# Copper from Copper Nitrate or Copper Chloride



## Anonymous (Jan 1, 2009)

I have an increasing inventory of both copper nitrate and copper chloride via aqua regia processing of IT products. I would like to reduce these materials to metallic copper but to be honest Im not entirely sure which is the most cost effective route.


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## lazersteve (Jan 1, 2009)

Copper nitrate can be decomposed at 170C in a glassware setup to reclaim nitric acid by bubbling the NO2 vapor into cold distilled water leaving CuO which in turn can added to your acidic (HCl) copper chloride. Adding the CuO to HCl forms CuCl2 and water. This can now be added to your copper chloride solution.

The acid copper II chloride solution can be used to process more e-scrap (AP method) and periodically rejuvenated or scrap iron can be added to cement out the metallic copper dore leaving an iron chloride (Fe + CuCl2 --> FeCl2 + Cu) solution which can be neutralized with any of the standard bases to form rusty salt water.

Alternately you can extract the copper from the compounds (nitrate and chlorides) using electricity producing copper metal at the negative terminal.

Steve


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## Anonymous (Jan 1, 2009)

I have in principle been processing powdered motherboards without memory or CPUs. The whole board is reduced to flour dust then the base metals stripped off first then PMs from residual. 

Do you think that it is better to use AR alone or to continue with nitric acid base metal leach first inconsideration of the 170'C decomposition stage?

Although the relative volumes are quite small, can aluminium, germanium, tantalum etc be economically recovered from the capacitor element of the motherboard in AR phase?


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## Oz (Jan 1, 2009)

Trinity,

I would be interested in hearing some more detail of the steps you use in going from powdered boards to PMs.


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## Anonymous (Jan 1, 2009)

Im pretty much starting at the begining with regard to the processing. I understand the core metals recovery but it is the low ppm metals which will most likely be problematic.

In total how many metals are present on a motherboard -

Ag, Au, Cu, Al, Ta, Pt, Pa, maybe Os and Ir.

In principle, are there more?


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## Anonymous (Jan 1, 2009)

There was some time back a long discussion about copper sulfate. I did not find it to work in the way presented, but I have found it useful as a pretreatment to put the metals that are more reactive than copper into solution. The metals removed easilyb with this are aluninum, iron, etc. After this process has run it course, you are left with copper powder, precious metals(unafected) and your matrix. I then rinse to remove the sulfates from this mix. After rinsing I threat with hcl and peroxide, this removes the copper.
After this process is done, you have precious metals left in you matrix.
Treat this with nitric to remove silver and palladium. Rinse and treat with acid chlorox to get the gold.

This is how I have been processing electronic scrap for recovery. I use solutions that are deluted since the metals are ground fine and there is not much, after the copper and lesser metals are removed.

I should also state that easy stuff like fingers and processor are done seperately.

I am working on a way to seperate/concentrate the metals after the copper sulfate treatment something like a sluice box, but I haven't been as successful as I would like.

Jim


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## Oz (Jan 1, 2009)

James,

Are you referring to Hecker’s leach? 

Would not your copper go into solution with just HCl and heat w/o adding the peroxide and remove the risk of putting PMs into solution or am I missing something?


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## Anonymous (Jan 1, 2009)

I do not know the name but I am sure if searched the thread would be easy to find. I do not use heat, and actaully never thaught to. I keep the copper cloride and reuse so I do not think I would lose an gold. I eveaporate the choride and treat with sulfuric, distill my hcl back for resuse
Then use the copper sulfate to resart the process.

You can also decompse the ferric sulfate to produce more sulfuric, but for now I evaporate and contian. 
I am going to try and eventually get at least the nickel from this.

Jim


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## Chumbawamba (Jan 7, 2009)

trinity and james122964, how are you grinding your boards to powder? This is something I have been considering for getting more metals out of my boards than just the Au, but so far haven't had time to do much research on how to make a grinder.

Did you guys buy something off the shelf or roll your own?


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## Anonymous (Jan 8, 2009)

Big tire with plywood sides. Add large round rocks - I like quartz. Set on 2 rollers and turn the tire with a motor.

Look up homemade rock tumblers on the net you will find pics. Cheap, easy biuld.

