# how much gold is in cpu's?



## usaman65 (Jan 3, 2008)

jw???

kev


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## skippy (Jan 7, 2008)

Sorry for the following sort of going off topic to the post.

Lazersteve, I saw your video on scrapping this sort of processor. I've got about 20-30 of these and would like to try getting the gold off them. I know in the video you mentioned processing them with an acid mix - what acid mix do you use? I know you said in the vid you've done thousands of these, so I'm guessing I won't to get much, but even a bb of gold would be cool. 

Thanks.


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## lazersteve (Jan 7, 2008)

Skippy,

In the video I stated that I have removed the tops off of thousands.

I've sold most of the ones I removed the tops off of a few years back, but I'm still sitting on several thousand.

The acid process I spoke of was Acid Peroxide. I was referring to processing the ceramic types via this method. The fiber cpus will process in AP but they tend to be more difficult than the ceramic ones. The reason is because the legs on the fiber ones (like in your photo) are made of an alloy called kovar which is more difficult to dissolve with AP. Plus the solder on the fiber cpus tend to contain some silver which slows the overall reaction further. 

Steve


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## banjags (Jan 14, 2008)

what method would be best suited for these fiber type processors. AR?


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## wop1969 (Feb 28, 2009)

Steve,

After and AP bath what would be the best way to procces the solution from fiber cpus to get the gold if their is silver in the solution?

Precip the silver then do SMB? 
if so what is the best way to get the silver out?


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## lazersteve (Mar 1, 2009)

wop1969 said:


> After and AP bath what would be the best way to procces the solution from fiber cpus to get the gold if their is silver in the solution



Silver does not dissolve in AP was the point I was trying to make. Instead you end up with a solid (silver chloride). 

I would use 35% nitric to process these types of cpus. The silver will then end up in solution and can be recovered easily on solid copper via cementing.

SMB is not ever used for silver to the best of my knowledge.

Steve


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## wop1969 (Mar 1, 2009)

Ok, if their is silver chloride in my AP I need to syphon and filter to isolate it then proccess it with nitric, then drop in a piece or copper to convert it silver metal and then test the remaing solution for gold, if gold is present then add urea and then drop gold with SMB?

If i got that right I will be amazed


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## jamthe3 (Mar 1, 2009)

Sorry to interpose, but would the sulfuric cell do well on gold plated kovar from other sources (not cpu's) or would you do something like that in 35% nitric also?

Thanks,
John


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## lazersteve (Mar 1, 2009)

Silver chloride is not soluble in nitric acid. 

After you filter any suspected silver chloride out of your AP solution (it will be purple after being exposed to light and will not dissolve in dilute HCl), convert the silver chloride to silver metal as per my website videos. Do not let it dry out.

To separate silver chloride form gold foils use ammonium hydroxide to dissolve the silver chloride and leave the gold behind

A second possibility is to dissolve the gold foils with HCl-Cl or AR leaving the solid silver chloride behind.


Steve


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## wop1969 (Mar 1, 2009)

ok I get it now.
Thanks steve


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## Anonymous (Aug 19, 2010)

Hello Steve,



lazersteve said:


> In the video I stated that I have removed the tops off of thousands.



Unfortunatelly the video you are referring to is no longer available on your website (due to MS SL reasons I guess). Could make a DVD to buy or put the video on your website again? Or share the steps with us in written format?

Oh, and there is one more favour I have to ask
You mention several times a spreadsheet that contains the differens e-scraps, quality, method you use and the gold yield per lb you can get. Colud you share it with the community?

Thank you in advance,

Leon


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## lazersteve (Aug 19, 2010)

I'll work on getting the videos you mentioned converted to the newer format and reposted to my site soon.

The spreadsheet was on one of my old hard drives that I need to find. 

Steve


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## Anonymous (Aug 20, 2010)

Hello Steve,



lazersteve said:


> I'll work on getting the videos you mentioned converted to the newer format and reposted to my site soon.



That is very good news, thank you for your effort. 

