# Hi All, another Newby here 6 months into ewaste PM reclamation, would like some handy hints with how to proceed with various 'messes' I've created.



## Klergens (Apr 6, 2022)

Hi All, this has been my covid hobby since lockdown started as I had been storing all my old PC parts for years with the intention of exploring PM reclamation when I found the time.

As a result I've been building a child exclusion zone for chemicals, chemical lockup, extraction system etc as I have a strong respect for safety and my kids.

So I finally got to the point of playing with some processing strategies I had read about, and consequently made all the mistakes I see other beginers make. So I'm doing my best here to try not to ask the same old questions that keep popping up.

All comments will be humbly appreciated as the experience many of you have is huge compared to my 6 months!.

Well, here we go...

My first experiment was to process 6.5 gramms of nuggets I found in the Kalgoorlie WA area into chemical form, drop with SMB, wash and melt into a single button. I procured a very precise calculation of the HCl/Nitric ratio to dissolve a Troy ounce of gold (found somewhere in these forums) and plugged it into a spreadsheet so I could match the weight of my nuggets!, I soaked the nuggets in HCl for a few days, washed for a few days, soaked in nitric, washed for a few days, re-weighed, then made up the appropriate volume of AR, waited a few days, dropped with SMB and had a great result!, Had as hard time melting it down but got there in the end. Suddenly I thought I was a pro...lol.

So the stuffups I list below are the different ways I've been trying to process ewaste. 

I've decided that AR will be my preferred way to dissolve gold to keep my stock pots 'clean' of too many different chemicals. I plan in the future to only use HCl, nitric, sulfuric, sulfamic and SMB untill I know better ways.

Stuffup 1

Get some ceramic processors and dump some over estimated volume of AR onto it and..... Well that got thrown into stockpot 1 which is currently slowly being evaporated when I have time.

(Stockpot 1 had copper and air bubbler.)

Stuffup 2.

Spend lots of time cleaning up phones, ram sticks and various ewaste to remove as much iron, stickers and iC chips as possible. Then dissolve in HCl peroxide method. 
Day 2 and 3 the reaction was too slow so I Added waaaayyy to much peroxide, I now know that is no good either...

After 6 weeks of observations, that solution got filtered but most of the gold is in solution. I've decided to cement that out with copper seperate to stockpot 1, but the 3litre volume just keeps taking copper so some advise on the chemistry would be great!. 

Stuffup 3

Incinerate heaps of IC chips, and a heap of other 'cleanish' stuff I had prepared (circuit boards, processors, plug ends, basically a heap of everything). Then crush it as good as I could by hand.

Then soak in HCl airbubbler bucket for a month. Add lots of copper let it sit for another month so everything could cement out.

The problem with this batch is how to proceed... I created 40,litres of wash water trying to remove undissolved copper bits also dealing with a 'Matt' of fibreglass which was at the bottom of the bucket only to find undissolved circuit boards too... so all the washed solids are currently sitting in a HCl bath with an air bubbler again, ready for another cementation session..

The fines that I got from evaporating the 40Litres of wash water appear to be 50% good black stuff and 50% black ash?

The advice I am looking for here is how to proceed with the fibreglass mess on my next wash as some of it is still in 1 inch square prices, but mostly fine particles.

Conclusion...

I have taken the boring approach of evaporation of all my wash waters from my 3 different batches seperately.
All 3 batches then need to be washed seperately in Nitric..that wash water goes off to the silver/palladium stockpot?...
I'm intending on blending all the resultant filtered solids together from the 3 different batches into 1 batch of solids and proceeding from there.

Batch 1 is my first stockpot but more like all my 'lost gold' from various experiments akin to stuffup1.
Batch 2 is the HCL peroxide stuffup2.
Batch 3 is the incineration stuffup3 techqique.

The advice I am looking for is 
A. Will the HCL peroxide reaction ever stop? As it keeps taking copper.
B. How to proceed with the fibreglass mash I've created by insinerating ram sticks etc.
C. How to discern the difference between 'ash' and solids in the final cleanup from the incineration/cementation batch? And how to seperate this.

