# Getting that nasty glue off!!



## darinventions (Aug 25, 2015)

So I seemed to have found a VERY effective method to remove just about any kind of glue from various different types of circuit board..like LED strips ,the touch pads from laptops,the key pad circuit boards from cellphones and so on...the trick i use is i take a 1/2 Gal. pickle jar an fill3/4 full of whatever needs cleaned of glue..then i fill the jar 1"above that with Denatured Alcohol an screw the lid on tight ..Now this is important (keep this jar in. cool place away ffrom direct sunlight and most certainly away from any source of ignition ) let sit in the jar for a few days or a week. an all the glue will be soft enough to wipe or rubb off with yiur fingers ..i should note that when i do this i clean one piece. at a time leaving the rest in the jar till I'm ready for the next piece ..if you dump them all out the alcohol will evaporate. an the glue will began to get hard or sticky again...an you can reuse this alcohol several times..i will add to this post if ifigure out a way to clean the glue out of the alcohol to make it last longer.


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## patnor1011 (Aug 26, 2015)

I need something faster  
I do have about 300 touchpads to clean.
small preview


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## MarcoP (Aug 27, 2015)

Pat, did you try 10-20% caustic soda? I'm saving sticky cards believing soda would work...

Marco


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## Anonymous (Aug 27, 2015)

Pat I'd pop those in dilute HCl to get the components off and then throw them complete into AR mate.

Jon


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## patnor1011 (Aug 27, 2015)

I will try some experiment with caustic.
I may just wash solder mask off to expose plating as I do have plenty of caustic. I will more than likely not go further with them as I have lost my nitric supplier from NI, they no longer sell it to public no matter what and nitric is something you simply cant buy in Ireland. Whatever I do have left I want to keep for refining just powder. I can no longer afford to use nitric on base metals only to dissolve gold.
I may simply just sell them.


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## GotTheBug (Aug 27, 2015)

Patnor, you're going to love me after this, I promise. I might also add that I am very grateful to be able to offer you something for all the help you've been to my process.

Shoot the pads with a little brake cleaner and watch the magic.


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## kurtak (Aug 28, 2015)

Pat 

The gold plate on the top of the pads is "very thin" flash plate - turns to "very fine" dust (not real foils) once etched from the copper

My personal opinion is that they are not worth processing for the plating when you consider time/chems/waste

There are bong wires in the black epoxy dot on the back - so the other option would be to incinerate (whole pad) then smelt (ad extra Cu or Ag for collector metal) which will get the gold from both plating & bond wires plus any Ag & Pd from SMDs --- you will need some cryolite (to dissolve ceramic SMDs) & some fluorspar (for thinning flux/slag) in with the normal borax/soda ash flux mix if you want to get good complete metal collecting in the smelt & good metal settling when poured to the cone mold 

Other wise IMO you are better served selling them

Kurt


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## rickbb (Aug 28, 2015)

I'd de-populate them with heat, then use CuCl2 and HCL/Cl

It's how I do cell phone boards that have glue on them, works well.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 28, 2015)

Something so simple and straight forward turned into a long drawn out process. :roll:


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## MarcoP (Aug 28, 2015)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> Something so simple and straight forward turned into a long drawn out process. :roll:


Incinerate and smelt the whole thing?


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## darinventions (Aug 28, 2015)

kurtak said:


> Pat
> 
> The gold plate on the top of the pads is "very thin" flash plate - turns to "very fine" dust


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## darinventions (Aug 29, 2015)

He is very correct about this...the majority of this stuff is yflash plated...i don't use caustic. soda very often unless. i have to...an i don't use anything with petroleum distilants as it puts a oily coating coating over the gold making it harder for the acid to attack the base metals....what i do is use alcohol as i stated then i put them in a large boilinig pot with hcl an bleach ...boil for 5to 10 minutes or until all gold appears to be dissolved...now i know I'm getting copper also but i save an reuse this solution for at least 3 times...by this time its loaded with PM's ...drop. with SMB..siphon off top fluid. in a container for cementation...save gold mud in separate container to be re-refined... i understand being. in a hurry. to get this stuff. done but sometimes patience is a true virtue


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## kurtak (Aug 29, 2015)

MarcoP said:


> Incinerate and smelt the whole thing?



