# How do I extract stannum from a motherboard?



## Zolotov (Mar 5, 2017)

At the store stannum sells at 50 bucks for 1kg. But I don't need that much, I need only 20 grams (to make a stannum solution to check for gold). And I have a lot of motherboards. How do I extract pure stannum from a motherboard with acids?


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## Tndavid (Mar 5, 2017)

You can buy tin solder from any hardware store. Has worked very well for me. You can get your potassium nitrate there as well. It will be Spectricide Stump Remover. I would recommend searching the board for Stannous Chloride and you will find several wonderful, easy recipes. Much easier than trying to recover the tin solder from a mother board. Hope this helps and be safe.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 6, 2017)

Just use heat and melt some solder, then whack the board against something hard and collect any solder that came loose. You could even use a knife and shave off some solder.

It isn't pure but it works just as fine.

Göran


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## Geo (Mar 6, 2017)

You can remove all of the iron and aluminium from the board and dissolve the solder with dilute HCl. Use the same solution over and over until it will not dissolve more solder. You then evaporate the solution until crystals start to form. The first crystals will be long and needle shaped. This is lead chloride so be careful when handling this solution and crystals. Make a small electrolytic cell to electrowin the tin from the solution. You can cast the metal into ingots and use the same cell to refine the tin to almost pure tin metal. This works better on newer electronics because the older stuff has more lead and less tin.


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## Zolotov (Mar 6, 2017)

Geo said:


> You then evaporate the solution until crystals start to form. The first crystals will be long and needle shaped.


wooow! thats so cool, I love chemistry!!
thanks a lot!


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## aga (Mar 6, 2017)

Here's a nice video showing how to get the tin out of the solution :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-YbQN_twpw


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## anachronism (Mar 6, 2017)

And when you've done all that and taken hours to do it, the next time you'll buy some tinned solder from the hardware store and dissolve it in HCl. If you have the time to run through it then I guess it's a fun thing to do once though.

Jon


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## aga (Mar 6, 2017)

Most new things are Fun to do the first time.

When it becomes a daily drudge, all the fun quickly disappears.

When it's all just for the $ from the start, there isn't any Fun at all.


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