# A passive stripping system



## Shecker

Good afternoon everyone

In my work I use a lot of CuSO4 for leaching complex minerals. Awhile back I discovered that CuSO4 will also strip the silver from CD's and DVD's and the silver will simply fall off as a gray powder. Today I tried this with electronic scrap from several different computers. I found that CuSO4 plus occasional additions of 3% H202 slowly strips the precious metals from the e scrap. And it does this without dissolving the copper or other base metals. The silver and pgms fall out as a gray powder and the gold falls out as a micro fine yellow powder. The system is slow but works easily on a 5 gallon bucket basis and leaves a residue for further refining that is not contaminated by base metals. I believe this is worth trying.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Rag and Bone

Are you sure there is silver on cd and dvds?


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## Scott2357

Some form of aluminum I think.


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## Shecker

According to guys like Jim Sinclair, there is a thin film of silver on CD's and DVD's that is considered unrecoverable by usual means. The value is about 5 cents per disc and is considered a loss of metal to the environment (like a lot of other nonrecoverable silver uses).

My trial on e-scrap is working just fine and I can visually watch the gold being slowly removed from the connectors. Copper and solder materials are left behind.

Randy in Gunnison


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## P_CARROLL

Which form of copper sulafate do you use the hydrated blue stuff nor non hydrated whit powder


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## SilverNitrate

never the less, if you used H2O2 on your fingers that can loosen the foils sufficiently enough to rinse away. I believe that CuSO4 in water will do nothing to react with anything besides base materials like iron, zinc, aluminum, and perhaps the tin, and lead solder.

I say you'll have better luck with NaOH and little H2O2.


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## Shecker

I use hydrate blue copper sulfate. When I use it on e-scrap with H2O2 that precious metals comes off in the form of fine powders. Gold is a bright yellow powder and silver/pgm's are gray powder. I have found that in 4 to 5 days the copper sulfate works its way into the chips and processors and slowly strips them. Some gold goes into solution. Certainly some of the copper sulfate will react with the stainless steel and other non-copper base metals present and reduce copper upon their surfaces. I have found this does not interfere with the process. If necessary I add some extra CuS04 and H2O2 to continue the stripping process.

I don't normal run e-scrap and I started as a n experiment. But it has worked very well for me.

Randy in Gunnison


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## NobleMetalsRecovery

just wondering if anyone has tried this with pins?


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## Palladium

8) ?


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## SilverNitrate

CuCl2 is water soluble and won't precipitate. Most copper compounds including precipitates can be dissolved or removed with ammonium NH4OH-


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## Paige

For us idiots, what is ammonium NH4OH?


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## Gotrek

Paige said:


> For us idiots, what is ammonium NH4OH?




NH4OH = Ammonium Hydroxide = Ammonia(aqueous(in water))


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## donald236

i really hate to be such a big dummy but what is cuSO4 &clcu2 :?:


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## steveonmars

When I don't know one of these terms I just Google it and have the answer in a few clicks. When you google something you almost always end up with more info than you were looking for if you want to keep looking. It's amazingwhat you can learn just by looking up a simple term or formula.

Steve


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## Platdigger

Copper sulfate and copper chloride, which is actually written CuCl2
not the other way around


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## Anonymous

Hae guys 
Im trying to strip metals (gold silver and copper)
from scrap useing copper sulfate I have a contaner that has water and cuso4 mixed in I then added a whole lot of circuits and a cd that i broke ( also added a few gold fingers and flat pack.) the cd is almost stripped but its taken AGES and the boards (still with plastic covering) is progressing really slowly. anybody Know what i should do?

Also there is a small amount of floaty particals building up at the bottem of the contaner how do i collect these and check if there are any metals that makes it worth while continueing with the CUSO4 prosses 

any help will be greatfully and thankfully welcomed

thanks a heap!!!!!!!

DAN.E


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## Anonymous

Not sure that just adding boards for copper sulfate will strip them. I think the only thing that would happen is stuff like aluminum, iron etc that is more reactive than copper will displace it from the solution, is that what you are trying to do?


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## Shecker

Add some hydrogen peroxide. First it will increase the effectiveness of the copper sulfate and second it will precipitate silver as a bright yellow material that is easily filtered and then processed into nitric acid for the reduction to metal. But you also need to break the surfaces off of any IC's and the main processor. It takes about a week for all of the stripping of exposed areas to be be completed. That is why I call it a passive process. The good news is that if leaves the solder alone so no tin or lead fills the solution. I also make sure that as much as possible all aluminum and iron are removed from the boards as this will cause copper/gold/palladium precipitation. I always end up with a copper based sludge in the bottom that contains everything but the silver, but that sludge is easily processed into separate metals. This works well for me because I don't have to stand over it while it is running. There will also pm's in the solution so I would check it first. A little note -- stannus chloride has an unusual reaction with copper and can mask any other metals present so I check the gold with SMB. The palladium from the monolithic caps always ends up in the sludge residue. I hope this helps.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Pawnbroker Bob

Hi Randy,

Your process interests me. Could you please post a little more detailed explination with quantities? ie How much CuSO4 with wate and H2O2 used. 

Also you mentioned some values go in to soultion. How are you preciptatng them out?

I was reading an article the other day indicating that some high end dvd's do contain gold values. 

Thanks,

Pawnbroker Bob


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## Shecker

I have a 71/2 gallon tank I fill with boards, cards, and memory chips. I fill it with water and add one pound of copper sulfate. A few others later I add a little hydrogen peroxide. Every now and then I add a little extra copper sulfate and hydrogen peroxide. I do this for about 5-7 days, then filter the solution. There will be a copper sludge in the bottom that weill contain some of the pm's and some will be in solution. I remove all other values with iron which drops them into a copper base. This is adaptable to virtually any scale -- but remember the copper sulfate won't work on values thast are not exposed. So take your frustrations in life out on the boards and leach away.
From there the values can refined by standard means. Essentially this is a metallic replacement process but it does remove the exposed pm's.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Rag and Bone

How do you recover the silver?


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## Shecker

When you add the H2O2 the solution will turn yellow in color. That is silver coming out of the solution. Steve Spevak suggested it was silver and he was right. At this point I filter the solution, run a stiff wire brush over the surface of the boards to remove any stuck on copper/pm sludge, and back in the solution it goes. If the pm's are exposed the copper sulfate will strip them. But this is a metallic replacement process not a leach process. Copper will always be deposited where the pm's were -- that is why I go over everything with a wire brush after it has been in the solution for a few days.

After the resulting sludge is dried I smelt it to Dore. I was surprised to discover how much palladium was being recovered. During the smelt it formed a matte phase of a bluish-grey color on top of the copper Dore.
My first run was 40 ounces of copper, silver, and gold, and 7 ounces of this palladium matte material. The Dore came out silvery in color with an occasional showing of copper and gold. Check your solution when finished with it. It maybe that some of the gold is being retained in the leach and will require separate precipitation.

I started this as an experiment because copper sulfate is how nature transport precious metals in the environment. Now this is the only way I run e-scrap. I have an ore from which I am recovering gold and the yellow alkaline chloride of rhodium. The e-scrap runs itself while I work on my main project.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Wyndham

Randy, what do you think would happen with Black Sand cons.
Wyndham


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## Shecker

I don't know. I have never tried Copper Sulfate with black sands. But I did something similar once with interesting results. I had a black sand that was derived from a iron/gold mineral where the two were intergrown. From the host rock the mineral was gray and highly magnetic. Once oxidized it turned black and was still highly magnetic. I fused a sample of it with copper carbonate and found that the pm fraction seperated with the copper and became non-magnetic. This is one of the processes I use for intergrown iron and pm's. The fusion exchanged an iron base for a copper base and pm's were a hole lot easier to process. This material also had pgm's in it, which we (the New Mexico State metallurgist and I) proved at the New Mexico Bureau of Mines by froth flotation using a xanthan collector and Dowfroth 250. So a black sand that would not assay values in platinum group metals would float them. Try it and let me know the results. I would suggest using a little H2SO4 with the CuSO4 to keep the pH about 2. If this works it shouldn't be any problem to precipitate any values using standard means. The iron weill drop copper out of solution and also pm"s.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Wyndham

Thanks this looks very promising on several fronts. I have an aquaintance that has a placer deposit in a pay to play site but the super fines are in a mud cake that has an unknown value and the profit is selling buckets to play in, so this might be a good test. Thanks Wyndham


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## Shecker

Clay is one tough sadistic S-B, if you know what I mean. But it can be broken with the right approach. I once heard that some guys near Durango, Colorado, were recovering gold from a red clay by putting the clay in 55 gallon drums and boiling it over a camp fire. The heat breaks down the clay. By cooking and stirring they would have a layer of clean gold in the bottom of the drum after about 12 hours of applying heat. Another method is to take prickly pear cactus, burn off the part that sticks, cut into long strips, and soak in water for 3 months. This will produce a gelatinous material that breaks up clay and has no environmental impact (since it is a natural product). Once the clay has been broken the gold can be recovered by standard means. I don't know if copper sulfate will have an effect on clayey materials but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Randy in Gunnisonm


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## Rag and Bone

Could you post some photos? I would love to see one of the dore bars. I'm also curious to see how the boards hold up after the process. Do all the components dislodge?

How much material did you process to yield the 40 oz. bar?


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## Wyndham

The nature of clay is that it is thin platelets of silica and alumina with impurities like iron for red clay or weathered feldspar that has given up its fluxing agent sodium or potassium or lithium and may come from underwater volcanic smokers that may be pregnant with copper or other metals or barren like Kaolin, just alumina & SIO2(I think) so the heating make sense since at about 900 deg it is calcined and looses it's sticky. Tobacco juice will also break down clay but I don't chew, :mrgreen: 
I like the boiling idea, maybe with a touch of either alkali or acid. there is I believe an ionic bond going on that has to be broken for the clay to loose it's sticky. This might be an interesting path to follow for awhile. Wyndham


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## Shecker

Rag and Bone I have been trying to get some pictures up but haven't been able to get them beyond tinypics. I could e-mail them to someone who could then post them.

