# recovering gold from cell phones



## bswartzwelder (Jul 24, 2012)

I know you guys will tell me if what I'm planning to do is flawed BEFORE I make another mistake. (My first mistake was trying to recover gold using the Shor process.)

I have been collecting cell phones and other items for rpobably a little over a year and will soon be ready to start processing. It looks like I'll have two 5 gallon buckets of bare circuit boards. I have started taking the cell phones apart and any connectors which contain no solder are being placed in one container for electrolytic cell processing. The same items which do have solder on them will be treated in HCl (with heat as necessary) to remove the solder and then processed in the electrolytic cell.

The components on the circuit boards will be removed using a heat gun. Then the boards will be treated with HCl to remove solder. Once that is accomplished, the boards will go into AP with an air bubbler to remove all base metals and free up the gold on the circuit boards traces. Once that gold has been recovered, it will be refined with Hydrochloric acid and Chlorox. After all values have been dissolved, the gold will be precipitated using SMB or SMB in a water solution. Then the gold will be washed several times in HCl and dried. It should then be ready to melt and pour into a heated mold.


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## Harold_V (Jul 24, 2012)

A reasonable plan, although I suggest you investigate the use of ammonium hydroxide in the final wash. It has benefits. 

Harold


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## bswartzwelder (Jul 24, 2012)

Thank you, Harold. I will look into ammonium hydroxide for the final rinse. I can't say that I have heard of that before.


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## Harold_V (Jul 25, 2012)

I talk about using ammonium hydroxide in washing in the thread about getting gold shiny. It's the second wash, followed by a rinse with water, and a third wash in HCl, and then a rinse with water once again, followed by force drying, all in the same vessel. By now, the solution from washing should be clear of any color. If it is not, the job is not yet done. 

Harold


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## Palladium (Jul 25, 2012)

:arrow: :arrow: 

It has everything to do with how you're refining.

There are NO shortcuts. If you want pure gold, you MUST follow accepted practice.Remember, those that went before us have gone through this time and again----and have perfected a process that will yield good quality------so if you're interested in achieving that level, follow instructions that are at your disposal. Don't experiment-----leave that for others with time on their hands that are content to re-invent the wheel. This is particularly important for you, considering you're trying to establish a refining service.Depending on what you're starting with, you may have a hard time achieving a good level of purity the first time through. That's to be expected. Part of the problem is mechanical drag-down, where you're working with very heavily contaminated solutions, part of which follow the gold. They're not always easy to wash out, even when boiling with HCL.

My advice to you is thisrocess your gold the first time, using conventional means. Allow as little in the way of contamination's (metals) as is humanely possible, to be included with the gold. Use only clean vessels. Wash them well between operations-----and use Bon Ami cleanser if necessary to remove stubborn stains. Do not use other cleansers, for they scratch the glass. Filter before precipitating, and insure that the filter does not allow particulate matter to pass. If it does, re-filter, or go to a better filter grade. A Whatman #2 does an outstanding job for first refined metals, although they are not cheap. I used them exclusively for filtering first run gold chloride. I felt they were worth the extra money. At all times, keep your beaker covered with a watch glass of appropriate size, to prevent contamination from other sources.Precipitate your gold using conventional methods, collect it and wash it well. It's best to use a precipitant that does not add contamination. I preferred SO2, but there are others that work equally as well, I'm sure.First wash should be in boiling HCL and tap water. Boil for a prolonged period of time. Take up the solution with tap water, decant after the gold has settled, then rinse with tap water, which should again be brought to a boil. After it has boiled for a period of time, add more tap water to cool the lot, then decant as before. Rinse again, and do it until the wash water comes off clear. Next, wash the gold with ammonium hydroxide and tap water. Heat it until it boils.You'll notice that the solution gets discolored. How much is determined by how dirty your gold was when you started. The ammonia evaporates fairly quickly, so you can't boil very long. Add tap water to cool, decant, and follow up with a tap water rinse, again, boiling the water. Add tap water to cool, then decant. You now repeat the HCL and tap water wash. You'll be amazed that suddenly more contaminants will come off. Boil well, add water to cool, decant, repeat the water rinse, decant, then, and this is important-------start the refining process all over again by dissolving the well washed gold powder in aqua regia. I'll talk about that in a minute,but these are indicators you should have observed along the way, aside from the fact that you could see contaminants being washed from your gold powder.The gold powder, which started out quite dark, is now much lighter in color.It may have been rather loose and flocculent, but now is eager to agglomerate, so it forms lumps and settles quickly.While these instructions sound like a lot of wasted time, when you process what you think is pure gold, you'll see evidence in the remaining solutions that it was not. The evidence of which I speak will be in your solution when you've extracted the gold for a second time. It's a lot of work which is why I re-refined my gold in large lots, often as much as 200 ounces at each refining, so the time spent yielded a large return.When you precipitate for a second time, one of the things that you can do to help eliminate unwanted elements is to use a different precipitant than the first time. I never bothered with that, but it's good advice if you're fighting with a given contaminant and can't get rid of it by other means. That was never a problem for me.Wash the gold powder the second refining by the same methods and sequences as the first refining. Make sure all your equipment is scrupulously clean. Force dry the gold when it's washed by heating the beaker at a very low heat for a long period of time. Avoid allowing the beaker to achieve boiling temperature---you get minor steam explosions that blow gold out of the container. As the gold dries, it's a good idea to swish it around the beaker occasionally,which prevents the gold from bonding to the beaker. The residual matter in water tends to form around the gold and bond it to the beaker. While it's a contaminant of sorts, it does NOT alloy with your gold, so it is not a source of lowering the fineness unless you have strange elements in your water. For me, it was not a problem.

