# Smelting in India



## gaurav_347

Dear Members,

The process being used is for black sands but this process can also be used for ic ash and mlccs.

In the video the person mentions 'mercury' but he means litharge! The later stage uses a bone ash hearth to absorb the lead leaving only a silver dore which contains all the precious metals. 

This process is harmful unless performed under proper fume control systems with proper safety measures.

The round balls are a mixture of black sands/ ic ash ,dried cow manure(to provide extra heat) soda ash, borax and litharge which are then placed over a cuploa typle furnace powered by coal.Lead is also added from top to get better collection of pm's. 



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNFhN5DojWE[/youtube]

Regards,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

> This process is harmful unless performed under proper fume control systems with proper safety measures.



Please look at the video at 2:03 and tell me how you can say this?


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## jeneje

I think the whole process they done wrong, *as-far-as safety goes*. Just too much to address other than "DON"T DO IT this way. Do some research and learn the right way.

Ken


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## 4metals

They are doing the equivalent of a fusion assay on a larger scale. It would be interesting to hear the ratio of black sands to the other components, including the manure which is a carbon source to act as a reducing agent.

In the US we use white bread flour as the carbon source. But that is in the land of overweight Americans, in a country where so many are starving I guess they feed the flour to the livestock to fatten them up (or some kind of grain) and use the by product in its place.


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## Lou

Wow. They're poisoning themselves and the environment.


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## Smack

Cough cough, the family firm lol cough...


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## gaurav_347

Dear All,

I came across the process through a friend who is a fellow E-waste Recycler. Under no circumstances I am performing this in my plant. I do have all the necessary pollution control equipments approved by the state pollution control board. There are certainly other ways to do the process but some of the recyclers have been using this process to recover pms from chips and ics with excellent recovery. 

Regards,
Gaurav


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## g_axelsson

There is no question the process works, but the long time impact to the health of the people and nature could be severe. Doing this in any western country would have you shut down as soon as the government finds out and there would be a hefty bill for cleanup and probably heavy fines too.

Göran


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## gaurav_347

Sir,
I do understand the consequences of lead poisoning and that no western country would allow this . Every country has their own legal system and how they operate in their own way. 

Let's say if you had to make this process safer what changes would you make? 

Regards,
Gaurav


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## g_axelsson

gaurav_347 said:


> Sir,
> I do understand the consequences of lead poisoning and that no western country would allow this . Every country has their own legal system and how they operate in their own way.
> 
> Let's say if you had to make this process safer what changes would you make?
> 
> Regards,
> Gaurav


I know the laws of man can differ from place to place and it wasn't long since we started to take care of the environment here. When I was a boy the copper smelter 150 km from me was so bad that the cartilage in the nose of the workers got dissolved and the nose practically collapsed. It was so common there that it was named "Rönnskärs-nose". Today it is a clean operation.
As I understand it, India is going through the same transformation from a rural to an industrial country that we did a couple of generations back, just a lot faster.

I'm no expert on environmental technology, but we have a number of sulfide mines in my area so I can tell you what the mines around here are doing.

Depending on the ore type the tailings from the washing could contain a lot of harmful metals like lead, copper, cadmium, arsenic and so on. The tailings are collected in a water proof lined dam and any fluids coming off is treated in a water treatment plant. Storage below the water level reduces oxidation and prevents too much leaching of toxic substances. At the end of operation the dam is filled up and a water proof lining added to the top so any rain water doesn't get mixed in the dam. Drainage pipes are added in the bottom so the water level can be controlled and any dissolved metals can be treated before letting it out.

The gases from the smelting operation is filtered, first with a filter removing solid particles (cyclone, electrostatic filters...) and then chemically scrubbing sulfuric acid from the smoke.

The slag can be deposited in the tailings dam.

The led that was burned off from the silver goes somewhere, probably absorbed in the large melting dish or collected as slag. It should be taken care of too. If rich enough it can be collected and sent off to a led smelter to be recycled or it could be put in the dam too. (Don't quote me on that though.)

This is what I think a sustainable and reasonable environmental friendly operation would look like for gold ore. But as I wrote, I'm no expert on environmental engineering, just relaying what I have seen here in my area.

To incinerate electronics is a whole different matter, there are plastics and a whole lot of different compounds that makes a toxic mess when incinerated. In that case afterburner, filtering and scrubbing the gases becomes vital to not poisoning your neighborhood. 

Göran


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## patnor1011

gaurav_347 said:


> Sir,
> I do understand the consequences of lead poisoning and that no western country would allow this . Every country has their own legal system and how they operate in their own way.
> 
> Let's say if you had to make this process safer what changes would you make?
> 
> Regards,
> Gaurav



Gaurav, try to read few threads made by this member:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6862

He does something similar of what you are asking about.


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## 4metals

Seeing the equipment they currently use it is apparent that they are a low budget operation and will not be purchasing any equipment with chemical controllers and dosing pumps.

The first thing they should do is place an exhaust hood over their melt furnace and their cupellation setup. This will not treat the fumes but it will at least get the fume away from the workers and up over the roof height. Sheet metal hoods and ducting should generate an effective draft from the heat of the process. If I could only do one thing, this would be it.

A moderately effective wet scrubber could be (actually should be) connected to the exhaust on the roof to wet scrub the fume of particulates and likely a good amount of the lead. Unfortunately this cannot be driven by thermal currents, the fume will need to be fan driven and the scrubber liquid will need to be recirculated from the sump with a high flow pump. The water running off from the scrubber sump overflow can be used in their riffle tables before it is collected for treatment. 

Water can be recycled until the lead builds up to levels where it can be precipitated by caustic treatment. Unfortunately Lead will drop from the solution at a pH of 10 but much over 10 and it begins to go back into solution. The down side is this method is not effective at getting Lead much below 10 PPM. All of the testing can be done with lead test strips and pH test strips to control this process.


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## justinhcase

I was wondering about there gravity separation. 
I have never seen such viscus slime put through a sluice.
is there a better way to produce abetter concentrate to work with.
I have been working with centrifugal classifying but have not had much success.


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## gaurav_347

4metals said:


> Seeing the equipment they currently use it is apparent that they are a low budget operation and will not be purchasing any equipment with chemical controllers and dosing pumps.
> 
> The first thing they should do is place an exhaust hood over their melt furnace and their cupellation setup. This will not treat the fumes but it will at least get the fume away from the workers and up over the roof height. Sheet metal hoods and ducting should generate an effective draft from the heat of the process. If I could only do one thing, this would be it.
> 
> A moderately effective wet scrubber could be (actually should be) connected to the exhaust on the roof to wet scrub the fume of particulates and likely a good amount of the lead. Unfortunately this cannot be driven by thermal currents, the fume will need to be fan driven and the scrubber liquid will need to be recirculated from the sump with a high flow pump. The water running off from the scrubber sump overflow can be used in their riffle tables before it is collected for treatment.
> 
> Water can be recycled until the lead builds up to levels where it can be precipitated by caustic treatment. Unfortunately Lead will drop from the solution at a pH of 10 but much over 10 and it begins to go back into solution. The down side is this method is not effective at getting Lead much below 10 PPM. All of the testing can be done with lead test strips and pH test strips to control this process.



Sir,

We have exhaust hoods placed over our incinerator ,copper melting furnace, incinerator and a cupellation setup. All these fume hoods are connected to a wet scrubber, the same being described by you. I would be trying this process in the coming week and post my results here. We have around 100 plus kgs of ics which are already incinerated ,pulverized, sieved and magnetics removed. I will be smelting these ashes with litharge, borax, soda ash and flourspar in the melting furnace and pour of the smelt in the cone mold. Process this dore on a bone ash hearth and see the results .I will start with 5 kgs of ic ashes first and go from there.

Regards,
Gaurav


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## Smack

Gaurav,
Make sure to take some pictures for us. :G


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## 4metals

Gaurav,

Remember to save your slags for another melt with additional thinning flux. Again, poured into cone molds.


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## gaurav_347

Smack said:


> Gaurav,
> Make sure to take some pictures for us. :G



Sir,

Surely I will do that and post the pics here. Here are some pictures of the setup.

Regards,
Gaurav


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## gaurav_347

4metals said:


> Gaurav,
> 
> Remember to save your slags for another melt with additional thinning flux. Again, poured into cone molds.



Sir,

Should lead or litharge be added again to this flux when re smelting slags?

Thanking you
Gaurav


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## 4metals

Slags are remelted to recover beads of metal that never collected in the pool of metal you recovered in the first melt with litharge. The slag remelts are usually done with a thinning flux made with fluorspar borax and soda ash.


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## gaurav_347

Sir,

Thank you for clearing out my doubts. I have one last question before I proceed ahead.While searching the forum I came across various threads related to smelting of ic ash. Kurtak and You mentioned that while smelting you should smelt the ic ashes with fluxes constituting of 50% soda ash 50% anhydrous borax and some flourspar and a collector metal. Now let's say for example I want to smelt one kg of ic ash. For example The formula would be 1kg ic ash + 2/3 kgs of soda ash borax flux(50/50) and some fluorspar. I am a little confused about using litharge. What quantity should be used here? Also what is the difference between lead oxide and litharge and which should be used for smelting ic ash. Do i even i have to use lead metal as a collector metal even after using litharge? I do understand the chemistry mentioned in the thread "smelting" as posted by you. I would be grateful if you give your insight on this.

Thanking you,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

Don't forget the manure!

If you are using litharge you want to use a source of carbon as a reducing agent in the fusion. Manure works, flour will work better. I would make a flux blend with one part borax, one part soda ash, 1/8 part fluorspar, and 1/8 part flour. I would start with 1 part litharge and see how effective that is. Litharge is your costliest ingredient so you want to use as little as possible but enough to be effective. The more you use, the more you have to absorb into the bone ash hearth and the more is volatilized in the cupellation process. 

If you start with well mixed IC ash you can mix up flux with no litharge but everything else, then run 1 pound with 1 part, and one pound with 2 parts and 1 pound with 3 parts of litharge. Compare the results and use the least litharge that captures all of your values.


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## gaurav_347

Sir,

Thank you once again. I shall try this out in the coming week and report back with my results . One last query, After cupellation is there any way to recover and reuse the absorbed lead from the cupel?

Regards,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

The lead absorbed into the cupel is contaminated with all of the base metals that it carried with it. While it may be a good feedstock for someone specializing in lead refining, it isn't something I would get involved with.


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## gaurav_347

Sir,

There are three types of lead oxide available. One is yellow in color another one is red in color .These two variants cost 3.5 usd/kg. The third one is Blackish to Greenish Grey in color.This one is called lead suboxide and is available for 1.2 usd/kg. 

The confusion is which one to use here for smelting ics. 

Thanking you,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

I have used the red litharge and the yellow litharge interchangeably for fire assays. I have never heard of lead suboxide but if it is the cheapest I would try it. Add just a bit more reducing agent (carbon flour or dung) to help it give up it's O2. 

There is a technique when performing fusions in sweeps assays where you calculate the reducing power of the flux mixture you are using. You can increase the reducing power of the flux by adding additional carbon. I would be determining the reducing power of your basic flux mixture and adding additional carbon to maximize lead reduction. Then I would use that mix for your process keeping the ratios of flux to material you are processing constant.


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## goldsilverpro

4metals said:


> I have used the red litharge and the yellow litharge interchangeably for fire assays. I have never heard of lead suboxide but if it is the cheapest I would try it. Add just a bit more reducing agent (carbon flour or dung) to help it give up it's O2.
> 
> There is a technique when performing fusions in sweeps assays where you calculate the reducing power of the flux mixture you are using. You can increase the reducing power of the flux by adding additional carbon. I would be determining the reducing power of your basic flux mixture and adding additional carbon to maximize lead reduction. Then I would use that mix for your process keeping the ratios of flux to material you are processing constant.


The ancients used the lees from wine making to reduce the lead in assays. I always used white sugar.


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## gaurav_347

All,

Apologies for not updating this thread. Due to holidays here most of the shops were shut .I was finally able to source all the fluxes required. I got 50kgs of bags of each type, namely lead oxide, borax,soda ash, fluorspar powder, tricalcium phosphate and a bag of portland cement to make my own cupels. 

I also got a small coal fired furnace made which hold 20# crucible to do my test batches on the ic ashes. The furnace costed me roughly 50 usd to manufacture. I tested it to melt some copper fines that we recover from pcbs. The furnace melts the copper in under 15mins of starting it .