Wyndham the ore I am working on comes from an underwater volcanic smoker and it is a real complex bugger. Since our black smoker injected some of the minerals as a chloritic material. My ore also possess a rather large amount of clay but it doesn't interfer with the extraction I am doing.
I use a hcl-cl leach employing 3 and 1/2 liters water per pound of ore, 100 mls chlorox, and 400 mls hydrochloric acid. The leach takes about one hour.
I use cloth sheets as a filter and colanders that fit nicely over a five gallon bucket to filter through. Ferrous sulphate recovers the gold and then a small amount of ammonium hydroxide recovers the platinum as yellowish-orange ptcl(2). Then a little more ammonium hydroxide produces a deep blue solution I poetic call the "blue solution of death" as everything at point becomes virtually impassive. But add a little hcl and yellow alkaline rhodium chloride develops. I currently have 120 ounces of alkaline rhodium chloride available and I am waiting to hear from a refinery to see if they want it. I also have about 150 ounces of gold.
This blue solution is caused by the reaction oif the hypochlorite ion and the rhodium ion. I also have pics of this available.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Anonymous

Could someone explain the chemistry behind this to me, I do not understand how copper sulfate can strip more noble metals. 
Thanks,

Jim


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## Shecker

I call this a transport system, not a leach system. But calling it a metallic replacement system would also be accurate. Copper sulfate (and to a lesser extent ferric sulfate) is nature's method of transporting precious metal ions in the process of oxidation. In the case of the passive stripping system I am exchanging copper ions for ions of silver, gold, and pgm's. I don't know about you but trading copper for silver, gold, and palladium is highly profitable, at least I think so. And it is cheaper than other approaches, has less environmental impact, and doesn't mess with the solder. But it is all a matter of personal preference. You will go on using what you use and I will go on using what I use. It is a matter of what we are comfortable with and use to (and yes I do suffer from dangling participles).

Randy in Gunnison


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## Rag and Bone

What kind of fumes does the reaction emit?

(very interested in this method, thanks for posting Shecker)


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## Shecker

There are essentially no fumes, at least during the initial bath.

Randy


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## Platdigger

Still, it does seem backwards doesn't it. 

I mean, a base metal will always displace a precious one just by virtue of the electromotive series of forces.........right? 

And by this, I of course am refering to one metal being more chemically active than another. Or is it "electrically" active?
Which ever it is....

There must be some other way to explain this sytem of recovery.......

Now with ammonium thiosulfate gold leaching.....copper sulfate is used as a catalyst........but this is different.
Randy


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## Lou

Does seem backwards, doesn't it? :lol:


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## eagle2

Well guys. The best thing is to try it for ourselves. Gold may form some type of temporary complex with the Sulfate ion, with the help of the H2O2. Silver forms Ag2SO4, which is mostly insoluble, 1 or 2% stays in solution. Looks like Pd is also separated. 

I am definitely going to try it.

Randy, did you use any Sulfuric acid to lower the Ph? Cupric Sulfate is Ph 4 in water by itself. Do you use tap or ground water or distilled water? Gold shouldn`t stay in solution at all unless there are some Cl- ions in the tap water.

Al


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## Anonymous

Shecker said:


> You will go on using what you use and I will go on using what I use. It is a matter of what we are comfortable with and use to (and yes I do suffer from dangling participles).
> 
> Randy in Gunnison



Randy, I was/am not trying to impune your system. I just personally do not know/understand how it works and would like too.

Thanks, 
Jim


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## Wyndham

I remember taking a mine tour many years ago near Idaho springs above Boulder, this was before I got interested in the chemistry of gold. The mine had an ore that looked like a black clay/sand mixture in the walls and posts that we went through. This makes me wonder about the Co, area and what other black smokers might still be undisturbed hmm. 
Gold fever is a wonderfully terrible thing. Thanks for the info, Wyndham


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## Shecker

I have no problem with someone impuning what I say. That is how knowledge is developed. I use tap water and no acid. Perhaps there is a reaction between the Cl from the tap water and the SO4 from the Copper Sulfate. That is something I hadn't thought of and that could part of the driving force of this reaction. That may also explain why the silver comes out as a yellow complex, because a chloro-sulfate of silver would be yellow in color. This is definitely something to think about.

When I treat e-scrap with this solution I notice that the gold fingers slowly dissolve leaving the underlying copper intact. I believe that this is a dissolution process because I see no visible gold in the copper sludge that develops until it is smelted. But then again I do not see any visible palladium either until it is smelted. Only the silver shows up as the bright yellow complex. It does not react on anything that isn't exposed so I beat the living stuffing out of the boards before treating them. A great stress reliever. How long to I treat the e-scrap? When all visible gold is gone from the boards I scrub them down with a wire brush. There is always copper sludge adhering to things. Then I wash them to remove all of the scrubbed off sludge and they go to the trash heap.

I get the e-scrap for nothing by putting an add in the local paper. The extraction costs are minimal. $10.00 for a pound of copper sulfate (which goes a long ways) and $1.00 for 3% hydrogen peroxide (I use 3 to 4 of these per batch both to react out the silver and to get the ORP of the solution up). So about $14.00 to $15.00 dollars I recovered 40 ounces of metal including 7 ounces of palladium. I am waiting for the refiner I sent this to to tell me how much gold and silver is in it.

I have more of this Dore. If someone on the forum wishes to handle it please pm me. I also have some lead based Dore that contains pgm's.
If someone wishes to handle that please pm me.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Rag and Bone

Has anyone tried this method using an aerator? I wonder if it would revive the solution similar to AP. It would add some agitation if nothing else.

I started a trial batch of copper sulfate, h20 and H2O2 with a variety of e-scrap items. The addition of H2O2 turned the solution slightly yellow for a while. A precipitate is developing that looks like gold powder although nothing is visibly stripped yet. 

I hope this method works. It sounds too good to be true so I'll try not to get too excited. 

edit (next day)

Today the scrap in solution was fizzing like it was in a cell. A light brown precipitate is developing and gold has begun to strip. The monolithic caps. on some old modems formed a white "fuzzy" coating. I didn't alter the scrap, just threw in some assorted pins and fingers, 386 cpu, monolithics and eprom.


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## Pilgrim2850

Hi everyone,

I tryed a batch of this and slowly it took the silver off a candlestick and left the base metal (zinc I think). I've not tried to precipitate the silver out of solution yet. (Don't quite know how yet) But I will and let you know how it went.

larry


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## Platdigger

Wow, disolved silver, and then stopped at the base metal........

There were a lot of guys on this forum recently, looking for something to do just that.

This could be a very usefull system indeed......
Randy


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## Platdigger

I am curious though, if with the silver.......you could have used just sulfuric and H2O2.

Could be it would not stop at the base metal though.

I have disolved silver contacts with H2SO4 and 27.5 percent H2O2.
Works fast.
Randy


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## OMG

I guess if you think of it, iron chloride at its highest oxidation will dissolve metallic copper, basically lending out some of its oxidizer because it has too much. And copper is way more "noble" than iron. 
So maybe the copper sulfate gets oxidized to a higher level(via h2o2), which allows it to dissolve more noble metals the same way.


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## Shecker

Good thinking OMG. It is a possibility.


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## cerise

Shecker you said
"but that sludge is easily processed into separate metals".

Randy in Gunnison[/quote]

Can you tell us how you seperate the metals once the stripping is complete?


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## Shecker

Try putting into some HCl - Cl so there are no nitrous oxide residues to remove from the solution. Any silver present will immediately form silver chloride. Gold can be precipitated with ferrous sulphate and palladium with either ammonium chloride or sodium chlorate.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Rag and Bone

I'm not having any luck with this method. I've been adding more copper sulfate and h202 periodically. The reaction has stopped.

Has anyone tried this with concentrated H2O2?


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## Shecker

Add more copper sulfate. Remember the iron and aluminum on the boards is going to remove copper as metal into the sludge at the bottom. So periodically add some fresh CuSO4 and H2O2. And remember this is an experiment. You can always recover the values by conventional means if not happen happy with this.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Platdigger

I am still curious if this is good for stripping silver plate.......like from copper.
Randy


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## Harold_V

*Sigh!*

Harold


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## Irons

Platdigger said:


> I am still curious if this is good for stripping silver plate.......like from copper.
> Randy



Copper is the 'base' metal in this case. The Copper will tend to go in solution first, once it's exposed.

Is this a trick question? 8)


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## Platdigger

Well, I was only refering to a post made by Larry (Pilgrim2850).

"I tryed a batch of this and slowly it took the silver off a candlestick and left the base metal (zinc I think)"

Randy


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## Harold_V

The entire process sounds like nonsense to me. I'd have to see it to believe it. No amount of BS would convince me otherwise. 

Harold


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## Platdigger

"Seeing is believing" right Harold?

Wrong.....Believing is seeing......

Hey, it seems like nonsense to me too Harold. And it may very well be.
But this experience Larry had......got me curious....... is all.
Randy


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## Rag and Bone

Is anyone else experimenting with this method?

It seems too good to be true and some of the experts are doubtful.

It would be good to get to the bottom of it.


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## Platdigger

Only place I found copper sulphate around here, is in a 50 pound bag for like $137.50.
Randy


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## skippy

I'm going to try to verify the process on some fibre cpus I'd probably never bother with otherwise. If it doesn't work then no big loss.


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## lazersteve

Randy,

You can make your own copper sulfate by electrolytically dissolving copper into sulfuric acid. Copper anode, copper cathode, sulfuric acid electrolyte. The copper sulfate forms in the electrolyte and turns it bright blue.

Steve


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## skippy

Hmmm. My experiment almost looked like it was working - I was following Shecker's instructions, and I had a promising looking precipitate in a turbid blue-green fizzing liquid - but I couldn't resist adding a small bit of sulfuric acid. The precipitate immediately disapeered, the solution turned a lovely transparent blue and doesn't appear to be doing much of anything now. Ok so if anyone is trying this I might recommend not adding acid. If this technique does indeed work, then it might be dependent on being in the pH established by the copper sulfate.


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## Pilgrim2850

Hi everyone,

The copper sulfate I used is "Roebic root killer for sewer and septic", active ingredient: copper sulfate pentahydrate 99%......inert ingredients 1%. Got it at the local hardware store (Best). I think it was around $9 for 2 lbs. If I get a chance this weekend I will run another batch with a silverplate item and take pictures and all that. Also I used hydrogen peroxide 3% from walmart.

larry


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## eagle2

I`m still expeimenting with the process, but I have noticed several things about the results, so far. 

First, Cupric Sulfate is very soluble in water and the solution stays very clean. With no heating, no agitation some fingers and a few broken chip sockets had the copper stripped very cleanly and the gold foils/coatings, loosened very well from their surfaces. Took about a week. The solution turned very blue and a small dark precip deposits on the bottom along with the loose Gold foils. 

Next, there dosn`t seem to be any such compound as Cuprous Sulfate; But a Cuprous Sulfite exists. (Cu2SO3). For the Cupric ion to be reduced to Cuprous (which is necessary in order to dissolve the Copper metal under the Gold) some Cuprous complex must exist, then possibly the H2O2 in solution reoxidizes the Cuprous ion back to Cupric. 

