# CPU pins



## czop135 (Mar 5, 2017)

Hi
I don't have access to Nitric acid and was wonder if I can refine CPU pins using AP method?

Thank you.


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## Geo (Mar 5, 2017)

Yes. Be sure to use enough solution. If you do not use enough acid, the iron will precipitate out as brown iron oxide.


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## anachronism (Mar 6, 2017)

Technically you are recovering the gold using the AP method not refining it however as Geo pointed out quite correctly it can be done.

You will then need to refine the foils and small powdered gold that you get using acid/bleach.


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## Geo (Mar 6, 2017)

Actually Jon, AP is a refining process. Since HCl and hydrogen peroxide will dissolve gold, it was cheap and effective. Copper(II) chloride is a bastardized process of the actual process. AP was used by jewelers and metal smiths back in the days when it became profitable to reclaim their own waste metals. It's just a matter of semantics.


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## anachronism (Mar 6, 2017)

Of course, I had forgotten how widespread the use of AP as a refining method was on here.


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 6, 2017)

This artificial difference between recovery and refining has always seemed ridiculous. Any step that is on the way to purification is refining to me (and also to the entire refining industry). There are many refineries that don't purify their gold themselves, but they still call themselves refiners - not recoverers. I prefer the use of terms as they are used in the trade, rather than some strict BS technical definitions.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 6, 2017)

Chris, would you call using a wash plant in a mine to extract gold for refining?

Göran


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## 4metals (Mar 6, 2017)

In my opinion, which may be worth as much wind as it takes to say this, any process where you do not actually dissolve the target metal, is not refining but concentrating or recovery. 

When I processed jewelers sweeps into sample able powders by incineration, crushing and sifting, that was not refining although many guys who call themselves refiners do process sweeps that way. When I melted the sweeps and recovered the PM's in a copper cell, that was refining. When gold buyers just melt and assay metal, that is not refining, really it is just sampling.

But at the end of the day, it's just more fun to end up with pure metal !!!!! :G (Unless it looks like this gold icon :| )


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## anachronism (Mar 6, 2017)

I see Chris's point. 

Arguably the whole lot is merely part of the refining process. You start with a bulky raw contaminated material and ultimately end up with pure gold. Whether this be from mining or ewaste the analogy still works. 

On the other hand one could take the concentrating stages where the bulk of material is discarded and suggest that these are recovering the gold for the end step of refining. You end up with a still contaminated product that then needs refining to make it pure. Or do you simply say that it needs further refining? 

Jon


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 6, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Chris, would you call using a wash plant in a mine to extract gold for refining?
> 
> Göran


I will say that the term "recovery" can apply in mining operations. However, I never discuss any thing to do with mining. I got burned out, not on mining itself but on miners, after working with them almost daily for 2 years. I also think mining is very boring. I will never again have anything to do with miners unless they are someone knowledgeable like Reno Chris or Deano. Essentially I am a 100% gold and silver scrap guy.


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## 4metals (Mar 6, 2017)

> Or do you simply say that it needs further refining?



No metal is ever 100% pure, ever. In the end, how many nines do you want or need? It all comes down to cost. 

At a mine they produce a concentrated doré bar and usually do not go further. I have seen these bars as low as 60% total precious metals. But from the mines perspective, their time is better spent generating the doré rather than cleaning up the doré to 99+ purity. The mine would rather be concerned at how efficient their process is at getting the most of the metal out of the ore and into the doré than getting the most out of the doré. 

Every refiner out there has a niche, something they do best. Figure out your niche and perfect it. Just know your niche, because you can lose your shirt buying material and you can lose your shirt having material refined. Figure out where you sit and learn how to minimize your losses.


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 6, 2017)

4metals said:


> In my opinion, which may be worth as much wind as it takes to say this, any process where you do not actually dissolve the target metal, is not refining but concentrating or recovery.
> 
> When I processed jewelers sweeps into sample able powders by incineration, crushing and sifting, that was not refining although many guys who call themselves refiners do process sweeps that way. When I melted the sweeps and recovered the PM's in a copper cell, that was refining. When gold buyers just melt and assay metal, that is not refining, really it is just sampling.
> 
> But at the end of the day, it's just more fun to end up with pure metal !!!!! :G (Unless it looks like this gold icon :| )


I agree about the sampling and assaying. 

What if you ran the melted sweeps through the Cu cell to recover the gold and then you melted the impure gold and shipped it to someone else to purify? Were you refining when you put it through the cell? I say yes. Whether you ended up purifying it or shipping it impure makes no difference.

When does it stop being recovery and start being refining? The only time the gold is re-fined, or becomes pure, is in the very last step. With me, this was usually gently tapping the bar with a rod to get rid of small amounts of slag. The bar wasn't pure until that slag was gone. Are all the previous steps recovery steps?

No gold is ever 100% pure but, it is pure by most industry standards at 999.5 Fine.

Gold refining is a series of steps in which the pile containing all the gold gets smaller in each step. The only exception to this that I can think of would be an intermediate step that puts the gold in solution. If you complete the entire series of steps or only some of the steps, it is still all refining.


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## aga (Mar 6, 2017)

4metals said:


> No metal is ever 100% pure, ever. In the end, how many nines do you want or need? It all comes down to cost.


The purity required is all that matters, depending on the need, and return.

If you need as close to 100% as possible, gas-phase recrystallisation.

If you need a rich 'ore' 1% will do, by any means.

Profit versus Cost (in time and $) lies somewhere inbetween.

This weekend a few boards and CPUs got stripped of their PM-bearing bits : all bits weighed before and after.

Still calculating, but the weight/cost is very much tending towards the Sell side rather than Process.