Until then, could you help me with this:
I learned the AP process for fingers from your site (HCL-H2O2 -> HCL-Clorox -> SMB), and applied it with surprisingly good results by strictly following your steps. However I find the finger clipping process too labour intesive, and decided to try processing processors. I have some 80502 and 80503 CPUs (Pentium 1/MMX with ceramic). Do you recommend to use the same method as for the fingers? I assume I have to remove the upper and lower lids first. Shall I continue the process straight with HCL-H2O2 bath or there are other preparation steps? Is there any difference between finger and CPU processing? Or do you suggest other method (AR for example) for CPU-s?



lazersteve said:


> The spreadsheet was on one of my old hard drives that I need to find.



I hope you did not process that HDD for PMs, that information is far more valuable than 1-2ug of Pt! :lol: 

Leon


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## Oz (Aug 20, 2010)

surgyelan said:


> I find the finger clipping process too labour intesive



A pair of tin snips makes short work of trimming fingers.


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## lazersteve (Aug 20, 2010)

surgyelan said:


> ...I learned the AP process for fingers from your site (HCL-H2O2 -> HCL-Clorox -> SMB), and applied it with surprisingly good results by strictly following your steps. However I find the finger clipping process too labour intesive, and decided to try processing processors. I have some 80502 and 80503 CPUs (Pentium 1/MMX with ceramic). Do you recommend to use the same method as for the fingers?



AP will work for ceramic cpus with copper base metal legs, but this method ( Modified Poorman's AR )works better if you control the nitrate additions properly.



surgyelan said:


> I assume I have to remove the upper and lower lids first. Shall I continue the process straight with HCL-H2O2 bath or there are other preparation steps?



Break the cpus into a few pieces (no need to fully grind) before processing via Modified Poorman's AR. 



surgyelan said:


> Is there any difference between finger and CPU processing? Or do you suggest other method (AR for example) for CPU-s?



See above.

Steve


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## Anonymous (Aug 20, 2010)

Hello Steve,



lazersteve said:


> ...but this method ( Modified Poorman's AR )works better if you control the nitrate additions properly



Thank you for your answers, I will try the MPAR method you suggested tomorrow and report the results here.

Sorry for bothering you again, but I hope this inquiry has broader interest in this community:

What is your favourite top 5 PC scrap to recover PMs and with which method? Please consider the following aspects:
1. Ease of obtaining reasonable *volume* of that specific scrap
2. Economicality of the process (cost of scrap, labour, chemicals used for the process). Your spreadsheet would come in handy here, but I am sure it is in the top of your head.

Maybe I could start a new topic for this, if it has greater interest.
Thank you again,

Leon


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## Anonymous (Aug 20, 2010)

Hello Oz,



Oz said:


> A pair of tin snips makes short work of trimming fingers.



That is what I used to clip them, but I still find it time consuming. It took several hours to clip 200 cards. Crushing CPUs takes much less time (and causes much more fun  ). In addition, it takes much less CPU for 1 ounce gold than gold fingers. I got 3.07g gold from 200 PCS fingers . Although I've never processed CPUs before, it is reported to be able to get 0.1g from a 80502. That means I need 31 CPU-s to get the same amount of gold. That is 1/7th of the fingers. Besides, it takes much less space, cheaper to ship, remains no scrap to handle (you still have to take care of the 90% of the slot card, etc.) I like the idea to process CPUs, at least for now that I haven't tried it before. My opinion could change very rapidly after my first tests...


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## g_axelsson (Aug 20, 2010)

When I had a lot of fingers to process I mounted a vice horizontally a bit higher than knee height. Then I adjusted the jaws to be slightly wider than the thickness of a card. With this trick all I had to do was to put the fingers between the jaws and push down with my body weight to break off the fingers. Start at one end and it will rip up as a zipper.
It's not as clean as tin snipes but a lot faster and easier. 10-15 seconds per card and I don't care if it looks a bit jagged.

Oh yeah, wear thick gloves! :mrgreen: 

/Göran


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## Anonymous (Aug 20, 2010)

I've checked the method you mentioned and have a few questions.



lazersteve said:


> Break the cpus into a few pieces (no need to fully grind) before processing via Modified Poorman's AR.



