT & Rh if finely divided which is why it can be used to leach CATs instead of AR 

Kurt


----------