While the process is working there is a fine stream of bubbles coming from the metal surfaces, so a reaction is continuously working. 

My solution had a small amount of dilute Sulfuric acid, H2O2 and distilled water.

You can make a small amount of Cupric Sulfate, by putting Copper wire in hot Sulfuric. 

Al


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## Shecker

It is Copper (III) Sulfate which is an oxidizer. So the correct name is Cupric Sulfate but they call it Copper Sulfate in the stores.

Randy in Gunnison


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## eagle2

Hi Randy.

Copper only has valences of +1 and +2

Cupric is +2 (Copper II) and Cuprous would be +1 (Copper I)


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## Shecker

It is the cupric form. My fingers sometimes hit too many keys at one time and I don't notice it -- an effect of arthritis and sinful living.

Randy in Gunnison


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## OMG

So does this method dissolve the gold and immediately precipitate it again, or does it just etch away the copper underneath, not affecting the gold at all?

If it just etches, maybe you should try something with iron(3) chloride (and h2o2), it dissolves copper rather quickly. If I were stripping computer components, I would definitely try iron(3) chloride. From what I read, it is commonly used to etch copper, and from my experience with iron chloride it does it quite easily. Using iron chloride I don't think you'd have any chance of dissolving any of the gold at all - as opposed to HCl and peroxide. Although if you heat up/dry out/concentrate iron(3) chloride enough it released HCl(g) and forms black iron oxychloride.


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## Shecker

Give it a try and issue a report. My effort in this was to provide an alternative method for stripping e-scrap.

Randy in Gunnison


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## maltfoudy

i am not a chemist but i have a question/concern. does this give off any fumes and or gas my concern is for H2S. some people believe H2S has a rotten egg smell but at a certain point you cannot smell it and it is lethal. i may be way off base with this,but the make up of the 2 chemicals kinda got the rusty wheels in my head moving. i do hazmat clean-up in the oilfield so i have a working knowledge of H2S. just a concern,i will leave the answer to the chemical experts.


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## Shecker

I have not noticed the product of any hydrogen sulphide gas. Since I work with this in an enclosed area I would have noticed this very quickly. I don't add any acid either. CuSO4 is naturally highly acidic.

Randy in Gunnison


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## maltfoudy

thanx for the response, i just read this and since everyone uses these i thought it might be worth a concern.


A series of suicide cases in Japan in which the victims killed themselves by producing toxic hydrogen sulfide fumes by mixing household cleaning products (such as toilet cleansing liquids) with bath salts have highlighted the danger posed by such common use substances and prompted censorship of internet sites who posted advice for aspiring suicides.[4]


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## eagle2

Good Grief, some one always has to try a new way of ending it all.

I`ve been experimenting with Cu SO4. It gives off no H2S by itself or with H2O2 or with dilute H2SO4. 

A solution of CuSO4 with the above additves strips Copper very well and very cleanly. It does not dissolve Gold, but seems to easily get under it to dissolve the copper and tin.

I tried the same solution with Silver plate. A butter dish top that had a copper underbase. It loosened the Silver so I could scrap it off with a little work. I don`t know yet if any Silver went into solution, but definetely most of the Silver metal went to the bottom.

The Sulfuric and Peroxide do get used up and have to be replenished or the reaction will stop. I kept the PH under 1, when it went over 5 the action would stop. The leach solution lasts a long time without going bad (action slowing up, no matter how much Sulfuric and Peroxide you add). I think its the amount of other metals like Tin, Lead and Nickel, that eventually poison it.

Copper Sulfate is very soluble in water and dilute Sulfuric and it will hold a lot in solution until saturated and some copper sludge begins to form at the bottom. There is a patent that uses this process to leach Copper ores and along with this solution it highly recommends adding a small amount of Chloride ions, such as HCl or Salt or most any other Chloride salt compound. This speeds up the leaching 2 or 3 times quicker. 

However I would say do not add any Chlorides if you have any Silver in your material to be leached. The Silver Chloride formed will cover the active leach areas and stop or slow it down.

Al


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## Shecker

When run this process I found a lot of AgSO4 developing in solution and going to the bottom of the tanks. It would keep the solution yellow colored.
I would periodically examine the boards and I would notice a definitely decrease in gold plated fingers and pins -- and in a few days that gold would be gone from them. There are factors on the boards (steel and aluminum pieces that cause precipitation of copper) and the gold and palladium would be in this sludge while most of the silver remained either in solution or as a precipitate as AgSO4, also in the sludge. The sludge assumes a grayish color enough though it will be high in copper. The grayish color should be a combination of silver and palladium. I was surprised at how much palladium this recovered. I also use this process on computer hard drives -- the copper sulfate is precipitated by the aluminum in the hard drive and the silver/platinum surface layer flakes off, sometimes in rather large pieces. I consider this be a combination of a transport mechanism and a metallic replacement mechanism rather than a leach, but it does work.

Randy in Gunnison


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## OMG

eagle2,
I am experimenting with h2so4 and h2o2(/o3), and I am just writing to make sure you (and everyone else reading) know about that combo and how dangerous it can be. Look up caro's acid, it is also called piranha solution, and Peroxymonosulfuric acid (h2so5). Keep any particles of organic solvents away from it because it can explode (never seen it happen, just read about it everywhere - at sciencemadness.org too). I'd just keep all organic matter away from it. particularly fingers.


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## eagle2

Thanks for the info OMG. I looked it up. You have to use highly concentrated Sulfuric and Peroxide to make it. But its something to be aware of.


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## eagle2

Randy, my solution never turned yellow, it pretty much stayed a clear blue. Silver Sulfate is not very soluble, so not much can be in solution. My tests were with only simple materials like fingers and chip sockets. Sounds like you have every kind of scrap in there at once and no telling what was reducing something else.  My gold fingers fell off the pc material, stayed in the bottom of the beaker and never dissolved. 

Al


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## warrendya

I was rereading this thread and had a question. Randy, it sounds like you break your e-scrap up before treatment with a hammer or such, which results in pieces large enough to physically separate from the sludge which occurs with treatment.

When I mill flatpacks and chips with either a ball mill or an old wheat grinder, the result is essentially flour. If I tried this process on this flour, I can't think of how to effect the mechanical separation of the sludge. Am I missing something?

Dan


----------



## Shecker

Like anything else in the chemical world of stripping pm's from e-scrap it won't work on unexposed materials. Since I leach the mother boards and all others in tact, first I break up the surface coverings of IC's and the CPU
so that the copper sulfate can get to them.

Reducing this material to the flour size would necessitate a different approach to recovery. At that point you may wish to burn off the organics and smelt the rest or treat it was an HCl-Cl leach (or even HCL/H2O2).

I use this passive stripping method because I can forget about for days or even a week on end and pm's will be right there for me to recover from the sludge on the bottom. It does take time to work.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## Shecker

Yeah I throw in everything -- whole boards, connectors, exposed silver/copper wiring, whatever I can find. I particularly like boards with lots of monolithic capacitors. They leach really well.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## warrendya

Shecker said:


> Reducing this material to the flour size would necessitate a different approach to recovery. At that point you may wish to burn off the organics and smelt the rest or treat it was an HCl-Cl leach (or even HCL/H2O2).



Yep, that was how I tried my experiment. Took 2 pounds of chip flour, treated with AP for 2 weeks, discarded solution (after checking with stannous), then treated with AC. Got busy and have left it alone for 2 weeks but still no sign of PMs still when tested. Next step planned is AR. All this is an experiment to satisfy my curiosity about PMs in flatpacks. So far I'm less than thrilled. I should have tried incineration, I had a lot of wetting problems with the dust.



Shecker said:


> Yeah I throw in everything -- whole boards, connectors, exposed silver/copper wiring, whatever I can find. I particularly like boards with lots of monolithic capacitors. They leach really well.



Do you smash each little surface mount monolithic cap or just soak them as is on the board?

Dan


----------



## lazersteve

Dan,

The monolithic caps will dissolve slowly in AP at room temperature. 

The flatpak flour should be constantly stirred for the HCl-Cl to attack the fine gold wires in the mix. Heat is a defininte plus, even it's heat from the sun. A second possiblity is that the wires all ended up getting separated out in the screening or milling processes. The bottom of the ball mill may have your missing hair fine gold bonding wires.

I did a sample of one epoxy style chips and found that when the fine powder is shaken with excess water the gold wires all settle to the bottom of the test tube.

The wires were difficult to dissovle in room temperature HCl-Cl.

Another test I performed indicated that silver is a main ingredient used in the ground planes of the plastic quad style flatpaks. Silver will convert to silver chloride (insoluble) with AR or HCl-Cl.

Steve


----------



## Shecker

Dan I just go over the boards with a hammer, breaking up what I can. No one is going to get everything. Since I am one old lazy --- dud, I do whatever requires the least work for the best return.

Randy in Gunnison


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## cerise

Wouldn't one want to burn the e scrap first? Then Hot HCL. Or AP bath.Just wondering.


----------



## Shecker

Cerise that is better answered by someone else on the forum. I don't burn off anything until I am ready to smelt the sludge that builds up on the bottom of my tank. I smelt with borax, sodium carbonate, silica, and a little flour as a reducing agent. The palladium (and any platinum that may be present) will end as a matte phase so watch the slag when breaking it up.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## goldsilverpro

If you burn E-scrap, it produces very toxic, very black smoke (lots of it). You'll never get away with burning even moderate amounts without spending tons of money on pollution control equipment, such as scrubbers and baghouses.

In this day and age, burning is not an option, unless you do it legally.


----------



## pcecycle

I am trying a small scale experiment using this system. It seems to be going well. Some items are completely stripped and some are only partially done after 5 days. There is a good bit of sludge forming that I assume contains all the values.

After filtering off the sludge, do I just dump it into nitric to recover any silver or palladium, then filter the residue and treat with AR or HCL-CL to recover any gold?

As long as the solution remains blue-green and clear, I assume I can still use it to strip more items?

Also, does aeration help as it does with AP?

Thanks

Mike


----------



## Shecker

That sounds good Mike. Just post your results for others.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Scott2357

Any pictures or updates on this?


----------



## Ignatz61

Is there another way to recover the silver without using nitric--for those of us that can't get it easily?


