PM Scrap Items

Just to get this category started, here's another copy of that list I made.

Scrap Items that contain precious metals.
1) Jewelry and Dental
a) Karat Gold
b) Sterling Silver
c) Gold Teeth and Plates
d) Platinum - Pt/Ir, Pt/Ru, etc.
e) Gold-Filled
f) Buffing Dust
g) Filings
h) Floor Sweeps
i) Carpets
j) Traps or Settling Drums and Sludges
k) Dental Amalgam
l) Cyanide Bombing Solutions

2) Coins
a) US 90% Silver
b) US 40% Silver
c) US War Nickels
d) Silver Bullion Coins and Bars
e) Old US Gold Coins
f) Gold Bullion Coins and Bars
g) Canadian 80% Silver
h) World Silver Coins

3) Consumer
a) Gold Filled Eyeglass Frames
b) Silverware, etc.

4) Electronic
a) Personal Computers
b) Circuit Boards
c) Fingers
d) Circuit Board Trim
e) Router Dust
f) Backplanes
g) Mainframes
h) Gold Lids
i) Old Gold IC’s
j) CPU IC’s
k) Hybrid Packages
l) Hybrid Circuits
m) Plastic DIP’s
n) Ceramic DIP’s
o) Lead Frames and Trim
p) TO5’s and TO18’s
q) TO3’s
r) TO92’s and LED’s
s) Relays
t) Thick Film Circuits
u) Thin Film Circuits
v) Pins
w) Connectors
x) Platinum Group Scrap
y) Silver Plated Wire
z) Silver Capacitors
aa) Palladium Chip Capacitors
bb) Gold Backed Silicon Wafers and Chips
cc) Switches, Etc.
dd) Tantalum Capacitors
ee) Silver DMSO Solutions
ff) Solder Preforms – usually Au/Sn or Au/Si

5) Plating and Coatings
a) Gold Plating Solutions
b) Silver Plating Solutions
c) Other PM Solutions
d) Drag Out Solutions
e) Gold Ion Exchange Resin
f) Wipes
g) Danglers and Nodules
h) Liquid Gold Containers
i) Plating Salts
j) Filter Cartridges
k) Gold Stripping Solutions
l) Reject Plated Parts
m) Silver Anodes

6) Electrical
a) Large Silver Contact Points

7) Telephone
a) Wire Relays – Palladium points
b) Other Relays
c) Copper Sticks with heavy gold plating every few inches
d) Cell phones
Cool Brazes, Pastes, and Solder
a) Circuit Board Solder from Wave Solder Pots
b) Braze and Thick Film Pastes
c) Silver Solder and Brazes
d) Gold Solder and Brazes

9) Photographic
a) Medical X-ray Film
b) Industrial X-ray Film
c) Litho Film
d) Miscellaneous Film
e) Silver Flake
f) Hypo Solutions
g) Steel Wool Canisters
h) Ion Exchange Resin
i) Emulsions

10) Jet Engine
a) Gold Brazed Stators
b) Gold Brazed Stator Segments
c) Gold or Gold/Palladium Brazed Twin Rotor Blades
d) Gold/Platinum Pitot Tubes
e) Gold Fuel Manifolds
f) Gold Fuel Plumbing
g) Silver and Silver/Palladium Stators
h) Silver Brazed Stator Segments
i) Miscellaneous Aircraft Parts

11) Automobile
a) Headlamps
b) Oxygen Sensors
c) Spark Plugs
d) Catalytic Converters

12) Catalysts
a) Catalytic Converter Catalysts
b) Ethylene Oxide Silver Catalysts
c) Petroleum Catalysts

13) Mining Materials
a) Gold Nuggets
b) Gold Dust
c) Gold Ore
d) Gold Amalgam
e) Dore Bars
f) Black Sand

