1,000,000 plus SIM cards

[kjavanb123]

All,

I had a discussion with Iranian national oil products, and they have something similar to SIM cards pictue below, to montitor the usage of fuel in the country, apperntly there are over million pieces of such cards are being disposed, and he was welcomed my proposal to toll refine those cards for them, we have not talked detail as I will have to travel there to meet in person.

Iranian fuel card,


I am thinking cyanide using a cement mixer would be the quickests method please advise.

Regards
Kevin

 

[Geo]

I'm not sure about any restrictions on environmental issues in Iran, but with such large quantities, incineration to reduce the volume may be an option. I'm not saying to dig a big pit and burn them in the open air but hire a large incinerator to reduce the volume. The resin in the cards should comprise over half of their weight if not more. If it were the type of sims from cell phones, a different process may work better but the volume of plastic may make the job very hard to do unless you are using a commercial cement mixer.

 

[glondor]

Another viable option would be a punch, electric, preferably roller, as fast as you can make with some type of auto feed. if all the gold foils are in the same spot on the card, them only 1 cutter/punch head is needed. If there are several types, more than 1 cutter/punch would have to be made, and a sorting system devised for "cards by type"

Depends on how many you get at once I guess. perhaps a shearing process would work on lesser amounts.

 

[kjavanb123]

Thanks for your responses. I was thinking to use the same incinerator I used formy boards, ball mill the ash, pass it through fine seive, melt the metallics which I guess is copper and gold, use electrolysis. But cyanide in cement mixer is so fast I am leaning toward that.

Keep you guys posted.

Regards
Kevin

 

[samuel-a]

I'm 100% with glondor on this.
punch out the contacts+chip and move on to incineration and smelt with copper (i see no need for sieving here but could be wrong), the side with the chip usually holds gold wires in epoxy.

Once incinerated you will have to investigate the ash content and the metal % of it so you could devise a plan of which flux mixture to use, how much collector (if any) to use, smelting temp'...

 

[GotTheBug]

Is there a problem with going straight to AR for these?

 

[glondor]

Gold wire inside epoxy chip. A/R won't get it.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

Thanks for your suggestions. I will keep you posted.

Regards
Kj

 

[kurtak]

I like glondor & Sam's idea to punch out the contact/chip (which will greatly reduce ash from incineration) & Sam's suggestion to smelt - only I would use silver as my collector metal

not that copper wont work but silver is a much better collector metal to use for 4 reasons which I will explain if you decide to go the smelting route -the short of it being

(1) lower melt temp
(2)flux used to get circulation in the crucible
(3)amount of acid used if Chem leaching for Au recovery
(4)cell time if electrolytic recovery

Kurt

 

[Geo]

If it's a one time deal, the expense of having a special machine fabricated may eat up a lot of profit. As long as the incinerator is in government compliance, incineration of the whole card may be more cost effective. As long as all the carbon is removed, the fine talcum powder ash can be melted with a collector and flux recovering nearly all of the PM value.

 

[kjavanb123]

Kurtak,

Thanks for advise on using silver as collector, however, based on my understanding the metals in these cards are copper and gold plating, hence I may not even add new copper to get its content to 98%.

Geo,
Yes this is one time deal, so since incineration is EPA compatible, then I let them all incinerated, he charges $0.30 per kg ($0.60 lbs), for incineration of my boards and these cards.

I have sent out the documents and awaiting their correspondance.

Best regards
Kj

 

[patnor1011]

I also used incineration but only on actual plated part with epoxy on back side. Incinerating whole cards will made you deal with 25x more ash, more room for error and lost values.

 

[necromancer]

and 1,000,000 should get you enough to put towards your travels, let us know what the yield was and what it costs to travel between the UAE and Iran

and these new pop up ads are the complete crap.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

I got some data on the card and plating sizes, each card weighs 5.10g (0.0112 lb). Plated area is 13x12 mm (0.511x0.472 inches).
I try to put it in Sam calculator but didnt know the gold thickness on it, so guessing 10 microinches, it gives 0.0007 g of gold each card, it is estimated to have 1.7 million pieces ready to disposed, so that would be 1190g of gold.


Regards
Kevin

 

[Geo]

Don't forget the bonding wires to the chip. They may be small but add up in large amounts. Three troy pounds is not a bad haul.

 

[glondor]

I would also consider 10 micro-inches to be a bit thin. From other research I have discovered that 30 micro-inches is required for reliability on pins projected to have 1000 insertion cycles and 50 micro-inches is required for 2000 cycles. I know these are not pins, but there must be some correlation in data for usage cycles.

I certainly would make the effort to contact the card manufacturer for more information, as you have contacts with the issuer? of the cards, it should not be too hard to find out the "offered" or "required" specs of the government contract.

 

[kurtak]

Kevin

you can make a "cheap" punch & die set up for punching out the contact/chip part of the cards that can be set up in a drill press (as a press not a drill) for fast production punching

Make the punch out of a piece of 1/2" or 3/4" pipe (not sure if 1/2" would be big enough) sharpen the punch end - cut a release slot out of the side - weld a cap on top of the pipe & weld a shaft that will chuck in the drill on top of that --- the idea is like the leather punch in the pic (notice the angle at the top of the side slot for ejecting the punch outs)

Then for the die use a piece of hard wood (oak or maple) or heavy plastic & mill a shallow depression (wood spinning bit) just a bit bigger in diameter then the punch so the punch can punch through the card - along with an L shaped guide/fence/jig to align the cards (pic is just to show the idea of the die/jig)

Kurt

 

[canedane]

If the cards are stacked like a deck of cards in a frame,and you cut them twice at the long side with a band saw, you can reduce the plastic more than 60%, in a very simple way no matter how order the card is packed. This plastic has a valeou,(i dont know the type of plastic,but it isent poly etyhlen)) and you save +60% for incinerating. If you do this proces in Iran you will save money at the shipping.
Good luck with your project Kevin.
Henrik

 

[canedane]

There is used two kind of plastic in this kind of cards,abs, there have a veleou,and pvc there isent recyclebar, you can test the type with a red hot cobber wire, if the plastic burn with a green flame on the wire it is pvc.
Henrik

 

[kjavanb123]

Kurt,

Thanks for your detailed info, I am still doing the negotiation with them, as you may be aware anything federal has its pain to get through. I make sure to put all your inputs into design once I get the cards. These cards also frequently used at the gas pump, people of Iran would put them there to know how much gas they used and how much they have left, so as far as frequncy of usage they get to used a lot, what does that mean for thickness of gold plating?

Regards
Kevin