----------



## Shecker

The silver should readily dissolve in sulfuric acid as an alternative to nitric acid. recovery can also also be by cementation on copper and then re-refined if so desired to obtain high purity silver. I do have some pics but I have been unable to post them on the forum.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## NaNO3

Concentrated sulfuric acid H2SO4 may be used in combination with heating for silver-gold alloys with more than 10% silver content.
The process is termed affination.
A maximum gold content of 30% is recommended.
The sulfuric acid produces copper sulfate CuSO4 and 
silver sulfate Ag2SO4 from those metals in the alloy. 
The Ag2SO4 is precipitated by the addition of cold sulfuric acid H2SO4. Two to three washings with acid removes the copper sulfate CuSO4 and the procedure can leave almost pure gold (Ganzenmüller p 345).


----------



## Scott2357

*Posting some pics for Shecker... Comments are his.*


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## lazersteve

Scott,

Your lack of proper safety gear really astonishes me. :shock: 

I'm not convinced that you are seeing silver sulfate, especially with all the other metals higher up in the activity series in the mix competing for the chance to react with the sulfate ion.

You'll need better proof of your claims than the above photos to prove you are really getting what you think you are. How about some photos of pregnant solutions and positive stannous test swabs.

How many boards did you process for the yields quoted?

Steve


----------



## Scott2357

It's perfectly safe for me since I'm not within a thousand miles of it. Please re-read the *"Posting some pics for Shecker... Comments are his." *part at the top. I don't know anything about this, just helping get the images posted.


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## Shecker

If you recall Steve you are the one who correctly called it as silver sulfate in a pm to me quite a while ago. 

Randy in Gunnison


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## Harold_V

Call it what you wish-------I, for one, don't believe it (the silver claim, that is). 

Has any of it been melted, then tested with Schwerters? 
Or------has any of this supposed 'silver' been melted and refined through a cell? 

I'm having more than a hard time believing that silver is used in abundance on boards. Didn't GSP mention (previously) that silver is not desirable for such use? 

Any comments to support the claim will be appreciated. Opinions not so much. 

Harold


----------



## Shecker

I also run a lot of tv boards and there is silver in those. I also run silver plated wiring. What I have reported is what I recovered. I am not here to convince those who will not see.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## jimdoc

Since you are doing the whole boards maybe you have tantalum
capacitors in the mix? Some are supposed to have silver cases.
Jim


----------



## goldsilverpro

Silver sulfate is white, not yellow.


----------



## lazersteve

Scott,

Sorry I missed the fact that you were a go between. 


Steve


----------



## lazersteve

Shecker said:


> If you recall Steve you are the one who correctly called it as silver sulfate in a pm to me quite a while ago.
> 
> Randy in Gunnison



Randy,

I don't recall the exact PM you are speaking of, but I most likely said that some solders are made of an alloy of silver and that sulfuric acid and silver can form silver sulfate under the right conditions. That's not to say that all solders are silver alloys. As for reactions that form silver sulfate, I would need to know more about the chemistry of the mix to determine if silver sulfate will even form under the given conditions. 

The part that makes me skeptical is that all the other base metals present should be reacting to some extent with the sulfate as well. This makes for a very dirty reaction which is difficult to determine exactly what the products actually are.

Steve


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## Shecker

This started as an experiment that frankly produced results far beyond what I thought they would. I chose to offer it because of the results achieved. I consider it to be nothing more than an alternative to other systems. It does offer the capability of leaving it alone for days on end and it will go right on doing what it does.

AgSO4 is white unless contaminated by something else, which is a very real possibility. I certainly don't know everything that is in e-scrap. My specialty is unusual mineral states and their extractions. I still have some of the yellow silver and I take a look at it to try to determine the state.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## goldsilverpro

> My first run was 22 ounces of silver, 3 ounces of gold, and 7 ounces of palladium.



The value of these PMs is about $4,700. The value of the boards in the photos doesn't seem to be greater than $5/pound. That would mean that you would have to run about 1000 pounds to get these values. I doubt if you could get more than 10# to 20# of boards, or less, in that 7.5 gal container. That would mean that you ran 50 to 100 batches. To get 7 oz of Pd, it would take about 19 pounds of monolithic capacitors, at 2.5%. Is there any other source of Pd on the boards - I doubt it. 

All this is guesswork on my part, of course.

How much weight of electronic material was run to collect these values? What type materials were run?


----------



## Shecker

The pics are not really a very good representation of my first run by this system. I took them to share with a few interested people back when 
I first ran this thread. They do not represent the total of boards that were processed -- but neither can I give an exact weight except in the metals recovered. Remember this was just an experiment. The next time I do this I will do better documentation of all facets.

Randy in Gunnison


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## NobleMetalsRecovery

I'm curious, what did you do with the 3 ounces of gold?


----------



## NobleMetalsRecovery

Hi Laser Steve,

The PM may have been to me, I seem to remember one, and my name is also Steve.


----------



## Shecker

I sent the metal Dore to Glines and Rhiodes in June. They have yet to pay me for it.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Harold_V

The vast majority of refiners may not treat you fairly, but I'm having a hard time thinking they'd simply steal your material. There may be a question with what you shipped, perhaps not being what you expected. A phone call to them may be in order. 

Big question. If you sent doré, how is it you know the content? Did you have your metal assayed? If so, by what means? 

Harold


----------



## Lou

For me, the color of his precipitates means little--it is common to have solution and impurities entrained in a precipitation that can make white compounds a different color. I have seen it many times. Let alone solution concentration/temperature/which way the wind is blowing and all the other variables that affect crystallization and precipitation.

For me, it is the chemistry that is confusing. I just don't see it. I'm not out to say it's impossible but it's beyond my experience--I must be a traditionalist or something. More power to Randy if this is working as well as he claims but Chris raises valid points on the quantity of material required for those yields. 

It's always a heartbreak to tell someone that the stuff they think is gold (or insert other precious metal) powder is in fact just plain rust :-/ For me, the proof comes when you melt it. Get it consolidated, judge by melt characteristics, and for God's sake, get a density! If it's mostly gold, it's going to be over 17 g/cc, there aren't very many dense things like that out there. 


As for the silver sulfate, put it to the test! Dissolve it up in hot dilute H2SO4 and then add sodium chloride. If you get that familiar curdy precipitate, well, most likely it is what it is! As for the gold, dissolve it up, and see if stannous works in addition to it being the right color. So many easy little tests that save much worry!

There isn't any magic to this guys, 'tis common sense and thinking rationally if your results are reasonable. If something sounds too good to be true, well, it probably is and if it isn't you're pleasantly surprised. 

I think rather than needing a bunch of my inane chemistry babble on this board, maybe I ought to delineate exactly why the scientific methods is so nice for the pursuit of knowledge. 

When you chase these metals, you must have a plan and you must know what to expect. Generally, they do the same thing quite reliably, especially towards the end. Most often it's knowing what you've got and when you've got it all that is the difficult part.

I'm just saying what I think needs to be said. This doesn't go to Randy or anyone in particular, for all I know, he's right. I can only speak for what material I process, otherwise I'm off shooting in the dark. I can say to Randy that there's a lot of qualitative tests that should and darn well better be done before you send off some ''suspect'' material to a refiner. 

Lou


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## P_CARROLL

I am currently doing a small scale experiment using this method with silver plated nuts used in jet engines and nothing but silver plated nuts to see if the plating comes off. This way it reduces the varibles and will verify the results. I will post my pictures and results after the testing is finished.


----------



## Harold_V

Lou said:


> It's always a heartbreak to tell someone that the stuff they think is gold (or insert other precious metal) powder is in fact just plain rust :-/


At the risk of offending, and that is certainly not my intention, having refined commercially for years, and having a policy of entertaining everyone and anyone that has a legitimate claim to ownership of the material in question, I experienced kooks and weirdoes like you can't believe. Sadly, and I don't mean to imply that anyone on this board is the same, the worst offenders I ever encountered were generally those that considered themselves prospectors. Rarely did they have even the most basic understanding of gold, and had expectations well beyond reason. Some even insisted that their gold contained no silver, although they were at a loss to explain to me why it might need to be refined. 

I had one very negative experience-----from a person that had stripped pins for a long time, and had concentrated the foils in a plastic container, which he delivered to me for refining. In it were bits of insulation and traces of other debris, but the worst offender was that the foils were wet, not dry. He had weighed the container along with the contents, and had grandiose thoughts of recovering nearly a pound (avoirdupois) of gold, less my fee, which was 10%. 

When the smoke cleared, he received 5½ ounces troy. 

The man was livid. He demanded I account for the balance of his gold. No amount of explanation would serve the purpose. I had kept the filter, so it was placed on the scale along with his container, his share of the gold, and weighed. I then filled the contain with water to the line (which was evident by a ring) with water, and came up with an almost identical starting weight. Not good enough. He went away knowing I had stolen his gold. :roll: 

The _honest_ refiner's worst enemy is ignorant customers. 

Harold


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## P_CARROLL

Here is a pic of the silver plated nuts I am experimenting with.


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## cerise

Brilliant.


----------



## goldmelts

Hi all,

I'm still a newbie, and don't want to seem rude to anyone... but

I have been noticing the huge pissing matches in this thread. I am quite interested in what everyone has to say. I'm sure there any may out there that would like the meathod to be proven thorough some scientific means.

By doing this it would be of great benefit to all on the forum.

What I(and probably everyone) whould be looking for is:
- what the process is.
- how the process is conducted. i.e step by step instructions.
- and some solid scientific proof of the values and purity recovered.

Hope we can all work together to acheive this  

thanks,

Goldmelts


----------



## Rag and Bone

Sheckers system stripped the pins off a 386 chip and made monolithics and gold-plate fizz. Mixed e-scrap produced multi-colored precipitates in H2O+H2O2+copper-sulfate.


----------



## Harold_V

goldmelts said:


> I have been noticing the huge pissing matches in this thread.


It's not so much a pissing match, but a check on reality. Claims that are being made make no sense to those of us that have exceptional educations in chemistry (Lou and GSP), or those of us that have years of experience in refining (GSP and myself) albeit, in my case, a complete lack of chemical education. 

Still, in spite of my lack of education, there are some things that simply don't make sense, and that gut feeling is reaffirmed by those that know better. A good example is the dissolution of silver by sulfuric acid. In industry, processing slimes, silver was digested by boiling concentrated sulfuric, in cast iron kettles. Claims being made here make that sound unnecessary. I don't agree. I also don't agree that a huge amount of silver is coming from boards. What could the source possibly be? 

What I have tried to do on this forum, as one of the moderators, is to insure that no BS gets posted. Someone does that, I call them on it immediately. It's tough enough learning to refine properly without having some yahoo posting stupid ideas (no, I'm not interested in the theory that there's lots of ways to skin a cat). If the substance and claims of the comments in the pictures posted by Scott2357 (for Shecker, they are NOT Scott2357's comments) are correct, there won't be anyone more thrilled than I am to endorse the process, but right now it sounds like a pig in a poke. You, as well as other readers, need to know that to save yourself from pursuing something that may waste your resources and time--leading you down the wrong path. 