14) PM Refinery Scrap
a) Silver Chloride
b) Slags
c) Crucibles

15) Miscellaneous
a) Evaporating and Sputtering Chamber Scrap
b) Silver Plated Copper or Brass
c) Button Batteries
d) Military Silver Batteries
e) Military Salt Water Conversion Kits - Silver
f) Silver Heat Exchangers
g) Platinum and Pt/Rh or Pt/Ir Thermocouple Wire
h) Platinum Lab Crucibles
i) Gold, Silver, or Palladium Leaf
j) Solid Silver Wire
k) Sputtering Targets
l) Costume Jewelry – Gold or Rhodium Plated
m) Memory Disks – Gold and/or Rhodium Plated
n) Computer hard drives

This is my first post, am still accumulating the equipment, supplies, and a pile of junk. However a couple of things that I know of

Some china (plates and such, not the nation) are plated with 22 or 24k gold, while most of it has just a couple of small designs, and are probably not worth getting, some are heavily coated with gold, have a couple of pieces which are like that - they are chipped, these items tend to be valuable in good shape, people like to collect them, but they wouldn't have a chipped one in their collection.

Another item is old military epaulets, some of these are made of brass, brass with gold plate, some officers would have them made of solid gold thread for display in their home or office (too heavy to wear) - in good condition they (the plated ones) may be worth more then the gold content to a collector, but I have seen them where they were falling apart and they have no value to a collector (the last one of these was before I knew that you could recover the gold from them, and I have none).

......................

One thing that I do have is a large fraternal banner with gold leaf lettering, has a metal fringe (possibly gold filled. The fabric is falling apart, will tear when touched. It is one of those items if it was in good condition it could be worth more then the gold, but it isn't. Will have to figure out how to get the gold off of fabric, but since I estimate it will be about two to three more months before I can begin, I can be patient. In the meantime I will be reading, learning, and accumulating. Occasionally throwing out an idea, just take them all with a shaker of salt because of my inexperience.

......................

Lookbook,

Welcome to the forum!

The stuff that is very thin gold foil will readily dissolve with HCl-Cl

You've come to the right place.

Here's the standard 10 cent tour posts:

• Must Read
  
• Forum Guide Rough Draft
  
• Reactions List
  
• Common Chemicals

Have fun, be safe, and post lots of photos.

Steve

Anything in those worth messing with?
I have a GANG of em.

Goldsilverpro,
There is one thing I thought of tonight that I didn't notice on your list. I used to work for Heidelberg and was talking about gold recovery with a coworker one day when one of the press mechanics overheard me. He mentioned the quartz heating lamps in the drying section of the printing press he was working on had a coating of gold on one side to act as a heat reflector. I didn't get to actually see one of the lamps because the press was in use, but I imagine it's pretty thin. He told me the lamps went bad fairly often, and were normally just thrown out. He was considering saving the bad ones in the future though after that.

Certain laser optics are also gold coated, as an Infrared reflector I believe. Actually I bought a small lot of laser repair parts cheap once on Ebay and there is a several inch long block of maybe aluminum?, coated with gold, that seems to be just a half-round cradle/heatsink for holding a laser tube of some sort. So I guess items requiring efficient cooling would be good to check out?

I know the DLP chips in the projectors I work on now have a fair amount of gold on the outside of the chip package to dissipate heat from the xenon arc lamps. In this case they each have a copper block heatsink with a liquid coolant circulated through them. Smaller DLP projectors are air cooled though.

macfixer01

found this while searching for cyanide bath plating information. Thought it a very useful post. I assume if I reply, I"ll bring it back up to the top of the list for a little while for any others like myself who are new or curious. I'm not having a ton of luck finding info about how to plate out gold from a cyanide plating solution, so any pointers would be appreciated. I've acquired a power supply for the weekend, and hope to give it a shot. I'm assuming I should be able to recover just under an ounce form the gallon and a half or so of the solution I can obtain.

Gentlemen,
I am requesting your assistance with the components in computers, cell phones, and any other electronics that contain precious metals for recycling. I also need some directions on the best way to get at these metals inside the components, and any other tips that will assist me with collecting these metals. I basically need to know what the components look like,( different chips, et al.) and the best way to remove only the parts with the gold, etc. Thanx KJ

Everything you request is covered on this forum.
You just have to read and digest the available information that is contained within.
It won't be handed to you on a silver platter.

