# some photos of Au powder/process



## Sucho

almost all of gold on photos was refined from processors
only small amount from cell phones, fingers, industrial gold plated connectors,flatpacks,mainboard connectors


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## Sucho

here are photos of Ag refining

everything was refined from old electronics


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## patnor1011

Pekna robota.


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## glorycloud

Nice!


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## Acid_Bath76

Sucho said:


> here are photos of Ag refining
> 
> everything was refined from old electronics




WOW! Motivating!


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## 4metals

Do you have a picture of your silver cell running? How do you configure the anode?


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## nch

Thank you! Nice photos ! 


*@ 4metals* I belive that it is only dropping silver whith copper photo, no silver cell!... Maybe I am wrong


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## hfywc

what would you say is the best way for you to process computer chips?


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## Barren Realms 007

hfywc said:


> what would you say is the best way for you to process computer chips?



That is too broad of a question to be answered in a direct way. Search the forum and you will find the different processes used.


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## 4metals

> @ 4metals I belive that it is only dropping silver whith copper photo, no silver cell



You are right, when he said refining I assumed he went all the way and that was some fancy high tech cathode laying in the tank. My mistake!!


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## Sucho

Yes.that was only precipitated on copper, but twice.

final purity was 997, as i measured my ingots later with InnoX XRF .
i am able to run it in cell, but i dont need higher purity.

i will post some photos of various ingots in few days.


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## Sucho

i was trying to refine copper in my experimental cell. you can see working conditions on PS displays. anode and cathode was a copper sheet
electrolyte composition - 30 g/l Cu 2+ and 220 g/l H2SO4 , anode - 5x8 cm , cathode 5x8 cm, A/C ratio 1 : 2, sealing tape was used on sharp cathode edges.

i want to achieve smooth copper deposit on cathodes and avoid fluffy deposit.experiment failed.there was a fluffy deposit on edges and smooth deposit in the middle of cathode.i will try to make it working


first picture - gold button , purity 988 , source - mainly gold plated pins, relays , transistors, etc.


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## goldsilverpro

Sucho,

What is your cathode current density - in amps per square inch or per square foot?


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## Sucho

as you can see on my power supply, working current is 1.5 Amps. each cathode has 5cm x 8cm.for two cathodes that means 10cm x 8cm = 0.008 square meters
1.5 / 0.008 = 187.5 Amps per square meter. if my square meter to square foot coefficient is good, it is 17.42 Amps per square foot.


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## Sucho

contacts were dissolved in nitric acid.it takes about 5 minutes to complete dissolution on medium heat


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## Sucho

this is the highest purity of silver that i am able to achieve using copper precipitation. good filtration , distilled water and accurate dilution are required


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## HAuCl4

How did you get all the palladium out?.

fwiw: If your main contaminant is copper, leaching the silver powder with ferric chloride, and then washing will increase your silver purity by a factor of 10 to approx 9997. :shock:

I may be wrong, but the photo shows some palladium oxide colors, hence palladium contamination, if I'm not fooled by my old eyes!. :lol:


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## Sucho

main contaminant is copper. Pd contamination is lower than 0.1 percent. in my opinion its caused by very low concentration of Pd in source material.
the surface of this mould is nice and shiny silver coloured. i made this photo using my mobile phone. 

thanks for your advice how to purify silver powder.

my experience is, that filtration is the most important step. it improve your purity in a range of 12- 8 percent


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## Sucho

todays batch. 5,3 kilos of ceramic P1 and AMD K5,K6,K7


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## glorycloud

Woo-hoo!!

The fun has begun!!

:lol:


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## shyknee

plastic pail would of been a cheap alternative to that expensive beaker


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## glondor

That IS quite the beaker. Is there any worry of wall failure? Please put that in a bucket! Fantastic photos. Do show the results.


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## Sucho

it is a serious pyrex beaker and its weight is cca 1 kilo. with processors and fluid it weights cca 12 kilos.
i have no worries of wall failure, because this beaker is brand new with no scratches and i use a large, 20 liter lab grade water bath with thermostat and stirrer to heat it.
if you use a classic heater with beaker of this shape, sooner or later you will hear well known sound of breaking glass and all of your gold will be lost.
for heating on classic heater i use beakers up to 1 liter.for larger beakers, you have to use a kind of bath to avoid breaking.

i know that plastic bucket is a cheap alternative. i like lab glass because of better reaction control and clearer work.

everything is dissolved and filtered now.
fluid composition- 2,5 liters DI water,3 liters of HCL(2,5 liters at beginning), 400-500 mL of HNO3 in additions during dissolving.
i will drop it tomorrow. i will post a result.

i will post a result of a batch of similiar shape in near future.