I will be performing the test on ic ashes in this week and update here .


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## gaurav_347

4metals said:


> Don't forget the manure!
> 
> If you are using litharge you want to use a source of carbon as a reducing agent in the fusion. Manure works, flour will work better. I would make a flux blend with one part borax, one part soda ash, 1/8 part fluorspar, and 1/8 part flour. I would start with 1 part litharge and see how effective that is. Litharge is your costliest ingredient so you want to use as little as possible but enough to be effective. The more you use, the more you have to absorb into the bone ash hearth and the more is volatilized in the cupellation process.
> 
> If you start with well mixed IC ash you can mix up flux with no litharge but everything else, then run 1 pound with 1 part, and one pound with 2 parts and 1 pound with 3 parts of litharge. Compare the results and use the least litharge that captures all of your values.



Sir,

When you say one part do you mean 1:1 ? For example if one kg ash needs to be smelted then 1kg of borax one kg of soda ash and one kg of litharge and so on? 

Thanking you,
Gaurav


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## gaurav_347

Some pictures of the coal fired furnace.


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## 4metals

> When you say one part do you mean 1:1 ?



When I was describing a ratio for making up flux, 1 part is whatever convenient measuring device you want to use. For example an empty soup can is typically used. So if the formula you are using is what I posted;

1 part borax
1 part soda ash
1/8 part fluorspar
1/8 part flour

You add 1 can of fluorspar, 1 can of flour, 8 cans of borax, and 8 cans of soda ash. Then you mix it well and this becomes your basic flux *LESS* the litharge. I would start with adding litharge to the mix (starting with 1 part, 8 cans) and doing a test melt. Then you slowly lower the litharge until you get it to make a nice fluid flux with as little litharge as possible. This mixture will become your flux for this process (So note the final quantity of Litharge that ends up working the best.) 

Start with a small measuring can so you make up a small amount of flux enough to handle 1 or 2 melts. When you determine the proper litharge ratio for your ash, switch to bigger cans and make up a stock flux. The ratio is the same based on the number of cans used, flux made using a small cup for each ingredient measured in, will be the same as flux used with large pails as your measuring cups, as long as you do the same counts of each component. 

Next you have to address the ratio of flux (what you made from what I described above) to ash. So if you want a 1:1 ratio of ash to flux, use 1 can of blended well mixed flux (with litharge) to 1 can of ash. 

These formulations are based on volume of the material, not the weight of a can of each material. Some fluxing formulations go by percentage of each ingredient, and those generally go by weight. This formulation, for simplicity, is by volume.


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## 4metals

I should add that a lot of smelters mix up large batches of flux so they have a prepared stock flux. They mix it in a cement mixer, or a clean ball mill if they have one. 

One issue is the flux can be dusty, and if some of the dust is from litharge, there are inhalation health hazards. One way to keep down the dust is to add some cooking oil as a dust suppressant. I generally add 600 milliliters per 100 pounds of flux or there abouts. Add it slowly as it tumbles and it will mix in nicely and keep the dust down.


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## gaurav_347

All,
I Finally did a test batch today of smelting ic ashes. The total weight was 1.520 kgs after removing the magnetics. The total ashes were 4 parts. I added 4 parts of flux recipe to it. I made the Flux recipe as per the guidance of 4metals. I made a huge blunder of not adding silver while cupellation to collect all the precious metals while cupelling the lead dore. This didn't help collecting the gold as you can see in the picture attached. Since this was a small batch for testing I am planning to add silver the next time during cupellation.I made the flux recipe as recommended except that I added 6 cans (parts) of lead oxide instead of 8. I did add an extra part of carbon (wheat flour). After the smelt i recovered 250gms of lead in the cone mould. I did a resmelt of the slags with fluorspar and soda ash (1 part each)and recovered a few beads of lead. I guess a bigger batch like 10kgs-20kgs of ashes will give a clear output. Here are some pictures. Please advice If any changes need to be made. Thank you for all your help once again.

Thanking You,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

How fluid was the flux?


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## gaurav_347

Sir,
The flux wasn't as fluid as I expected it to be. I did add an extra part each of fluorspar powder and soda ash to the smelt but it didn't affect much.

Regards,
Gaurav


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## 4metals

With equal parts of total flux to ash that isn't a surprise. But if you aren't holding up a lot of beads in slag, it isn't a problem. 

One thing you can experiment with is increasing the reducing power of the flux. This is often done with assay fluxes to maximize the weight of lead brought down in the fusion. It is done by incrementally increasing the flour until the size of the lead button doesn't get any larger.


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## gaurav_347

Sir,

Do you suggest we increase the flux to ash ratio or should i make any changes to the flux recipe? I will try using extra carbon the next time I smelt the ashes. There were a lot of beads left when we re smelted the slags. 

Thanking you
Gaurav


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## Lou

I think you'll have to resmelt the flux and thin it out with soda ash. It's been my experience that if the flux is reducing and extra carbon is present, there will be some level of precious metal hold up in the slag because of carbon dioxide gas keeping it suspended. In practice, it will look like small flames popping from the flux surface.


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## gaurav_347

Sir,

I did resmelt the flux with 1 part fluorspar and 2 parts of soda ash. The smelt wasn't as thin as i expected it to be . After the pour this time in a regular mould, I discovered some beads large in size after breaking the slags with a hammer. The smelt was bubbling and not watery as described here in some of the threads. the soda ash that I am using is light soda ash. What seems to be the mistake i am making here?

Regards,
Gaurav


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## gaurav_347

All,

Can i simply use lead metal instead of litharge along with the fluxes?

Regards,
Gaurav


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## kjavanb123

Hi,

In an attempt to minic the experiment in this post,

I finished lead smelting sample IC ash. Plugging ratio suggested by 4metals, and kurtak in their posts. Here is what I got so far.

ICs ash, consists of everything, legs, bond wires etc and ash, weigh 90 grams. Mix of different grade ICs.

Stock flux was prepared by adding 100 grams of soda ash, and 70 grams of borax, 20 grams of fine glass.

About 112 grams of that stock flux was twice the volume of 90 gram IC ash. It turned out during smelting, I needed more, maybe 3:1 volume to ash.

After mixing everything up, total weighed 351.2 grams. According to kurtak, suggesting 30% of total mix mass is the weight collector metal.

Since I was using lead in form of lead oxide as my collector metal, therefore I would need 30% of 351.2 grams, or 105 grams of lead.

There is 98.2% of lead oxide that is lead, therefore I need 110 grams of lead oxide.

In order to reduce 110 grams of lead oxide to lead metal, I used 10 grams of flour.

Mixed them well, heated up crucible, and kept adding materials to and pour into my innovative iron mould which I seasoned with oil.

Here are some photos,

My test furnace, burner designed based on youtuber, king of random, and the furnace body is lifted and I can access the cruicble easily,



Molten material poured into conical mold,



Slag seemed black and glass like as mentioned by 4metals,



I will be doing cuplation tommorow.


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## kjavanb123

Here is the lead dore from smelting ICs, it weighs 158.2 grams.



Made the following cupel with portland cement pressed using another heavy pot,



According to video posted by youtuber OwlTeck who is also a member here by the title 30 second cupel making, I put the lead dore in the cupel, used burner to melt it,



In 20 minutes doing this way there was no shrinking of molten lead, so I put my furnace body on top of the cupel and heat it again, this time only when burner was removed from cupel there was smoke coming out.

Watching OwlTech video, it seems like burner had to be put aside once in a while to oxidiation takes place.

More later.


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## kjavanb123

Lead ingot started at 151g, after minutes passed and inside furnace, the lead dore weighed 85g, and after more cupelation it went to 40g.

Here is the photo,



This is what 85g looked like after another cupelation, notice the darker piece on top of gray lead, turned out to be copper.



As you can see, lead plus base metal oxide is formed like this dark matters around the lead bead, which can be broken off easily,



Here is the 40g lead bead inside cupel, close inspection could see molten lead looks like a mirror and tiny dots which I assume are oxide of base metals merging from surface of molten lead and drop to the edges, 



Finally bead was so small that I had to let it cool, rebuild the cupel by adding more cement so burner can heat it up.


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## snoman701

Hoping you have good ventilation! 

I have ran exactly zero cupellations, but I have read up on them and I question whether cupel appears to be hot enough (1800 deg F), or uniformly heated, so it may be freezing up? 

If taking the torch away helps, it is likely because it allows the lead bead exposure to oxygen. The lead will then boil off, or be absorbed by the cupel. That flame looks more neutral than oxidizing, even with the sodium flare. Try wrapping your cupel in ceramic fiber so that you can heat uniformly, but still allow fresh oxygen to interact with the surface of the lead. 

As an alternative, if that torch allows adjustment of oxygen, increase oxygen flow.


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## kjavanb123

There is ventilation in place. I finally got the lead bead to a point that oxidizing and cupelation did not shrink it.

Here is after 3rd cupelation,



Final bead that no longer responded to cupeling,



Final weight in oz,



Ran out of nitric acid in my lab, so this has to wait until tommorow to dissolve in nitric.


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## kjavanb123

So far tried to dissolve the PM alloy in nitric acid even with heat there was no reaction.

I rinsed the nitric, heated to remove excess nitric, then treated it with hcl and still no reaction.

Tried AR on it, after some times in water heat and solution turned green in color, once the heat was off it stopped reacting, green solution negative for gold.

This morning, tried to dissolve it in dilute sufluric, it bubbled first but reaction stopped after 2 hours.

I am going to melt these along with carbon source with silver as collector this time, and see what happens.


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## Owltech

kjavanb123 said:


> So far tried to dissolve the PM alloy in nitric acid even with heat there was no reaction.
> 
> I rinsed the nitric, heated to remove excess nitric, then treated it with hcl and still no reaction.
> 
> Tried AR on it, after some times in water heat and solution turned green in color, once the heat was off it stopped reacting, green solution negative for gold.
> 
> This morning, tried to dissolve it in dilute sufluric, it bubbled first but reaction stopped after 2 hours.
> 
> I am going to melt these along with carbon source with silver as collector this time, and see what happens.



Too much copper halts the cupellation, to get around it you need to add more lead (10 times the weight of the copper), not at once but in increments (10% of the lead when the button freezes). You don't have to point the burner directly at the button as reducing or neutral flame will keep it from oxidising, All you need is enough heat to keep your button molten, and a draft of hot air to oxidise the lead (some times I use heat-gun, or position the burner in a way that the flame creates a draft over the molten pool) 
Good read on the subject:
https://ia801408.us.archive.org/11/items/atextbookfireas00bugbgoog/atextbookfireas00bugbgoog.pdf


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## ashir

is there any substitute of lead ? as lead is more toxic because of particals. hard to controle!


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## kjavanb123

Ashir

You can substitute copper instead of lead, but you need to oxidize the molten metals to purify copper to be 97% or more copper with PMs, then run it in copper cell.


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## ashir

thank kjavanb123. snoman and butcher also recomend this to me in my post, lead fumes' 
i want your more guide to treat ashes to get a molten metal, what will be the best mathod to oxidise molten metals to get 97% pure copper,? any guide to prepare solution for copper cell. how to make a copper cell at home? i have alot questions to you about smelting. lead fume scrubber. but first teach me on copper cell recovery!


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## Geo

A cupel needs to be made of bone ash and Portland cement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_ash


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## ashir

so my ball mill is ready


my crucibles arrived. 10 kg graphite crucibles


my air blower is here


going to setup coal furnance in next few days
no i want some guide on crucible tongs and con mold
what should be the measurenmebts of a cone mold( iron) to handle 3 kg of fluxes and pms.
which type of tong should be batter to prepare? 
and one more
what if i melt the ic's ash without any lead or bismuth, just with soda ash, borax, 
then remelt with adding silver and sodium nitrate
and treat with nitric......?


