# Possible ways of refining hard drive platters



## badastro (Aug 13, 2007)

Newer hard drives are believed to contain platinum as a part of an alloy that is sputtered onto aluminum or glass disks. Numerous sources claim that platinum is present, but there isn't any free information on how to get the values.

The coating on the disk is made MOSTLY of chromium. Cobalt and supposedly platinum make up the difference. The newest super capacity drives contain traces of ruthenium. The coating is a thin foil like aluminum foil, but it is hard, tough, and brittle. Newer drives also yield thicker foils.

Unlike electronic gold scrap, hard drive platter platinum content gets better with newer drives.

The problem lies with separating the foils from the aluminum and refining the foils.

There are several possible methods of deplating hard drive platters. Because you need to deplate A LOT of platters to get a decent amount of foil, I will focus on methods effective for bulk processing.

*Method 1* - A method shown on an ebook on ebay about platinum has a picture of a platter that looks to be partially deplated and exposed aluminum oxidized. A scapel is shown prying foil from the aluminum. I have no idea how this is done. Perhaps it is possible to shave or peel off the coating.


*Method 2* - Chemically dissolve the aluminum. The aluminum has to be shreded into small pieces. Smaller pieces give faster reaction times because the foil protects the aluminum. Use good metal cutting shears -- they will cut platters like Australian butter, and your hands will thank you. A better method would use some sort of metal shredder, sheet metal cutter, or general mangler.

Use dilute hydrochloric acid to dissolve the aluminum. 15% acid or less will be sufficient. The solution will boil vigorously. Keep the bucket covered at all times (with an air vent). It might even be a good idea to put the container in a water bath to cool things down. Sulfuric acid might also work if you can get it cheaper than HCl. NaOH will also work.

If you use HCl, the result is a bunch of foil and spent acid that is slightly thick and viscous. Pour off the acid and add straight muriatic acid to get the remainder of aluminum. When it is done, there should be no more bubbles. The acid might also turn light green blue from chromium. If you had newer platters, the acid mix will be kind of gray and dingy. I believe this is from filler particles in the aluminum (or maybe its platinum, who knows...) Those particles are extremly fine and it will be hard to have them settle out of a viscous solution.

You can then wash the foils really well with tap water.

Don't pour the acid down the drain or dump it anywhere. Take it to a place that accepts hazardous wastes. You can choose to neutralize the spent solution into gelatinous aluminum hydroxide if you desire.


*Method 3a* - Melt off the aluminum. One of the problems with chemically removing the plating is that there is a lot of aluminum, and that requires a lot of acid to remove. A way to reduce the amount of aluminum is to rig up some sort of press where the platters are stacked, heated, and then squashed to force out as much aluminum as possible. It will probably be necessary to put little cuts around the edges to allow the aluminum to flow out. A dremel can do this easily.

The squashed platters are allowed to cool down, ground or cut into pieces, and then processed by method 2. The waste aluminum metal can be recycled, but I'm not sure what to make of the aluminum with filler material.

*Method 3b* - Melt the platters. This method involves putting the platters directly into a crucible and completely melting the platters such that the outer coating dissolves into the aluminum. Once the the aluminum mix is cast, it can be processed with HCl to remove the aluminum. 

Since the coating should be dissolved, the cobalt and chromium should also dissolve in the acid leaving behind a fine platinum powder. However, the filler material in newer platters will contaminate the powder....


That concludes the methods of deplating platters in bulk. There are many ways of deplating individual platters (maybe sand blasting), but it is not worth your time to do small batches one platter at a time.

If anyone else has ideas (proven or not proven to work), please share them. I have only verified method 2 to work well. Method 1 is unknown, and methods 3a and 3b are just ideas.



Now it comes to refining the foils.

I would suggest using test tubes to experiment to find a method that will work. A small amount of aqua regia will dissolve a lot of foil. I'm not well prepared to do these experiments, so I have no results.

Some notes:

1. The foils will not dissolve easily in HCl. Maybe boiling the foils in HCL for a long time will dissolve the base metals leaving platinum, but if there is extra acid, some of the platinum may dissolve as well.