1. Do you mean prior to removing the lids (1st step in MPAR method) or instead of or after?

2. After crushing with which parts will MPAR take care of from the following:

i, surface gold in the exposed cores, wiring, and pins 
ii, gold on the plated lids 
iii, gold in the ceramic cores in the form of hair fine wires. 
iv, gold in the gold alloy solder holding on the lids 

3. Step 9 confuses me a bit:


lazersteve said:


> 9. If salts form pour off dark acid through tight filter and start at step 3 above. Filter may contain gold foils or powder.


This step is after you added soduim nitrate, so at this stage of the process there is already gold dissolved in the solution, why to pour it off?

4. The same thing concerns me at step 13: 


lazersteve said:


> 13. Repeat steps 9 and 10 two more times.


Why include step 9 to repeat? It is a decision making step and if there is salt at step 13, following your steps one would pour the dissolved Au. Am I missing something?

5. The step 19 is the following:


lazersteve said:


> 19. Repeat steps 15 and 16 two more times.


But step 15 is:


lazersteve said:


> 15. Filter through packed funnel under vacuum until 100% free of sediment and suspended particles.


Why filter out the gold powder? At this stage of the process Au is in powder format. If I filtered it and added SMB to the remaining solution, I would dispose the bulk of the gold. Or did you mean: "Repeat steps 16 and 17" - that would make more sense to me, but I am complete noob here.

6. Step 25 is:


lazersteve said:


> 25. Transfer incinerated powder to beaker and repeat process steps 3 to 21 on the brown powder.


Do we supposed to really do each step with the gold powder? Why to add Soduim Nitrate? SMB? We already have the gold in powder format, there is no solution to get more from! 

I hope I won't upset you with my questions, maybe other newbies can learn from your answers as well.

Thank you,

Leon


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 20, 2010)

surgyelan said:


> I've checked the method you mentioned and have a few questions.
> ....
> I hope I won't upset you with my questions, maybe other newbies can learn from your answers as well.
> 
> ...



You follow the steps as out lined and each one removes a certain impurity nd at the end you have clean gold.


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## lazersteve (Aug 20, 2010)

surgyelan said:


> I've checked the method you mentioned and have a few questions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The cpus usually break into a few pieces when you remove the lid. If they don't, break them into two or three pieces.



surgyelan said:


> 2. After crushing with which parts will MPAR take care of from the following:
> 
> i, surface gold in the exposed cores, wiring, and pins
> ii, gold on the plated lids
> ...


I process the gold plated lids separately, everything else gets dissolved at the same time. This is clearly stated at the bottom of the original list.



surgyelan said:


> 3. Step 9 confuses me a bit:
> 
> 
> lazersteve said:
> ...


This process is actually more like using small doses of nitric acid to dissolve the base metals than it is like AR at this point. The gold is pushed out of solution by the copper saturation. Always stannous chloride test to be sure there is no gold in solution at this stage. You pour off the solution as it is saturated (dark chocolate to black oil colored) with base metals and needs to be replenished with fresh acid. Let it cool to room temperature and white/gray crystals will form that will keep the gold powder at the bottom and none will end up in the filter or the solution at this stage. Rinse the crystals out of the gold powder before adding more HCl in the next cycle.



surgyelan said:


> 4. The same thing concerns me at step 13:
> 
> 
> lazersteve said:
> ...


 You missed the fact that solutions saturated with base metals will not dissolve gold. The controlled additions of nitrate release HNO3 into the solution very slowly and forms a mild nitric acid which attacks the base metals. The nitrate is quickly displaced by the abundant chlorine from HCl and works to dissolve the base metals into solution until it saturates.


surgyelan said:


> 5. The step 19 is the following:
> 
> 
> lazersteve said:
> ...


It's actually supposed to be 17 and 18, I fixed it. I also fixed the next loop below it. The problem occurred when I added a few extra steps at the top and did not correct the repeating steps at the bottom. Sorry for the typo.




surgyelan said:


> 6. Step 25 is:
> 
> 
> lazersteve said:
> ...


This is called the second refining and is included to bring your gold purity up to 9995+. If you omit this step your gold powder will be of inferior quality and when you melt it, the gold will be discolored and/or form a black crust when it cools.



surgyelan said:


> I hope I won't upset you with my questions, maybe other newbies can learn from your answers as well.



No biggie, I needed to fix a few of the repeating steps anyway obviously.

Steve


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