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## kurtak

ashir said:


> what if i melt the ic's ash without any lead or bismuth, just with soda ash, borax,




Per the underlined - NO - when smelting you need to have a collector metal - that is what the lead or bismuth do - they act as the collector metal - without the collector metal (when using just soda ash, borax) there won't be enough metal to collect & settle to the bottom of the cone mold when you make the pour of the smelt to the cone mold --- instead what will happen is VERY small beads of metal will form in the flux/slag & when you pour it to the cone mold these VERY small beads will remain suspended through out the slag (when it cools down) instead of settling to the bottom of the cone mold



> then remelt with adding silver and sodium nitrate



Yes - silver (or copper) can be used as your collector metal (instead of lead or bismuth) - BUT - you want to use it in the original smelt ALONG with the soda ash & borax - NOT - as a re-melt AFTER the original smelt --- & you DON'T need the sodium nitrate


If you really want to get on the right path to smelting - start by reading ALL of this thread


:arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=25592#p272232 

Here are some pictures I posted awhile back about my smelting set up

:arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=22581&hilit=tongs&start=30#p242087

Here are some pitures of my tongs used for smelting - they are 2 man tongs

First pic are the lifting tongs for lifting the crucible from the furnace

Second pic is the pouring tongs for pouring the smelt to the cone mold

Kurt


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## ashir

thanks kurtak
it was just an experimental thought to melt metals without a collector metal. and i put this question so i can get answer without experiment, and you did that, thanks again
very awsome setup. i want read your both mentioned threads many times so i can get more ideas! 
and going to make a coal furnance with air blower, if it not work then seecond idea is to use waste oil burner( its also ready for work) both are cheap here.
i am always against lead on one hand( because of toxic fumes) and at same time like to use the lead on other hand as a suitable collector,
bismuth is just 22 dollars per kg in pakistan, still cannot get litharge so i do not know its price. 
tongs ideas are nice in your setup, 
i was thinking to use one step picking the crucible and pouring it, but it can be done with small crucibles, big crucibles need same as your setup, i think
and got 25 kg old cell phones today and 30 kg p3 motherboards, soon going to start the fires! thanks again


----------



## ashir

another idea
i have 30 kg mixed ic's 
pyrolise and incinirate, crush and magnatic saperation, 
using flux
borax
soda ash
silver powder
silica
flourspar
without pbo
will this work ?


----------



## kurtak

ashir said:


> another idea
> i have 30 kg mixed ic's
> pyrolise and incinirate, crush and magnatic saperation,
> using flux
> borax
> soda ash
> silver powder
> silica
> flourspar
> without pbo
> will this work ?



Per the underlined - the short answer is yes

I don't have time today to post more details to help you on the right path

I will try to post more details tomorrow

If I am unable to post tomorrow - I will post this week end

Kurt


----------



## ashir

thanks kurtak. i like to use a collecter metal out of lead. so answer is bismuth, silver, copper( some use zn and al about which i have no knowledge)
bismuth is expensive (13 dollars per lb) and also a cupalation is necessary! 
copper is good if copper cell is ready to work or it will take mor nitric
silver is batter (as i think) because it take less nitric, also can be recycled with silver cell. 
both cells are out of my range because i just know basic about them! but i want your guide about using silver as collector. ( i will only use to recyle mobile boards, ics from motherboards and mlccs) 
i am waiting for your reply!


----------



## kurtak

ashir said:


> another idea
> i have 30 kg mixed ic's
> pyrolise and incinirate, crush and magnatic saperation,
> using flux
> borax
> soda ash
> silver powder
> silica
> flourspar
> without pbo
> will this work ?




ashir


Yesterday I spent a couple hours working on typing a post to provide you with more details - & them some how I accidently deleted it - sorry about that 


That said - per the underlined - with 30 kg of IC chip it is not as simple as pyrolyze/incinerate, crush magnetic separate & then smelt the remaining ash


incinerating 30 kg of IC chips is going to give you "about" (plus/minus) a five gallon bucket (20 liter bucket) of ash with a "very small" amount of gold distributed in that bucket of ash (by comparison gold to ash)


smelting that much ash is going to take A LOT of both flux & collector metal along with having to run MANY loads (a load being the amount of ash - flux - & collector melt you can "safely" put in the crucible for each smelt run)

Edit to add; - the result is going to be that you end up with a "Very Small" amount of gold tied up in A LOT of collector metal

in order to have any real degree of success in smelting - you NEED to work that bucket of ash down to a "concentrate" --- that means you have to wash off - as much of the ash as possible - the more the better

So - you "need" to set up some kind of method for washing the ash off - & doing so without washing gold off along with the ash - which is likely going to happen if not done right (meaning it is very much possible to wash off/lose gold in this part of the process if not done right

This is all the time I have right now to post - but will try to post more in coming days

Kurt


----------



## ashir

thanks kutak, i open bookmark hundred of times today to get words form you! 
concentration requires alot of perfection and experience, that i am not able!
and even no one can do this for me here! 
its what happen today here,
i was looking someone to prepare a con mold for me, and no one in the market agree ! because
one said , its a mind using idea and i do not want use my mind
i ask him that i will mark the iron sheet and you just cut and weld it.
he ask me for 4 dollars to pay, i pay 5 dollars, 1 dollar to eat some thing that increase the capabality of his mind.
alot alot difficulties to prepare equipment! no one can make tongs even they see your setup picture, even i describe them !!!!!!
well washing ash will be next task to me as i want circulate the money i invested. 
i know it will a time consuming and also more flux required but fluxes are cheap here, time is also not a matter because guys work in field regularly to collect scrap and saperate it. i am free to work ! 
i am just looking for your further guide. thanks again


----------



## ashir

kurtak said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> another idea
> i have 30 kg mixed ic's
> pyrolise and incinirate, crush and magnatic saperation,
> using flux
> borax
> soda ash
> silver powder
> silica
> flourspar
> without pbo
> will this work ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ashir
> 
> 
> Yesterday I spent a couple hours working on typing a post to provide you with more details - & them some how I accidently deleted it - sorry about that
> 
> 
> That said - per the underlined - with 30 kg of IC chip it is not as simple as pyrolyze/incinerate, crush magnetic separate & then smelt the remaining ash
> 
> 
> incinerating 30 kg of IC chips is going to give you "about" (plus/minus) a five gallon bucket (20 liter bucket) of ash with a "very small" amount of gold distributed in that bucket of ash (by comparison gold to ash)
> 
> 
> smelting that much ash is going to take A LOT of both flux & collector metal along with having to run MANY loads (a load being the amount of ash - flux - & collector melt you can "safely" put in the crucible for each smelt run)
> 
> Edit to add; - the result is going to be that you end up with a "Very Small" amount of gold tied up in A LOT of collector metal
> 
> in order to have any real degree of success in smelting - you NEED to work that bucket of ash down to a "concentrate" --- that means you have to wash off - as much of the ash as possible - the more the better
> 
> So - you "need" to set up some kind of method for washing the ash off - & doing so without washing gold off along with the ash - which is likely going to happen if not done right (meaning it is very much possible to wash off/lose gold in this part of the process if not done right
> 
> This is all the time I have right now to post - but will try to post more in coming days
> 
> Kurt
Click to expand...


i have no idea on concentrate the ashes ! what will be the best way to wash off ashes without loosing pm's


----------



## kurtak

ashir said:


> i have no idea on concentrate the ashes ! what will be the best way to wash off ashes without loosing pm's



ashir

There are a number of different ways to concentrate your chip ash 

Examples - panning with a gold pan - using a blue bowl - sluice box/miller table - shaker table - I have even used 5 gallon (20 liter) buckets

Regardless of the method you use what is important is learning how to do it "without" washing off some of the gold bonding wires when washing the ash off because when washing the ash off you can wash some of the gold off with the ash if not done right

Also the method you choose depends somewhat on the amount of ash you are trying to concentrate - AND - how often you intend to do it 

You said you have about 30 kg of chips to process - that's a lot of ash to try to concentrate


So my question is --- how often do you plan to process batches of (plus/minus) 30 kg of chips


Kurt


----------



## kurtak

One more question --- can you provide some pictures of the chips you are wanting to process ?

Kurt


----------



## ashir

kurtak said:


> One more question --- can you provide some pictures of the chips you are wanting to process ?
> 
> Kurt



at the moment i am fr from my work area, (for some scrap deals)
here are few pics of mobile boards that were depopulated 



and 2+ kg BGA chips. 
i want use silver as collector and smelting 2 kg ash at a time, 
also trying to make a tilting furnance to handel 10 kg ash at once. i am afraid of loosing values during concentration. i also watches some video and read post about concentration, and i never like this idea untill you mention it, but still i am not prepare to use such mathods where human error works as big error!


----------



## ashir

hi every one. can some one link me to a post to get help for making a tilting furnance. 
and i dont remember if i post this already , what will be other thining flux out of fluorspar?


----------



## ashir

kurtak said:


> One more question --- can you provide some pictures of the chips you are wanting to process ?
> 
> Kurt


 here are pic of ic's that i want process

and i got a gold pan , recieved today


----------



## kurtak

ashir


Sorry I have not posted more lately - I have been gone on a trip & just got back & as well I am currently sick


Could you provide a better picture of the chips --- I would like to see "more" of what is in the mix of the chips

A few chips in your hand (with the rest in the back ground) does not really tell me much


Kurt


----------



## ashir

kurtak said:


> ashir
> 
> 
> Sorry I have not posted more lately - I have been gone on a trip & just got back & as well I am currently sick
> 
> 
> Could you provide a better picture of the chips --- I would like to see "more" of what is in the mix of the chips
> 
> A few chips in your hand (with the rest in the back ground) does not really tell me much
> 
> 
> Kurt


i am far from my work area today,
i ask my worker to send me fotos but he is not understanding. though he send me this


i clean mobile boards(ic chips from mobiles) BGA chips from p3 / laptop mother boards. ic chips from p2 motherboards.ic chips from rams. guys are working still, collecting more ic's 
untill i start smelting, so looking for your more guide


----------



## kjavanb123

Ashir

Once you completed the pyrolysis followed by incinerationn of IC chips. You need to use a mill to pulverize them.

They should be as fine as flour. Now this is a method I got from the YT ,link as following;

https://youtu.be/Z47ZEyD5zSE

So once you pulverized the ICs, you sift them through a kitchen sifter. Save the oversized for later.

For fine powder, add water to cover them plus maybe 5 cm above them. Add sodium hydroxide (lye-caustic soda) and use a spoon mix them well.

Let it settle, then pour off the black solution a little, keep adding lye, mix and pour off small amount until it is clearer.

Now you need to add enough lye to make it concentrated lye solution, it makes the pot to heat up and dissolve aluminum or any tin in the mix plus it dissolves silica in the ash.

You let this on low heat for an hour, then slowly add water to it and pour off a little, repat till solution is clear.

This safely concentrate your ash to smaller volume.

Best of luck
KJ


----------



## ashir

thanjs kj! 
hope i can do this,


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> thanjs kj!
> hope i can do this,



Sure you can. Please note sodium hydroxide reacts with glass or aluminum pots so use stainless steel container to do your lye processing.

Also always wear glasses and protective gear hot lye solution is more dangerous than sulfuric acid.


----------



## ashir

thanks kj to remind ne about safety. i will di it under proper safety! thanks alot!


----------



## ashir

kj i read more on what you mention! loosing gold is the mainissue! i am still too afraid of loosing values as gold wires sometimes broken so fine! i still want use smelting mathods as i am also finding ores to be processed! big batches of e waste ! 
chamicals and labour is still too cheap here. 3 to 7 dollars per 10 hours is labour cast here! 
though its hard to find chamicals but these are all cheaps ( out of flourspar) ! the mathod you mention is quite intresting and safe as low waste production!
but i have to run 2 different setups for ewaste and ores! so i was intrested in one in all( hope you understand what i want to say because my english ability is not so good)
but in smelting i am not feeling good to use lead( as it will raise same issue of too much toxic waste)
so i was looking to use silver as collector, copper is a choice if shark start a thread of coper cell( he once ask that soon he is going to do so)


----------



## ashir

one more thing
i am looking at kurtak 
at same time thinking to process ic's with connecter pins( from mibiles) mlccs combine.
question raise
why process 10 kg,while ashes can be reduced by 5 kg
but 
leaching pins require one extra setup, ( iodine is expensive, cyanide is banned, Ap deal with chlorine ) 
why not combine whole and process with flux! ? 
collect clean mobile circuit boards and later smelt them and run in copper cell to get copper and any gold in plating!


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> kj i read more on what you mention! loosing gold is the mainissue! i am still too afraid of loosing values as gold wires sometimes broken so fine! i still want use smelting mathods as i am also finding ores to be processed! big batches of e waste !
> chamicals and labour is still too cheap here. 3 to 7 dollars per 10 hours is labour cast here!
> though its hard to find chamicals but these are all cheaps ( out of flourspar) ! the mathod you mention is quite intresting and safe as low waste production!
> but i have to run 2 different setups for ewaste and ores! so i was intrested in one in all( hope you understand what i want to say because my english ability is not so good)
> but in smelting i am not feeling good to use lead( as it will raise same issue of too much toxic waste)
> so i was looking to use silver as collector, copper is a choice if shark start a thread of coper cell( he once ask that soon he is going to do so)



Ashir

You can follow lye method to concentrate ashes to smaller volume, then follow by AR leaching.

