Separating all metals from carbon and organics

Hi All,

Was wondering if someone with a little more knowledge - and who may have tried it - would be able to advise.

I have stacks of PCB boards, cell phone boards, IC chips etc etc and each has it's own "best practice" way of extracting the precious metals from it. Many topics like that on this forum.

BUT....

has anyone ever tried just chucking everything into a crucible, melting the holy hell out of everything to get the metals at the bottom and the carbons and organics at the top or incinerated off?
Guessing that something will have to be added to the crucible to force such a separation of carbon from the metals?

Crude, I know, but just wondering if tried before? Would it work?
My thinking here is that as soon as you have a molten glob of "mostly" metals, it takes care of the whole head ache of panning, sluicing, etc and you can just go chemical off the bat?

Many thanks!!

**Notations where created by myself in this spot where I arrogantly stated that I am fully aware of all safety concerns in these ventures. My only intent was to prompt debate around the proposed process alone.
I have been corrected by our moderators and thus edited my post**

NOTE: YOU are not aware of the dangers,
what good would a fume hood do except move the deadly toxic fumes around a little?

I have done extensive research in this field.
Apparently you still need to do much more research into the subject and the dangers involved of what you are proposing.

Hi Butcher, thanks for the concern.
Did not mean to make it sound condescending in any way just merely trying to state that I understand the toxicity of chemicals and by products that I am proposing to use and that I am aware of the risk to myself and others that my actions can cause.

I have spent many hours on this forum and elsewhere going through as many of the safety aspects as possible - and yes, we all have much more to learn and research and I am not trying to imply that I am immune to stupidity.
The use of notations at the end of my post was in an attempt to prompt debate around the proposed process and the process alone whilst being aware of the safety concerns.

I will attempt to edit my original post to eliminate any offense I may have caused with my notations and would like to apologize to the community for any offense that I have caused.

Best Regards

There are many deadly toxins and acids produced from burning of electronic scrap, metals are released into the air, soil and water systems, lead, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper. zinc, arsenic, nickel, mercury, and many more, basically most all of the more poisonous heavy metals are released.

Because of the halogenic nature of Ewaste burning. many metals like gold and PGM metals will also go up in fumes as halogenated gas at these elevated temperatures...

Toxins released into the environment and brominated flame retardants or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins/furans (PCDD/F), Polybrominated Dibenzodiozins/furans (PBDD/)F, Formaldehydes (CH2O)

Burning E-waste has become a global health concern, from inhalation of toxic fumes, as well as from the accumulation of chemicals in soil, water and food. In addition to its hazardous components, being processed, e-waste can give rise to a number of toxic by-products that are detrimental to human health.

Leukemia, Lung cancer, Reproductive damage, Neuro-Developmental issues,
Chromosomal mutation, Acute myeloid are just a few of the health concerns...


A fume hood or gas mask is useless against the dangers involved.

It takes proper equipment, in good working order to safely incinerate or to smelt industrial E-Waste.

Your scientist friend should be able to warn you of the dangers better than I can.

If you are aware of the dangers then you should be able to see for yourself how open burning of electronic scrap in a fume hood with a gas mask is just a stupid idea.

You would need specially designed and maintained furnaces, with afterburners, baghouses, scrubbers electrostatic precipitators...

What you are suggesting has been done. Primarily by people too blinded by their lack of knowledge and sensibility to understand what they were doing.

My advice is to put your toys and ideas away for a year or two. Study the forum. Read and reread every book you can find on precious metal recovery and refining. Do not attempt any process without asking about it here. If anyone, particularly moderators, believe it is a bad idea, put the idea aside until you understand why.

People die claiming they understand the hazards presented in your opening post. Making even a minor error can cost you lungs, liver, kidneys, eyes, etc.

Do you really understand the hazards? Are you capable of mitigation of those hazards?

Time to get back to my coffee.

JPSinden said:

has anyone ever tried just chucking everything into a crucible, melting the holy hell out of everything to get the metals at the bottom and the carbons and organics at the top or incinerated off?

Click to expand...

NO!!! --- that ABSOLUTELY will not work !!!

