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nrg91720

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2017
Messages
17
Hi all,

I'm new to this forum so please forgive my ignorance.

I could be wrong, but it appears most of the members of this forum either work in metals refining or have small businesses they run to refine precious metals.

I am wondering why no one has tried to start a larger scale business to recycle used electronics, with a focus on metal separation and purification.

On one hand you have small scale recyclers like yourselves (no disrespect at all, you guys are doing amazing things) and the informal recyclers in Guiyu, China and New Delhi, India and on the other hand you have the giant metal refineries like Umicore and Boliden.

I am wondering why no one is trying to attack the middle.

Some posters seem to have stated refining of e-scrap only works well at a large scale. Aren't the many small-scale recyclers globally a testament to this not being true? I'd appreciate it if people could explain to me their thoughts on this matter and why refining is seen as only being economical on a Billion Dollar Refinery level.

Any thoughts on how we can deal with the global exponentially increasing supply of e-waste when only a small percentage of it is actually recycled and often the giant refineries can't get their hands on everything or are just breaking even?

Best,

-nrg91720
 
Most of the members on the forum that refine e scrap do so with cherry picked items with good or easy amounts of values to access, the main value in much e scrap is the base metals not the precious metals which is why much of the scrap ends up in copper refineries but they have hundreds of tons of materials to process with high copper content plus the e scrap which frequently has elements that make simple cell recovery extremely difficult which is why certain elements and metals carry limits and penalties for exceeding certain percentages.
Now perhaps you can start to see the difficulty in trying to place an e scrap refinery in the middle sector, to recover all the valueable metals takes very high cost plant and equipment and a huge amount of money to finance the whole operation, there are recovery operators who produce bars to then forward onto the big copper refiners but their problem is the environmental controls needed to operate legally which also cost a great deal of money to install and operate.
So in simple terms it’s the size of your pockets that determine which part of the refining world you operate in and to be profitable you need the right sort of materials regularly which for many is simply not easily available, this is why many simply sit in an area of refin8ng that can be profitable and with potential for continued operation.
 
nickvc said:
So in simple terms it’s the size of your pockets that determine which part of the refining world you operate in and to be profitable you need the right sort of materials regularly which for many is simply not easily available, this is why many simply sit in an area of refin8ng that can be profitable and with potential for continued operation.

And what Nickvc said, that I highlighted, is the key. There are a couple of members that are operating on a smaller scale, but they are in countries that have much less stringent environmental compliance laws.

Burning e-scrap can be done in a manor that appears clean from the chimney. I know of a gentleman that was operating legally well in to the late 80's with nothing more than a well controlled afterburner to strip copper wire of it's insulation. In fact, he was the last legal operation in the State of Michigan when he retired. But even being legal, his clean looking exhaust from the incineration of simple wire, would still be loaded with dioxins, furans, brominated fire retardents, etc...well beyond those limitations set forth by environmental law, or even environmental law that would have permitted a NEW operation at the time he was in production.

The amount of capital required to even build a dedicated handling/sampling system well exceeds the capacities of many small/medium size operators, let alone a shredding/sampling/clean incineration & smelting followed right on through to metal recovery.
 
I can make more money per day bringing in whole electronics and scrapping them out then I could if I were to buy the same materials already broken down and try to refine it. Plus, I don't have the chems to worry about and there is little waste. Maybe sometime I should just do the numbers on some servers and see what exactly each one is worth just for the scrap value.
 
snoman701 said:
Burning e-scrap can be done in a manor that appears clean from the chimney. I know of a gentleman that was operating legally well in to the late 80's with nothing more than a well controlled afterburner to strip copper wire of it's insulation. In fact, he was the last legal operation in the State of Michigan when he retired. But even being legal, his clean looking exhaust from the incineration of simple wire, would still be loaded with dioxins, furans, brominated fire retardents, etc...well beyond those limitations set forth by environmental law, or even environmental law that would have permitted a NEW operation at the time he was in production.

The amount of capital required to even build a dedicated handling/sampling system well exceeds the capacities of many small/medium size operators, let alone a shredding/sampling/clean incineration & smelting followed right on through to metal recovery.

Those were the good old days! :mrgreen:

The last copper burner i seen in operation was about 1992 i guess. I use to work for a company called United Furnaces designing and building aluminum sweat furnaces for scrap yards and recyclers to melt old aluminum. One of the number one request we got from customers who bought an aluminum furnace was can it burn copper wire? We incorporated that aspect into the design. It required what we refereed to as a smoke chamber for the first stage of thermal oxidation followed by a retentive afterburner for second stage combustion. When the EPA changed the laws it pretty much bankrupted the company and changed the industry as a whole. I've burned thousands and thousands a lb of copper wire back in the day. As soon as it came out of the furnace we had a pit that we sat it in. While it was still hot you can take a pressure washer and hit it and all the crust falls off and your left with a shiny brite copper wire.
 
Thanks guys!

Any other thoughts? What about operating a metal refining system in a country with less stringent environmental laws? Say, a developing country?
 
nrg91720 said:
Thanks guys!

Any other thoughts? What about operating a metal refining system in a country with less stringent environmental laws? Say, a developing country?