Or 

You can smelt using silver as collector, that way if your setup is right you can reuse that silver many times.

For flux you can use a stock flux (5 parts soda ash, 4 parts borax, 1 part silica).

Your best method to use silver as collector is to dissolve your silver in nitric acid, precipitate as silver chloride, then convert that use sulfuric acid and cement it to metallic silver which is in form of fine powder.

Now you can mix the IC ash with silver powder and flux and smelt it.

For few kg of IC ashes a regular small furnace should do the job, for larger batches best is to use a rotary furnace.


----------



## ashir

thanks kj. 
i am working on rotary furnance. crucibles are ready so i am finding some stuff to fix crucibles in rotary furnance setup, i ask gaurave to start a thread on making of rotary furnance at home and a coal fired furnance( if he have time for us)
i want see gaurave because he is in me neighbour country and i can easily get what he will use! 
also searching a fume controle idea that i can construct by myself to controle smelting fumes. 
i already arranged flux
borax
soda ash
flourspar
kno3 ( its banned, no idea yet to use it but i buy it because may be next time i can not buy )
silica is not yet in my flux but i will get this soon.
what should be the ration of silver to ash
or silver ratio to axpected values?


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> thanks kj.
> i am working on rotary furnance. crucibles are ready so i am finding some stuff to fix crucibles in rotary furnance setup, i ask gaurave to start a thread on making of rotary furnance at home and a coal fired furnance( if he have time for us)
> i want see gaurave because he is in me neighbour country and i can easily get what he will use!
> also searching a fume controle idea that i can construct by myself to controle smelting fumes.
> i already arranged flux
> borax
> soda ash
> flourspar
> kno3 ( its banned, no idea yet to use it but i buy it because may be next time i can not buy )
> silica is not yet in my flux but i will get this soon.
> what should be the ration of silver to ash
> or silver ratio to axpected values?



Ashir

You do not need KNO3 for smelting. Gaurav knows me as we discussed a lot of smelting issues before.

Rotary furnace is difficult to built in home, so you maybe better of using a regular non-rotary furnace.

Please view the following link as how to setup a good size furnace,
https://youtu.be/y2RYYBRFu1A

This shows how to build a venturi burner for the furnace, he also shows how to build a furnace and use coal as the heat source.
https://youtu.be/eO8NwseRxSA

Amount of silver is related to your amount of concentrate. I think 200g of fine silver powder for 5 kg of ash should be sufficent to do the collection.

Always run a small test to get idea.


----------



## ashir

thanks kj. yes rotarg furnance is difficult to prepare at home, but once i will try. and after smeltinv with silver, there is no need of any cupelation! or 2 step smelting is required?


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> thanks kj. yes rotarg furnance is difficult to prepare at home, but once i will try. and after smeltinv with silver, there is no need of any cupelation! or 2 step smelting is required?



What I do here is to use lead oxide as collector, smelt everything, skim off slag, then oxdize the lead into lead oxide and all of the base metals presented in lead will be skimmed off.
Near the end silver is added and remaining lead is oxidized and skimmed off till only silver is left.

You can either run your silver dore in a silver parting cell, if I recall kadriver has a great threat about silver cell using stainless steel bowl.

Then collect the slimes, dissolve in HCL, the AR to dissolve gold.

Or

You can scorify the silver dore, add volume wise 1:1:1 soda ash, borax and glass to molten silver to remove the base metals, you need a steel pipe connected to an air compressor to slowly blow air into molten silver this oxdizes base metals and they form a darker donut shaped layer on top of molten silver, just add that flux and pour, repat till bubbling air in silver doesn't produce any dark layer. 

At this stage molten silver looks like mirror, this is silver without any tin or copper, you can dissolve in nitric, collect the residue and dissolve in AR.

Or lastly

You dissolve your silver dore in warm nitric acid, this results in silver/copper nitrate solution and gold with tin nitrate (metastanat acid) form at the bottom of your beaker.

Decant the solution, wash the gray residue with hot water let it settle decant do this 3 times, add lye to gray residue it reacts solution turns black add water decant, you should see your gold powder at the bottom.

Silver/copper nitrate solution, you add salt till the silver chloride is fomed, filter it and keep adding hot water till the solution coming out of filter is clear and no more blue.

And again do this on a small scale test to get the feeling.

Best of luck
KJ


----------



## ashir

thanks kj
i need some more clearification please. 
what will the way to skimm off lead while melting the ashes? a rod with bended end will work? or i have to melt , then turn iff furnance remove sold lead with base metal and an other melt with silver? 
thanks again for guide


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> thanks kj
> i need some more clearification please.
> what will the way to skimm off lead while melting the ashes? a rod with bended end will work? or i have to melt , then turn iff furnance remove sold lead with base metal and an other melt with silver?
> thanks again for guide



Ashir

If you watch my video from 1:34 onward show our process of oxidizing lead dore to remove impurities.

In order to do that you need to build a sinilar furnace. Guarav at some point was given the design schematics so maybe you can ask him.

For regular furnace like the ones in the YT channel provided in my previous post, you need to watch a video by owlTek, a memeber of tjis forum, here is his video link.

https://youtu.be/hyDlrVgJETw

And for the first step of lead smelting please watch CodyLab YT channel below as he does something similar. Notice his cupel is manufactured but owlTek cupel is homemade by portland cement.

Part 1
https://youtu.be/OyOzfP-JAI4

Part 2
https://youtu.be/Qo32s7zrCP0

Here is another cool video shows how lead smelting followed by cupelation is done in South Asian countries,
https://youtu.be/5TQmEq5A4Mo


----------



## ashir

very informative
i will watch them carefully and i will ask if i cannot understand any steps 
thanks alot


----------



## kurtak

ashir

First - sorry I have not posted more - just been to busy

Kevin

you posted -----



> Amount of silver is related to your amount of concentrate. I think 200g of fine silver powder for 5 kg of ash should be sufficent to do the collection.



200 g of silver for 5 kg ash is not even close to enough silver to get good collection of metal in a smelt


using such a VERY small amount of collector metal in a smelt WILL result in "small" beads of metal "hanging up" in the slag --- which mean "loss" of metal in the slag

There NEEDS to be enough metal in the "smelt load" for "all" the metal to come together when the load becomes molten

The smelt load - is the total weight of all component's going into the furnace

The components of your load are --- the ash being smelted - plus - the flux - plus - the collector metal

To "insure" that you get "complete" collection of the metal in the smelt you want the load to be "at least" 30% metal

That means for every kg (1,000 grams) in the load - 300 grams needs to be silver (your collector)

Your ratio of flux to ash needs to be 2 parts flux to 1 part ash 

So here is an example of a kg smelt load ----------

233.333 grams ash - plus - 466.666 grams flux - plus - 300 grams collector metal (silver) equals 1,000 grams smelt load

This is why you "need" to concentrate the ash as much as possible --- if you don't concentrate the ash - you will need to use a HUGE amount of collector (silver) & "many" smelt loads - to collect a SMALL amount of gold

Kurt


----------



## ashir

thanks kurtak. 
i understand the logic of concentrating ashes. 
i am nealy ready to do some small experiments as kj said
i also got some lead oxide, silver and going to do some experiments with both as collector
i will post my results and the procedure
i am also busy in making a desi type rotary furnance.

concentration via gold pan is a good idea?


----------



## kernels

ashir said:


> concentration via gold pan is a good idea?



No, it is almost impossible to pan bond wires from ash without losing quite a lot of them, they are often long and bent/coiled, so they do not settle in a pan the same way that alluvial Gold does.

I have had good results with bucket washing and blue-bowl and medium results with drainage pipe sluicing. 

I would love to try a good shaker table type setup at some point.


----------



## ashir

kernels said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> concentration via gold pan is a good idea?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, it is almost impossible to pan bond wires from ash without losing quite a lot of them, they are often long and bent/coiled, so they do not settle in a pan the same way that alluvial Gold does.
> 
> I have had good results with bucket washing and blue-bowl and medium results with drainage pipe sluicing.
> 
> I would love to try a good shaker table type setup at some point.
Click to expand...



the problem i am facing is to find the "any prepared setup."
can you suggest some videos or documents or a post to setup a shaker tables at home!


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> kernels said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> concentration via gold pan is a good idea?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, it is almost impossible to pan bond wires from ash without losing quite a lot of them, they are often long and bent/coiled, so they do not settle in a pan the same way that alluvial Gold does.
> 
> I have had good results with bucket washing and blue-bowl and medium results with drainage pipe sluicing.
> 
> I would love to try a good shaker table type setup at some point.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> the problem i am facing is to find the "any prepared setup."
> can you suggest some videos or documents or a post to setup a shaker tables at home!
Click to expand...


Try this link for shaker table DIY.

http://www.crazycrusher.com/download/section4/diy-shaker%20table.pdf


----------



## Shark

Thanks kjavanb123, that is the best looking homemade table I have seen.


----------



## Platdigger

Yes, very nice.
Would be great to see one in operation.


----------



## ashir

gaurave ! you posted a picture of rotary furnance, 


i am trying to construct tge same at home!
i can not find proper informations, if you kindly answer some questions!
the upper view( as shown in picture has no holes from where burning fumes get the way to go out, is there any other side hole? 
crucible is fixed in furnance and can i see if the furnance is filled or tgere is place inside?


----------



## gaurav_347

IT's a hydraulic tilting furnace . It runs on waste oil . There is a waste oil burner with a high speed blower attached to it .. The crucibles are replaceable . You need to unscrew the top ring. The burner is attached to a oil supply drum which is kept at height . It will be hard for a newbie to operate such kind of a furnace. I would strongly suggest that you build a coal furnace out of a oil drum or a pit furnace . You cannot use regular coal but instead you have to use net coke . It gives temperatures which could easily melt iron . In Fact we started using pit furnaces more than oil fired or gas fired furnaces at our plant. It's more convenient and we can easily do 8-10 50kg smelt loads in a day. look for coal fired pit furnaces online .


----------



## ashir

gaurav_347 said:


> IT's a hydraulic tilting furnace . It runs on waste oil . There is a waste oil burner with a high speed blower attached to it .. The crucibles are replaceable . You need to unscrew the top ring. The burner is attached to a oil supply drum which is kept at height . It will be hard for a newbie to operate such kind of a furnace. I would strongly suggest that you build a coal furnace out of a oil drum or a pit furnace . You cannot use regular coal but instead you have to use net coke . It gives temperatures which could easily melt iron . In Fact we started using pit furnaces more than oil fired or gas fired furnaces at our plant. It's more convenient and we can easily do 8-10 50kg smelt loads in a day. look for coal fired pit furnaces online .


 i recently prepare an oil burner, actually a waste vhicle oil burner. it works fine. i will search for coal fired pit furnance, 
one of my colleguee is machanical engineer, he was intrested to make an rotary furnance,
we were in trouble to get idea inside the furnance. if you can explain then may be we can get idea to prepare furnance, may be we not succeed but we want try! or you can post pics whenever you replace the crucible so i can get an idea, thanks alot


----------



## ashir

can i use clcium fuoride ( white crystals) instead of fluorspar in smelting?


----------



## ashir

what if smelt ashes with copper as collecter and then remelt the poured metals with potasium nitrate and flux to oxidise copper, then treat with hno3 then with aqua regia?


----------



## gaurav_347

Ashir,

Yes you can use copper as a collector metal. You don't need to do oxidise the copper . Just remelt this dore to make shots of copper . Treat this with nitric acid . Now you will use a lot of a nitric acid to dissolve this copper which will result in you creating a lot of acid waste. Try to find companies who are ready to buy this copper dore . They will pay you 90-95% values after the assay .. This way you stay away from chemicals. From what I have heard there are lot of chinese companies in Pakistan who are already buying these dore bars from local unauthorized E-waste refiners .


If you plan to recover these values then by yourself then cupellation is the way to go. You will end up using very less acids. . Plenty of books available on this forum to study this topic. You can perform large scale cupellation .Look for videos on youtube by owltech to understand the concept and study the books provided here on the forum to understand what is happening and how it should be done safely . Stick to what is being done already and do it in a much better way with safety of yourself and the people around being the priority.