Right now it's waiting game. We're waiting on Shecker to provide more information, something to back up his claims. I'll eat crow with the best of them if I'm proven wrong, but, in the mean time, it would pay you to keep an open mind and wait for the details to shake out. You just might be grateful for the "pissing matches" you spoke of. They have a way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the expected results when dreamers collide with folks that deal with reality. 

In case you're wondering, no, I don't believe in the tooth fairy. :wink: 

Assuming the information that has been posted is correct, purity won't be good. It is not a refining process, but a recovery process. Look at it as concentrating values so they can then be refined. 

Harold


----------



## goldmelts

Hi Harold,

I totally agree with every word you said. I'm just trying to promote the idea of mutual education and learning.

Lets be civil and just and the truth will be sorted out in the end. I just don't want this interesting discussion to be sidetracked by our egos. This is not directed to anyone specifically but to the group.

After reading the thread, I can say what it all sounds good, but there is no direct scientific evidence to prove it.

Even if the metal dore assay comes back from the refiner, there is still no direct evidence.

It would be good to see, the sludge/ PM values tested with accepted practices, and pictures of the results posted here.

Thanks.

Goldmelts.


----------



## Shecker

I wish to state one more time that this started strictly as an experiment on my part. I wanted to see if it would do anything. I expected little or nothing.
I was surprised with the results. Over a period of a week I watched the gold on the fingers and pins disappear and I checked the volume of sludge accumulating in the bottom of the tank. Certainly there was a great deal of copper building up from reaction with steel and aluminum components and I believed that any pm's would accumulate with the copper. I did not anticipate that monolithic caps would also be stripped. But it was very easy to see a distinct change in the boards after about a week. Tiny copper bits were adhering to many components so I went over them with a wire brush and added the results back to the tank. It was plain to see that in the case of fingers and pins the gold was gone. Examining the processors the plated pm material was also gone (only after breaking off the tops).

All of this was melted into Dore. I talked with Glines and Rhodes before shipping the Dore. They wanted it but did not bother to tell me until after they received it that they have a significant remelt fee. I am disabled living on a limited income. I still cannot afford this fee. The silver and gold melted with the copper. The palladium made a distinct matte phase.
All of this was then remelted for shipping.

I will continue the experiment at some future date and do a better job of documenting the before, during, and after results. The experiment will continue.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## goldmelts

thats great shecker, can't wait to hear more from you.  

I was thinking, maybe you can send a sample to the more experience forum members for testing.

They can then give us the low down of what is in the sample.


----------



## Shecker

I still have some Dore if someone wants to run tests on it.

Randy in Gunnison


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## NobleMetalsRecovery

Now that's fair. I hope someone can step to take the offer. We'd all like to know what's there.


----------



## eagle2

P_Carrol. Earlier in this thread I reported an exeriment with a Silver plated butter dish. The solution was tap water, CuSO4, H2O2, and a small amount of H2SO4. After a few days The plating was very loose or had disintigrated. some scraping work was necessary to get it all off. The solution attacks the copper base and the Silver does not go into solution. 

With steel base nuts you may have a different result.

THIS process everybody is disscussing is nothing but a Copper leach, similiar to the AP process (with HCl). 

The difference is that Copper does not form a Cuprous Sulfate (in the AP process it forms Cuprous Chloride which is not very soluble and quickly slows the leaching reaction). 

Copper Sulfate (Cu II, should be called Cupric Sulfate) is reduced in the reaction to Cu I. Then it forms a Sulfite or an Oxide. This is Cuprous Sulfite (Cu2SO3), which has several varying compound forms, red to pale yellow to white in color, or Cuprous Oxide (Cu2O) (color may be yellow, red or brown). Cuprous Oxide breaks down in dilute H2SO4 to Cupric Oxide (CuO) and elemental Copper. 

Also in the sludge at the bottom is Elemental Sulfur, salts and the PM`s broken down to fines or whole bits of foils. The presence of Sulfur indicates that the Sulfate ion also enters the reactions going on(Probably reacting with the H2O2 or O2 in solution).

I am still experimenting with small batches and will report more later. 

I like it so far, because the solution stays cleaner and needs less attention than AP with HCl. Also Iam not using any heat. Also the constant formation of bubbles forms a mechanical action that seems to easily break the foils and leach the base metals to a greater extent, than AP with HCl. 

You can Google Copper Sulfate leach and get a ton of info to study.

Al


----------



## Shecker

A good report. Thanks for the work. You may be right about forming sulfites rather than sulfates.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## P_CARROLL

My theory is inline with eagles that the coper alloyed with the silver is attacked and goes into solution. So far after adding h2o2 and a ratio of about 3/4 ponds of copper sulfate and 3 gal of water the solutoion has turned a dark bluish grey and is bubbling indication some type of reaction going on.


----------



## Harold_V

Shecker said:


> Certainly there was a great deal of copper building up from reaction with steel and aluminum components and I believed that any pm's would accumulate with the copper. I did not anticipate that monolithic caps would also be stripped.


That should have sent up a red flag for you. It's obvious, at least to me, that you were reducing copper sulfate with base metals, so copper would be the largest component of your doré. In a sense, you melted the metallic portions of the board without fire. I would expect very little in the way of values. I would still be at a loss to understand where the silver came from. 



> They wanted it but did not bother to tell me until after they received it that they have a significant remelt fee.


Another red flag, one _you should have observed closely_. 

I have submitted values to refiners on several occasions----and have never been asked for money up front. I've been cheated, but they have done that by under reporting the results. 

That they wanted money up front is a clear indication, at least to me, that what you submitted was very low in value, too low to process at a profit (for them, perhaps not for you). Any money you throw at this venture will be a loss to you. 

You made your mistake by assuming percentages. It's clear you had no idea what you had----and should not have been promoting this system until you knew more. I've taken note that you have advised others to emulate the process. Please refrain from doing so until you have evidence that the process is valid. 

An honest answer to the question of the volume of boards processed would be very helpful in concluding what has happened here. Our friend GSP appears to have a firm grasp on what should be expected, as does Lazersteve (based on the volume of boards processed). 

I remain a skeptic. I'm even more so, having done a search on your previous posts (I recommend readers follow suit, to get an idea of the nature of the claims being made), all of which make grandiose claims----none of which have been substantiated in practice. 

I'm particularly troubled by your reports of platinum group metals reporting in the hundreds of ounces per ton. Can it possibly be that you are the only person alive that finds these metals, when highly skilled and educated people fail routinely? 

It's time for a reality check, Randy. A good way for you to restore some semblance of credibility would be to provide some scans of assays that have been performed on your materials. No assays? No credibility. Just claims by a delusional dreamer. 

I have my fork in hand, ready to eat crow. 

Harold


----------



## P_CARROLL

Attached is a close up pic of the nuts after soaking in the keach solution overnight. there were grey particles in the bottom of the bucket as well.Nuts were returned to solutin for further soaking.


----------



## eagle2

P_Carroll. That`s a lot of nuts  With that large of a batch you will use a lot of H2O2. One of my planned experiments with a large batch was to switch to a fish tank bubbler, to see if the results would be the same.

The gray you report on the bottom will contain the Silver that has flaked off. Also its important that that the solution is slighly acid, otherwise the reaction will stop. Add small amounts of Sulfuric acid. The literature says leaches are run commercially in dilute solutions, PH under 3. I`ve used more concentrated solutions with a PH under 1. More acid will speed up the process, but will also decompose the H2O2 a lot faster. 

What Randy thinks is Silver on the boards, may only be Tin, but it is aslo possible he has boards that used Silver containing solders? 

Also some old mainframe boards used Gold containing solders.

Al


----------



## Lou

Eagle2, I wonder if really you are taking sulfate to sulfite to elemental sulfur. You need to substantiate that to me--sulfate is a *very *chemically stable anion (resonance stabilized) and doesn't get reduced without one heck of a fight. There's nothing in this system capable of doing that.

I don't buy it at all.


----------



## P_CARROLL

I added more H2O2 and the bubbling began again vigorously. Im thinking that the silver goes into solution momentarily but the copper of the copper sulfate pushes it back out of solution. Also setting up a drip for the H2O2 might be beneficial to replenish the solution. But what do I know I could be wrong and this could be a colossal waste of time. I will be testing the powder at the bottom of the bucket to see if it contains silver later on.
I will be posting another pic of the progress tomorrow.


----------



## eagle2

Lou, I don`t claim to know all the chemistry going on. but there are several strong drivers in the solution. There are probably dozens of reactions going on. I mentioned Sulfite, because there is no such compound as Cuprous Sulfate. It does not exist normally. However I did some reviewing and you are right. A Sulfite is not going to be produced here. But Cuprous Oxide does (Cu2O). This breaks down to Cupric Oxide (CuO) and elemental Copper in the leach. 

The main drivers have to be Copper going from +2 to +1. Sulfuric acid and Peroxide. My mention of elemental Sulfur is pertinent only to when this leach is used with a complex Copper ore. 

Thanks for making me be a little more accurate. 

Al


----------



## P_CARROLL

As promised here are some more pics. First one is what looks like silver floating on the surface.


----------



## P_CARROLL

Second pic is nuts after soaking for 2days.


----------



## eagle2

Yes! That looks like action. Careful with the liquid. You don`t know what alloy composed the base part of the nuts. Also there could have been some Cadmium with the Silver plate.

Al


----------



## usaman65

keep us posted!!!!


----------



## P_CARROLL

Here is a pic of the filter contents.


----------



## P_CARROLL

Here is a pic of the nuts. Looks like all the silver has been washed off.


----------



## P_CARROLL

Im going to dry the filter next and weigh the contents. Will report more later.


----------



## Shecker

I would like to share that just yesterday I found my copy of Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 8561, entitled "Recovery of Copper and Associated Precious Metals from Electronic Scrap." This report advocates the use of acidocupric sulfate (copper sulfate and H2SO4) for the processing of e-scrap. In the system they advocated that copper sponge containing the pm's is smelted, put into an electrolytic cell where pure copper is plated on the cathode and the pm's are recovered as an anode slime.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## Harold_V

Very big difference between using copper sulfate and sulfuric acid in conjunction with electricity as compared to just soaking parts in copper sulfate and sulfuric acid. 

I tried parting by the electrical method. I'm not here to dispute that it works, but if the precious metal content is high, or if the level of contamination by base elements beyond copper are high, it fails miserably. Note that GSP has alluded to this very process numerous times, where e scrap is combined with copper for recovery of values in the copper refinery. It's important to success that there be low contamination levels. Otherwise copper is deposited as sponge, sloughing off and settling in the slimes instead of adhering to the cathode(s). 