Even without a First gold button result, messing with e-scrap isn't looking anywhere near as profitable as first imagined.

If anyone wants to shout out 'Volume', Carnegie made billions by shipping out rather a lot of Iron, not Gold.


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## Geo (Mar 6, 2017)

I feel that concentrating value of any kind is refining in the loosest sense possible. You are concentrating your target until it reaches an acceptable concentration. Gasoline is refined crude oil. Does that mean that gasoline is oil? In a broad sense, it does. Like I said before, semantics.

Edited for spelling.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 6, 2017)

I like 4metals definition that when you actually dissolve the metal it goes into refining... but then it would not apply to inquarting or even the Miller process and those are refining in my book.

In my opinion, which is worth even less than 4metals since I'm only a hobby refiner... :mrgreen: I like to talk about recovery and refining and I would define it as this :
- Recovery, trying to concentrate the gold for easy refining. In this stage I'm more concerned by not leaving any gold behind. I'm less concerned by any contamination. Examples would be panning gold, dismantling electronics to collect gold bearing components, incineration to reduce bulk material... and so on. Recovery for me can be several steps and even dissolving the gold and precipitate it in a more concentrated way by cementing on copper.
-Refining for me is separating the metals on an atomic level. Aiming for purity and accepting some losses along the way, for example in filters and liquids ending up in the stock pot. Example on refining processes for me is a silver cell, dissolving gold and precipitate it again after filtering, washing the gold powder, the Miller process, inquarting and so on.

I find it easier to think in two steps where the goal is different. In the end it all aims to get that shiny button or bar. It also makes it easier to explain to a newbie why putting whole circuit boards in aqua regia and then trying to precipitate it in one go is a bad idea.
For me circuit boards or even components is equal to an ore, each ore has to be treated in a special way to concentrate the gold enough to take it into the refining step.

For someone working with karat gold it's already concentrated enough to go to refining directly, but for the home refiner who starts with whole computers it might be helpful to think on the process as two steps.

It's all semantics in the end, but sometimes words does matter and can affect how you are thinking and planning. And even if we would try, there would probably never be a well defined line between recovery (concentrating) and refining.

And that was my opinion, if anyone cared to read that far. If you just skipped to the last line, good for you! :wink: 

Göran


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## 4metals (Mar 6, 2017)

> I like 4metals definition that when you actually dissolve the metal it goes into refining... but then it would not apply to inquarting or even the Miller process and those are refining in my book.



The Miller process is definitely refining because the gold is dissolved in the cell and electrolytically recovered. But the starting purity is 99% and it ends at 99.99% It is a big expense for that 1% but if pure gold is your end game it is one of a few routes.

Inquartation with parting is semi refining because the gold doesn't really dissolve just the inquart silver is parted away. And there truly is a point where it becomes a chicken or the egg debate. 

The real trick, which isn't really a trick, is to know what purity you are shipping out, then it doesn't matter. Because when you know everybody has to play nice. Not that someone won't try to beat you on the assay, but it becomes your choice to do business with them a second time if they do. Most refiners make their living off repeat customers so they want you back.


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## lizardking (May 1, 2017)

hi all i have a question regarding processing cpu pins i have added the pins to a hcl and 3 % peroxide solution now the amount of pins i added i now have a pile of copper pins and rubbish on the bottom of the pot if i add 6% peroxide will it just dissolve the gold into the solution and get rid of the crud then i can process it with SMB to precipitate the gold or will the 6% peroxide do something to the gold and make it unreclaimable


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## glorycloud (May 1, 2017)

That "pile of copper pins and rubbish on the bottom of the pot" probably contains your
gold that has cemented back onto the copper pins. You may want to add some more
HCL and perhaps an O2 bubbler like with an aquarium pump to help keep the process going. 

Using the AP (acid peroxide) method is probably not the best choice for CPU pins.
You may want to do some more reading on the forum about different methods for
processing different materials.


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## Superswan (May 1, 2017)

Hi guys....
A little advice please...? I've put 100g of cpu pins on with 400ml of hcl and 40ml 6% hydro peroxide, it's been on for 4 days now, some of the pins look like they have been stripped others not... The solution is now a black/ Brown colour but hasn't done much for the past couple of days. I added a air pump on the second day to try and push it on a bit but again it seems to have slowed down. Is my solution saturated (shall I change it for fresh hcl)? Or should I try adding a little heat to it.


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## patnor1011 (May 1, 2017)

Heat will not be of much help. This process require time. Four days is not enough. I would say few weeks will be the best bet. It will take quite a lot of time for acid to eat all metals under gold plating. Also look can be deceiving, pins may look stripped but what you see is rather other metals cemented on surface of pin. Foils should float freely and easily as they are super light when all other metals dissolve. There should be only small amount of black/brown powder on bottom which may be actually gold plating broken to super small particles. Leave it settle for a day then carefully decant some of that black liquid and top it up with fresh HCl. Introduce air again. No need to add more peroxide.


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## g_axelsson (May 1, 2017)

Let's see... computer pins are mostly made from an iron and nickel alloy. What part does the peroxide fill in dissolving the metal? This is not a copper chloride leach that needs oxidation to work.

In my opinion the peroxide or oxygen doesn't fill any real function (a bubbler creates movement though). Time and / or heat makes the reaction go faster.

Göran


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## upcyclist (May 1, 2017)

So, to recap: 

Newcomer #1: I'm using AP method for pins...
Glorycloud: AP is not best method for pins.
Newcomer #2: I'm using AP method for pins...
Goran: AP is not best method for pins.

Anyone else see a trend in this thread? :lol: 

Both newcomers: cement out on copper to make sure you haven't dissolved any gold, put it away, and do some more studying. We'd love to help you learn to do this more effectively.


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