----------



## ashir

thanks gaurave! 
chinese companies start to buy dores in early 2005
and later on they completely hold the refining process, no one can sell now such material because refining is banned in pakistan now, and if some one try this then he have to go to jail! 
even buying scrap is also now a troubke here, chinese companies are picking everything
cupelation mus need to use lead as collecter and its the only one collectr metal i want avoid ! 
so copper or silver are intresting!
well i was thinking to request you one more thing
can you post some pictures of your pit furnance?


----------



## ashir

gaurav_347 said:


> Ashir,
> 
> Yes you can use copper as a collector metal. You don't need to do oxidise the copper . Just remelt this dore to make shots of copper . Treat this with nitric acid . Now you will use a lot of a nitric acid to dissolve this copper which will result in you creating a lot of acid waste. Try to find companies who are ready to buy this copper dore . They will pay you 90-95% values after the assay .. This way you stay away from chemicals. From what I have heard there are lot of chinese companies in Pakistan who are already buying these dore bars from local unauthorized E-waste refiners .
> 
> 
> If you plan to recover these values then by yourself then cupellation is the way to go. You will end up using very less acids. . Plenty of books available on this forum to study this topic. You can perform large scale cupellation .Look for videos on youtube by owltech to understand the concept and study the books provided here on the forum to understand what is happening and how it should be done safely . Stick to what is being done already and do it in a much better way with safety of yourself and the people around being the priority.


 setting up a furnance, soon i will post pics, will need your guide


----------



## ashir

i mannually depopulate 30 kg cell phone bords(old) no chinese boards.
today i pyrolise 4 lb ics, 3.4 lb mixed pins, cameras, 4.9 lb mlccs.




after pyloising, crushed in mortrar and pestal( i have ball mill but its not working fine, some pully issues) 


i find that, in crushing, there is still alot carbon under pyrolised layers of ic chips! 


should i repyrolise ash or go agead as it is,


----------



## kjavanb123

Ashir

Nice job on pyrolysis. If you have chosen to go lead smelting path, this pyrolysis is enough, just crush them as much as you can mix them with flux and ratio given to you by kurtak and smelt.

Best regards
KJ


----------



## ashir

thanks kj,, i choose smelting with lead, i am crushing them as fine as i can do with mortrar, 
heavy rains cause to stop the smelting process. as rain stop , i will give a try to smelt a half kg ash at first, i will post my results


----------



## kjavanb123

Ashir,

Hope all is going well with your smelting. Currently I am smelting a batch of ICs using lead oxide, here are some photos and numbers I liket to share with you and everyone else.

ICs net weight: 530 grams
IC ashes (after pyrolysis) : 437 grams

Flux weight: 2 x 437 = 874 grams
Lead oxide weight: 30% x (437 + 874) = 420 grams

Flux break down as following;
Soda ash (50%) of 874 grams = 437 grams
Borax (40%) of 874 grams = 350 grams
Silica (10%) of 874 grams = 87 grams

For silica source I just crushed a broken glass.

All the ingredients were mixed well, obviously it created much larger volume, and since I have only a 2-kg graphite crucible in hand, I have to pour and smelt in smaller batches.

Here is photo of pyrolyzed ICs



Here is what they look like after crushing.



This is the mix of flux lead oxide and crushed ICs ready for the smelting.



I smelted few cups of above mixture as my crucible size only 2 kg copper, after pouring the slag looks glassy and only few big metallic beads were noticed in the slag, and metallic fraction seems fragile, so I am going to remelt this batch using more flux to see if metal collection improves. 

Here is a photo of slag and metallic beads



Keep you all posted soon.


Best regards
KJ


----------



## kjavanb123

Ashir

I noticed that I had to add extra 200 grams of that flux specially soda ash as pour wasn't as fluid as I wanted.

It seems to be much better now.

After smelting the IC ashes completed I was left with a 740 grams of lead dore, as in this photo,



Here is the remains from cupelation, mostly copper plus gold.



This is the copper dore after hammering it to remove oxides and cement. They weighs 33 grams.



And finally the copper nitrate solution from dissolving copper dore in warm dilute nitric acid. There are some what seems tin nitrate forming at the bottom and gold which showed up almost near the end of copper and tin dissolution which form a brown layer on top.



Best


----------



## ashir

very very informativ kj! 
actually very helpfull! i was busy in family matters. ashes went to 4 kg plus in weight, so shorten lead oxide! 
also get a good deal of old cell phones, i am manually seprating ics, 
i want see your cupelation setup if you can show it to us or if you can describe it. 
direct flame on lead dore bar is looking hard to me 
cannot get idea to prepare direct flame setup with oil burner. lpg is avail but can not get a flash back controller system( some types of ragulators are availbale)


----------



## ashir

i want try cryolite as thining flux
and i noted in pictures that you broke glass in pieces , is ik ok to use it small pieces, or crush it more fine


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> i want see your cupelation setup if you can show it to us or if you can describe it.



Hi Ashir,

Following is my cupelation setup. It basically is a pot, filled in half with broken bricks and then filled up with Portland cement. 
I use a foot ball to make the curvage on top.



I place the lead dore in the middle of cupel, then I place these paint cans which I use as body of my furnace, they are both lined with kaowool, on top to make heat stay in cupel.



Here is another shot of setup. 



I start by high heat at the burner, and dore quickly melts, once molten I ajdust the burner pressure to medium, and this runs for 2-3 hours till all I see it copper which is different than lead when molten.

Hope that helps.


----------



## kjavanb123

ashir said:


> i want try cryolite as thining flux
> and i noted in pictures that you broke glass in pieces , is ik ok to use it small pieces, or crush it more fine



Both cryolite and feldspar can be used as thinning flux but they also dissolve the graphite so either don't use them or use them when smelting catalytic converters.

Yes part of stock flux is silica sand which sonce I didn't have at time so if you can get fine glass.


----------



## ashir

its awesome! i should avoid cryolite 
i see in video( related to start of topi) they use coal and air for cupelation! 
its very informative soon i will post my process next


----------



## Platdigger

So Kevin, of the lead that is not absorbed by the cupel but is vaporized.

Some condenses back out in the chimney, and the rest just goes out into the room?


----------



## kjavanb123

Platdigger said:


> So Kevin, of the lead that is not absorbed by the cupel but is vaporized.
> 
> Some condenses back out in the chimney, and the rest just goes out into the room?



Hi Plat

According to the forum, 10% of lead is vaporizef and 90% gets absorbed to cupel.

I put a metallic basket which is filled with lye on top of the chimney, hot lead vapors react with lye and some of it deposit inside the chimney wall.

Best regards
KJ


----------



## Platdigger

In a muffle type furnace were the flame is not in the same chamber as the cupel, I could see 10% perhaps.
But were the flame is right on the lead, it must be much higher.

Could you show us this lye/basket arrangement?

I just hope you are not poisoning yourself.


----------



## kjavanb123

Platdigger said:


> In a muffle type furnace were the flame is not in the same chamber as the cupel, I could see 10% perhaps.
> But were the flame is right on the lead, it must be much higher.
> 
> Could you show us this lye/basket arrangement?
> 
> I just hope you are not poisoning yourself.



Hi Plat

This is lye filtering setup per following photo. I need to increase the height since temperature gets hot there to melt the lye.


----------



## ashir

kjavanb123 said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> i want try cryolite as thining flux
> and i noted in pictures that you broke glass in pieces , is ik ok to use it small pieces, or crush it more fine
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Both cryolite and feldspar can be used as thinning flux but they also dissolve the graphite so either don't use them or use them when smelting catalytic converters.
> 
> Yes part of stock flux is silica sand which sonce I didn't have at time so if you can get fine glass.
Click to expand...


I did first smelting !
Not a good experience but was awesome
Raza shahid( a forum member) send me a gravity drip waste oil burner! 
It was nice but it consume too much oil! 
Second mistake was using of construction bricks as inner wall of furnance, so they melt somewhere during process. 
Third mistake was to run furnance without reserve oil so oil was ended! 
Here what i did,
500 gram ic ash
650 g borax
600 g soda ash
500 gram red led oxide( pb3o4) 
And smelting was done 


It was lead dore bara free crushing 
Many suspended bead of lead


It was the slag which i will crush and remelt!
Problem is that slag still stuck inside crucible. 

What i should do with it


----------



## gaurav_347

Dear Ashir,

You need to re-smelt the dore along with all the slags collected . Use a coal fired furnace which runs on net coke. It's a high temperature coal. Oil fired furnaces are complicated as per our experience. When you resmelt use extra borax and soda ash/ flux . Check out the furnace made from old oil drums on the first few pages of this thread. They run on coal and are super fast at smelting. It takes roughly 15 mins to finish one smelt. They are compact and can be easily carried around . When you compare the coal vs oil vs gas I would prefer coal and if you have the capital then there is nothing like a induction furnace !

RAMZAN mubarak to you and your family!

Regards,
Gaurav


----------



## ashir

gaurav_347 said:


> Dear Ashir,
> 
> You need to re-smelt the dore along with all the slags collected . Use a coal fired furnace which runs on net coke. It's a high temperature coal. Oil fired furnaces are complicated as per our experience. When you resmelt use extra borax and soda ash/ flux . Check out the furnace made from old oil drums on the first few pages of this thread. They run on coal and are super fast at smelting. It takes roughly 15 mins to finish one smelt. They are compact and can be easily carried around . When you compare the coal vs oil vs gas I would prefer coal and if you have the capital then there is nothing like a induction furnace !
> 
> RAMZAN mubarak to you and your family!
> 
> Regards,
> Gaurav



Thanks gaurave and kher mubarak
Can i resmelt dore in same crucible , there is still some stucked material inside crucible, and i am going to use coal as i was thinking to us it as secondary option. 
after or during the FAST there is nearly impossible to do physical work! So i am trying to wait few days so body become useto of 16 hours long Fast! 
Thanks again. I will post my pics


----------



## ashir

Can not get any coke here. I have to order it   
Want use coal instead. Will this work


----------



## gaurav_347

No it wont work . You need to use high temperature coke. It's called "net coke" at least here in India. This coke can raise temperatures high enough to melt copper and even iron ! do some research what it is called there. if there are furnace operators in your area they might help you out with your requirement.


----------



## ashir

gaurav_347 said:


> No it wont work . You need to use high temperature coke. It's called "net coke" at least here in India. This coke can raise temperatures high enough to melt copper and even iron ! do some research what it is called there. if there are furnace operators in your area they might help you out with your requirement.



I was thinking if i find a furnance operator then i will go him and do smelting. Here is ni concept of furnance ! One person told me that it called " pathar ka koela" ( stone coal) too much mines here of black coal stone! I have to order it from karachi !!!


----------



## ashir

gaurav_347 said:


> Dear Ashir,
> 
> You need to re-smelt the dore along with all the slags collected . Use a coal fired furnace which runs on net coke. It's a high temperature coal. Oil fired furnaces are complicated as per our experience. When you resmelt use extra borax and soda ash/ flux . Check out the furnace made from old oil drums on the first few pages of this thread. They run on coal and are super fast at smelting. It takes roughly 15 mins to finish one smelt. They are compact and can be easily carried around . When you compare the coal vs oil vs gas I would prefer coal and if you have the capital then there is nothing like a induction furnace !
> 
> RAMZAN mubarak to you and your family!
> 
> Regards,
> Gaurav



I get this from a city, the provider also not know its name but he told that it gives a lot heat and can be use for months! 

But it did not work. It took hours to go red and nothing else! 
All night , can not burn this coal! 
Can not find any supplier of net coke!
No one experienced with furnance a in my area! 
I am thinking to re work on waste oil as it brings me near to what i need for smelting !


----------



## ashir

Gaurave 
There is no such name i find on google" net coke " in india. 
Its net coke i find, too much confusion, 
No name like net coke that you mention
Its met coke
Pet coke


----------



## anachronism

ashir said:


> Gaurave
> There is no such name i find on google" net coke " in india.
> Its net coke i find, too much confusion,
> No name like net coke that you mention
> Its met coke
> Pet coke



Bottom line here. You need coke not coal.


----------



## butcher

Coke is made by burning coal without air, a process very similar to making charcoal from wood.