Once dry, you can then melt your gold. A clean, never used for anything but pure gold,dish can be used. It should be covered with a coating of borax, but nothing else. DO NOT USE ANY SODA ASH. If there are any oxides present, they'll be reduced and absorbed by themolten gold instead of locked in the flux.Your torch should be cleaned of loose crud before melting your gold. Run fine abrasive clothover it until it's very clean, then wipe it down with a damp cloth to remove any traces of dust.Think clean every inch of the operation-----otherwise you undo all the hard work you've donegetting your gold pure.Your other option is to operate a small gold cell, but you must have several ounces of puregold for the electrolyte.. That is likely not a viable choice for you at this point in time.

Harold


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## bswartzwelder (Jul 26, 2012)

Thank you for all the information. I am not interested in taking any shortcuts nor am I interested in reinventing anything. You, (the people who have done this time and again) have most likely made many mistakes which you have benefitted from. I would prefer to take my time and do it as close to right as I can the first time. I know I will make some mistakes, but I will try to minimize those mistakes by following what others have tried and proven to work. My first attempt was using the Shor system which turned into a fiasco where I lost all the values I was trying to recover. No more being in a hurry for me.

You mention a small gold cell. Is this an electrolytic cell or something else like the cell sold by Shor?

I imagine it will most likely be weeks (if not longer) before I am ready to get down to the recovery process. I have some circuit boards which have never been populated and could be put into an AP solution right now, but I want to have everything ready. It is a slow, tedious process to take apart cell phones. First I remove all screws and pry the cases apart. Anything that looks like gold and is in a critical area of the cell phone is removed and sorted. Critical areas for me are areas where the electrical connections are important. Connections to the battery, other circuit boards, antenna connectors, speaker connectors and keypads are areas I pay particular attention to. One container for items without solder and one for items with solder. One container for all the ribbon or flexible connectors. Test points or small connectors which have nothing connected to them are placed in with the items containing solder.

I have also come across a bunch of airbag controller modules which have been recalled by a particular manufacturer. The connector plugs contain 88 pins of which the last 3/8 to 1/2 inch is plated. They will be processed with the gold plated telephone jack connectors in AP. One question concerning the AP method with an air bubbler introduced: Does it make a lot of noxious fumes or is this something I could do outside like on the deck?

I also have some placer gold including a man made nugget that is close to 1 ounce (not a troy ounce). A local jewelry shop tested it and said it was 22 karat. Most likely, it will be cornflaked and added in with some of the items which have no solder.

I don't know how long it will take to get everything ready. While I am recently retired, I have had my left knee replaced and will be getting my right knee replaced in the near future.


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## Harold_V (Jul 26, 2012)

bswartzwelder said:


> You mention a small gold cell. Is this an electrolytic cell or something else like the cell sold by Shor?


Assuming you're not making reference to a sulfuric stripping cell, no, a gold cell is not even remotely related to anything sold by Shor. A gold (Wohwill) cell is similar in nature to a silver cell, using a series of anodes, alternating with a series of cathodes. The anodes are held in bags, which accumulate slimes from the parted gold. Electrolyte is gold chloride. The deposit is unlike that from a silver cell, as it deposits in nodules. Purity should be 9999 or better. Anode should already be of high quality. A gold cell is not used to part badly contaminated gold. 