2. Sulfuric acid with sodium nitrate will partially dissolve foils until there it becomes thin like gold leaf. Longer acid baths may eventually break up the leaf into microscopic particles. The acid will turn green like grass. An addition of HCl will quickly put the leaf into solution.

3. Poor man's aqua regia will first act vigorously on the foils releasing lots of brown gas and heat. The solution will turn a very deep emerald green. The reaction will slow down a lot as the rest of the foil goes into solution.

4. I have never come across foils that will stick to a magnet.

5. Ammonium chloride will not precipitate anything from the aqua regia solution if it is dilute. I have not tried to concentrate the solution. 


Some possible ways of concentrating platinum (untested and unproven):

*Method 1* - Oxidize the foils completely and wash the ashes with acid to remove chromium and cobalt. Platinum should be left behind. Note: the foils can cast off little flakes that are hard to clean up.

*Method 2a* - Inquart the foils with silver metal and part it in a silver cell. I don't know how the impurities will affect the cell. The copper will precipitate the silver in solution but not the chromium or cobalt.

*Method 2b* - This method is similar to method 3b for removing aluminum. Instead of using silver to inquart, use aluminum. Parting can be done with HCl. It seems though that the chromium and cobalt will dissolve after the aluminum... Using too much hot acid may risk losing traces of platinum.

Perhaps none of these methods will work. Please suggest more ideas for recovering the platinum.


----------



## badastro (Aug 13, 2007)

Also, if you decide to do these experiments, please share your intention to investigate hard drive platinium, your progress, and your results.


MEOW


----------



## scavenger (Aug 13, 2007)

Easiest way to remove the foil is to put the entire platter in dilute nitric. About 10%nitric 90% distilled water. Just enough to cover the disc. After a day or two the foil will separate from the aluminum and u can wash it off. Dilute nitric is slow to attack aluminum. I have a 80gig platter that has been 
emersed for 4 days now and a lot of the foil has been eaten but the aluminum appears untouched. I have experimented with HCL/peroxide on a 20gig foil and found that it dissolved everything after a few days. There was a minute amount of fine silver/grey powder left in the beaker. Maybe platinum, I dunno. I have also tried 70% nitric on 10gig foils and got nothing left over. I read somewhere that platinum will dissolve in strong nitric if inquarted with silver. Maybe the platinum was dissolved along with the chrome. I like your idea of using the silver cell. When I have enough foils to melt into a decent sized blob I'll try that out. What electrolytic solution would u suggest? Cheers Dave


----------



## scavenger (Aug 13, 2007)

Just a pic of the 80gig platter in dilute nitric.


----------



## scavenger (Aug 14, 2007)

I pulled the 80gig and washed it off. There was still a bit of foil still clinging to the disc. I couldn't scrape it off so I'll put it in with the next one I do. I filtered off the acid with one coffee filter and washed it into the jug pictured. Hard to see in the pic but there are particles consisting of small shards of ????metal, grey dust, floating silver colored stuff and a few small gold flakes. The nitric/water is blue/green color and has minute silver colored particles that are clearly visible under light floating around in the solution. I guess they got thru the filter. An odd thing happened when I was trying to spray the particles down on the sides of the reaction vessel with my spray bottle. The particles kept rising up the sides after I had sprayed them down??? I will put some in a tube with 70% nitric and let u know the results. The other pic is half a 20gig foil after 3 days in HCL/peroxide. Up close I can see a very fine weave pattern as the foil dissolves. These platters are definatly a challenge to refine badastro but I know we can figure it out if we share our results. Hopefully more members will help with this subject. Cheers Dave


----------



## badastro (Aug 14, 2007)

Very interesting results. If anything, those fine particles might be platinum.

If you leave a clean copper plate in the acid solution for a few days, will anything precipitate on it?


----------



## scavenger (Aug 16, 2007)

I dont have any plate so I used copper wire in the nitric. Been 2 days now and nothing. The AP has completely dissolve the 20gig and zero result with stannous/cl test. I put the remains of the 80gig to HCL/Cl. Most got dissolved but still zero to stannous test. I added a boost of 50% peroxide to try dissolve the remaining particles. 24 hours later and they are still there and still zero result on stannous test. I find that adding a boost of 50% peroxide to gold foil in HCL alone will dissolve the foil almost instantly so I guess these remaining particles could well be platinum. There aint much but I'll filter them off and post a pic later.