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## goldenchild

Thats a helluva beaker you have there. It looks like a tall form. What is the bottom diameter? I've been thinking about getting a 5000ml.


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## Sucho

i will measure it tomorrow. yes, it is a tall form. i have two 10 liter and four 5 liter beakers. in 5 liter beaker you are able to make cca 2 kilos of processors


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## Palladium

And here i was using pickle jugs. 

Rotfl 
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## Sucho

the result is 12,8 grams of Au.
the 10k beaker is 217 mm wide and 350 mm high.


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## Sucho

my latest palladium button
the source of Pd were gold plated Ag/Pd relay contacts
XRF shows purity 99,6%


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## burban

Wow Sucho Thanks for taking us in and showing us how you roll the pics make all the difference. Keep up the good work.


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## Sucho

29,8 grams of Au powder


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## dtectr

Sucho said:


> 29,8 grams of Au powder


My friend,
how many times was that powder dissolved & precipitated? Looks VERY nice.
dtectr


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## Sucho

it looks very nice because a source material was relay contacs Au95/Ni5 :lol: it was precipitated once and washed few times with DI water.

i am adding a photo of one of todays Pd buttons. notice the surface mirror.purity is 997.


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## samuel-a

Sucho said:


> i am adding a photo of one of todays Pd buttons. notice the surface mirror.purity is 997.



Very nice indeed sucho .


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## stihl88

Nice work Sucho, keep them coming


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## HAuCl4

Not so easy to get such shiny palladium finish!. Very nice!. 8)


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## Hannibal Smith

Nice worrk! The Pd button is cool.


Regards
Max


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## AurumShine

very good


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## Sucho

1150 grams of Ag75/Pd25 alloy dissolved in nitric.
notice the colour - it corresponds with free nitric in solution.solution is very dark red when nitric is consumed


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## HAuCl4

Beautiful wine!. 8) :shock: 8)


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## Sucho

here are some photos of precipitating Pd IV complex salt. chlorine was introduced to the solution from chlorine gas generator.


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## Barren Realms 007

That is very nice looking.


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## samuel-a

Nice indeed Sucho.
I really like this thread so far 8) 

May i ask, what is the source for all that Pd ?


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## Sucho

the source was Ag/Pd alloy from relay contacts and wires from one old telecom switching centre.
it wasnt as purple as it looks.we have large Pd looses, because i am only young student of chemistry and i can not stand against my boss ideas.
but now he knows that i was right.

i made 9 of these full buchners.i made about a kilo of Pd salt.


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## samuel-a

Sucho said:


> it wasnt as purple as it looks



nothing looks purple... the salt looks fine. (to me)

Thanks for your answer.


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## Sucho

i dont know if we understand each other.'it isnt as purple as it looks'is an idiom in our country.i translated it directly.you can say also 'it wasnt as good as it looks'and i was writing about looses.there was nothing wrong with salt.purity was above 99 percent.


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## samuel-a

Sucho said:


> i dont know if we understand each other.'it isnt as purple as it looks'is an idiom in our country.i translated it directly.you can say also 'it wasnt as good as it looks'and i was writing about looses.there was nothing wrong with salt.purity was above 99 percent.



oh.. sorry, didn't got it. now i do.


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## Palladium

Sucho said:


> because i am only young student of chemistry and i can not stand against my boss ideas.
> 
> but now he knows that i was right.




:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Sucho

it is not for laugh.i like accuracy in chemistry.
PATIENCE is and PRECISION are the most important qualities tha one must have in laboratory.


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## kuma

Sucho said:


> it is not for laugh.i like accuracy in chemistry.
> PATIENCE is and PRECISION are the most important qualities tha one must have in laboratory.



Sucho , please teach me your ways !! :shock:


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## Geo

someday soon ....... yep someday :mrgreen: 
very nice pics


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## Sucho

latest batch. 6,7 Kg of processors - 35,58 g Au

(and also some silver on a photo)


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## Harold_V

I'm impressed with the appearance of the gold button. Great (wide) pipe, great surface features and wonderful color. 
Well done!