What you are talking about is a smelting process & the smelting process is one way to recover the precious metals from circuit boards - BUT - it "requires" many more steps - much more equipment - "some" of which Butcher has already explained in order to deal with the VERY toxic/hazardous byproducts that go with the smelting process

Can it (the smelting process) be done - yes --- but it's not as simple as you seem to think &/or hope for

Smelting - is it's own "deep" subject matter process that is going to require research/study & asking questions in order to venture into the process & do it right &/or with success

Things needed to do the process with success

Milling of the boards to start with
incineration of the milled boards
re-milling of the incinerated boards
then you may (or not) need to do separation of metals & organics before smelting

The smelting requires fluxing - fluxing requires an understanding of flux chemistry

smelting also requires the addition of collector metals in the smelt - different collector metals are used depending on the method used to separate the PMs (precious metals) from the base metals of the smelted dore metal

then there is the separation of that dore which depends on which smelting method you use

ALL of which requires an understanding of the toxins & hazards to deal with safely along the way

All of which has been discussed in detail here on the forum - so if you are really interested in this process I suggest you start with a "deep dive" search (& I do mean DEEP dive) into the huge info already posted to this forum

It's NOT a simple process you can enter into (successfully) from reading a "few" post &/or threads because there are "multiple" methods &/or requirements to get to your end desired goal/product

can we help you with this - yes --- but first you are going to need to get a better understanding of what all is actually involved - start searching & reading

Kurt

Rather than smelting you should look at a wet leaching process.

Remove the obvious plastics, steel, etc. and then grind the boards to a fine dust to make a slurry to leach out the various metals.

Start reading here, many experimental methods listed.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029616000244

Upon successful leaching of the e waste.what is done to dispose of the now mostly baron pulp. And how is the baron leach lixiviant properly made safe for disposal.

During PROPER pyrolysis and incineration. [After burner, scrubber, slag encapsulation etc]

No matter how e waste is processed there are toxic fractions that remains for disposal. Capital must be allocated for proper waste processing and disposal.



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rickbb said:

Rather than smelting you should look at a wet leaching process.

Remove the obvious plastics, steel, etc. and then grind the boards to a fine dust to make a slurry to leach out the various metals.

Click to expand...

Hi rickbb,
This was a great read and very interested to learn more about rather leaching than smelting and all the horribleness that comes with it.

Immediately found the below on the forum
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=11628 with some great advise which I'll study.
Will also try youtube and wiki's and the like for more info.

Best regards

YouTube can kill. Unless it is a video suggested by a longtime member, or moderator from GRF, please ask about it here.

I have noted news reports from Idaho (2) and Arizona (1) in the past year of amateurs getting advice and instructions on precious metal recovery and refining from YouTube. Two are dead. One will be soon due to organ damage.

Time for more coffee.

galenrog said:

Time for more coffee.

Click to expand...

Hi Galenrog, careful, I heard too much coffee can also kill :lol:

Thanks for stating that youtube is not a reliable source for information.
That is quite evident when you see videos where the camera man is engulfed in nox fumes and seeing people scampering in all directions when the reaction is more violent than their expectation.

I, however, find watching a variety of videos still helpful as it prepares you visually what to expect from a reaction, as well as the expected outcome. Even just to learn how NOT to go about this process and those videos are normally identifiable by a person who is barefoot, no gloves/masks, kitchen utensils and bowls.

SO, to sum up this thread.

Open burning of e-waste = VERY BAD IDEA!! It has been attempted and the outcomes eventually cause you to lose PM's, it's bad for the environment and the fumes released - even from a furnace - is too toxic to make the effort worth while and down right irresponsible in our current climate.
What you are left with, if you managed to not die in the process and you managed to get it right, is a lump of metal that will just cause headaches trying to process.

The better way (from one of the responses) is with wet leaching which I will study up on and ask questions about before making any form of even the slightest attempt to pursue.

Thanks you all for the responses, see you in the next thread.

JPSinden said:

galenrog said:

Time for more coffee.

Click to expand...

Open burning of e-waste = VERY BAD IDEA!! It has been attempted and the outcomes eventually cause you to lose PM's, it's bad for the environment and the fumes released - even from a furnace - is too toxic to make the effort worth while and down right irresponsible in our current climate.
What you are left with, if you managed to not die in the process and you managed to get it right, is a lump of metal that will just cause headaches trying to process.

The better way (from one of the responses) is with wet leaching which I will study up on and ask questions about before making any form of even the slightest attempt to pursue.

Click to expand...

First off I TOTALY agree that "open burning of e-waste is a VERY BAD IDEA - & as you say - bad for the environment as a result of the (toxic) fumes (& gases) produced with open burning (incineration)

However - that said - I have to disagree with your comment that it is bad for the environment "even in a furnace" --- &/or that wet leaching is "the better way" to go for processing e-waste over that of incineration

And for that matter I disagree that incineration )followed by smelting) "cause's you to lose PMS"

PROPER incineration (followed by smelting) is much more environment friendly then wet leaching (of e-waste) which is why "most" (if not "all") THE BIG BOYS process e-waste by incineration (followed by smelting)

PROPER incineration - which takes place in the furnace "destroys" most (but not all) toxins (fumes &/or gases) --- it's a matter of getting "complete" combustion of the fumes/gases which is a matter of temperature & retention time (of the fumes/gases) along with a surplus of oxygen for complete combustion