> I also have some placer gold including a man made nugget that is close to 1 ounce (not a troy ounce). A local jewelry shop tested it and said it was 22 karat. Most likely, it will be cornflaked and added in with some of the items which have no solder.


Gold of that quality can be dissolved directly in AR, assuming the silver content is not excessive. If it is, you are well served to follow Hoke's suggestion to inquart, so the silver can be removed. It creates problems that are difficult to overcome when trying to dissolve gold with AR. If the nugget is, indeed, 22 karat, it should dissolve, even with some silver present. You'll know by how it responds in AR. If it forms a greenish gray coating and stops dissolving, even when heated to boiling, you'll know the silver content is too high. If it is low enough, the silver will convert to silver chloride and fall free of the cornflakes, allowing full dissolution. 



> I don't know how long it will take to get everything ready. While I am recently retired, I have had my left knee replaced and will be getting my right knee replaced in the near future.


My wife is experiencing severe knee pain, along with considerable swelling, and has been for a couple months. A new knee is sounding like a good idea. Any comments?

Harold


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## texan (Jul 26, 2012)

"The components on the circuit boards will be removed using a heat gun. Then the boards will be treated with HCl to remove solder. Once that is accomplished, the boards will go into AP with an air bubbler to remove all base metals and free up the gold on the circuit boards traces. Once that gold has been recovered, it will be refined with Hydrochloric acid and Chlorox. After all values have been dissolved, the gold will be precipitated using SMB or SMB in a water solution. Then the gold will be washed several times in HCl and dried. It should then be ready to melt and pour into a heated mold."[/quote]

Depending on the vintage and model of phones you are going to process the gold traces will be a fraction of the gold in the phones. The majority of the gold will be in the IC's of various design. Many of the gold plated contact points (head phone, battery and antenna contacts) etc wil be too small to handle in a sulphuric acid cell. I take super small items and process about 100 grams at a time in AP...it takes about a month to do the job right with a bubbler and stirring. Some of the IC's are quite "rich."

Texan


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## FrugalRefiner (Jul 26, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> My wife is experiencing severe knee pain, along with considerable swelling, and has been for a couple months. A new knee is sounding like a good idea. Any comments?
> 
> Harold


Only your wife and you, along with a couple of qualified physicians, can determine if replacement is the appropriate choice for whatever her problem may be, but assuming that is found to be the best direction, it may be something to look forward to rather than something to dread. I know none of us are young so that becomes a concern with any procedure, especially those requiring anesthesia. But when it all goes as planned it can be a new lease on life. My wife's sister had a replacement a couple of years ago. She was up and walking the same day and doing better after just a couple of days than she had been for a long time prior to the surgery. Her knees are doing fine these days. :lol: 

I wish you both the very best.

Dave


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## bswartzwelder (Jul 28, 2012)

Harold,

I'm sorry to hear your wife is experiencing knee problems. My knees started causing me enough pain to see an orthopedic surgeon in 2004. He told me that he would like me to wait 5 or 6 years so that I would probably die before they needed replacement a second time. I saw a different doctor for some back issues and mentioned the knee problems as well. He told me that he would replace them anytime I wanted (provided the X-rays showed they were bad enough). According to him, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst, my knees were at a 9. I haven't had them replaced before because I knew it would be a career ending surgery. My job at Dulles International Airport included crawling on my hands and knees to clear jams in the baggage handling systems. I have just turned 62 which means I can apply for Social Security. All these things plus the fact that the guys at work knew I was in a lot of pain and took it upon themselves to help me whenever they could. They were a great bunch of guys and I was really fortunate to have them as friends and coworkers. 

I am glad my left knee has been replaced, although there were several days of excrutiating pain. I am looking forward to having my right knee replaced as soon as possible. I have been using a lot less heavy duty pain killers since my left knee was done. I know what your wife is going through and it is something that will not be getting better without some kind of intervention. For mild cases, they have some injections which will give relief for up to several months. The injections are not cheap, so I hope you have good medical insurance. They also have partial and full knee replacements. As far as I know, the replacements last from 10 to 20 years based on how active the person is and how much they weigh. And, yeah, I got a little yellow card to carry in my wallet when flying to tell the TSA my knee is not my own, but a metallic fabrication. If they don't want to believe that, I have an 8 inch scar which shows there were 34 staples holding it together. I would reccomend her to have it checked out by a competent orthopedic doctor. She may be a prime candidate for a less intrusive procedure.


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## Harold_V (Jul 29, 2012)

Thanks for your comments, which have been printed and presented to my wife. 

Harold


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