# My first gold button from a small batch



## FREED0M (Feb 17, 2018)

Hello, a long story here. Big thanks to GRF to make this possible.

Been interested about refining e-scrap gold since middle school (4 years ago), so started to hoard some e-scrap that I could get my hands on.

No commercial buys, just receiving donated broken motherboards, RAM's, HDD's, and dead phones from friends, got 85 grams of IC chips. Omitted some of the low-yield chips, so maybe actually used around 60-65 grams of the better ones.

I incinerated the chips, took the pins off, broke them into chunks, took the silicon out and kept the goldwire-bearing chunks for recovery. Those were done individually (that's why I chose to omit bad chips until I can efficiently process them lol).

Then the chunks were then ground down. I have a mortar and pestle but worried about the porosity, so I used a cut test tube and small steel rod (from CD-ROM's). That took me more than 12 hours as I did it a few chips at once... A long process indeed.

After getting rid of the ash/burnt plastic, I poured some household cleaner (14.5% HCl) and heated it up a bit to make sure there's no copper left, if any. Had spent may be an hour to take all copper wires, pins and pads with tweezers.

So there's no chemicals involved except the HCl at the end. That's why I choose this method though, just pure labor and patience :lol: 




Final results: a tiny, 0.15 gram gold bead. There are still a few tiny gold globules left behind, but just too lazy to melt them together into a single bead, perhaps next batch. Maybe 0.16-0.17 grams total if they're all put together.

Overall, laborious but fun, I didn't expect to get more than 0.1 gram so I'm quite happy with what I got. Is it a good yield?


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## cosmetal (Feb 17, 2018)

Attributed to Calvin Coolidge:

*"Nothing in the World can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.'*

Congratulations on your beautiful and well-presented button!

Cheers,
James


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## FREED0M (Feb 17, 2018)

Thanks.

Since I can access HCl easily maybe will try to recover gold from pins, fingers and plated pads sometime later.


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 17, 2018)

Good job Freedom! I'm assuming the HCl was just used as a wash to dissolve base metals and not the gold, and in the end you melted the gold bond wires into your button. Nicely done.

As you progress, you'll learn how to dissolve the gold and precipitate it with just a couple more chemicals to achieve a more pure result, but that's a great start.

Dave


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## anachronism (Feb 17, 2018)

That's a great start well done. Onwards and upwards! 

Jon


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## FREED0M (Feb 17, 2018)

FrugalRefiner said:


> fhe HCl was just used as a wash to dissolve base metals and not the gold, and in the end you melted the gold bond wires into your button.



That's exactly what I did.

As I picked off all copper that I saw and used some HCl, I believe there's not much base metal there, my concern is instead silicon and carbon. I accidentally put silicon in too when grinding the carbon chunks so it may be still there.

Anyway thanks for the encouragements and the suggestion for refining it further.


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 17, 2018)

If you can buy laundry bleach (NaClO) you can use it with the HCl to dissolve the gold.

If you can buy automobile/motorcycle battery acid (sulfuric acid, H2SO4) and a piece of iron, you can make ferrous sulfate to precipitate the gold back out of solution.

The processes are all described here on the forum.

Dave


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## niks neims (Feb 17, 2018)

Congratulations FREEDOM!

but am I missing something? does HCl alone dissolves copper now?

-Artūrs


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## FREED0M (Feb 18, 2018)

Thanks!

I guess not, but I indeed heated the acid till it bubbled so it may help. A relatively large copper which I previously missed to pick up from the mix became very corroded. Smaller coppers were completely gone, I hope.


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## g_axelsson (Feb 18, 2018)

niks neims said:


> Congratulations FREEDOM!
> 
> but am I missing something? does HCl alone dissolves copper now?
> 
> -Artūrs


No, but it dissolves copper oxide. And once you have some copper chloride the oxygen from the air is enough to assist in dissolving the copper. It takes some time to start, to build up the copper chloride concentration in solution.
If you have other less noble metals in solution the copper chloride cements on them and delays the start of copper chloride etching.

Anything with chloride ions in it will cause copper to corrode over time, so if you just pour off the acid and don't wash it meticulously there will always be some chlorides left and copper will corrode with a green stain of copper carbonate in the end (reacting with carbon dioxide in the air).

By the way, noticed the zero in FREED0M it's a bit narrower than an O, but never felt it was worth commenting on.