----------



## lazersteve (Aug 16, 2007)

Scavenger,

After you get the fine powder filtered and photoed try dissolving in *hot* AR. About four drops of muriatic and 1 drop of nitric in a test tube should do the trick if you don't have but a tiny amount of Pt. Then test with stannous chloride. Drop the Pt from a concentrated solution with ammonium chloride as an orange powder.

I like what you are doing and may include your process in my PGM video if you don't mind.

Steve


----------



## scavenger (Aug 17, 2007)

OK. I filtered what was left and heated it in AR. My particles got the hell outta there and went up the sides of the beaker and adhered. I swished my AR around to loosen them. . They held on. Either my particles are worthless somekindaplastic etc..bonding material that is impervious to acids or platinum that is so fine that the heat drives it out of the mix. I think the best plan is to melt a few 30gig+ foils together and then start a refining process.


----------



## badastro (Aug 17, 2007)

Hmm... looks interesting....

Don't use HCl and peroxide for platinum, use real aqua regia or poor mans aqua regia.

You'll have difficulty melting the foils by themselves. They won't melt even when white hot. The base metals will just oxidize. You will need some sort of carrier metal to melt them in. Aluminum will be the easiest, assuming the foils will dissolve in it.

I would suggest burning the foils to oxidize the base metals and then washing the ashes with HCl. I don't know if sulfuric acid will dissolve chromium oxide, but if it does then sulfuric will be a better choice.

Another posssible way to concentrate the platinum is to process the foils in a way similar to fire assaying since the amount of foils is so small anyway.

I think you should put your foils in test tubes instead of beakers.


----------



## badastro (Aug 19, 2007)

From a link provided by aflac, another way to deplate platters is to use an electrolytic process. The theory is that the oxidation from the power supply anodizes the aluminum under the plating causing the plating to shed off. The question then becomes what electrolyte to use...

Also, regarding the super fine particles that seem to defy gravity, you can use a flocculant to gather up the particles. Some aquarium stores sell chemicals designed to floc particles in water to improve clarity.


----------



## Platdigger (Aug 19, 2007)

I used saturated salt water and a dash of sulfuric and a bat charger. Not sure if the sulfuric was needed....but it sure worked fast and easy.
Randy


----------



## badastro (Aug 23, 2007)

What do you do with the foils afterwards?


----------



## Platdigger (Aug 23, 2007)

I didn't take it any further. It was just an experiment to see how they came off. I am not even sure how many you could do before the solution would become loaded or foul. I don't have that many. Guess I was hoping someone on the forum would try it and see if they could take it further...


----------



## badastro (Aug 23, 2007)

Can you post pics of your setup including the acid solution after deplating?


----------



## Platdigger (Aug 29, 2007)

Sorry Sir, 
I just now noticed this post. It was a while ago, all I used was a 5 gallon bucket, I think a stainless plate and a battery charger. I can try it again if you like.
Randy


----------



## aflacglobal (Aug 29, 2007)

Platdigger said:


> Sorry Sir,
> I just now noticed this post. It was a while ago, all I used was a 5 gallon bucket, I think a stainless plate and a battery charger. I can try it again if you like.
> Randy



Now that's nice of you to offer Randy. :wink: 

Ask some of the guys, they can will tell you the right mixes to use.
Sounds basically like steves deplating cell, but for hard drives.


----------



## scavenger (Sep 13, 2007)

I've been reading Hoke. An interesting fact he mentions is that chromium and stainless are resistant to nitric unless platinum is present.


