RAM BGA processing question

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OK, so I just couldn’t let that rest and become trash. I’m sure I had losses, but I got a 1.64g gold bead out of 1 pound of RAM BGA’s chips. The first time I processed RAM BGA’s chips, I got .78 g from half a pound. So this is pretty much in line with what I was able to achieve before. As noted above, I took the RAM, BGA (after pyrolyze and ball milling) straight to Aqua Regia and as a result, this was one of the byproducts. It sat in acid for a good amount of time and settled out. Now it’s sitting in tapwater. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m thinking it’s silver chloride. Thoughts?
 

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Nice, the weight seems about right for one pound of BGA chips.

Did you process the silicon die's with the ashes or did you pick them out before milling. If you picked them out before hand then there might be a tiny amount of small gold tabs still attached to the die's.
 
Thanks guys. I went through a lot of “process” trying to get as much gold out as I could. And wound up with about 3/4 gal of waste. I did incinerate everything along the way. The buttons I have are all just first drops. Some are better than others. I will refine when I have an ounce. I’m about 10g from that goal. The only method of gold refining I’m comfortable with is wet with SMB for selective precipitation. Any thoughts on what I’m hoping is AgCl?
 
eaglekeeper said:
Nice, the weight seems about right for one pound of BGA chips.

Did you process the silicon die's with the ashes or did you pick them out before milling. If you picked them out before hand then there might be a tiny amount of small gold tabs still attached to the die's.
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I pyrolyze, then ball mill, then classify, then roast. I do that with the dies and carbon together so the dies get crushed to bits. They stay with me all the way through the AR and finally get filtered out just before the deNox with Sulfamic Acid.
 
AndrewSuperD said:
Any thoughts on what I’m hoping is AgCl?
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It looks like silver chloride. You can test it by putting it daylight and watch if it turns purple to dark grey and finally black.
You can test if it's lead chloride by heating a bit to see if it dissolves. If only part of it dissolves, filter it hot to separate the silver from the lead.
Store it wet until you have enough to process.
 
AndrewSuperD said:
but I got a 1.64g gold bead out of 1 pound of RAM BGA’s chips.
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You should get (plus/minus) about 2 - 2 1/2 grams per pound (1.6 is not bad for just starting out) ;)
AndrewSuperD said:
I took the RAM, BGA (after pyrolyze and ball milling) straight to Aqua Regia and as a result, this was one of the byproducts. It sat in acid for a good amount of time and settled out. Now it’s sitting in tapwater. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m thinking it’s silver chloride. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
It's not AgCl (there is no silver in the RAM BGAs)

You say nothing about FIRST (before incineration/milling/leaching) putting the chips in HCl to dissolve the tin (solder) balls off of the chips

If you did not remove the solder balls from the chips with HCl - as the very first step in your process - then I suspect you are seeing meta stannic acid (other wise known as white tin paste) settling in the bottom of your beaker

Kurt
 
kurtak said:
You should get (plus/minus) about 2 - 2 1/2 grams per pound (1.6 is not bad for just starting out) ;)

It's not AgCl (there is no silver in the RAM BGAs)

You say nothing about FIRST (before incineration/milling/leaching) putting the chips in HCl to dissolve the tin (solder) balls off of the chips

If you did not remove the solder balls from the chips with HCl - as the very first step in your process - then I suspect you are seeing meta stannic acid (other wise known as white tin paste) settling in the bottom of your beaker

Kurt
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Hey Kurt. Thank you for the reply. If you go back to page 1, you’ll see my first step was to soak in HCl for a day and agitated the chips in the bucket several times throughout that period.
 
Hi
I process 150 gms of Ram ICs. First I incinterate it. Than mill it. Then directly smelt it. I got two layers ( Not properly separated) after cooling the slag. One is black glass while another one is silver as in attached pic. I thaught silver one is metal but it is very fragile like glass. I did not remove tin from ICs. Can some one guide does silver one is metal or some thing else? Is it tin which is causing this? I was expecting to get copper with other metals but did not get any copper colour in smelt. In the attacjed pic on left are glass pieces and silver material is on right. One more thing to mention that this silver material is very light weight unlike any metal.
Thanks
 

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Hurc said:
Hi
I process 150 gms of Ram ICs. First I incinterate it. Than mill it. Then directly smelt it. I got two layers ( Not properly separated) after cooling the slag. One is black glass while another one is silver as in attached pic. I thaught silver one is metal but it is very fragile like glass. I did not remove tin from ICs. Can some one guide does silver one is metal or some thing else? Is it tin which is causing this? I was expecting to get copper with other metals but did not get any copper colour in smelt. In the attacjed pic on left are glass pieces and silver material is on right. One more thing to mention that this silver material is very light weight unlike any metal.
Thanks
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What did you use as collector metal?
 
Yggdrasil said:
What did you use as collector metal?
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Nothing as I was expecting that (like other ICs) Ram Ics also have enough copper which will act as collector metal? In past I smelt other bga ICs having size 1 in by 1in they had copper arround 10 %. Does Ram Ics not have enought base metals to be act as collector metal? I got two silver beads in my smelt which were brittle but remaining silver material is very fragile like glass slag. The brittle beads only arround 2 gms. Is it enough for 150 gms ICs to yield this 2gm?
Thanks
 
Hurc said:
Nothing as I was expecting that (like other ICs) Ram Ics also have enough copper which will act as collector metal? In past I smelt other bga ICs having size 1 in by 1in they had copper arround 10 %. Does Ram Ics not have enought base metals to be act as collector metal? I got two silver beads in my smelt which were brittle but remaining silver material is very fragile like glass slag. The brittle beads only arround 2 gms. Is it enough for 150 gms ICs to yield this 2gm?
Thanks
Click to expand...
I think that varies a lot. But it is always good to add, as you then will know that it is there.
 
Does any one knows If we smelt DDR2 and 3 type ram ICs ( which are small bga chips with solder balls at back) properly without any collector metal. How much metal will we get from 1 kg of these ICs?
 

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