I would suggest to you that when e scrap is melted with copper, it is done in large reverb furnaces, where the base metals are oxidized and discharged in the slag---or discharged in the gases (think zinc) raising the level of purity of copper. 

Harold


----------



## Shecker

Once in the far past when I smelting ores on copper and then electrolytic separating the copper to obtain a pure copper cathode I noticed the same problem. I solved the problem (at least as far as my small scale works was concerned) by wrapping the cathode in a bag and periodically collecting the copper sponge for re-smelting with ores. That was I had some clean copper and a constant supply of copper for remelt. In addition when dried the copper sponge was in a powdered form and was far better for collecting pm's than wire or other forms of copper.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## P_CARROLL

Just a quick update that I recovered a little over 11 grams of cement silver not including the stuff trapped in the filter that i couldnt get out. I can send out a few small samples for testing if anybody would like to verify my results.


----------



## Platdigger

That's great Carroll!

What is the base metal the nuts were made of?
Randy


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## Shecker

If someone wishes to pm me I will send the pdf document on Recovery of copper and pm's from e-scrap and they can post it.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## P_CARROLL

The base metals of the nuts is high strength steel.


----------



## Platdigger

But not stainless......right?
Randy


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## Rag and Bone

It would be great to have this process described with chemistry. I have seen plenty of anectodal evidence running test batches. I'm hoping this will lead to recovery of all PMs from whole boards.


----------



## P_CARROLL

Platdigger said:


> But not stainless......right?
> Randy



No not stainless.


----------



## Scott2357

An interesting document from Shecker...


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## goldsilverpro

Shecker,

Thanks for the Bureau of Mines RI. I collected those things for years, but I don't remember that one. After reading 100s of these, I must admit that I'm very leery of them. They're usually neat, tidy, and unique and they make you think, but they're most always impractical. Maybe this one is the lone exception. I'll hold off judgment until I read it.

Why didn't you post a copy of it to start with, or at least give your source? That would have saved 10 forum pages of BS and would have saved the hours of wasted time that Harold and I and others spent trying to figure this damned thing out.


----------



## Shecker

GSP the answer to that is remarkably simple. My wife packed in a box and forgot which one. I am still looking for other reports of the same venue, including the electrolytic regeneration of sulfuric acid for acido-copper sulfate leaching, and when I find it (in the great nether realm of my wife's packing) I will arrange for it to be posted. I just found a report of pilot studies in processing dental amalgm is anyone wants it.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## Blacktoadd

In Mr Shecker's article I picked up on one thing I have seen. The first time I attempted to Melt down a nugget of copper I got the piece you see in the picture. The black is the untouched Nugget areas. You can see the places I scraped off are copper colored. The silvery looking areas are just that, Silvery areas. I have yet to acertain what the silvery material is. It is not lead unless it is alloyed with something to make it hard. it also does not tarnish. The copper was from a little experimenting with electrowinning of some copper chloride solution from leaching mixed content ore with HCl peroxide. Subsiquently melting left me with the coating over the nugget. I hesitate calling it dore. 
The ore is of a type "Known to often contain significant quantities of gold and platinum grade metals. 
I was getting back to the ore over the weekend. I started finding the Yellow/orange precipitate while not trying to drop platinum from solution. I added a little more peroxide to the nicely warmed mixture and started seeeing the precipitate forming on some of the small stones. then in the sand at the bottom of the glass container. About two tablespoons appeared while I was not lookng in a pint of solute. I have yet to determine what it is yet. It is insouable in hot water and I risned it twice. Settles quickly like platinum grade materials. Large clumps like platinum precipitate. I couldn't believe what I was reading in the article I have on my desk. Waiting to figure out what it is when I have more time and knowlege.


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## Anonymous

Gentlemen..Once you reach the point of a Dore with your material..has anyone thought about using flux and variable temps to induce the melt points of the individual PM's to extract each at its individual melt point??? thereby selective repat. with out elect. ???? CU repat.. i'll buy into your postulate here based on the current experiment I'm running just haven't decided how to attack the residue Dore to get out the PM's /....So plz lets continue down this road and see if we can reach a break thru together..After all if its controversial its probably worth the effort to see it thru and relish the outcome...thx Rick


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## goldsilverpro

The metals are in there as alloys and the phase diagrams are very complex. The metals aren't there as individual metals, except in rare combinations, and their individual melting points no longer apply. 

In other words, what you are proposing absolutely won't work.


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## Harold_V

goldsilverpro said:


> In other words, what you are proposing absolutely won't work.



That's correct. No more so than would hoping for gravity to separate each element because of specific gravity. Elements that will alloy are normally separated only with considerable difficulty. One exception might be silver and gold, which are easily parted from one another (chemically). 

Harold


----------



## Anonymous

has anyone actually produced or concentrated metal with this process. I read the booklet download and it appears to me that they are using the
more common metals in boards to precipate copper from a copper sulfate solution - and my understanding the reason is to actually remove the aluminum, zinc, steel from the boards, leaving the copper that is replaced from the original solution, copper and higher metals still attached/contained on the board or parts that contain them.

Then they are burning/melting the entire solids - precipated copper and the remaining metal contents from the boards, into an impure copper ingot then eletrorefining that to recover the copper, with the precious metals left in anode bags as in the normal copper process.

So my impression is that if you are melting the copper from the first precipation you are only getting copper from your copper sulfate solution.

I should add, I do not want to be a nay sayer, I do want to use the process and only intended to explain what I got from the booklet so that someone could tell me what I am missing.







Now if you are adding H2O2 it may be different from the booklet process.


----------



## Blacktoadd

If you had ever been involved in the plating business you would have understood what what steve was doing when he was separating the silver from the copper and why the copper turned up on the back side of the cathode. 
When you have a plating bath analized by the supplier, a service they provide if you are using all their stuff they tell you every little thing that is in the bath. and how to take care of it. EXAMPLE:you got a plating bath with Iron or what ever in it. The instruction may be something like "Dummy Bath at 10 amps/ sq ft for 24 hours. 
When Steve was plating out the silver from the stirling he was plating out the silver on the front which was recieving the proper current density (correct number of amps per square inch for the solution) on the front facing the "ONE ANODE" he had" If he had had two anodes it wouldn't work. On the back of the sheet the current density was very low. Certain contaminating metals plate out of the parent bath at very low current densities. (Dummying). The correct current density for a bath to plate out good metal can be determined in a Hull Cell. from R.O. Hull Co.


----------



## Blacktoadd

So far, everything I know and have read is leading me to the direction of Recover all metals, smelt in a similar manner as used by the mills. They melt, blow in Oxygen/air to oxidize many metals (iron) vaporize some as found in the wild ore. Turn some into compounds that float. pour off cu from bottom or let harden and break off slag. This = "blister copper" about 95 to 98 % pure. Then electro-refine to tripple 9's. They have removed out almost all of the metals that will "dummy out" in low current areas. and use a bath that plates out smooth and clear, not one that plates out in powders and crystols that scrape off, which will contain some of the base metals. I am seeking information as to wheather or not I can smelt directly from Copper Chloride. NOTE: if you use a commercial electrorefining bath they will tell you how to maintain it. You will have ultimate success beyond your home endevors. You also want a large bath. Small baths go out of wack so quickly your head will spin. In a large bath not too heavily run, you send in regular samples and get to fix things before you are out of business. 
Bruce


----------



## Harold_V

james122964 said:


> has anyone actually produced or concentrated metal with this process. I read the booklet download and it appears to me that they are using the
> more common metals in boards to precipate copper from a copper sulfate solution - and my understanding the reason is to actually remove the aluminum, zinc, steel from the boards, leaving the copper that is replaced from the original solution, copper and higher metals still attached/contained on the board or parts that contain them.


That makes sense. The idea of parting copper that is drastically contaminated isn't a good one. By using copper sulfate to dissolve the base metals, they are eliminated from the mass. When the recovered copper is melted, the yield has the potential to be high quality copper , making the parting operation successful. I seem to recall that was one of the processes the bureau of mines was developing years ago. 

Harold


----------



## Blacktoadd

I can't remember weather or not HCl peroxide or bleach will disolve silver. 

I haven't taken time to check out what type of metal is covering the top part of the little piece of copper I Smelted from some of the oar I dug up. It is soft, doesn't tarnish, shiny silver, and I wonder why it didn't mix in. Most metals alloy with copper. Someday when I am farther along and am checking out such things I will.


----------



## Gold Nut

Hello Shecker,
Could you elaborate on this subject a little more ( It sounds interesting), and how is the process working for you on the e-scrap? Also, I don't want to sound like a dummy, but what exactly is CuSO4?
Gold Nut


----------



## Catxyoli

i usualy search wikipedia but sometimes it would not recognise the formula so i search a *periodic table * to know what's each atom name then again search wikipedia the name of mostly recognised compound and it should say in the page for Sodium for example it says mostluy comon forms of Sodium coumpounds ... etc...

the "codes" and formulas used here is another story but theres always someone to help specialy in processes
search search search ad refine refine refine lol


----------



## Catxyoli

Copper Sulfate (II)


----------



## Anonymous

Ok..... I'm a n00b at this, I'm just starting doing some research and this is my first post here. I have a couple of questions. 1st, is there a consensus yet on if this method really works? 

My buddy and I are thinking about playing with e-scrap refining as a hobby. Being an ex electronics/computer guy I have access to a lot of it and this seems like a simple way of doing it, with the ability to recover many other metals too (I'm interested in all metals, not just gold). I have all the time in the world, so even if it's a slow process, that's just fine with me. 

2nd after you smelt down the remaining residue into a slug, where can it be sent to be further refined to separate it all out? Or is that doable at home too?

P.S. this is an amazing forum!


----------



## Anonymous

I think it would work good as described in the government article. I do not see how, just putting the scrap in copper sulfate solution would yield anything other than copper precipated from the solution by the base metals in the scrap, ie iron, aluminum, zinc. 

From my reading of the process after the above is complete they incerate the solids with the precipated copper being used as a collector for the precious metals. After the incineration the cast anodes are run through a copper cell yielding salable copper and precious metal anode slimes to be further processed.

jim


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## butcher

newbies there are other methods for electronic scrap, and ore that are much simpler than copper sulfate, to recover your values.