All comments will be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Dan


----------



## butcher (Apr 6, 2022)

Dan,
If you are serious, start with the basics, gain an understanding of the cliff you are diving off of and gain some education about the waters you wish to land into.

This field is not something you learn overnight and jump right into headfirst, after reading a few pages or watching some YouToobe

My advice is to stop doing what is not working, put away the idea of getting the values out of this mess, or the idea of making more of a new mess to deal with before you gain an understanding of the basic principles.

First I would study dealing with waste, in this, you would learn many of the basic principles of the chemistry of these metals.

Then I would start my study of Hoke's book, reading it several times, as you learn more and gain some experience, rereading you will see more details between the words on the pages, the more she teaches in the book will make sense, taking notes, practicing the getting acquainted experiments to gain more of an understanding how these metals react and what to expect.

Learn what a stockpot is and why they are used.
Why we may have more than one stockpot, such as one for silver and another for gold.
How your stockpots are not a waste bin for all your hazardous waste solutions...


The difference in the recovery of values, and of refining those metals to a higher purity.

The different recovery methods for different scrap materials, the different mechanical methods of separating the values from the gangue materials and separating wanted metal from unwanted metals, or those metals that will cause problems with each other or with the chemical processes used in the later recovery of your values.

Study the different chemical recovery methods (for the material of interest), gain an understanding of the different problems that will be encountered with the processes, study how the leaching process or acids react, learn why metals react and how they will or will not react.

Start with small experiments (test tube size if needed) as you study, gain an understanding of the reactions you are studying, forget about getting gold from scrap, and work on the education.

Begin working with a simpler scrap to learn the basic principles, something like sterling silver, or gold plated fingers (no solder), karat gold, working with less problematic scrap or alloys.



Study testing methods, testing scrap for value, testing the different metals, testing alloys for value or content of value, testing solutions for the different metal ions, or testing solutions to see if they contain values or what type

Doing experiments with the different metals in different solutions or conditions will give you more of an understanding, working with the metals in a more pure form ( gold alone) can give you a better understanding when you see several of the different metals react together (gold and silver) (gold and copper), (gold and tin in solution together)...

Basically forget about getting gold, study to learn the basics, using study and small experiments. Stockpile your scrap it will hold values where it is, and the gold will be there after you gain the understanding of how to get to it, study where the values are in the different materials, and which to search for in your area.

A man wishing to learn to mine for gold should first learn to pan and recognize gold in his pan, before digging deep into every mountain in his path looking for the motherload.

This is a long journey, planning study and research, make yourself maps, prepare your gear and yourself, study the dangers and what to look for before you dive off feet first into the abyss.

Welcome to the forum, step back, relax, there are lots of territories to cover, no need to hurry, the information is here, you just need to relax and begin your study into a long journey, getting yourself prepared, gaining the basic skills, educating yourself in the art, science, metallurgical chemistry of this industry.

Dry and save all solids (safely), hang a bar of copper in your solutions, to recover values (save and dry solids mark as possible value and from what), and treat the solutions for waste, using an iron to displace copper and other toxic metals, treat acidic solution to recover metals as hydroxides (pH 11), then bring the solution to neutral (pH 7) using small doses of acid to recover more insoluble metal hydroxide separating it from the saltwater before disposing of properly. in this, you recover your valuable metals.


----------



## butcher (Apr 6, 2022)

A. Will the HCL peroxide reaction ever stop? As it keeps taking copper.

Copper will not dissolve in HCl without an oxidizer, when the oxidizer is used up any excess HCl will not dissolve any more copper.
CuCl2 will dissolve more copper until it becomes so loaded with copper that it converts to CuCl the solution changes from green to brown and copper chloride starts to become insoluble to oversaturation and forms a white powder in the solution. 
copper II chloride will also dissolve iron forming a ferric solution that will also dissolve copper, iron, and a slew of more reactive base metals, again the reaction continues until the ferric ion changes valence and the oxidizer or oxidizing state of the leach is used up and the iron changes to a more ferrous state...

B. How to proceed with the fiberglass mash I've created by incinerating ram sticks etc.

Dry and save till you gain more experience.

C. How to discern the difference between 'ash' and solids in the final cleanup from the incineration/cementation batch? And how to separate this.