Learn to use the search options, they will guide you. Also check in with lazersteve for the beginners guide.

funny. You're even greener than I am. I think I'll ask laser steve for that also. Your questions basically summarize all the information on this entire site. I wouldn't even know where to start. I though this first post on this thread was a good start though. Learn what these things are. I'm also starting to learn e-scrap isn't the best place to find quantities of gold. If you have a really good, large, cheap supply it could be profitable, but (correct me if I'm wrong) you almost need an entire recycling facility you can cherry pick from to make anything close to a living from it. I find it a fun hobby that pays for itself (and then some) at this point, but doesn't help pay the bills.

You have answered correctly usernameguy. It is definitely in the "hobby" class for most of
us e-scrappers. 8)

usernameguy said:

I find it a fun hobby that pays for itself (and then some) at this point, but doesn't help pay the bills.

Click to expand...

I refined for over 20 years, ten of them as my sole source of income. It was obvious to me then, just as it's obvious to me now, that making a living on e scrap borders on the impossible so long as components are hand sorted. It's simply too labor intensive for the process to be profitable on that scale.

I would be the last person to discourage anyone from learning to process the stuff, but would NEVER recommend anyone try it for a living, not unless they could duplicate the processes used my major refiners. You just can't work enough hours each day to make it pay as well as a decent job.

My attitude is totally different when it comes to refining high grade wastes, proven by the success I achieved when I refined.

Harold

You have to be very selective in what you process. Just because something has a little gold on it doesn't mean you can profit from it, unless you can just sell it intact for more than you paid for it. You can make a good living processing e-scrap if you get your scrap as rejects from manufacturers, work mainly strippable gold plated material where the gold is all exposed, and use cyanide (in several different ways) and, with a few types of scrap, a large sulfuric setup to strip it with. Also, in general, don't work assembled circuit boards (except for the fingers) or components where the gold is encased inside the component. An exception is old CPUs that are covered with gold, including the lid - many can be profitably run in AR. Most items that have to be disassembled are not profitable, although there are a few exceptions. It is rarely or never profitable to dissolve the base metals to recover gold plated material.

Manufacturing scrap usually comes unassembled as the individual components, such as drums of loose pins, gold plated lead frame scrap, circuit board frame scrap, gold backed silicon wafers, thick film circuits, loose contact points, etc., etc. A professional refiner would never touch assembled boards unless he had the means to incinerate them and then melt the metallic residues.

There are exceptions to everything, but these are generally the rules that most refiners live by. You have know when to hold them and when to fold them.

Hey forum members - you just heard from two of our best re: escrap refining
as a sole source of income. He who has ears, let him hear!

I tinker around with escrap as a hobby after having been in the used computer business
for over 25 years. I get truckloads of equipment FOR RESALE and then recycle what can't
be resold. This has been a 9 month science project that has been a fun learning experience
for me but.................. it is waaaaaaaaay too labor intensive for me to want to make
a living at it for sure! I have the luxury of getting "free" inventory to pick over and process
and a warehouse to do it in.

So, tinker away my friends but remember that just because it's gold doesn't mean that
the time, labor, chemicals, etc. that you invest in trying to process and refine it will
make you a huge wad of cash. 8)

glorycloud said:

Hey forum members - you just heard from two of our best re: escrap refining
as a sole source of income. He who has ears, let him hear!

I tinker around with escrap as a hobby after having been in the used computer business
for over 25 years. I get truckloads of equipment FOR RESALE and then recycle what can't
be resold. This has been a 9 month science project that has been a fun learning experience
for me but.................. it is waaaaaaaaay too labor intensive for me to want to make
a living at it for sure! I have the luxury of getting "free" inventory to pick over and process
and a warehouse to do it in.

So, tinker away my friends but remember that just because it's gold doesn't mean that
the time, labor, chemicals, etc. that you invest in trying to process and refine it will
make you a huge wad of cash. 8)

Click to expand...

damn man you can be a gold pimp!

anyway goldsilver pro thanks, a lot of things I didn't know have PM...
you could try old stainless spoons and forks...Or even mirrors, but I don't know how to extract from them (mirrors)