ceramic cpu's

What affect would grinding/crushing ceramic cpu's to a coarse sand grain size or finer have to the recovery process described? I have a 75 mm dolly pot that I user for gold ore. It has a half round pipe cap drilled with 4mm holes as a base and i use a 70 mm grinding ball as a dolly.

kleegood said:

What affect would grinding/crushing ceramic cpu's to a coarse sand grain size or finer have to the recovery process described? I have a 75 mm dolly pot that I user for gold ore. It has a half round pipe cap drilled with 4mm holes as a base and i use a 70 mm grinding ball as a dolly.

Click to expand...

It will just allow the acid to attack what gold there is easier.

However there are other issues with what you are proposing on doing. First, if you are not removing certain parts of certain ceramic CPU's you would be grinding Kovar along with your ceramic material, Kover is made up of several metals, it's an alloy:

Carbon 0.02%
Silicon 0.20%
Cobalt 17.00%
Manganese 0.30%
Nickel 29.0%
Iron balance

Things like Silicon can make it difficult to precipitate your values back out of solution once dissolved. It's better NOT to dissolve those metals into solution. It's better to knock off the Kovar caps and process them differently.

Also, you are most likely dealing with gold plate that is 22k. That is very soft and tends to mash. Sometimes you will end up mashing gold onto the material you are using to crush with. Sometimes with some types of ceramic material, all you are really doing is mashing the gold into the ceramic material even better actually making it more difficult to recover. Remember you are dealing with gold plating, not gold wires embedded in ceramic.

That's the other thing, if acid is able to get to all parts of the ceramic pieces, why do you need to pulverize it? Just knock off the kovar covers and process those separately, break the CPU into 5-10 parts that each are small enough so that your acid solution can get to all parts of the CPU pieces. There is really no need to put in all the extra work, and end up making extra work for yourself.

Scott

processing sand (which is what your creating) is tricky in AR.the material has to be stirred almost continually or the steam will create a space between the material and the glass vessel. this can cause over heating of the glass and catastrophic failure of the glass due to thermal shock when you do stir and the cooler liquid hits the hot spot. warm slowly until the solution is boiling.the boiling action will keep the material moving around but you still need to stir occasionally.too, it makes filtering a pain as the finer grains will trap more of the pregnant solution.

I used the ar method, had 2 much nitric , since no urea , tried to evaporate the nitric,unsuccessfully, since the smb failed to react.finally found urea at a dye store, added it,with a reaction. the color changed and became quite dark,almost blackish/blue/green. I saw black powder, all kinds about 5-6 grams I thought. it all seemed to dissappear somehow? I think it got stuck in the filter paper , since I had to filter it an extra time or two at the wrong times in the process. I have now washed the filters off using a spray bottle and water and have it in a large pyrex measuring cup . I am hoping this is where the remaining 4-5 grams of gold are at? or could they still be in the dark black/bluish liquid I have placed in my waste container? obviously i'm not testing for gold ,I know I should be , I have no test solution , I do have nitric though. & I have read an hour or 2 of that hoke as well among
other things . can anyone help me with this? I am now assuming the remainder of my cpu gold is in my yellow /water from the filter solution?

dolly123 said:

I used the ar method, had 2 much nitric , since no urea , tried to evaporate the nitric,unsuccessfully, since the smb failed to react.finally found urea at a dye store, added it,with a reaction. the color changed and became quite dark,almost blackish/blue/green. I saw black powder, all kinds about 5-6 grams I thought. it all seemed to dissappear somehow? I think it got stuck in the filter paper , since I had to filter it an extra time or two at the wrong times in the process. I have now washed the filters off using a spray bottle and water and have it in a large pyrex measuring cup . I am hoping this is where the remaining 4-5 grams of gold are at? or could they still be in the dark black/bluish liquid I have placed in my waste container? obviously i'm not testing for gold ,I know I should be , I have no test solution , I do have nitric though. & I have read an hour or 2 of that hoke as well among
other things . can anyone help me with this? I am now assuming the remainder of my cpu gold is in my yellow /water from the filter solution?

Click to expand...

What type of CPUs are you processing and how many?
Did you ever hear of stannous chloride? It will answer some of your questions.

Jim

i used the ar process, but I am sure I filtered my solution 2 times 2 many.
I also did not eliminate the nitric acid completely . i finally found some urea at a clothing dye retailer as in canada it's not as available as in the USA anymore, since 911 I will assume. I took all my filters and rinsed with water , then made sure no acid left, I dropped the smb in the mix and waited 24 hours. what looked like a orange powder was left at the bottom of my beaker. I added ammonia and rinsed as well as muriatic , then dried it to a powder, now when I try to melt that powder? it doesn't seem to co-operate at all, and just burns? I guess? strange when I busted up over 20 plus high yield cpu's and expected 4 grams of gold? now i've got a bunch of garbage orange powder and no gold at all lmao,I should have waited untill I had my urea and done everything properly step by step I see now, as it looks like I wasted all my work and half of a skid of processors which are now almost impossible to find. i'm thinking I should have just sold them all on e-bay.
is it possible there is any gold at all in this powder? how would I know?

dolly123 said:

i used the ar process, but I am sure I filtered my solution 2 times 2 many.
I also did not eliminate the nitric acid completely . i finally found some urea at a clothing dye retailer as in canada it's not as available as in the USA anymore, since 911 I will assume. I took all my filters and rinsed with water , then made sure no acid left, I dropped the smb in the mix and waited 24 hours. what looked like a orange powder was left at the bottom of my beaker. I added ammonia and rinsed as well as muriatic , then dried it to a powder, now when I try to melt that powder? it doesn't seem to co-operate at all, and just burns? I guess? strange when I busted up over 20 plus high yield cpu's and expected 4 grams of gold? now i've got a bunch of garbage orange powder and no gold at all lmao,I should have waited untill I had my urea and done everything properly step by step I see now, as it looks like I wasted all my work and half of a skid of processors which are now almost impossible to find. i'm thinking I should have just sold them all on e-bay.
is it possible there is any gold at all in this powder? how would I know?

Click to expand...

Maybe if you show some pictures of the powder, you may get an answer. What do you expect the gold to look like when it drops?
You shouldn't have jumped into the process without stannous and a complete understanding of what to do. Where did you get your instructions? What are you referring to as " high yield cpu's"?

Jim