Dry and save till you gain more experience.


----------



## olawlor (Apr 7, 2022)

As a datapoint, HCl + copper + air is used as a self-regenerating circuit board etchant. So if you are trying to cement out a chloride-containing solution onto copper, leave out the air bubbler or else it'll just keep oxidizing all the copper into black copper(II) oxide.

(Particularly if you're trying to save some values that will show up as black metal powder!)


----------



## kurtak (Apr 7, 2022)

Klergens said:


> After 6 weeks of observations, that solution got filtered *but most of the gold is in solution.*


per the bold print - how do you know that most of the gold is in solution ?

Is that what a stannous test is telling you ? 

Or - is it an assumption because you are not seeing as much gold (foils) as you expected

Kurt


----------



## Klergens (Apr 28, 2022)

Hi Bucher, olawlor and kurtak,

Massive Apologies for my late reply, family life got very hectic, then Easter came along I've only just had the time to sit and login to see I got some responses!, So just a quick note to indicate I'm still around!, You guys have provided lots of info, so I'll get to reading and taking it in!.

Be right back!


----------



## Klergens (Apr 28, 2022)

kurtak said:


> per the bold print - how do you know that most of the gold is in solution ?
> 
> Is that what a stannous test is telling you ?
> 
> ...


Hey Kurt,

As I've mentioned I haven't had alot of time for this venture lately, have been visually monitoring Stuffup 2 and stirring it occasionally. This container did not have an air bubbler so it's just been slowly reacting and the reaction has finally slowed, I can confirm this because initially there was a large volume of bubbles appearing on the top of the solution and the copper peices kept dissolving, but now the bubble production is only about 1inch round and there are copper chunks left in the bottom.

In answer to your question, the stannous test was showing a little black, but orange was a predominant colour when doing the test prior to cementation.

When filtering the initial HCl overdosed with peroxide solution, prior to adding the copper, yes, barely any gold foils were captured in the filter compared to the amount of product I started with.

Here are some photos of the initial bath before I overdosed it with the peroxide.

Also the solution has gone from deep saturated green colour to rusty brown colour with about 40mm of mostly brown sediment (little bit of black, some light green sediment can be seen when I stir it up).

I haven't proceeded with filtration of this yet but I'm thinking of filter, water wash 5 times then possibly shelve it as butcher has suggested..


----------



## butcher (Apr 28, 2022)

From the picture, it appears to me you are just wasting your time and losing your gold.

Working with whole circuit boards, or attempting to leach gold from whole circuit boards, most of your gold will end up lost. in the scrap (on to the hidden undissolved base metals) after attempting to leach the gold, or locked up in colloids in solution (because of the tin alloys from solder).

After dissolving the gold from the whole circuit board, the gold will be reduced with the remaining base metal or copper traces hidden under the solder mask or on the copper traces sandwiched between the fiberglass the gold is cemented back out of the solution or plates back to the copper or other undissolved base metals that are hidden in the remaining parts of the circuit boards where the acids have a hard time reaching.


----------



## Klergens (Apr 30, 2022)

Well thanks a lot for the feedback guys, even though I'm wasting my time I'm learning and as such I'm definately in doubt which is why my approach is to cement it out.


----------



## butcher (May 1, 2022)

Well, I see where I was wrong now, as long as you are learning you are not wasting your time, just attempting to leach whole boards is not the best way to go, especially if you put any gold into the solution during the leaching process.


----------



## Joip11421 (Jun 3, 2022)

butcher said:


> Dan,
> If you are serious, start with the basics, gain an understanding of the cliff you are diving off of and gain some education about the waters you wish to land into.
> 
> This field is not something you learn overnight and jump right into headfirst, after reading a few pages or watching some YouToobe
> ...


Perfect answer for myself as well


----------



## 1mysurveymail (Jun 17, 2022)

Sorry to tag on. The exact way to "hang" copper for cementing purposes needs to be discussed. I am not an expert, but have had success with cementation using copper. Do a search on those parameters regarding how to properly "hang" copper for celebration. "Geo" a superhero here has a youtube video on how he hangs his copper and iron. Good luck.


----------