Harold


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## Sucho

Thanks Harold !


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## lazersteve

Sucho,

Your Palladium looks very nice indeed. That kind of shine is very hard to get on Pd buttons.

Have you been purifying your Pd by redissolving in ammonia first or are all of your buttons made by melting the calcined colored salt directly? Here's the thread on the subject if you have not already seen it:

Purify Palladium Red Powder

Steve


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## Sucho

Thanks Steve!

Pd was not purified with dissolution of ammonium hexachloropalladate in NH3(aq).there was no need to purify it.main contaminant was copper in dirty solution, in button there was a traces of silver - 0.3 % and less in final product- same price for Pd above 99 %
in a case of recovering palladium from caps, purification is needed because of contamination mostly with Bi and Ti in a range between 1 - 6 %( my experience)


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## Sucho

gold purification.main contaminant was AgCl. 
before purification- 24,76 g
after purification 24,3 g


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## goldenchild

Now that is some clean gold.




A copy cat crime in progess. A little over 1troy ounce.


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## Sucho

pyrolysis of ram chips


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## kuma

Sucho said:


> pyrolysis of ram chips



Hello , how are tricks ?
I'm sorry for asking what is probably a daft question , but 'pyrolysis of ram chips' , and looking at your picture , is this basicaly just incineration by 'super' heating the chips in a pot over a stove without crushing first :?:
Enquiring mind needs to know!
Many thanks in advance for any reply ,
Kind regards ,
Chris


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## samuel-a

pyrolysis is essentially heating a material with no combustion (oxidation).

Though, i don't see the point for doing so with PM bearing scrap unless an inciniration is followed.
Carbon is known for its affinity to absorb PM's once dissolved...


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## glondor

Dropped and dried powder I made today. I find the colour quite nice.











The 56 gram button>>>


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## samuel-a

Great work glondor !

The pipe and crystalline structure reveal the high purity.


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## glondor

Thank you Samuel-A. I appreciate the compliment. This was one drop with SMB. I could make it better however it is not necessary for this project. I really want to try a second drop with Oxalic Acid. Time does not permit just yet. Maybe next time!!


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## Sucho

very nice button glondor ! nice photos !


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## kuma

samuel-a said:


> [pyrolysis] essentially heating a material with no combustion (oxidation).
> 
> Though, i don't see the point for doing so with PM bearing scrap unless an inciniration is followed.
> Carbon is known for its affinity to absorb PM's once dissolved...



Hi , how are tricks ?
Many thanks for the reply , now I think I get it! :mrgreen: 
So would you maybe suggest another route would be to just crush and go straight to incineration ?
I'm taking an interest in this area as I have a few pounds of ram chips to process at some point in the future , and I would like to try to run these as efficiently as possible.
Thanks for the info!
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris


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## patnor1011

Incineration of crushed chips will produce combustion and smoke. Lot of values will go with that smoke. I think that heating them like Sucho did will greatly reduce amount of material which will be leached. You can incinerate after some kind of pyrolysis (not perfect explanation due to my english but hope you understand what I mean) and then leach. Much much less material for leach and less crap in filters.


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## kuma

Hi Patnor , many thanks for the reply!
You mentioned 'leaching' the material. With regards to refining ect. , I have only heard of this term used to describe the extraction of values from ore , so I should ask this just to be sure that my thinking is on the right track. 
When you say leach , does this reffer to the AP or HCL/Chlorox process (after a run through nitric to eliminate base metals?) ?
Many thanks , and kind regards ,
Chris


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## Geo

kuma said:


> When you say leach , does this reffer to the AP or HCL/Chlorox process (after a run through nitric to eliminate base metals?)


you shouldnt go from a nitric acid solution to a hcl solution or vise-verse without incinerating the material first, an AR solution will be formed and without knowing this before hand one can discard values in waste solutions.


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## kuma

Geo said:


> kuma said:
> 
> 
> 
> When you say leach , does this reffer to the AP or HCL/Chlorox process (after a run through nitric to eliminate base metals?)
> 
> 
> 
> you shouldnt go from a nitric acid solution to a hcl solution or vise-verse without incinerating the material first, an AR solution will be formed and without knowing this before hand one can discard values in waste solutions.
Click to expand...