----------



## Anonymous

Hi, I'm new to the forum and very limited in chemical knowledge, and since joining have just been trying swim in the sea of info up here! After reading this complete thread, I thought of a vid I had seen on electrorefining that might have to do with the disscussion here! Its not my video! It may be to simplistic, I dont know, but if anyone would like to take a look I would be interested in your thoughts!!! its at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXNrbMdyY8k


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## NobleMetalsRecovery

Thanks for the post. That's a very good video. The speaker does a very good job of clearing explaining the process.


----------



## eeTHr

So whatever happened to this experimental method?

Here's what I think I have read in this topic---

1. Shecker posts his passive stripping system, which has the benefit of disolving the PMs off eScrap and leaving the base metals.
2. There are several excited responses because that's exactly what many people have been looking for, as it eliminates the step of disolving the base metals first, then disolving the leftover PMs.
3. Those who have more understanding of chemistry observe that his method doesn't make sense, as to how it works, and doubt that actually is working.
4. Shecker has a dore bar at a refiners, but can't come up with the melting cost.
5. It is pointed out that it is highly unusual for a refinery to charge an up-front fee, and that doing so indicates that they have discovered it to be essentially worthless.
6. There are some discussions about a patent which uses a similar process.
7. A couple people try Shecker's method, and report that gold and silver disappear, while leaving the base metals.
8. A couple people report that just the opposite occurs, the gold flakes off, and base metals are disolved, but these people have altered Shecker's method by adding sulfuric acid.
9. Shecker's last post was in September of '08.
10. A month later he is asked a direct question about a chemical symbol he used, but he doesn't reply.

Where is Shecker---is he OK?

What about the results which were achieved by those who tested his actual method, versus the failures obtained by those who altered his formula?

If the reports from those who tested his actual method are accurate, then it looks to me like it worked.

Was Shecker mistaken in his assumption that he had disolved the PMs?

And were the testers from here on the forum mistaken also?

Was the whole thing a hoax?


*Edit:* OK, I got confused and screwed up part of this while my purpose was to try and straighten out what had been writen so far. Numbers one and two, above, have the facts backwards, as follows. They should indicate that Shecker said that this method disolves base metals out from under all PM plating, and allows the PMs to drop to the bottom. And that also some copper drops down. Still, it seems like a good way to narrow things down, especially if you wanted to do whole or chopped up boards (he smashes the chips first).


----------



## Palladium

eeTHr said:


> So whatever happened to this experimental method?
> 
> 
> 9. Shecker's last post was in September of '08.
> 10. A month later he is asked a direct question about a chemical symbol he used, but he doesn't reply.
> 
> Where is Shecker---is he OK? :shock: :shock: :shock:
> 
> Was Shecker mistaken in his assumption that he had disolved the PMs? Or was he correct.
> 
> Was the whole thing a hoax? Or was it planned to just look like a hoax.



Maybe he ask to many questions. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:


----------



## eagle2

I have been using this method for the past year. It works to remove the base metals so that the PM`s can loosen and fall away. On some types of scrap it may be preferable.

It has advantages and disadvantages over the HCl plus Copper plus O2 leach system.
When I have the time I will post a full report with a reference. 

Shecker was seriously disabled and may be no longer able to reply.

Al


----------



## Palladium

eagle2 said:


> Shecker was seriously disabled and may be no longer able to reply.
> 
> Al




What happened to him. Is he o.k. ?


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## Anonymous

I placed some scrap in copper sulfate solution for a week, I was not able to determine there was any result. I did not include iron, al, or other base metals, just plated fingers.

I then tried on some magnetic pins, it did work on the base metal, iron nickel type alloy. It was however very slow, since it could only work from the base of the pin.
I guess it could be sped up by grinding the pins.

Jim


----------



## Palladium

What about an Oxidizer to keep the process going. You have to keep adding peroxide which adds water. What about ozone i wonder :idea: 

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:


----------



## eagle2

Palladium:
On Shecker`s Sept 4 `08 post he said he was disabled and earier he also indicated he had arthritis. From his pictures (which are deleted) I thought I saw a wheel chair. Anyway just a guess on my part.

I will state, this is not a way to dissolve the PM`s and leave the base metals behind. (the Copper sulfate + H2SO4 + H2O2 system.) They fall to the bottom and mix in with any sludge. If your solution is not acid enough the amount of sludge will be large, because Copper, Tin, Iron compounds precipitate when the Ph is near neutral (3-7). Also, I have found that it only works well when constant additions of H2O2 are used. 

I tried a air bubbler only, and the reaction stopped or became very very slow. The only help a bubbler would do is agitate the solution and scrap pieces and help loosen the foils or plate. 

I used this on a batch of Gold filled watch bands and although it took several months, it did dissolve the stainless steel, leaving the Gold fill untouched. But its something I won`t try again. LOL

So far, I would recommend its use over the HCl + Copper Chloride system only for: unpopulated circuit boards, low base metal content scrap items and Silver plated items. This looks to be a very good way to work Silver plate!

Advantages over the HCl + Copper Chloride system are:
1. A cleaner solution.
2. Very little fuming or odor. 
3. A much lower rate of corrosion of your work space.
4. Heat is not used. Although cold temps (40F) will slow it down.
5. No Gold or Platinum can go into solution. (A very small amount of Silver might and I don`t know about the rest of the PGM group.)

Disadvantages are:
1. Daily additions of H2O2 are needed. (A large consumption of Peroxide)
2. its significantly slower than HCl + Copper Chloride.

Al


----------



## dorki22

_I will state, this is not a way to dissolve the PM`s and leave the base metals behind. (the Copper sulfate + H2SO4 + H2O2 system.) They fall to the bottom and mix in with any sludge. If your solution is not acid enough the amount of sludge will be large, because Copper, Tin, Iron compounds precipitate when the Ph is near neutral (3-7). Also, I have found that it only works well when constant additions of H2O2 are used. 
Al[/quote]_

Hi, eagle2.

So is it safe to say that CuSO4 method is almost perfect (cause of all potencial hazards with nitric acid) for getting silver out of contacts and points? No iron or aluminium here, just copper or brass, cadmium (where does this one go?), sometimes Pd. And it looks like maintaining low Ph will minimize other elements in the silver percipitant.

What about saturation? Approx. how much copper can be leeched with one liter?

Im not a chemist, so I am trying to keep it safe, this means as litlle acids and heat as possible. Theres only one big problem, selling CuSO4 is prohibited in EU, can cause cancer :-(
But cigaretts for an example are OK to sell..go figure :shock: 

Thanks for your opinions on the matter and good luck
Simon


----------



## Anonymous

I do not think anything with a sulfate is good for getting silver out of contact points, I have tried it. I also tried the poors mans nitric and the insoluble silver sulfate stops the reaction.

Jim


----------



## eagle2

Hi Simon
The Merck`s index states: Cupric Sulfate, Cadmium Sulfate and Cadmium Chloride are freely soluble in water. The actual values vary greatly depending on the amount of acid and other metals present. 

Cuprous Chloride; the compound also present in the HCl + Cupric Chloride leach is stated to be sparingly soluble in water. This is the one that clouds up the HCl leach method. 

It seems most Cadmium compounds are very soluble. So Cadmium always stays in solution. Careful ! This is a poisonous compound ! 

The Sulfuric + Copper Sulfate leach is not good for dissolving Silver points. I said: Use on Silver plated items. Like forks, spoons, computer keyboards, etc. 

You don`t have to buy any Copper Sulfate, just start out by adding dilute Sulfuric plus H2O2 to the scrap and in a day you will see your solution start to turn blue (This is scrap that has a copper base). This is the Copper Sulfate forming. In a few days you will have all the action that the system can handle. Don`t add any more acid until you see some sludge forming. The less acid present the longer the H2O2 will last. But you need some acid present to prevent a lot of sludge forming. Pretty soon you will have too much Copper Sulfate on hand (in solution). Dispose of properly!

Earlier in this thread someone said they dissolved their Silver points with Sulfuric and H2O2. I suppose stirring would make it work.

Al


----------



## dorki22

james122964 said:


> I do not think anything with a sulfate is good for getting silver out of contact points, I have tried it. I also tried the poors mans nitric and the insoluble silver sulfate stops the reaction.
> 
> Jim



So regular nitric it is?  
Thanks,James


----------



## dorki22

_"The Sulfuric + Copper Sulfate leach is not good for dissolving Silver points. I said: Use on Silver plated items. Like forks, spoons, computer keyboards, etc." _

Thanks Eagle, good to know about Cadmium being soluble. I have a lot of silver contacts screaming for attention, and no nitric :roll:


----------



## eagle2

Dorki
Yes I have a lot of Silver points and no Nitric, too :x 

Go back in this thread and on Jul 2, `08, Platdigger said, he dissolved silver points fast with H2SO4 + H2O2 (27.5%). He probably used concentrated Sulfuric. 

This Sulfate leach system uses very dilute Sulfuric and the H2O2 would be diluted also in with the water, but its possible that if you`re leaching silver plated items a very small amount of Silver would go into solution.

Al


----------



## butcher

heres a thing to try out. works for me.
melt your silver contacts in a piece of angle Iron ends welded on for mold, sooted with torch, then use jar of water add a few prills of NaNo3 sodium nitrate or pottasium nitrate, use your melted silver as anode (+) and a spoon as cathode silver plated copper spoon OK,
use a battery charger hooked to 12Volt battery, and from battery to your silver cell, now on the positive wire from battery put a 12 volt car tail light in series ( positive of battery to light and through light to positive silver anode), this light will devide your battery voltage between cell and bulb and it will limit current to your cell, and indicate the amperage your cell is pulling example if cell is dead short light full bright, or if no flow of current no light or medium current dim light. this will give you a silver and other metal powders basically breaking down your silver and metals to fine powders that are very easy for acids to handle, now heat Hydrochloric acid and a strong oxidizer will make silver chloride.

here is my way to dissolve metals and make distilled nitric in one reaction.
another method I have used for gold that should work for silver is to use a hot plate and a pan full of sand as a sand bath, now a vessel in sand bath for a distilling rig, a gallon pickle jar works for me, I also have made a teflon lid with holes for a teflon hose (do not use rubber), add your gold plated or silver items even silver should work here, if copper plated with gold also works, as we are making nitric solution in situ, see poormans nitric for formula , or about a cup of nitrate fertilizer or pottassium nitrate stump remover and Quart sulfuric acid concentrated little water here ok (car battery acid boiled to half or one third volume) we will boil off nitric oxides from pickle jar reactor and the hose will bubble these gases into water condensing fume into water making nitric acid (conentration will depend on water content of our formula used . we can use this nitric acid later, in the boiling reaction vessel the nitric formed before distilling off the gas dissolves our metals and if copper was involved like in plated pins we would be left with copper sulfate salts and gold foils, or if just silver once nitric mostly distilled out would be silver sulfate, now these salts would need to be remove fairly quick after reaction stops and water added (boiling water so not to break glass), if gold plated pins copper sulfate is soluble and dilution will leave gold foils,and if doing silver the sulfur compounds silver sulfate would need roasted off, or incenerated before making silver nitrate or silver chloride from them.
some safety tips 
do not change temperature of glass fast it will break from thermal shock. hot boiling acids not fun.
do not use rubber or other flammable materials around nitric. teflon lid ( I turned mine on a lath), and teflon hose is good.
use sand bath do not heat glass directly.
learning a little about the chemistry of these metals goes along ways.