Göran


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> No, but it dissolves copper oxide.



Well I knew that, I just assumed that without oxidizer present it would take ages for process to start and even then, how can you tell when "all of the copper is gone"? To make matters worse same principle (Cl+oxidation) also dissolves gold... and then the dissolved gold cements back on to yet un-dissolved copper (of course not looking like gold bonding wire anymore)... It just seems to me like very very messy way of doing ICs... I am happy about you OP, but I would not vouch about purity of that bead or the yield you got... still looks pretty, though 


And sorry FREED0M, didn`t notice the zero thing 

-Artūrs


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## g_axelsson (Feb 18, 2018)

You need a higher oxidative potential (ORP) to dissolve gold with HCl, just oxygen doesn't cut it.
HCl + Cl, HCl + H2O2 or HCl + HNO3 is usually needed.

That is why copper chloride etch with air bubbling is relatively safe, while copper chloride etch and adding hydrogen peroxide might dissolve gold.

Göran


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## FREED0M (Feb 18, 2018)

> By the way, noticed the zero in FREED0M it's a bit narrower than an O, but never felt it was worth commenting on.



That's OK, guess using an O would be easier.



> And sorry FREED0M, didn`t notice the zero thing



Take it easy  



> so if you just pour off the acid and don't wash it meticulously there will always be some chlorides left and copper will corrode with a green stain of copper carbonate in the end



Man, I missed that, so indeed there must be copper in my button... Just not sure how much or how little.


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## FREED0M (Feb 18, 2018)

Oh and here's the gold prior to melting, after washed with HCl and heated.




At least there were no _macroscopic_ copper to be seen, but, there's plenty of ash and silicon that I couldn't wash away.

The gold ended up melted in that same container.


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## g_axelsson (Feb 18, 2018)

Then I would suspect a bit of silicon contamination in your button. Gold and silicon forms an eutectic alloy at 80% gold and 20% silicon. Not saying that your gold button contains 20% silicon, just that it probably contains a bit.

That's why we dissolve, filter and precipitate our gold before melting.
No worries, you'll get it when you re-refine that button.  

Göran


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2018)

Thank you for the explanation Goran 

And those were some nice looking bonding wires FREED0M, a picture like that just begs for some AR to be refined  You will soon learn that it is much easier to deal with impurities like that when gold is still finely divided - If you decide to re-refine your button you`ll see that it will take much longer to dissolve than fine wires like that...

-Artūrs


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## kernels (Feb 18, 2018)

niks neims said:


> Thank you for the explanation Goran
> 
> And those were some nice looking bonding wires FREED0M, a picture like that just begs for some AR to be refined  You will soon learn that it is much easier to deal with impurities like that when gold is still finely divided - If you decide to re-refine your button you`ll see that it will take much longer to dissolve than fine wires like that...
> 
> -Artūrs



If you are going to re-refine, just beat it super flat with a hammer and anvil, will speed up the dissolving. But really, I reckon just keep that first button as is, very nice


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2018)

kernels said:


> Just beat it super flat with a hammer and anvil, will speed up the dissolving



Now that is a great idea! I could`ve used it a few months back, I boiled that damn button in AR for hours (I know, I know you should not boil AR, I was desperate :/)!


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 18, 2018)

niks neims said:


> kernels said:
> 
> 
> > Just beat it super flat with a hammer and anvil, will speed up the dissolving
> ...


It's OK to boil AR as long as you keep it covered with a watch glass or something similar. The tiny droplets that spew from the surface hit the watch glass and drip back in, so there are no losses from the bursting bubbles. Evaporating a solution to reduce the volume is when you don't want to boil.

After you've beaten it flat and thin, twist it so it doesn't lie flat on the bottom of the beaker.

Dave


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## FREED0M (Feb 18, 2018)

Thanks everyone, this has been a very informative thread  



> just keep that first button as is, very nice


I think I'll keep this button as my "first button". But I'll try poor man's AR for next batch, and, if I'm no longer sentimental at that time, will let this button to join the batch.


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## niks neims (Feb 18, 2018)

FREED0M, man, sorry to be highjacking your thread like this, but this here is some quality advice these guys are passing around 



FrugalRefiner said:


> After you've beaten it flat and thin, twist it so it doesn't lie flat on the bottom of the beaker.




Thank you, Dave! I should start writing it down or something 

-Artūrs


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