Jim


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## Anonymous (Jan 8, 2009)

I should add, I do not do the boards whole, I do componets, flat pac, ic, capacitor, etc.

I put the whole boards in a old electric oven on trays to melt the solder. Bang them and all the parts fall off.

Use screens to sort the pieces. Before grinding. Cherry pick quickly stuff that looks high yield or possibly high yeild.
This is fast quick sort, not detailed.

Grind the traces off the boards with a belt sander and 36 grit belt.

Do major items seperately, all ic type scrap, all capacitors, trace grindings.
Juumper pins, etc. 

My problem is not enough source material to keep me going.

Jim


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## Platdigger (Jan 8, 2009)

OK, back to the title of this thread. 

Once you have decomposed coper nitrate to copper oxide, if you wanted to, you could just smelt the oxide to metal with some carbon right?

I mean, most copper ores are either oxides or sulfates and basically this is how it is recovered in the first place........?

I am not sure what the flux would be, but I know carbon would work to reduce the oxide. Hot carbon having an affinity for oxygen.

I know what Harold is thinking............it is not profitable, or even worth the time.

But, it could be done none the less, if someone had the desire to try it.
Randy


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## Anonymous (Jan 8, 2009)

It is worth while to use you copper nitrate to make nitric with sulfuric acid by distilling. Then electrowin your copper from the copper sulfate
Giving you salable - cathode copper - and your sulfuric acid back to repeat the process.

Jim


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## Lou (Jan 9, 2009)

Eh, probably not unless you do it on grand scale, or don't really care about making a profit, or much of a profit anyway.

It sounds like it would be fun. I can only say that you should go for it and tell us about it!

Lou


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## Anonymous (Jan 9, 2009)

Lou,
Works for me. I guess if you just count the copper sale as profit it would not make any money.
I however count that a quart of sulfuric cost me about 10 bucks, gallon of hcl 7 bucks, and nitric even though I make it still about 10 a quart.

Since I worked this out, my chemical
Purchases are way down. I count that.

I do have to say the whole electronic gold reprocessing is a loss though considering if I just work at my job I make more in one hour than I could ever crank out from electronic scrap.
It has been a good learning experience and is fun to see what you can get out of junk.

Jim


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Jan 10, 2009)

Trinity:

Recovering copper from gold recovering/refining processes is such a good business..all you have to do is converting all you copper solutions to copper chloride(if you have copper nitrate just add common salt),then dip a few iron slabs and iron will replace the copper and you will get a brown mud of copper.Pour off the liquid,wash and dry the mud.This mud is 99% copper.

Regards

Manuel


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## Harold_V (Jan 10, 2009)

Recovering the copper isn't an issue. Marketing the copper is. Here in the US, there are no sources interested in purchasing the copper sludge. It ends up being discarded instead. The ultimate is to recover it electrolytically, so it can be sold as a solid at recycling facilities. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 10, 2009)

I totally agree with Harold. The copper recovered in this form is virtually worthless. Still, it should be removed from the solution with Fe or Al, oxidized as little as possible, and dried. You end up with an Al or Fe bearing solution, which is fairly non-hazardous, and a metal powder, which is reasonably non-hazardous. If you leave the Cu in the solution, you have very hazardous waste.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Jan 11, 2009)

Harold_V,GSP:

This is exactly my point...look,here in Mexico all jewelers refine their karat gold using inquartation process...they need to buy copper and they throw it away once they got the pure gold..recovering the copper is as easy as dip an iron or aluminum slab..the mud needs electrollytic refining.

How about to desgin a cell to refine it?... I am sure that you,both guys,know how to do it.The environment will appreciate it.

Best Regards.

Manuel


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## Anonymous (Jan 11, 2009)

Simply melting the copper powder would make it salable, in the worst case it would sell as a brass. The junk yard I go to buys as #2 copper the same as used plumbing pipe with solder included.

copper smithing is ancient, with a small effort anyone can melt copper and sell it for at least enough to pay you for doing it.

It you however only have a few ounces, dunp it in some copper pipe when you sell the old pipe. It all gets refined before use.

Jim


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Jan 11, 2009)

Jim:

You are right,but we need very very pure copper,other way the copper/gold slides used in inquartation process will break..that is why I can not use the brown mud of copper recoverd from metalic replacement.