----------



## ashir

Sorry for can not follow your instructions. 
No such thing i find in my area even near me Its one inform me a city where i can find factories that offer smelting on your demand with your own material and crucibles. And they do as you want. 
In Ramzan i can not travell 7 hours 
After Eid i am thinking to go there and chek thier setups and thier smelting experience. Thanks every one to be so helpfull on every step


----------



## ashir

Here they did it for me. It still not reach to me from smelting shop. They did a strange thing that they not pour it and they ask me to break the crucible!!!!! It was not so expensive but its just belreaking crucible is not a good idea. They use lpg gas with blower and they told me that it took 3 hours to smelt. 



They did another strange thing that they fill the crucible with mix ashes with flux. As it melted they add more , and they did it until all mix ashes gone melted !!!


----------



## ashir

Is here anybody from pakistan that can tell me the local names of coke coal ? 

And how if i use both a wood coal and lpg burner with blower combine on furnance? Any problems that i can face or any benifits? But i wish i could find gaurave's mentioned coak net coal!!! It complete smelting in 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## eastky2

The picture of the stone coke you posted is the coke that you need.

met coke. pet coke, coal coke is what you are after.

Are you close by to any places that produce steel? If so they will be using the Coke you want to use.
If you can get regular coal you can make your own coke. Do a search for making coal coke. You can also search for making charcoal and the same practice can be used to make coal coke.


----------



## rickzeien

ashir said:


> Is here anybody from pakistan that can tell me the local names of coke coal ?
> 
> And how if i use both a wood coal and lpg burner with blower combine on furnance? Any problems that i can face or any benifits? But i wish i could find gaurave's mentioned coak net coal!!! It complete smelting in 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Why not just use LPG with a blower? 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## ashir

eastky2 said:


> The picture of the stone coke you posted is the coke that you need.
> 
> met coke. pet coke, coal coke is what you are after.
> 
> Are you close by to any places that produce steel? If so they will be using the Coke you want to use.
> If you can get regular coal you can make your own coke. Do a search for making coal coke. You can also search for making charcoal and the same practice can be used to make coal coke.



That stone coke was not work for me , it was just red as a metal but not produce such heat that can do smelting. May be i have a tachnical issue so is there any link on making coke foundry for smelting ? 
Steel producing is not done near me its in karachi on other end of pakistan! 
I will try to see if i can make coke coal! Thanks


----------



## ashir

rickzeien said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is here anybody from pakistan that can tell me the local names of coke coal ?
> 
> And how if i use both a wood coal and lpg burner with blower combine on furnance? Any problems that i can face or any benifits? But i wish i could find gaurave's mentioned coak net coal!!! It complete smelting in 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Why not just use LPG with a blower?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...



I posted pics that were done by same as you mention! Lpg with blower , but why it took 3 hours? 
And if you see my posts there is regular issue to me that i can not find things that i need, 
They use such thing on the burner side

They not let me to see this and even they were angry why i am taking pictures!


----------



## rickzeien

I am not sure why it took 3 hours. Maybe their furnace is not efficient. Maybe the burner or the furnace refractory is not designed properly. 

A properly constructed a LPG furnace should work fine. 

Here is an example of a Gas furnace built in India.

https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/floor-model-air-amp-gas-furnace-10631344673.html



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## eastky2

ashir said:


> eastky2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The picture of the stone coke you posted is the coke that you need.
> 
> met coke. pet coke, coal coke is what you are after.
> 
> Are you close by to any places that produce steel? If so they will be using the Coke you want to use.
> If you can get regular coal you can make your own coke. Do a search for making coal coke. You can also search for making charcoal and the same practice can be used to make coal coke.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That stone coke was not work for me , it was just red as a metal but not produce such heat that can do smelting. May be i have a tachnical issue so is there any link on making coke foundry for smelting ?
> Steel producing is not done near me its in karachi on other end of pakistan!
> I will try to see if i can make coke coal! Thanks
Click to expand...

 You need air blowing on the coke to raise the temperature. As any fire to get the heat to rise you need oxygen or a air flow. The more air the hotter the flame is. No forced air the fuel being coke will not burn as fast or as hot.

I don't know if you can search youtube. If you can do a search on youtube search for making coke from coal.

You want what is called block or lump coal. the people on youtube are using stoker coal you don't want that.


----------



## eastky2

rickzeien said:


> I am not sure why it took 3 hours. Maybe their furnace is not efficient. Maybe the burner or the furnace refractory is not designed properly.
> 
> A properly constructed a LPG furnace should work fine.
> 
> Here is an example of a Gas furnace built in India.
> 
> https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/floor-model-air-amp-gas-furnace-10631344673.html
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk



I would think it took 3 hours because they didn't have a blower. Propane is a oxygen scavenger and without a blower or forced air into the flame all the propane blower is doing is heating the metal and not melting it.
propane burns all the available oxygen producing co2. Without air being introduced its a mute point.

A propane furnace will only get so hot without a blower.


----------



## ashir

eastky2 said:


> rickzeien said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not sure why it took 3 hours. Maybe their furnace is not efficient. Maybe the burner or the furnace refractory is not designed properly.
> 
> A properly constructed a LPG furnace should work fine.
> 
> Here is an example of a Gas furnace built in India.
> 
> https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/floor-model-air-amp-gas-furnace-10631344673.html
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I would think it took 3 hours because they didn't have a blower. Propane is a oxygen scavenger and without a blower or forced air into the flame all the propane blower is doing is heating the metal and not melting it.
> propane burns all the available oxygen producing co2. Without air being introduced its a mute point.
> 
> A propane furnace will only get so hot without a blower.
Click to expand...

I can see a blower attach to it, might be you not notice it! Its good for an idea only, we can not purchase machinery from india now a days, hope it will reopen soon! 
And thanks to guide, i search a lot videos on youtube today, hope i can make it by myself, thanks alot


----------



## butcher

Bellows can be made easily.


----------



## kurtak

If you use LPG to fire your furnace you do not need a "blower" to bring your furnace up to temp

I have two furnaces the smaller one - which takes a #4 crucible uses compressed air run at about 5 psi to bring the furnace up to temp

the larger furnace which takes up to a #40 crucible uses a self aspirating burner as the air intake

:arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=20140&p=205871&hilit=burner#p205871


Kurt


----------



## ashir

So i recieved smelted crucibles, i broke them    and what i get is 

Tonight i am going to absorb lead in Portland cement homemade cupel. I got a burner that run on lpg , i do not know it will work or not, 
I will post more results


----------



## ashir

Burner not work fine for me 
It did nothing again! 
I have some questions 

Dore bar i get from smelting still have slag very hard attaced with it, is there any problem to not properly clean it? 
Plane Portland cement is not mentioned on pa kings as i already discuss it with gaurave , i use normal avail construction cement, it not absorb any lead!!is Portland cement is diffrent from normal construction cement? 
What will be the proper setup for cupelation? Which type of burner will work fine


----------



## ashir

Can i process lead dore bar directly in nitric acid 
! I know it will consume too much acid but i can not arrange cupellation . I try melting a dore bar bat lead drops comes out and baar body is same as it is ! 
So sy the moment i want use nitric to dissolve it, ( some slag is still stuck with it)


----------



## Platdigger

I would first try a small portion with dilute nitric to see how it goes.


----------



## eastky2

kurtak said:


> If you use LPG to fire your furnace you do not need a "blower" to bring your furnace up to temp
> 
> I have two furnaces the smaller one - which takes a #4 crucible uses compressed air run at about 5 psi to bring the furnace up to temp
> 
> the larger furnace which takes up to a #40 crucible uses a self aspirating burner as the air intake
> 
> :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=20140&p=205871&hilit=burner#p205871
> 
> 
> Kurt


 What is compressed air? Is it not a blower in general? Your are taking air from a air compressor and feeding it to the area of the crucible. Without that added air your crucible wouldn't get hot enough.

Your bigger crucible you say doesn't need added air. I can say without a doubt your bigger crucible isn't being contained in a closed chamber type area. You have a air inlet below the crucible to draw in air to make the propane burner burn properly and get up to temperature.

LPG is a scavenger of oxygen.


----------



## eastky2

ashir said:


> eastky2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rickzeien said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not sure why it took 3 hours. Maybe their furnace is not efficient. Maybe the burner or the furnace refractory is not designed properly.
> 
> A properly constructed a LPG furnace should work fine.
> 
> Here is an example of a Gas furnace built in India.
> 
> https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/floor-model-air-amp-gas-furnace-10631344673.html
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I would think it took 3 hours because they didn't have a blower. Propane is a oxygen scavenger and without a blower or forced air into the flame all the propane blower is doing is heating the metal and not melting it.
> propane burns all the available oxygen producing co2. Without air being introduced its a mute point.
> 
> A propane furnace will only get so hot without a blower.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I can see a blower attach to it, might be you not notice it! Its good for an idea only, we can not purchase machinery from india now a days, hope it will reopen soon!
> And thanks to guide, i search a lot videos on youtube today, hope i can make it by myself, thanks alot
Click to expand...

Do a search for backyard metal casting. Its a forum dedicated to doing metal casting. Plenty of burner setups on there. just read for awhile and don't ask questions until you have tried a few different setups.

If it needs to be melted and poured that is the forum you need to be reading.


----------



## ashir

Backyard metal casting is the thing that works , 
I put question because i am living in an area where people are not aware about many things related to refining and are not machanically experienced, 
I can not find necessary equipment or even no accessories so i can prepare them by myself
For example i buy a waste oil burner and its shipping cost was 2 times more than its orignal cost
Actually i was looking for old ideas as i post lpg burner pics i saw in a city, quite old ! 
Well backyard metal casting may help for us! Thanks alot


----------



## johnny309

Missing the most important point.....is not about the fuel....is all about O2.
In any set up...providing as much as you can ...oxigen is the fuel.
Oxy acetylene.....C2H2+O2....
C2H2 will burn ...only results with be carbon and low temperature.
You can use any type of fuel ......if you can provide enough O2.

Got it? This is why they used peroxide in the first jet engine....H2O2


----------



## ashir

Cupeltaion was done in this way,
Mix portland cement and white cement, make the pot. Place the lead dore bars and place the wood coal around and start blower. Cover it with a local made lid, keeping a hole so they can see whats going inside. 


So finally get this 200 grams approximately


----------



## ashir

Ok so i got 3 gram gold . While there was 30 kg mobile phones ics and pins mix. Approximately 4 kg weight of crushed stuff. I kbiw i can not get values. Any one can tell where my values are staying, in slag? In cupel pot?


----------



## kjavanb123

Hi

Re melt the slags I believe your values are there


----------



## ashir

kjavanb123 said:


> Hi
> 
> Re melt the slags I believe your values are there




Thanks kj. 
I did try to crush the slag. Some slag is not so hard but some pieces are too hard so that they are not easy to be crushed.
Can i put this slag in boiling water for few hours? And it might be easy to broken in pieces. Later on dry it and remelt again? 
And second question is what flux ratio should i use? 
Third question is should i use collecter metal?


----------



## ashir

so i try to make a furnance



i use lpg with air blower. it use too much lpg as 2kg lpg was not enough to smelt a one kg material. 
i did visit to the user of this setup. they did not try to get any blue flame, they just shorten th valve of gas and air and do smelt. i got that actually tgey were not smelting tgey were just melting tge material. 
i resmelt tha slag with some more flux and i still get beads hanged in flux. i did not use collecter metal. flux was as mentioned by kurt to resmelt the slag, 
furnance is still a problem here.


----------



## rickzeien

Do you have a roof or lid for the furnace. If not you should make one with a 3 inch hole in the center. Make a smaller one to partially cover that hole so you can vary the exhaust when you turn air/fuel mixture up or down. 