Hi Geo , how are tricks?
Ah , O.K. , I had thought that a good wash and rinse after the nitric cycle (to rinse away any potential base metal contaminents aswell as the nitric residue) would have eliminated this issue.
I didn't mention this step in my post , is this not right?
Sorry , noob issues! :mrgreen: 
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris


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## Geo

you cant rinse acid from material with water. even a prolong boil in water will not rid material of acid. if you just warm till dry the acid turns into a salt and when you add water it turns back into the acid. you must incinerate to rid the material of residual acids whether its nitric or hcl.


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## kuma

Geo said:


> you cant rinse acid from material with water. even a prolong boil in water will not rid material of acid. if you just warm till dry the acid turns into a salt and when you add water it turns back into the acid. you must incinerate to rid the material of residual acids whether its nitric or hcl.



Once again , thanks for the heads up , I don't know where I got that from then!  
I'm going to stick with my reading for quiet some time before I try any of this!
All the best and kind regards ,
Chris


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## Smack

Sucho said:


> i was trying to refine copper in my experimental cell. you can see working conditions on PS displays. anode and cathode was a copper sheet
> electrolyte composition - 30 g/l Cu 2+ and 220 g/l H2SO4 , anode - 5x8 cm , cathode 5x8 cm, A/C ratio 1 : 2, sealing tape was used on sharp cathode edges.
> 
> i want to achieve smooth copper deposit on cathodes and avoid fluffy deposit.experiment failed.there was a fluffy deposit on edges and smooth deposit in the middle of cathode.i will try to make it working
> 
> 
> first picture - gold button , purity 988 , source - mainly gold plated pins, relays , transistors, etc.




Sucho, try nitric saturated with copper for the electrolyte, copper anode and stainless cathode. I also was getting the fluffy stuff, had some spent nitric saturated with copper so I tried it and so far has given the best results, nice solid deposits on the cathode.


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## goldenchild

Geo said:


> you cant rinse acid from material with water. even a prolong boil in water will not rid material of acid. if you just warm till dry the acid turns into a salt and when you add water it turns back into the acid. you must incinerate to rid the material of residual acids whether its nitric or hcl.



So true. Whenever I inquart with silver and digest, no matter hooooow much I rinse the left over gold, as soon as the smallest bit of HCL is added to the gold for AR. Boom. A bunch of AgCl. I quit early on trying to completely rinse all the silver out. I give the gold a quick rinse and digest as in AR usual . The chloride stays nicely in the filters leaving behind a super clean solution.


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## fermi

Nice!


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## Sucho

Hi guys!

after a long time i add some photos of the button i made today

i think it is the prettiest button i have ever made


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## samuel-a

Sucho

Very nice indeed !

Is this a porcelain crucible?
I just bought a few and wondered if they will hold up without cracking.


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## Sucho

they will, but only in furnace.with torch it cracks very often

this one was totally full with gold powder before melting.i only add borax powder, bray it on whole inner surface with my finger, then i added gold powder and put it in 600 degrees furnace

the bad thing is those porcelain crucibles are only for one use.when melting is done, i put the whole crucible into cold water, then i crack it with simple hit 

i do it this way, because that enormous heat affects porcelain crucible so much, that it is not worth to risk crack when you reuse it


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## glondor

That really is a beauty Sucho. Fantastic job.


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## kadriver

That is one nice looking piece of gold!

What precipitant did you use?

Absolutely beautiful - flawless.

kadriver


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## Palladium

That is nice! 
Kevin i see i have an pm from you and i tried to answer your other one to, but for some reason i'm having pm problems. Want you to know i'm not ignoring you.


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## Sucho

kadriver, i used Na2S2O5 as standard precipitant.the gold was double refined, source was ceramic CPUs, so main contaminant after first drop was AgCl. another contaminants were from coreduction with SMB. gold was dropped in one take from 1 liter of HAuCl4 in second refinement


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## anton.nicolae20

can you poste some more pictures from refining of those procs? i'm currious how the gold looks from that quantity


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## anton.nicolae20

hey, sorry, i am new around. i didn't read the hole post before left the replay. i have seen all the pictures and all your progress. very nice. i hope i can do at least half of what you have done. god job and keep going!


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## Anonymous

The result of the first process today on a batch of fingers. Happy to get the gold powder such a good colour.


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## gold4mike

You are absolutely correct about the color of your powder. 

Great job!!


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