----------



## shadybear (Sep 18, 2007)

So if you melted the platters to a temp above aluminum's melting point but below platinum and rhodium wouldn't they float up just like with lead
and zinc(this process has a name)


----------



## Platdigger (Sep 18, 2007)

I believe platinum will disolve (or melt) into the aluminum at a much lower temperature than the melting point of pure platinum.
Randy


----------



## Platdigger (Sep 18, 2007)

I believe the process you refer to with lead and zink is called the parks process. It is were an ore or what have you with precious metals is melted into lead. Later zink is rabbled into the molten lead and stirred. The zink have higher anfinity for gold and other noble metals absorbs these. Then the zink is alowed to float to the top and is scimmed off.
Randy


----------



## Anonymous (Dec 18, 2009)

i have somewhat of a good idea for getting the aluminum out, but its pretty dangerous if you dont know what you're doing... and if your not outdoors.

ferric chloride dissolves aluminum VERY fast, and wont dissolve platinum. after dissolving it you could probably filter and wash out the solution and add nitric acid to what is left, then filter and wash, and put boiling AR in the remaining stuff.

the danger to this is the CHLORINE GAS released when the aluminum dissolves in ferric chloride.


----------



## patnor1011 (Dec 18, 2009)

ajrenzetti said:


> i have somewhat of a good idea for getting the aluminum out, ....



I dont know if that is viable becouse if I am right then alluminium count for over 99% of weight of hdd platter.


----------



## Oz (Dec 18, 2009)

Sodium hydroxide (lye) will eliminate your aluminum cheaply producing hydrogen gas.

Having said that you will find that hard drive platters are a waste of your time for little return in PMs.


----------



## 2002valkyrie (Dec 18, 2009)

Oz said:


> Sodium hydroxide (lye) will eliminate your aluminum cheaply producing hydrogen gas.
> 
> Having said that you will find that hard drive platters are a waste of your time for little return in PMs.



Oz, you are a genius. Of coarse the platters are a waste of time for the amount of PM in return. But I needed a source of Hydrogen gas. If this can be done in a closed system a air conditioning compressor could compress the Hydrogen into a propane tank leaving the PM's as a side bonus? Anyone see a hole in this that I cannot foresee?


----------



## butcher (Dec 18, 2009)

danger's possible compressing hydrogen,and if oxygen in the mix you maybe create a nightmare?
I would thoroughly check it out before atempting it.

aluminum hydroxide is pretty insoluble, beside the slime, most of foils can come out clean, the fine stuff can be hard to retrieve from aluminum hydroxide powders, it will generate alot of hydrogen, (or chlorine if dilute HCl used), maybe instead of trying to compress and store it You can just generate it as needed.


----------



## 2002valkyrie (Dec 18, 2009)

butcher said:


> danger's possible compressing hydrogen,and if oxygen in the mix you maybe create a nightmare?


You could be right about the compressing it but it is more plausable if stored in an acetylene bottle that contains the fiberglass packing. The part about the oxygen, there should not be any if is in a closed system... Should there? As far as producing only as needed, keep in mind cars that use it will be more common in times to come thus making Hydrogen storage necessary. I want to burn it at will, without having to mess with the making it from my platter burner. All this is hypothetical of corse, a side project I would like to work on when I get my refining business up and going.


----------



## Oz (Dec 19, 2009)

Valkyrie,

First, do not under any circumstances put hydrogen in a bottle that used to contain acetylene. Do not even run it through a hose or regulator that has been exposed to acetylene. You may not survive such an incident. 

I have talked a little bit about hydrogen in this thread http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=5739 but am not willing to say much more on open forum as this is a very dangerous gas. My concern is that someone will read some but not do their “due diligence” before proceeding. Once I have set up a safe working system I will gladly share it but until then I do not wish to help someone partway and have them blow themselves up.

Hydrogen is nothing to play with unless you _*really*_ know what you are doing.


----------



## 2002valkyrie (Dec 19, 2009)

Oz said:


> First, do not under any circumstances put hydrogen in a bottle that used to contain acetylene. Do not even run it through a hose or regulator that has been exposed to acetylene. You may not survive such an incident.


Not questioning you but I would like to understand this a little more as I'm intriged by it. Acetylene was first made from Hydrogen does it create a phenomenon when it is exposed to it on a molecular level? I know Hydrogen is tricky and quite unstable but also fun, intertaining and very usefull. I also know the internet does not explain everything that's why I would ask. 
Because I don't like the Pm feature my email is [email protected] we can exchange ideas in private.