If you are set up to incinerate & smelt - then IMO it is the only way to go with this material --- it gets ALL the PMs - the gold plating, the bonding wires in the epoxy dot on the back (or the chip if it has a chip rather then the dot & the Ag/Pd from the other SMDs

I would then run the smelted metal in a parting cell (silver cell if silver is used for the collector metal or copper cell if copper is used to collect) & then process the slimes for the gold & PGMs

If you have followed my postings you will see that I am set up to do this :arrow: Pyrolysis reactor I use my big smelting furnace for both the incineration as well as the smelting & a cement mixer for milling --- Kevin is going with incineration & smelting as well & though the principal is the same his & my methods are a bit different

I could incinerate & mill in one day & "maybe" even smelt - which means the smelted metal would go into the parting cell the next day (morning if I got incineration/milling & smelting done on day one) if I had to smelt on day 2 the metal would be in the parting cell that afternoon

Outside of that I would sell them before trying to process any other way --- I tried a batch (about 3 lbs.) a couple years ago (for foil recovery only) & was very disappointed in the results when I considered the time involved - the chems used - & the waste created --- I still have the boards with the dot on the back (bonding wires) & a jar hanging out somewhere with the SMDs in it - meaning those values have yet to be recovered & in order to recover them they will need to go through the incineration/milling/smelting process anyway --- so why not put the whole thing through that process in the first place & recover the foil gold along with the bond wire gold & SMD PMs

IMO the foils alone are not worth chasing - if your not set up to incinerate/smelt --- then sell them

Kurt


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## patnor1011 (Aug 29, 2015)

I might scrape capacitors and IC off the back and just sell boards on ebay. I have to start moving material as I do have steady supply and my place start to clutter up. While one thing do not take up much space I now have buckets and buckets full of sorted material and parts. I thought I would try to recover PM from 200 laptops to try to get what big refiners claim is there but now after dismantling slightly over 200 of them I see I will not be able to go through all of that, I simply do not have time for it.


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## darinventions (Aug 29, 2015)

Kurtak i looked at your setup an that's sweet man..I've got something like that myself but on a smaller scale..And that method is superior but imm trying to help the small scale refiner that doesn't have the money to make that or the room ti acomidate equipment of that nature ..although the part that was mentioned about using a parting cell is a absolute must i think..i have 2 that use for silver (a thumcell & a stainless steel bowl one) an i have 3 copper. cells ..the only difference on the copper cells is the voltages i run...There are two young men that I've been helping in my area ..both of them don't have much money for fancy equipment or room to put it if they could afford equipment like that so in they're position they have think small. an go from there ...i guess the most important thing they both have in common is a willingness to learn ..never the less i really like your setup man good work


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## zumka (Oct 25, 2021)

GotTheBug said:


> Patnor, you're going to love me after this, I promise. I might also add that I am very grateful to be able to offer you something for all the help you've been to my process.
> 
> Shoot the pads with a little brake cleaner and watch the magic.


I don't know about Mr. Patnor, but i love you after this information After i read your suggestion, i bought a brake cleaner today and shot one of my touchpad with it. Immediately reacted! If the glue layer is a bit thick or strong, you need to shot and peel x2 or x3 times because it evaporates quickly. But i solved that simply by shooting a whole lot more cleaner to a plate and lay a few pads in it. So they stays wet during the peeling and it speeds the process up. Thank you again.


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 25, 2021)

Be sure not to breathe the vapors and to wear gloves. Brake cleaner is nasty stuff.

