# ball milling vs incinerating



## goldienoob (Aug 19, 2013)

So after going through the threads i am a little confused on which one would be better for processing ic chips

So here I have compiled the pros and cons of each

Milling
Pros
- Quicker
-Cheaper

Cons
- Possibly lose gold through abrasion
- To get it pulverized enough may have to remill batch
-Dust

Incinerating 

Pros
- material made into ash, no worry about particle size 
- can be chemically processed from the ash without panning if it is necessary 

Cons:
-More time 
-More material cost
-Fumes
- May have to be reincinerated if not done well enough

I have seen people on this forum do it both ways so obviously they both work. But I would like to hear which method you prefer and why, so dont be shy and leave you post below!


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## Geo (Aug 19, 2013)

ball mill isnt really recommended for IC chips. the plastic bodies tend to mash out instead of breaking apart. i tried a mortar and hammer and the bodies didnt crush as they should. i have a friend that tried the ball mill and said that it made a mess out of his mill. aside from that, the bonding wires are so tiny, the smallest piece of plastic can trap many and hold them. pyrolizing and then milling may work better.


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## glondor (Aug 19, 2013)

Geo is right on with that info. A ball mill is not a good fit for plastics. Pyrolise for sure.
For ceramics...seems we have never determined 100% if ball milling is of any benefit. The drawback of milling ceramics is the difficulty in washing and filtering the ceramic powder. 

I would hazard to guess, due to the surface area created by milling, any potential gains released by milling would be lost due to washing and filtering issues, and may be counterproductive, locking Auric chloride in the million's of nooks and crannies in the fine powder.

Break each ceramic into 6-8 pieces and have at it.


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## rusty (Aug 19, 2013)

Both processes have their merits 

Incineration will rid your material of the more volatile metals, getting EPA approval to operate on the grand scale could cost you millions for a suitable furnace, recondense flue gas's and bag house for flue dust just to get certified.

The ball mill has no loss's, abrasion of gold from pins etc is a positive feature, a properly designed mill will output material continuously, the feedstock maybe run dry or wet.

You may find that incinerated stock still needs milling.

Now that we have several tons of milled or incinerated waste containing values, had this material been mined from the earth the next step would be to concentrate the values discarding the waste material. It is far more economical to process a few hundred pounds of high grade concentrates recovered from the tons of material we started out with.

1. A simple floatation using liquid dish soap will recover values, half fill your 20 liter pail with incinerated ash oir milled material, fill the pail two thirds water add half a liter of liquid dish soap. Use a dry wall mud paddle in your drill to create a thick froth.

The froth is going to look black, scoop this into clean pail then continue this operation until your froth is no longer coming up black. You may have to add more soap at some point.

Waiting for the soap froth in the clean pail to return into a liquid could take a weeks, for the impatient pass a flame or hot air from a heat gun or hair dryer over the froth to impact the bubbles.

2. A centrifuge is very efficient at making concentrates and it's quick.

3. You could table the material to get those concentrates.

4. The wet belt from Ammens book page 26 2nd edition shows some promise.

There are many more methods available to recover concentrates from waste, those mentioned above are those of interest to me.


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