To what end though? To be able to be more lax on your safety protocols at the expense of the people and the environment?
 
anachronism said:
nrg91720 said:
Thanks guys!

Any other thoughts? What about operating a metal refining system in a country with less stringent environmental laws? Say, a developing country?

To what end though? To be able to be more lax on your safety protocols at the expense of the people and the environment?


Even in developing countries they won’t stand for poisoning the environment and people for too long, even China is getting more stringent on what they will accept as e scrap due to the dangers hidden or obvious in much of it.
 
No, didn't mean it like that. Goal would be to help the people and the environment. Ultimately, e-waste is a problem which hasn't been solved and needs a solution.

Not to get political, but I'm an engineer who has worked in industry and in my belief definitely some levels of regulation are needed. However, the West as a whole generally has a higher level I believe than is warranted, which tends to shift heavy industry abroad where it occurs at a much cruder fashion and hurts people and the environment abroad. I'm trying to aim for a middle of the road, balanced solution.

Best,

-nrg91720
 
Hi all,

I'm new to this forum so please forgive my ignorance.

I could be wrong, but it appears most of the members of this forum either work in metals refining or have small businesses they run to refine precious metals.

I am wondering why no one has tried to start a larger scale business to recycle used electronics, with a focus on metal separation and purification.

On one hand you have small scale recyclers like yourselves (no disrespect at all, you guys are doing amazing things) and the informal recyclers in Guiyu, China and New Delhi, India and on the other hand you have the giant metal refineries like Umicore and Boliden.

I am wondering why no one is trying to attack the middle.

Some posters seem to have stated refining of e-scrap only works well at a large scale. Aren't the many small-scale recyclers globally a testament to this not being true e-waste recyclers? I'd appreciate it if people could explain to me their thoughts on this matter and why refining is seen as only being economical on a Billion Dollar Refinery level.

Any thoughts on how we can deal with the global exponentially increasing supply of e-waste when only a small percentage of it is actually recycled and often the giant refineries can't get their hands on everything or are just breaking even?

Best,

-nrg91720
Hello, I have been scrapping computers for a few years now and have built up quite a stack of CPUs, ram boards, pins, etc.

Was wondering if anyone would care to share how they refine without killing themselves from fumes. Or is the consensus to just keep stacking in the hope that they will be worth selling one day?

Have watched Miniroo's u-tube videos plus all the others.
 
Hello, I have been scrapping computers for a few years now and have built up quite a stack of CPUs, ram boards, pins, etc.

Was wondering if anyone would care to share how they refine without killing themselves from fumes. Or is the consensus to just keep stacking in the hope that they will be worth selling one day?

Have watched Miniroo's u-tube videos plus all the others.
Welcome to us.
First advice drop the Youtube videos, many will get you injured or worse.
There are a few worth following like Sreetips, Owltech and some more.
Next, if you are going to refine you NEED some way of scrubbing your fumes.
There are several threads showing different ways of doing this on the forum.

Then we recommend these links if you are going to handle chemicals.
Safety, Waste treatment and C. M. Hokes book are mandatory.

We ask our new members to do 3 things.
1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=19798
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/safety.47/
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/dealing-with-waste.10539/

Suggested reading:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/the-library.101/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/when-in-doubt-cement-it-out.30236/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threa...le-read-this-before-you-post-about-ore.33333/


Forum rules is here.
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/
 
You should always take in count what you are processing with exactitude, some things are more dangerous than others, like PGMs.
 
Hello, I have been scrapping computers for a few years now and have built up quite a stack of CPUs, ram boards, pins, etc.

Was wondering if anyone would care to share how they refine without killing themselves from fumes. Or is the consensus to just keep stacking in the hope that they will be worth selling one day?

Have watched Miniroo's u-tube videos plus all the others.
Hi,
Sometimes it is not worth processing something but rather sell it for profit and buy already made gold bars.

What I mean, i`m in position now where i can buy RAM stix for X amount and i have a large scale buyer for X+50%, so it is not worth for me to process, since i already make a good profit on it and the final amount of gold I can buy is around 80% of what i can recover. If i were to sell the gold I recover I would be at the same rate, so why waste my time and create toxic waste for the same result?

Do some calculations about how would your cost look like if you were to recover and refine the gold yourself, and how much gold could you buy if you sold the material as is.

Recovery and refining needs proper labware and equipment not to mention safety gear and a place where you can work and not poison yourself or any of your family member.

Be safe

Pete
 
Hi,
Sometimes it is not worth processing something but rather sell it for profit and buy already made gold bars.

What I mean, i`m in position now where i can buy RAM stix for X amount and i have a large scale buyer for X+50%, so it is not worth for me to process, since i already make a good profit on it and the final amount of gold I can buy is around 80% of what i can recover. If i were to sell the gold I recover I would be at the same rate, so why waste my time and create toxic waste for the same result?

Do some calculations about how would your cost look like if you were to recover and refine the gold yourself, and how much gold could you buy if you sold the material as is.

Recovery and refining needs proper labware and equipment not to mention safety gear and a place where you can work and not poison yourself or any of your family member read more.

Be safe

Pete
thank you so much for your suggestion
 
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