----------



## eagle2

Very nice post Butcher, thank you.
That`s a slick efficient system. You made do with very little expense and a lot of ingenuity. One thing, the pickle jar scares me. Try to get a 2 liter or larger erlenmeyer flask. Could you make a teflon stopper for that? 
I have used a computer power supply in an electro-cell, the 5 volt output is about right. 
Al


----------



## butcher

lab glass would be better than pickle jar, either will break from changing temperature thermal shock, I have busted a pickle jar once (learned my lesson getting my gold out of sand bath not fun) but as long as I keep aware and don't change temperature fast, the pickle jar has survived many a distillations, also I have used an electric hot plate.
at 2ND hand store found a few coffee pots pyrex that look like lab glass erlenmyer type, I made a teflon lid with hose and have used it directly on electric hot plate several times to distill out my acids (like from concentrated acid peroxide and copper solutions to make clear acids to add to other processes while dehydrating the copper salts to save), I have bought some of that fancy labware distilling kit and all, never used it yet, 
I like my cheap glass and second hand lab ware, maybe someday Ill try that fancy stuff out. but give me a coffee pot electric hot plate a welding torch, propane torch, mason jars, pyrex type skillet, pickle jars, some other common kitchen stuff from the junk store and I am happily getting those metals.

the cell seems finicky at times, probably PH, and copper content, but it works good for breaking the metal down to powder's so my acid volume used is less and I can dissolve them easier, the nitrates used did not seem to make much detectable gas(maybe dilution of my jar cell?), but when loaded with copper and PH low would get green foam usually little water and nitrates or settling powders and cleaning out cell was answer, there was one time when it seemed to have made ammonia (or at least it smelled like ammonia to my ole nose), but that only happened once,if you do get an ammonia smell with silver don't dry out your powders, I wouldn't dry my powders anyway's, if silver in ammonia add hydrochloric acid, to change PH and make it safer. as silver and ammonia is not something to mess with, can be dangerous.
it may be better if they are high copper content to use a chloride solution as copper chloride and bag the Anode, haven't tried that yet, basically copper electrowin cell.
gases of cell's and the product's they form should alway's be considered.

for electrowinning the lower voltage would be great, you may even be able to get a better plate (at least more silver to stick to cathode) this was not my intent, which for me was only to disolve the metals to powder and not plate them out, which once I got silver more pure after disolving in acid and preciptating back out, can use to inquart gold, then and after collecting enough of it in a more pure state would look in building a silver cell to refine the impure silver.
this information is just some things I have done not the best way maybe but I was happy with my results. try them for fun if you like, but study as much as you can and be safe. could be some things created in the cell I don't understand yet?


----------



## eagle2

Hi Butcher
Nice post. I have also used coffee pots and found them at garage sales. The best ones are marked pyrex. On all my heating I have used a hot plate with an aluminum plate over it. Or you could even use a couple of aluminum pie plates. Even pryex should be protected from the red hot coils. 
The only trouble with coffee pots is they are too small if you want to work bigger batches. 
My biggest containers are 4 liter beakers and the old 5 gallon bucket. 8) 

Al


----------



## butcher

my hotplates are cast iron with wire coil in groove under them, when new they have a black coating which wears off after awhile. have not used the type with red hot coils so kind of forgot about them, the temperature on them can get very hot fast if they glow the iron red hot, 
the style of hot plate I use do not get that hot. small burner little over 500 deg F. large burner about 700 deg F. 

I would take caution with coffee pot directly on the red hot coils, maybe use a wire screen? or sand bath.
in any event do not change temperature on any type glass rapidly even the best glass will not handle thermal shock,
old coffee pot burners work good for slow evaporation of liquids.
also old crock pots are really handy.
one of my most used tools is a suction bulb, very similar to a turkey baster only little better, it and cheap plastic eye droppers, great for transfering liquids, decanting, using to get syphering hose started, sucking powders from bottom of jar ETC.


----------



## eagle2

2 or 3 of those thin aluminum pie pans put together will work good.

Al


----------



## Shecker

Gosh it has been a long time since I've been on the forum. Too many health problems that required immediate action. Well I am back on a limited basis and I will be happy to field any questions I can.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## eagle2

Hi Randy
Good to hear you on again. I haven`t either, but this forum always feels like home. We had some recent posts, discussing our recent activities on leaching.

Al


----------



## Shecker

A follow up. 
When I starting using this processing I tried to selectively recover metals from the solution. Now I collect the copper rich sludge, wash it several times in hot water, and then run it into some nitric acid to remove copper, silver, and palladium. That leaves the other precious metals fairly clean. HCl-Cl dissolvse them and then they can be precipitated after testing with stannous chloride to determine what is present. Hope this helps.

Randy in Gunnison


----------



## butcher

glad to see you back Randy.


----------



## dorki22

Shecker said:


> A follow up.
> _When I starting using this processing I tried to selectively recover metals from the solution. Now I collect the copper rich sludge, wash it several times in hot water, and then run it into some nitric acid to remove copper, silver, and palladium. That leaves the other precious metals fairly clean. HCl-Cl dissolvse them and then they can be precipitated after testing with stannous chloride to determine what is present. Hope this helps.
> _
> Randy in Gunnison



Hi Randy.
Glad u back and feeling better, have some questions for u :lol: 

So you say solder doesnt go in the sludge? Does it stay on the board or goes in the solution? Because tin or lead can be a problem.
Also using so much nitric is a no-go for me at the moment. Just wondering if hot HCl wash would do the trick with copper sludge, living behind more precious percipitants? It would surelly be less expensive 

Simon


----------



## lazersteve

Simon,

Finely divided copper sponge or 'mossy copper' will dissolve in HCl, it just requires a little time. Try a very small sample of your sludge and see what remains after treating it with HCl.

Steve


----------



## dorki22

lazersteve said:


> _Simon,
> 
> Finely divided copper sponge or 'mossy copper' will dissolve in HCl, it just requires a little time. Try a very small sample of your sludge and see what remains after treating it with HCl.
> 
> Steve_




Hey Steve. Im (sad to say) still far from the copper sponge, waiting for my CuSO4, ordered from Croatia  By little time u mean like days or weeks :shock: :lol: 
I supose a little H2O2 could speed up the process, but dont now, how this affects other elements in the _moss_. Silver is a brainstormer for me. Is it in a sulphate form (in the finely divided sponge)?

Also I have a nonrelated question:
If i would check only copper loaded HCl with stannous, would I get any color indication?

Thanks,Simon


----------



## eagle2

dorki
The test for Copper in solution is to add enough Ammonia water to make the solution basic. A deep blue color is Copper.

Al


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## dorki22

eagle2 said:


> dorki
> The test for Copper in solution is to add enough Ammonia water to make the solution basic. A deep blue color is Copper.
> 
> Al



Thanks, Eagle.

I was experimenting with some very old pins (100 grams) in AP. First bath was for 2 days. 1 dcl H2O2 and 3 dcl 30% HCl, room temperature. I poured off the solution, tried to make a mess with HCl+Cl. It worked  Got a beautiful green solution (tested with stannous-blueish-purple). Some pins stayed untouched, kind of copperish color. Washed with water, then again AP with 1:2 ratio AP. This time, solution got very dark green, and kind of black on the bottom. The black having a higher viscosity.

Now I wonder - Iron? Pd? Just copper? Stannous test - light green. It could be just the color of the drop, not a reaction

:?: :?: 

Simon


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## eagle2

Simon
If the black on the bottom is still liquid, just stir it. If its sludge add a little more HCl. The black is still Copper. 

You should have done the AP longer. Pour off the used liquid and and add fresh HCl+H2O2. Don`t add all that H2O2 either. The Copper Chloride that forms really does all the work. A lot of strong H2O2 tends to dissolve Gold. Some brown pins means some Copper has coated the surface and you need to do fresh AP. 

When you did the HCl + Cl you dissolved Gold, now doing AP again makes no sense because you can`t pour off anything without pouring off Gold. Now your only choice is to try to get everything in solution and precip with SMB or Ferrous Sulfate or Zinc. Precip of Gold this way works, but it will be very dirty and you will have to repeat.

Al


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## Harold_V

dorki22 said:


> If i would check only copper loaded HCl with stannous, would I get any color indication?


To my knowledge, there are NO base metals that yield a reaction with stannous chloride. If you see a reaction, it is the result of precious metals of some description. 

Harold


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## dorki22

eagle2 said:


> Simon
> If the black on the bottom is still liquid, just stir it. If its sludge add a little more HCl. The black is still Copper.
> 
> You should have done the AP longer. Pour off the used liquid and and add fresh HCl+H2O2. Don`t add all that H2O2 either. The Copper Chloride that forms really does all the work. A lot of strong H2O2 tends to dissolve Gold. Some brown pins means some Copper has coated the surface and you need to do fresh AP.
> 
> When you did the HCl + Cl you dissolved Gold, now doing AP again makes no sense because you can`t pour off anything without pouring off Gold. Now your only choice is to try to get everything in solution and precip with SMB or Ferrous Sulfate or Zinc. Precip of Gold this way works, but it will be very dirty and you will have to repeat.
> 
> Al



Hi, Eagle2.

I kindda felt that copper is the black, but I needed a second opinion, just to be sure.

I know, it wasnt very vise to do HCl-Cl before all copper went to AP, so making another AP is silly. But I was just experimenting, and I know gold wasnt lost. Just trying to identify the black. And I also learned :idea: , that heat is a must, if you want speed :twisted: 

And that pins "belong" to sulphuric sell.

Simon


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## dorki22

Harold_V said:


> dorki22 said:
> 
> 
> 
> If i would check only copper loaded HCl with stannous, would I get any color indication?
> 
> 
> 
> To my knowledge, there are NO base metals that yield a reaction with stannous chloride. If you see a reaction, it is the result of precious metals of some description.
> 
> Harold
Click to expand...


Thank you Harold, this is a very important information. 

Simon


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## Palladium

8) 8)


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## kjavanb123

Another great post completely unfinished.

Kevin


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