Dave


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## zito (Nov 4, 2021)

If you’re going to use brake cleaner, buy the non-chlorinated, it takes longer to evaporate if that’s an issue for you. It’s also cheaper than the chlorinated as an added bonus


zumka said:


> I don't know about Mr. Patnor, but i love you after this information After i read your suggestion, i bought a brake cleaner today and shot one of my touchpad with it. Immediately reacted! If the glue layer is a bit thick or strong, you need to shot and peel x2 or x3 times because it evaporates quickly. But i solved that simply by shooting a whole lot more cleaner to a plate and lay a few pads in it. So they stays wet during the peeling and it speeds the process up. Thank you again.


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## zumka (Nov 4, 2021)

zito said:


> If you’re going to use brake cleaner, buy the non-chlorinated, it takes longer to evaporate if that’s an issue for you. It’s also cheaper than the chlorinated as an added bonus


Thank you for the advice.

BUT... I found a much better way. Yeah, brake cleaner is good, but it takes too much and too hard rubbing. Makes your hand tired even after a single touchpad. So, i decided to try pure asetone. And my friend, that's the real magic. Well, i needed to use like almost a liter for 200 touchpads, but it definitely worth it. Almost same price as a brake cleaner, though. 

Same procedure as i used with brake cleaner. I put like 10-15 of the touchpads in a plate, wait 5 to 7 minutes, and voila, that nasty&thick&strong glue residue becomes like butter on a glass (Or like slime). Then i simply rub them easily for a couple of seconds each.

Now i have all cleaned touchpads, waiting for the 'removing the green solder' procedure which i'm gonna do today.

I will update the process. Cheers


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## Geo (Nov 20, 2021)

I'm going to say this in the interest of knowledge. I am not offering a solution to the problem. 
The glue is dissolved in petroleum solvents. It will dissolve into a clear gel in ordinary gasoline. 
Be warned, gasoline creates heavy fumes that are heavier than the air and will flow down to the lowest point like water. 
Gasoline fumes are explosive when mixed with the air. Keep gasoline at least 50 feet from any source of spark or flame.


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## kurtak (Nov 20, 2021)

kurtak said:


> If you have followed my postings you will see that I am set up to do this :arrow: Pyrolysis reactor I use my big smelting furnace for both the incineration as well as the smelting & a cement mixer for milling --- Kevin is going with incineration & smelting as well & though the principal is the same his & my methods are a bit different


Dave - in my last post this thread is one of my links that is no longer working - can that be fixed

Kurt


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## kurtak (Nov 20, 2021)

Hmmm - interesting - I see in "the quote" (my last post) the link works --- but not in the post the quote comes from

Kurt


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## Marcel (Nov 20, 2021)

I did around 50pcs once, and it was not worth any trouble. As stated above, they are thinly coated/flash gold-plated, and I would doubt that the coating is much thicker than 1-3 atom layers. A waste of time and effort!


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## FrugalRefiner (Nov 20, 2021)

kurtak said:


> Dave - in my last post this thread is one of my links that is no longer working - can that be fixed
> 
> Kurt


Fixed.

Dave


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## BShan (Nov 21, 2021)

Geo said:


> I'm going to say this in the interest of knowledge. I am not offering a solution to the problem.
> The glue is dissolved in petroleum solvents. It will dissolve into a clear gel in ordinary gasoline.
> Be warned, gasoline creates heavy fumes that are heavier than the air and will flow down to the lowest point like water.
> Gasoline fumes are explosive when mixed with the air. Keep gasoline at least 50 feet from any source of spark or flame.


I used gasoline to remove clear optical gel adhesive from some high powered LEDs for an optics project once. That stuff is nasty, and everybody deals with it in multiple gallon quantities all the time.
I used such a small quantity for just a few LEDs, and incinerated the waste, but not sure that would be a valid cleanup for a larger run... Thankfully, these days all the manufacturers make versions without the dome. Plus, we don't really know what's in it. Detergents and additives, whatever that means.


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