In a "proper" incinerator (furnace) the (toxic) fumes &/or gases need to be mixed with a surplus of oxygen which is done by injecting the oxygen in away that it creates a turbulence in the burn chamber --- when I use my smelting furnace for incineration the oxygen is provided through the burner & the turbulence is provided by the cyclone action of the flame swirling around in the furnace --- this same cyclone action "retains" the fumes/gases in the furnace (long enough for complete combustion) as opposed to going "straight" out the exhaust hole

For complete combustion you need a temp of "at least" 850 degrees C (1,560 F) for at least 2 seconds --- my furnace gets hot enough to melt copper which has a melt point of 1,085 C (1,984 F) --- so between the cyclone action & temp my furnace provides all three - oxygen mixing - retention time & temp for complete combustion of "most" of the toxic fumes/gases

I say "most" because "some" acidic gases still go out the furnace vent hole - however - that said - these acidic gases are FAR less then the acidic fumes given off in wet (acidic) leaching

Example; - incinerating 10 pound of IC chip (in my furnace) will produce FAR less acidic gases then the acidic fumes produced leaching 10 pound of fingers (to recover foils) with HCl (AP process) or nitric - both of which produce huge amount of acidic fumes in comparison --- if I had to guess the fumes of acidic leaching is probably 10 - 20 times that of the acid gases produced (properly) incinerating the same amount of material --- & with wet leaching you still have ALL the "toxic" chemical waste to deal with !!!

AND - just like wet leaching reactions "should be run through a scrubber" the (lessor) acidic gases from incineration can/should be scrubbed

The other 2 problems with incineration are the heavy metal "vapors" (such as mercury, lead etc.) created at the high temps of incineration & the fly ash produced --- both of these problems can be dealt with - with cooling & a bag house - cooling allows the heavy metal vapors to condense & collect on the fly ash which then drops out in the bag house

In a small operation like my smelting furnace (used for incineration) 2 or 3 - 55 gallon drums will work as a bag house - where in air speed slows down allowing cooling of the vapors - allowing them to condense on the fly ash & drop out in the bag house (drums) because air speed is slowed down --- in other words - just like you should be running a "fume hood" with a scrubber for proper wet leaching - you should be running a vent hood with bag house for proper incineration

Bottom line - BOTH - wet chemical leaching &/or incineration - whether done on a "small" or large scale are "hazardous" to your health &/or the environment when NOT done properly

I mean lets be real here - this forum is FULL of info concerning ALL of the safety measures "required" to safely do wet chemistry leaching including dealing with the TOXIC leach waste products --- that's because wet leaching is "in fact" hazardous to your health & the environment - when not properly done

The other fact is - that "most" (if not all) THE BIG BOYS (for good reason) use incineration/smelting for e-waste metal recovery - instead of wet chemical leaching for e-waste metal recovery --- its because incineration/smelting is more environmental friendly then chemical leaching --- when done properly

As far as I am concerned - the only real reason wet chemical leaching is the "go to" method is because that is the method most discussed here on the forum (like 90% plus discussion)

There is really no reason the "small hobby" guy can't set up to do incineration/smelting rather then wet leaching - incineration/smelting just isn't discussed enough IMO

I spent many years using wet leaching - but - before I shut my operation down I was leaning more & more to running an incineration/smelting process & if I ever set up to process e-waste again I would set it up as "primarily" a smelting operation & limited wet leaching process

For what its worth :mrgreen:

Kurt

To expand on my last post

as has been said - open burning of E-waste is a VERY bad idea & open burning includes ANY method other then explained in my last post (oxygen mixing, temp, retention time, scrubber, bag house)

Dioxins & furans being "one" MAJOR problem (very nasty stuff) with "improper" incineration

Burning 5 pounds of house hold trash in a backyard burn barrel (1,825 pounds per year) produces 5 times more dioxins & furans then a proper incinerator that incinerates 200 metric tons of waste

That's because proper incineration (oxygen mixing, temp, retention time) destroys these dioxins & furans

E-waste produces FAR more dioxins & furans then house hold trash --- if I had to guess my guess would be as much as 10 times that of house hold trash

As I said in my last post - after spending something like 11 - 12 years processing e-waste - most of which done with wet chemical leaching - but then moving to an incineration/smelting process in the last few years - I am convinced that the incineration/smelting process is the better way to go

Even with having proper fume hood & scrubbers set up for wet leaching the BIG problem was dealing with ALL the "toxic" chemical waste - which can (& will) soon get out of control (even if you try to keep up on it) & become the "elephant in the room"

Again - IMO - there is no reason that even the little guy can't set up to do an incineration/smelting process

Again - there is "good" reason why incineration/smelting is the way THE BIG BOYS do it

Not saying wet leaching doesn't have its place it does - but if I was ever to set up again - incineration/smelting would be my primary method with limited leaching

Kurt

Good summary and exactly on point!