Also on your tube from the blower should be sealed as it enters the furnace. 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## ashir

rickzeien said:


> Do you have a roof or lid for the furnace. If not you should make one with a 3 inch hole in the center. Make a smaller one to partially cover that hole so you can vary the exhaust when you turn air/fuel mixture up or down.
> 
> Also on your tube from the blower should be sealed as it enters the furnace.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


 sorry i forget to upload


----------



## rickzeien

Are you sealed where the air/fuel mixture pipe enters the furnace. 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## ashir

rickzeien said:


> Are you sealed where the air/fuel mixture pipe enters the furnace.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk



yes i did sealed it , its welded then mix the red clay mud with pieces of clithand round aroung it, let it dry then use it


----------



## ashir

so here the whole story!
after a long expiriments with motgerboards and mobile bords, ( using wet ways) i decided to go throug the smelting way.
many members help me to prepare and in recognation of equipment especially gaurave, kj
thanks man
i collect 4.7 kg of ics and mobile connecter pins.
use lead way to smelt,
i recover only 6 grams of gold. 150 grams of silver.
resmelt the flux and get 100 gram more silver but no gold. i remelt slag 3rd time and get no silver but 4 gram of gold. 
the orignal ics were 3.1 kg ic chips from nokia and motorolla phone. remaining 1.6 kg were BGA chips
i want stop smelting way untill i find my fault and recover it
i just want know at the time how i can recover remaining values fron slag without smelting

here are some shots of last smelt


----------



## 4metals

What are you using as a flux in this process? It seems to me that a thinner flux will not hold up as much metal resulting in better recovery on the first smelt and eliminating re-processing of your slags.


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## ashir

4metals said:


> What are you using as a flux in this process? It seems to me that a thinner flux will not hold up as much metal resulting in better recovery on the first smelt and eliminating re-processing of your slags.


flux was ss mentioned by kj
40 % borax
50 % soda ash
10 % silica 
i use lead as collecter in form of lead oxide
remelt slag as you write the flux for slag 
with caf2
i am not pretty assure about calcium florite but i buy it from a supplier faar away!


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## snoman701

ashir said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> 
> ashir
> 
> 
> Sorry I have not posted more lately - I have been gone on a trip & just got back & as well I am currently sick
> 
> 
> Could you provide a better picture of the chips --- I would like to see "more" of what is in the mix of the chips
> 
> A few chips in your hand (with the rest in the back ground) does not really tell me much
> 
> 
> Kurt
> 
> 
> 
> i am far from my work area today,
> i ask my worker to send me fotos but he is not understanding. though he send me this
> image.jpg
> i clean mobile boards(ic chips from mobiles) BGA chips from p3 / laptop mother boards. ic chips from p2 motherboards.ic chips from rams. guys are working still, collecting more ic's
> untill i start smelting, so looking for your more guide
Click to expand...


Ashir,

After burning and grinding these chips, are you running the powders through a sieve to remove the legs seen in those photos? If you don't have a sieve, you can just use a magnet placed in a plastic bag, as the legs are magnetic. Spread your ash on a large piece of paper and run the magnet over it by hand. By removing the magnet from the bag, you will then drop all the legs again. Do it a couple times and you can perform a good separation of magnetics and powder. Process the legs directly in acid. 

How much silver/copper are you using as a collector when you are smelting 1 kg of ash?

Are you mixing your melted alloy when it is molten with a graphite rod? 

When you remove the rod, how does the slag flow off the rod? Like water? Like oil? Like honey?


----------



## butcher

The flux is a chemical composition, the ore or charge to be smelted also has a chemical composition, even the furnace or torch used can also add to this chemical conversion by being a reducing or an oxidizing agent for the melt.

You may have to do some tests to find the right flux composition.

Your material being smelted can be of an oxidizing or reducing nature for your flux. 
The flux composition your using can be of an oxidizing or reducing agent.



In an assay they will do some tests on the ore to see if the ore material itself is an oxidizing agent in the melt or a reducing agent, checking to see that all of the collector metal (lead oxide) is reduced along with the metal intended to be reducing from the charge, if the litharge is not all converted to lead in the test melt the flux is adjusted to be more of a reducing type flux, and if too much-unwanted metals are reduced in the test melt the flux is prepared to be more of an oxidizing flux.


----------



## ashir

snoman701 said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> 
> ashir
> 
> 
> Sorry I have not posted more lately - I have been gone on a trip & just got back & as well I am currently sick
> 
> 
> Could you provide a better picture of the chips --- I would like to see "more" of what is in the mix of the chips
> 
> A few chips in your hand (with the rest in the back ground) does not really tell me much
> 
> 
> Kurt
> 
> 
> 
> i am far from my work area today,
> i ask my worker to send me fotos but he is not understanding. though he send me this
> image.jpg
> i clean mobile boards(ic chips from mobiles) BGA chips from p3 / laptop mother boards. ic chips from p2 motherboards.ic chips from rams. guys are working still, collecting more ic's
> untill i start smelting, so looking for your more guide
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Ashir,
> 
> After burning and grinding these chips, are you running the powders through a sieve to remove the legs seen in those photos? If you don't have a sieve, you can just use a magnet placed in a plastic bag, as the legs are magnetic. Spread your ash on a large piece of paper and run the magnet over it by hand. By removing the magnet from the bag, you will then drop all the legs again. Do it a couple times and you can perform a good separation of magnetics and powder. Process the legs directly in acid.
> 
> How much silver/copper are you using as a collector when you are smelting 1 kg of ash?
> 
> Are you mixing your melted alloy when it is molten with a graphite rod?
> 
> When you remove the rod, how does the slag flow off the rod? Like water? Like oil? Like honey?
Click to expand...

 No, I did not saperate magnetic pins
Lead oxide was equal in volume of orignal material( in weight)
Flux was like oil and it was boiling vigouriously , though I introduce caf2 in 2nd smelt( that's why I said I was not assure about caf2 as it's original or something else)


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## stella polaris

Ashir mentioned that he could not get proper temperature with stone coal. I see 2 possible mistakes for this.

1. No air blown in to the coal. This should be done in the bottom of the furnance. A standard fan from a oil boiler, used to warm up houses, can do the job if a smaller furnance.

2. Wrong stacking of the coal. The coal shall be feed from above, around the cru, and not in to big pieces. If correct done the coal will transform into Coke on its way down due to the temperature. (High temperature pyrolysis since it is not yet burning)


I have used a rejected 20 litre cru as furnance. Made a hole on lower side for the pipe from the fan. filled the cru to 3/5 with coal. Then i simply put the smelting cru on top on the coal and stacked coal around. With a torch i lid the fire trough the hole and connected the fan to the hole. Then i placed a furnance brick over the smelting cru. 

This method is somewhat work demanding since sometimes you have to lift up the smelting cru a little and let the coal flow down, put it back and stack additional coal around the cru. However you can smelt with coal this way. Another backside is a smelly sulfur smoke. If using coke you have a much cleaner smoke and less odor.

I suggest you talk with a blacksmith using coal how he is working with the coal. The princip is the same.


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## Behnam2070

My friend where is videos link?
I can't see that


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## zohacomputer

Hi I m from India Mumbai I started to recover business all metal I m in last 20 year computer business I need help to palladium recovery


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## ashir

Why only palladium while you write you are collecting all metals ,


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## ashir

stella polaris said:


> Ashir mentioned that he could not get proper temperature with stone coal. I see 2 possible mistakes for this.
> 
> 1. No air blown in to the coal. This should be done in the bottom of the furnance. A standard fan from a oil boiler, used to warm up houses, can do the job if a smaller furnance.
> 
> 2. Wrong stacking of the coal. The coal shall be feed from above, around the cru, and not in to big pieces. If correct done the coal will transform into Coke on its way down due to the temperature. (High temperature pyrolysis since it is not yet burning)
> 
> 
> I have used a rejected 20 litre cru as furnance. Made a hole on lower side for the pipe from the fan. filled the cru to 3/5 with coal. Then i simply put the smelting cru on top on the coal and stacked coal around. With a torch i lid the fire trough the hole and connected the fan to the hole. Then i placed a furnance brick over the smelting cru.
> 
> This method is somewhat work demanding since sometimes you have to lift up the smelting cru a little and let the coal flow down, put it back and stack additional coal around the cru. However you can smelt with coal this way. Another backside is a smelly sulfur smoke. If using coke you have a much cleaner smoke and less odor.
> 
> I suggest you talk with a blacksmith using coal how he is working with the coal. The princip is the same.



Thanks for guide, these were the basic and much needed principles you mentioned. I follow rules as much as possible but I still have issues to get the right temp. I am looking a furnance expert but can not find,


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## ashir

As I mentioned earlier to get stuck in smelting. Later on I cruch the slag , boil in hot water till all the slag dissolved . 
Some pieces are still hard enough so that hot water can not dissolve them, I saperate these hard pieces. 
I pan the remaining material after dissolving in water and luckily get a cupfull metal beads, which mathod should I prefer to treat these beads, dilute nitric and then AR? 
I use litharge as a collecter metal, I still have the crucibles and the pot make for lead absorption. The pot was made up of Portland cement, what will be batter ways to get remaining little values from crucibles and the pot.
Thanks, 

stay home be safe


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## ashir

zohacomputer said:


> Hi I m from India Mumbai I started to recover business all metal I m in last 20 year computer business I need help to palladium recovery


Why only PD? 
Why not gold , solve copper, indium, aluminium.....


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## stella polaris

ashir said:


> Thanks for guide, these were the basic and much needed principles you mentioned. I follow rules as much as possible but I still have issues to get the right temp. I am looking a furnance expert but can not find,



Can you post some pictures of your furnance? What type of fan are you using?


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## ashir

stella polaris said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for guide, these were the basic and much needed principles you mentioned. I follow rules as much as possible but I still have issues to get the right temp. I am looking a furnance expert but can not find,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can you post some pictures of your furnance? What type of fan are you using?
Click to expand...

Assure I will, I am on duty at the moment, early in the morning I will post pics of all my setup


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## ashir




----------



## ashir

And these are the beads that I am collecting from slag by crushing and panning


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## stella polaris

@Ashir

What striking me directly is the air intake. This should be as tight as possible. Just so you can get in the pipe. Now i think you might loose temperature by airflow losses. Try to pack some clay around it to stop leakage.

The pipe itself. You can actually just using a short pipe in to the furnance. The fan will cool itself. 

Also the pipe seems to have a smaller outlet than the diameter of the pipe. This creates a resistance and less air comes in leading to lower temperature.

Have no idea about your fan. 
If you have an old vacum cleaner laying around you could try that as a fan. Just connect the hose to the outlet and put the pipe in the hole. It should be enough.

What diameter and height does the furnace have and what diameter and height do your cru have? The furnance seems a little low and you might use a larger cru than its capacity.

Do you cover the cru with a brick or something?


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## ashir

stella polaris said:


> @Ashir
> 
> What striking me directly is the air intake. This should be as tight as possible. Just so you can get in the pipe. Now i think you might loose temperature by airflow losses. Try to pack some clay around it to stop leakage.
> 
> The pipe itself. You can actually just using a short pipe in to the furnance. The fan will cool itself.
> 
> Also the pipe seems to have a smaller outlet than the diameter of the pipe. This creates a resistance and less air comes in leading to lower temperature.
> 
> Have no idea about your fan.
> If you have an old vacum cleaner laying around you could try that as a fan. Just connect the hose to the outlet and put the pipe in the hole. It should be enough.
> 
> What diameter and height does the furnace have and what diameter and height do your cru have? The furnance seems a little low and you might use a larger cru than its capacity.
> 
> Do you cover the cru with a brick or something?



Yes I take more actions to avoid any leakage, pics are when setup was unused. And again now I have re part all things, I feel the leakage was from the lid from where I am loosing heat

Pipe length does matter? I will take more long pipe next time 
The smaller out let, I discuss it already, I can not find or make a burner, so I got such thing made up of iron, it's both sides are of smal diameter and it's mid is bit bigger, I was told by seller that it's to mix the air and gas , it's the piece that might be the actual error
Crucibles are of graphite 8 inch high 6 inch wide
Furnance is 13 inch in hight and 12 inch in diameter. 
I have a lid on it, 
I also use a coke type coal still not get what's it, I place the crilucible fill the sides with that coal and turn on the fan, open as little gas as possible so it only give a simple burn to coal, because sellers told me that this coal not become the ash, it not burn by itself, it need regular fire and air to glow, coke net or coal( no one knows here)


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## butcher

What type of fuel are you using?
What size orifice (drill size) on the burner fuel jet?

What type of refractory insulation (hard, soft, brick, blanket)?
Does the burner burn blue or smokey yellow?