----------



## Oz (Dec 19, 2009)

I so wish I had access to my old computer with my research but from memory there were 2 instances I read that were from what I deemed reliable sources that had explosions from hydrogen coming in contact with acetylene. 

If I remember correctly the acetylene that was made with hydrogen used electricity from carbon rods. The carbon was derived from the anode and cathode in this case I would guess as acetylene is HCCH. You can be sure oxygen was not present as you would have with regulators and hoses that have set idle for a bit. 

I will e-mail you and discuss this further but it is past my bedtime and my plate is full for a few days.


----------



## perih60 (Mar 31, 2010)

gday mates , this is my first post so if im doing something wrong let me know , about these disks , at this stage iv only 20 old hard drives ,but expect to get a lot more , the ones iv started working on are old ,10gig , iv cut them the way one of you guys said , and put them into a hydrocloric acid , a couple of times had to add a lot of water and a bit more acid , because without enough liquid the whole lot was like all the bits were stuck together with glue strong glue , as the reaction started again , very quickly things were bubbling away nicely , i am using glass beackers , to keep as many veriables out , once the reaction stoped poured the liquid of . i want to have a look at that as well . i took all the "clean" foil out and put that into pure acid to get any possible contaminents of these foils , the rest is back in a dilute solution . my next intended step is AR will use new beacker for first lot . iv also had a small amount in a testtube with 72%NHO and heated it reaction was extremly slow , and for some reason test samples stuck to bottom of this testtube very hard to clean after this particular experement , have taken photos but no idea how to download for people to look at ,will let you know how i get on from time to time .peterh


----------



## Anonymous (Mar 31, 2010)

The obvious way to get the pm layer off of the aluminum, at least to me, is a sander with 40 grit paper and a dust collector attachment, then sell the aluminum, and process the concentrates.

Air conditioner compressors are for condensable gasses, hydrogen is not one of them. Vapor density could also burn out the compressor pretty quickly.

but if you use the hydrogen as produced there may be a very usefull by product, you would need to dry it, and filter, to keep chemicals from the reaction from building up on whatever you are using it for, these chemicals and water vapor carried with it would ruin the compressor oil very quickly.

Hydrogen will also embrittle and weaken most metals, so if you store it in a metal bottle, it could just rupture all on its own.

I do not think hydrogen is more dangerous than gasoline, or propane vapors as hydrogen dissapates and they do not.

Jim


----------



## weldit (Apr 17, 2010)

The easiest way i have found to separate the foil from the aluminum is to cut the disc in several pieces. Put the pieces in nitric acid and in a few days all the aluminum will have reacted. 
Has anyone taken the next step. I have been told that there is very little platinum in the foil.


----------



## samuel-a (Apr 17, 2010)

i have taken it to the next step.

i took 30GB HD platter.
dissolved all of the aluminum in a hot dilute (50/50) HCL, this taks about 3 hours to eliminate all of the Al.

the remaining foils i washed well with water several times.

a little AR (cold) dissolved the foils in a few minutes, boil down etc... no sign of PM's there...
sorry


maybe >100GB may contain Pt....


----------



## butcher (Apr 18, 2010)

a good red hot roast of foils would be nessary, without it you may not see anything.


----------



## samuel-a (Apr 18, 2010)

butcher said:


> a good red hot roast of foils would be nessary, without it you may not see anything.



i don't see whay it's nesecery, could you explain more?

by the way, the first indication of the foils not being Pt is the fact that it dissolved quickly in cold AR (less then 5 minutes)


----------



## butcher (Apr 18, 2010)

with carbon coatings, Iron cobalt chromium , and other extreemly hard metal combinations, and lubricants, without breaking these up as much as possibly and oxidizing the metals you are able to with high heat, I feel seperating them would be hard.

and remember in a melt silver can act as a collector, so to get small amounts of platinum that may be lost in an acid solution, I feel a melt of foils with silver may prove a better choice.

there is no doubt in my mind they use small amounts of PGM, in many hard drives types, But I think that seperating them after the drive is made, these are complex metals in small amounts, and just removing foils and using Aqua regia may prove useless to seperate them.

