# hcl+bleach for pins?



## masonwebb (Mar 20, 2013)

Hello! Long time reader first time post, I was wondering if hcl+bleach could be use for processing pins? All the topics I read spoke of using the sulfuric cell first '_'
I'm not trying to get 24kt lol just trying to collect some gold! I did a test batch with some cell phone boards + fingers in hcl/peroxide and results were good. I didn't get just gold out of it, there is a lot of tiny bits of plastic. I'm assuming that hcl/bleach can be used to refine that further?

If anyone can shed some light on this for me it would be great!
Thanks-Mason


----------



## solar_plasma (Mar 20, 2013)

I'm new, too. So take this only as my opinion so far. The sulfuric cell is pretty easy for RECOVERING in small amounts like a few 100g pins or less at time, if you are familar with conc. H2SO4 and don't let it get hot, definately not boil! Low voltage and take the electrodes out of it before disconnecting to avoid cementation. Use good ventilation. And, that's the best, you have almost no waste, since you will not dissolve much more than the plating. Nevertheless the acid will get highly poisonous fx. by nickel, which is cancerogene,cannot stop pointing at this enough.


----------



## Marcel (Mar 20, 2013)

Hcl+bleach only works for mostly gold material. Any dissolved gold would cement right back onto the copper core of the pins (they turn black).It is important to understand this fundamental mechanism when dissolving and precipitating metals as well as the reactivity chart and it´s meaning. 
Whenever more than one metal is involved HCL+bleach is not a good choice.
The sulfuric cell is one way, but the recovery of the gold is a pain (at least to me). And yet no simple and fast way has been shown here on how to do that.


----------



## solar_plasma (Mar 20, 2013)

> but the recovery of the gold is a pain (at least to me). And yet no simple and fast way



ok, some days of settling and decanting, that's right


----------



## masonwebb (Mar 20, 2013)

Marcel said:


> Hcl+bleach only works for mostly gold material. Any dissolved gold would cement right back onto the copper core of the pins (they turn black).It is important to understand this fundamental mechanism when dissolving and precipitating metals as well as the reactivity chart and it´s meaning.
> Whenever more than one metal is involved HCL+bleach is not a good choice.
> The sulfuric cell is one way, but the recovery of the gold is a pain (at least to me). And yet no simple and fast way has been shown here on how to do that.




Ok thank you for that! So the pins have copper in them? I just thought they were plated tin. If they have copper then I could use the acid peroxide method correct? I would use a sulfuric cell but I only have 32%HCL


----------



## g_axelsson (Mar 21, 2013)

Gold plated pins are usually made of brass or bronze then nickel plated and finally gold on top, so the base metal is mostly copper with zinc, tin and phosphor added in various amounts. Some very springy pins (for example contacts in the socket of pinless CPU:s) have beryllium added too.

There are people on the forum that have tested the acid peroxide process on pins but it is slow and creates a whole lot of waste. The sulphuric cell is faster and the left over pins are still in metallic form and could be sold as scrap so many prefer to use that process.
If you want to learn more just search the forum.

Three years ago I tried the AP process on some pins but that is one mess I will clean up in spring. It is a bucket full of blue-green clay with small pieces of gold mixed in. That is what I get for rushing in, trying new things before I had learned the art of refining. Even a simple process could turn ugly. :mrgreen: 

Göran


----------



## nickvc (Mar 21, 2013)

Pins can be a variety of alloys not just copper so the first step is to try to find out what base metals are there and remove them first, I suggest reading about tin in your gold solutions to see what severe headaches you can encounter, then you can refine your gold. Spend some time researching before getting too far into processing it's time well spent, your gold is safe until you lose it which is easy without the proper knowledge and while your researching you can still be accumulating scrap to process.


----------



## Marcel (Mar 21, 2013)

I apologize for calling the corematerial "copper" :lol: 
But in fact wheter bronze or brass, it is usually 90%+ copper plus some added metals to enhance certain properties. So I do not really bother too much about that rest. Ag, Pd can be alloyed as well. Be scares me somehow, but it has been forbidden to use after RoHs became effective, which was around the year 2000.
I also have a few buckets full with black solution from dissolving pins. It took 3 months now over the winter here and I would not recommend it to anyone else unless you have a huge AP tank, much time and a good filtering system at the end of the line.


----------



## g_axelsson (Mar 21, 2013)

Marcel said:


> ... Be scares me somehow, but it has been forbidden to use after RoHs became effective, which was around the year 2000.