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## stella polaris

ashir said:


> Yes I take more actions to avoid any leakage, pics are when setup was unused. And again now I have re part all things, I feel the leakage was from the lid from where I am loosing heat
> 
> Pipe length does matter? I will take more long pipe next time
> The smaller out let, I discuss it already, I can not find or make a burner, so I got such thing made up of iron, it's both sides are of smal diameter and it's mid is bit bigger, I was told by seller that it's to mix the air and gas , it's the piece that might be the actual error
> Crucibles are of graphite 8 inch high 6 inch wide
> Furnance is 13 inch in hight and 12 inch in diameter.
> I have a lid on it,
> I also use a coke type coal still not get what's it, I place the crilucible fill the sides with that coal and turn on the fan, open as little gas as possible so it only give a simple burn to coal, because sellers told me that this coal not become the ash, it not burn by itself, it need regular fire and air to glow, coke net or coal( no one knows here)



Pipe does not need to be long. It is the opposite. the shorter the better. But it is not a big deal. You can use the one you have. If you must have fire i understand you want to keep away the gas bottle.

Alarming is that you need regular fire to keep it glowing. For me that is a sign for bad coal. That might be your problem. I never had to use gas more than to start the fire. Try to get hold of a blacksmith that are using coal. He will not use such a coal. Get some from him and try. I am convinced it will work better.

Also i have the feeling that the furnance is a little to low for that cru. a cru 50% of furnance height feels better when using coal. Have you any time tried with a lower cru and have more coal under?


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## ashir

stella polaris said:


> ashir said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes I take more actions to avoid any leakage, pics are when setup was unused. And again now I have re part all things, I feel the leakage was from the lid from where I am loosing heat
> 
> Pipe length does matter? I will take more long pipe next time
> The smaller out let, I discuss it already, I can not find or make a burner, so I got such thing made up of iron, it's both sides are of smal diameter and it's mid is bit bigger, I was told by seller that it's to mix the air and gas , it's the piece that might be the actual error
> Crucibles are of graphite 8 inch high 6 inch wide
> Furnance is 13 inch in hight and 12 inch in diameter.
> I have a lid on it,
> I also use a coke type coal still not get what's it, I place the crilucible fill the sides with that coal and turn on the fan, open as little gas as possible so it only give a simple burn to coal, because sellers told me that this coal not become the ash, it not burn by itself, it need regular fire and air to glow, coke net or coal( no one knows here)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pipe does not need to be long. It is the opposite. the shorter the better. But it is not a big deal. You can use the one you have. If you must have fire i understand you want to keep away the gas bottle.
> 
> Alarming is that you need regular fire to keep it glowing. For me that is a sign for bad coal. That might be your problem. I never had to use gas more than to start the fire. Try to get hold of a blacksmith that are using coal. He will not use such a coal. Get some from him and try. I am convinced it will work better.
> 
> Also i have the feeling that the furnance is a little to low for that cru. a cru 50% of furnance height feels better when using coal. Have you any time tried with a lower cru and have more coal under?
Click to expand...

The gas inlet is connected with long pipe 
Blacksmith is on other part of world, hard to get coal from him, but the coal I use is glow like iron pieces. It's light in weight than normal coal. I also try to use the coal avail in markets to use in winter as a heat source. 
I also try to use a little crucibles , even 5inch high to melt gold and take 1 hour and not melt all the powder, (which is main reason to make me feel fail in furnance) 
Can you mention some posts about coal furnance? 
Thanks alot


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## ashir

butcher said:


> What type of fuel are you using?
> What size orifice (drill size) on the burner fuel jet?
> 
> What type of refractory insulation (hard, soft, brick, blanket)?
> Does the burner burn blue or smokey yellow?


LPG inlet with air blower, use a type of coal that I describes already, light in weight from normal coal, not burn just glow as an iron piece is heated, and it need regular fire to keep glowing. 
And butcher be avail I will post complete parts of furnance with more delatils as I end the duty today, thanks


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## stella polaris

@Ashir

It sounds like you are using Alum shale.

Do a test with ordinary char coal (wooden coal). No extra fire. Just fan. If that works better (even if much higher fuel consumption) then your coal is to bad. Simple practical test.

Have you tried the coal for house warming? It should burn without additional flame and even without fan. I think it might be better. U can try that with only fan.

Post a close in picture of a coal sample. And as Butcher asked, what is the smoke like?

Just an weird idea..
I have never worked with an additional flame. It seems you put the gas in the pipe. Can it be so it steals most of the O2 leaving to little for the coal?


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## butcher

I was a bit confused by the pictures, the furnace is made in a style more for natural gas or propane (not the best design for a coal furnace or forge). A coal forge is built completely different using airflow tuyeres at the bottom to distribute air often adjustable controlling the supply of airflow through the coal and coke bed, the design is more open like a pit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=coal+forge+tyre&sxsrf=ALeKk00bDEVhw76RcibVI2z1zHETxIofUg:1586282313798&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq986O8tboAhULgp4KHfxVDScQ_AUoAnoECAwQBA&biw=1024&bih=705

The LPG gas burner if properly made can be used as the only fuel source, the burners can be made to run with an additional fan or oxygen source (air source) for combustion or as a venturi to pull in the surrounding air without the aid of a fan or bellows.

It looks like your trying to use an LPG furnace for a coal forge.

The coal forge and the gas furnace are two different animals, built differently to operate on different fuels and burner design...

If using LPG improve the burner design.


If using coal, I would build a better coal forge, with decent tuyeres...

Is your coal hard or soft, anthracite hard coal, soft coal-like bituminous, or lower grades of brown lignite coal?
Can you get or buy coke fuel, or make it yourself from the coal you have?
Wood charcoal can be mixed with lower-grades of coal and used in a good forge design...

How high sulfur content is your fuel, how much ash do you have afterburning (high ash will clog the tuyeres easily blocking airflow through the coal and coke-bed...

Refractory in a furnace can be as important as the fuel or burner design, using the wrong refractory or poorly design furnace can suck up the heat as fast as a poorly made burner can produce fire, leaving almost no heat left to melt your metals...


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## ashir

The burner burn yellow with blue ended flame. 
We use coal to warm houses burn without air blower but it make too much ash.
The coal I am using give no smoke no ash. Remain same as it is after cool down. 
As butcher said it's looking more accurate that I am using LPG furnance as coal furnance. The ideas were changed during the construction. First it was to use LPG. But LPG burner that I got was not good enough to produce hrd flame to melt the metals with out air blower, when air blower use then it start consuming too much LPG. Then the idea of additional fume was tried. 
The coal I am using is hard but lighter in weight than wooden coal


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## butcher

The burner looks to be built more like a natural gas burner than a propane burner, although the major difference is the position or size of fuel orifice.

Besides types of fuel, of major importance is getting a good fuel to air ratio in a burner, torch, furnace...
Getting a good mixture this is different for different types of fuel, some fuels may need to be aspirated and sprayed into the air stream like heavy or waste oil burners, some burners are designed to pull in the air on their own like a venturi and may have a choke adjustment, others the fuel may be delivered under pressure and the airflow is regulated with dampers, and some a combination of both.

Just like in getting good gas mileage in an old truck having a well-tuned carburetor will get you better gas mileage and keep your furnace hotter...

It is helpful to be able to adjust the burner or forge from a reducing flame (colder, yellow, smokey) to an oxidizing flame (bright hotter blue, no smoke) or environment by adjusting either fuel delivery or air or oxygen delivery of the well-desighned burner or furnace...


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## stella polaris

ashir said:


> The coal I am using is hard but lighter in weight than wooden coal



Lighter than wooden coal??????? What in earth are you using? It feels impossible that a stone coal should be lighter. 
I think your furnace should be ok for coal. No major difference, exept of the height, to the one i used. Yours have a lower height/with ratio.

If your coal remains the same then you have to take it out before filling in new coal. That is not a good way to go. The coke process i mentioned will not work with such coal.

I say it again. Try House warming coal together with the fan. Fan must be used or you never get the temperature.
It probably goes faster and consuming less fuel and thereby you get less ash. Ash have to be accepted but its not too much. At least not with the coal i used. (Hight quality black coal.)


An idea. Think you still use steam locomotives in your country? If so try to get hold of the coal they use.

I feel pretty sure that your coal is not a better one.


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## butcher

I agree with Stella Polaris, the mineral coal should not be lighter than wood charcoal, and with proper packing of the furnace with coal and airflow should be able to produce enough heat to forge steel bringing it close to its melting point fairly easily.

I also suspect the coal you are using.
The other concern is control of air through the coal bed, besides how the coal is packed or the ash clogging the flow of air through the bed, can you control the fan speed or use dampers to divert air into or bypass the coal bed so you have control of the heat produced...


----------



## ashir

Thanks butcher and Stella Polaris. 
Coal is really too light in weight. And it gives no ash, and I use it again and again. Every time it glow as before. 
Air blower is with constant speed. No controller but I can add a dimmer with it,
And I want to use more smaller size crucible instead of making new furnance with more height. 
Packing of furnance will be taken more serious. I have 2 kg mlccs with mix smallest IC chips, soon I am trying to smelt them to see what's happening. Thanks both I will post pics of coal that I use already, thanks allot


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## Yggdrasil

> Thanks butcher and Stella Polaris.
> Coal is really too light in weight. And it gives no ash, and I use it again and again. Every time it glow as before.


Are you sure you are not using spent coke?
One should not be able to use coal more than once, I think??
If so, the glow comes entirely from the LPG not from the coal itself.


----------



## stella polaris

Yggdrasil said:


> Thanks butcher and Stella Polaris.
> Coal is really too light in weight. And it gives no ash, and I use it again and again. Every time it glow as before.
> 
> 
> 
> Are you sure you are not using spent coke?
> One should not be able to use coal more than once, I think??
> If so, the glow comes entirely from the LPG not from the coal itself.
Click to expand...


Yes, spent coke is light and float. If you are sold that its a pure scam.

One easy test to check the whole thing is to use wooden char coal as a test, in a run. if that is not working then its something else than the fuel. If works then its the fuel you been using..


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## rickzeien

Try to locate Coke in your country. It is used in blacksmith's forge and steel mills. It burns very hot and is made to reduce ash and emissions among other things. 

Here is an ebay listing so you can see an example. Be sure sure to read the description. I link it here only as an example not as a source. (I am not affiliated)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Foundry-Coke-This-is-NOT-coal-Perfect-for-the-hobby-blacksmith-15-lbs-/183349452248

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


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## Rotz

Hello,

I also try a small furnace with coal. Actually I thought using propane when I made the furnace but I just have a small propane tube. This coal is old type standard for house warming. Furnace is very hot when I close top hole half & half. I just try incenerate the chips. It is look nice for this but it couldn't melt the flux at the top of the crucible. All of the crucible was red but just bottom flux melted. I guess my furnace is short and I don't have a good cover. However it can make red everywhere with this coal. I will try with more coal then if I can't melt every place of the cricible I will make new furnace with kaowool. 











Best Regards,


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## Rotz

I am using just a hair dryer for air from bottom as you can see.


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## Rotz

Hello guys again, 

I get rid of from coal and I started smelt with puropane and hair dryer. I create a furnace with kaowool(50 mm). It work nice, just I can not adjust properly sometimes, I don't know the true adjustment of the air gas ratio. fire always yellowish and I can smelt gold, copper etc. Experience will develop in time. 

I am using 50:50 soda x borax flux and I add 5 gr lead oxide . I can not find flourspar or flour. When I process the ICs or pins it is OK but mixed parts wasn't fluid enough although increase the flux ratio. pyrolised plastics or pcb dusts effect the flux. How I can fix this situation? Many time when I drain the crucible, good fluidal material coming then a lot of part coming as not fluid. I tried long time in furnace but it is same. However metals didn't collect. 
At the same method the chips or pins smelt easy. I am thinking add more copper or lead oxide. 

Sincerely


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## kjavanb123

Anyone who wants to use propane or butane as source of heat to melt or smelt please watch this video it will show you in very plain and simple form how to build a torch that takes gas as fuel and it can melt even steel in my case.

No air blower needed no hair dryer or anything it works based on venturi effect and sucks the air. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eO8NwseRxSA&list=PLxXd0CgIkAPId55oGBeq2Dm1_IQfj5pWK&index=11&t=41s

May God rest his soul.


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## Rotz

Dear Kevın,

I am working with 1 bar, he works with 2 bar. I think he wants to provide a good venturi effect so he uses 2 bar. I care the gas amount like everybody. I guess I need to try because oven volume will effect the amount. We can not calculate just pressure  May be furnace working time will effect. 
I will try thank you. 
Sincerely,


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## Toggle

You may have to do some tests to find the right flux composition.


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## Rotz

You may have to do some tests to find the right flux composition.
[/quote]

I don't want to use flux anymore if possible. I am also talking here about that. 
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=29432

To update, this is my gas furnace. This e-ore smelted with just soda


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