I can be wrong, would not be the first time.

heres a little reading to keep you busy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5523173.html

FeCo (Iron Cobalt) >1230 degrees Celsius (>2246 deg F)
25% Co 75% Pt Tc = 227 deg C, 441 deg F
10% Co 90% Pt Tc = -33 deg C, -28 deg F
64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
Primary layer

64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
According to my research so far, most drives seem to be made out of a:
Sublayer

(Iron Platinum alloy) FePt Tc = 417 deg C, 782 deg F (Thin Film Value) 
http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/MAG/vol42-1/paper18.pdf#search=%22cocrpt%20curie%22
(Magnetite) Fe3O4 Tc = 587 deg C, 1089 deg F (Bulk Value)

Another resource (5 values listed, bulk curie points only):
http://depts.washington.edu/chemcrs/bulkdisk/chem560C_spr04/handout_05-27-04_Student_Pres_2.pdf

CoCr, CoPt, CoCrPt, CoCrTa, CoTaCrPt, FePt, TbFe, TbFeCo, and GdFeCo

superhard coatings based on TiN/SiNx and TiB2/TiC multilayers with high thermal stability, low internal stress, and high wear resistance can be synthesized.

1 nm thick nitrogenated carbon (CNx) nano-layers as protective overcoats in extremely highdensity harddisksystems, and, second, the development of multilayer coatings for wear protection at elevated temperatures. Synthesis of these coatings was done by magnetron sputtering. 

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5990-5159EN.pdf

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/diamond-drives.html

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080257264

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5523173.html

FeCo (Iron Cobalt) >1230 degrees Celsius (>2246 deg F)
25% Co 75% Pt Tc = 227 deg C, 441 deg F
10% Co 90% Pt Tc = -33 deg C, -28 deg F
64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
Primary layer

64% Co 14% Pt 22% Cr Tc = 400 deg C, 752 deg F
61% Co 14% Pt 25% Cr Tc = 160 deg C, 320 deg F
According to my research so far, most drives seem to be made out of a:
Sublayer

(Iron Platinum alloy) FePt Tc = 417 deg C, 782 deg F (Thin Film Value) 
http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/MAG/vol42-1/paper18.pdf#search=%22cocrpt%20curie%22
(Magnetite) Fe3O4 Tc = 587 deg C, 1089 deg F (Bulk Value)

Another resource (5 values listed, bulk curie points only):
http://depts.washington.edu/chemcrs/bulkdisk/chem560C_spr04/handout_05-27-04_Student_Pres_2.pdf

CoCr, CoPt, CoCrPt, CoCrTa, CoTaCrPt, FePt, TbFe, TbFeCo, and GdFeCo

superhard coatings based on TiN/SiNx and TiB2/TiC multilayers with high thermal stability, low internal stress, and high wear resistance can be synthesized.

1 nm thick nitrogenated carbon (CNx) nano-layers as protective overcoats in extremely highdensity harddisksystems, and, second, the development of multilayer coatings for wear protection at elevated temperatures. Synthesis of these coatings was done by magnetron sputtering. 

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5990-5159EN.pdf

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/diamond-drives.html

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080257264


----------



## golddigger2 (Jul 20, 2010)

Hi I have done an experiment with hard drive platters. I scratched up the surface and immersed in concentrated sodium hydroxide, it dissolves the aluminium core and leaves behind the thin foil which can then be dissolved in aqua regia. I did mine whole or broken in half but it would work faster if broken up. Good luck


----------



## samuel-a (Jul 20, 2010)

thanks for the info butcher 
i guess melting this stuff with the right collector would be a sound idea.
probably worth while only at lerge scale recovery operation....

to the average garage rfiner it's just a brain teaser
i have pounds of platters that i wouldn't even considre to process myself...


----------



## butcher (Jul 21, 2010)

I have used my disks from platters cut into long thin slivers with a metal shear (like a tile or paper shear) for the aluminum content, dropping copper from waste bucket, this dissolves the aluminum leaving me the foils mixed with copper powder. 

also have remove aluminum with hydroxide,Do not as yet collect the hydrogen but would like to, maybe making a mini hydrogen torch and use this process to run it. maybe using electrolisis in hydroxide solution.


----------