Thanks for answering.

Manuel


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## Oz (Jan 11, 2009)

Manuel,

I am surprised that you choose copper for inquartation instead of silver since it requires so much more nitric. Is nitric that inexpensive and available in Mexico or is there some other reason?


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## Anonymous (Jan 11, 2009)

I do not see why recycling the copper for inquarting would be different from using new copper because any impurites in it would just be removed along with the copper again.

If you replace the copper with iron and wash the precipate copper well with water and HCL I think the powder would end up pretty good, but that's just me. But I would not use copper to inquart because of the excess acid mentioned before.

Jim


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 11, 2009)

Inquarting with copper requires 3.4 times as much nitric as does inquarting with silver. Also, the silver can be used over and over. The copper is normally lost.

I agree with Jim. The inquarted gold recovered by acid is never pure enough anyway. It will always have to be further refined.


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## Harold_V (Jan 12, 2009)

Juan Manuel Arcos Frank said:


> How about to desgin a cell to refine it?... I am sure that you,both guys,know how to do it.The environment will appreciate it.



The technology isn't an issue, Juan. I had such a cell. The problem comes from the low quality you feed the cell and the expense of recycling on a small scale. It just isn't worth it. 

I have melted the recovered copper, so I understand some of the problems related to the process. 

Assuming the copper is given a good wash in sulfuric acid and rinsed well, the quality would be drastically improved, so it could than be fed (after melting and being cast as an anode) to a copper parting cell with reasonable results. Copper smelters eliminate the contaminants in the furnace, which would be beyond the ability of the home refiner. So then, the problem comes from economics---especially now that copper is back to low market value. By the time you have processed the recovered copper mud and melted it, you have already invested far more than its worth, both in labor and in materials. 

I recovered all of my copper, ending up with two 55 gallon drums full of sponge. There was no market, and previous experience in melting it (I cast several large ingots that were used for recovering silver from inquartation) proved it was cheaper to discard than to melt and acquire solid bits of copper. 

Harold


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Jan 18, 2009)

Harold_V,GSP,thanks...Oz,the reason why here in Mexico we use cooper is because it is very cheap because is stolen from the Government Electricity Company by its own employees...1 stolen cooper wire kg costs $ 3 USD.,nitric acid costs $0.43 USD/lt.I want to finish with this illegal trade so that is why I am tryng to recover the cooper,without much success,by the way.

Regards

Manuel


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## Oz (Jan 18, 2009)

If your goal is to leave the illegal copper trade then you have the ability to use silver instead. I am building a silver cell to recover values from silver I use in inquartation. These are values that you are loosing if you are not parting your copper in a cell. I use cemented silver from previous inquartations several times without re-purifying with no harm. Depending on the material you are running you decide when to recover the gold and platinum group metals in it. You will have a 70% savings in your nitric use as well as having a high grade silver to sell if your operation accumulates it.


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## command2001 (Aug 24, 2022)

lazersteve said:


> Copper nitrate can be decomposed at 170C in a glassware setup to reclaim nitric acid by bubbling the NO2 vapor into cold distilled water leaving CuO which in turn can added to your acidic (HCl) copper chloride. Adding the CuO to HCl forms CuCl2 and water. This can now be added to your copper chloride solution.
> 
> The acid copper II chloride solution can be used to process more e-scrap (AP method) and periodically rejuvenated or scrap iron can be added to cement out the metallic copper dore leaving an iron chloride (Fe + CuCl2 --> FeCl2 + Cu) solution which can be neutralized with any of the standard bases to form rusty salt water.
> 
> ...


Steve: what materials should you use for the + and - poles?


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## command2001 (Aug 24, 2022)

Harold_V said:


> Recovering the copper isn't an issue. Marketing the copper is. Here in the US, there are no sources interested in purchasing the copper sludge. It ends up being discarded instead. The ultimate is to recover it electrolytically, so it can be sold as a solid at recycling facilities.
> 
> Harold


Harold: What would I use for my electrolyist + and - poles? Any Idear?


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 24, 2022)

command2001 said:


> Harold: What would I use for my electrolyist + and - poles? Any Idear?


Harold rarely frequent here anymore so he might not reply at all.


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