I think you are wrong there, as far as I know beryllium copper alloys are still allowed.
http://materion.com/~/media/Files/PDFs/Corporate/FAQs/FAQ100NoBansonCuBe.pdf (dated 2011)

Göran


----------



## Dav_Daddy (Jun 3, 2014)

g_axelsson said:


> Gold plated pins are usually made of brass or bronze then nickel plated and finally gold on top, so the base metal is mostly copper with zinc, tin and phosphor added in various amounts. Some very springy pins (for example contacts in the socket of pinless CPU:s) have beryllium added too.
> 
> There are people on the forum that have tested the acid peroxide process on pins but it is slow and creates a whole lot of waste. The sulphuric cell is faster and the left over pins are still in metallic form and could be sold as scrap so many prefer to use that process.
> If you want to learn more just search the forum.
> ...



Did you ever wind up recovering the gold out of this? I have a bucket with the exact same thing I'm at loss as to what to do with?


----------



## g_axelsson (Jun 3, 2014)

Well... I don't remember the details so well, but basically I dissolved the copper chloride to concentrate the rest of it. It took a lot of acid and time but I wasn't in a hurry.
Then I removed the lighter stuff by agitate the bucket, wait for a while so the heavier pieces sank to the bottom and only pale lighter particles were suspended. That way I separated it into a light fine mud that is impossible to filter and a coarse part that could be filtered easy. The light fine mud I still have.
The coarse part I went on and leached with AR, filtered and dropped the gold. I saved the filtrate and the light mud for incineration this summer.

I have a big problem when refining, I don't have a suitable place for incinerating any larger batches, so I'm doing all the refining with wet chemistry and saving the parts that I need to incinerate to later.

If I could incinerate whenever I want, I would have incinerated the remainder after leaching off the copper chloride, then treated it with HCl again and washing the reminder with hot water to extract any lead chloride. I suspect my mud is made out of lead chloride and various tin components.
Incineration helps creating solids that are easier to filter, it also turns tin substances into easier dissolvable variants.

I also have a suspicion that I dissolved some gold in the copper chloride bath, so that is also saved and I'm planning to do something about it this summer. I have been experimenting (read playing around) some with electrowinning this winter.

I hope that gave some help.

Göran


----------



## AUJack (Jun 25, 2014)

I tried the AP process for pins. I got ahead of myself and thought I had done enough reading to get some simple foils. Nope. Back to reading. I had read in a post here from way back,boiling pins in HCl would dissolve the base metals and leave the foils. I made the mistake of adding H202 and dissolved all of my gold before dissolving the pins. I believe I now have copper 2 chloride with gold in solution. Going back to the book to read more. Before making any more moves I will make some stannous and test my solution. I have some SMB, but after making a mistake I'm not real quick try another attempt at anything. I dissolved the plating from about 450 G of pins. I've read quite a bit about the stock pot. Pretty sure I just started my own. If that's the case, I'll just keep reading until I learn how to do the different drops.


----------



## solar_plasma (Jun 26, 2014)

If you have followed the process described by Steve and Butcher, you can just go on dissolving your pins completely. Dissolved gold will drop when it gets replaced by copper and other basemetals and the leach becomes dark. But probably it stays already between the solids. Just don't add more oxidizers like H2O2, use air instead. This might take a week or two, you can speed it up with warmth and stirring from time to time. I have never tried to add smb to CuCl2 leach, though I think I read about that before, - but why? You would just add more variables to your copper chloride leach.

Though the process with all its facets is fairly simple in the rear-view, you will first understand all of it while using it and re-reading.


----------



## Pantherlikher (Jun 26, 2014)

Sounds like you started out ok, then got impatient.

You now have a stock pot with gold hiding in it with solids not yet dissolved. Further research will teach you why your gold is in the bottom of the container and what color it looks like and how to get it.

Finish dissolving any solids by adding air and waiting a week or so with stirring when you get impatient and need to have a look.
Agitation will help move solids around helping AP process. If you get an aqua green paste, add a little more HCL. AP search and reading will tell you why.

When all solids are gone, you should have small particles settling on the bottom. Decant the solution off and continue the stock pot process. The material let needs to be washed as per procedure described in depth here if you look.

You can use AP process for pins but it is kind of a waste as it dissolves everything. And uses allot of acid.

B.S.


----------

