1,000,000 plus SIM cards

[etack]

Why not use a good shear? You should be able to cut off what you want. You should be able to 1000+ at a time if they are all stacked right.

This is an old problem that has been solved already.

Eric

 

[kjavanb123]

Eric,

Thanks for your comments. I will try your methods once I receive the sample which will be after our negotiation with them. But here is a look at inside one card chip. It does not show any gold bonding wire, but the thickness felt very thick, here are some pictures.

Chip was removed from the card, it seemed to take off easily, just push the corner a little and the chip popped out,


I pealed a piece of gold plating, it was gold plated both front and back, it felt like solid gold sheet,


Here is the card after removing the chip, the weight of chipp with plastic underneath of it is 0.1g


I will post update once I receive the aqua regia test on this chip.

Regards
Kevin

 

[necromancer]

the problem with shearing or punching many at a time is double or triple handling to align all the chips

 

[Anonymous]

It's not my intention to hijack Kevin's thread but if anyone does have any yield ideas for the below I would be grateful because I have 15Kg of these. I'm good with processing, and yes they have the chips in the back too.

The pic has 180G of product.

edit: There are bonding wires in these too.

Thanks

Jon

 

[patnor1011]

Jon, AP on plating, what will be left must be incinerated, washed and then you will get to bonding wires.

Kevin, it only feel like solid gold sheet, it is solid copper sheet plated on top. Look for actual wafer inside in centre and there should be 6 bonding wires connecting to it. My picture show how it look like.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Patnor

 

[patnor1011]

I did the same material as sample but cant really give you any numbers as it was not exactly as you have there. I mean I had reels with sim cards punched out, yet some reels did have some quantity of sims still attached, so no reels without or reels full, it was mostly punched out say about 80-90% sims gone from reel. Then I had just punched out sims in another batch but some of them were just plated top part, some of them with plastic from card still attached... There is thread link in my first post on this thread, also some bits and pieces of info are in my main thread about IC chips.

Kevin, can you upload background picture your peeled off foil? also rest of card where it was peeled off.

 

[kjavanb123]

Patnor1011

Sure thing I will be posting thrm tommorow local times.

Spaceship,
I dont know if this helps, but while I was in Singapor for ewaste consulting, I saw a video of their refinery where they had some stainless steel pot, and the operator put what it seemed like excatly the same materials you have in your picture in the pot and took it out and it was completely stripped from gold, I am very sure now that they used cyanide peroxide treatment for these reels. Presuming you have access to cyanide.

I am expecting some conclusion from Iranian side regarding this fuel card refining this week.


Regards
Kevin

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kevin

Although Patnor is quite correct, I've actually gone straight to AR with these in the past. Yeah I know it has to ingest the copper but it's far quicker than a two step process. I also hate all the messing around picking the gold out of the AP.

 

[patnor1011]

Here I would say cyanide can only strip plating the same as AP will do, much faster but it is still only plating. I would not use nitric for this material, or AR as from my experience I know that epoxy holding bonding wires will get affected "gooed" by nitric.
That is why I would use stripping process first then incineration to get wires from inside epoxy (on back side).

 

[Anonymous]

I hear you Patnor, as in I REALLY hear you, and not just saying it mate.

We've done a few of these of different types and not had the same problem so maybe it's a slightly different material but I'll so a very small test run and if it gums, I'll revert to AP. Thanks for the pointer. It can't hurt to be careful, that's for sure.

Jon

 

[rickbb]

Wouldn't such large volumes of this kind of material warrant grinding and incineration, (or vise-a-versa), of the whole lot before some kind of leach?

Just asking, I've never done large amounts of any material. Just seems that way it would be more like a gold bearing ore process.

 

[Anonymous]

To be fair Rick, as Patnor said you need to be sure whether or not the rest of the material will react badly with Nitric and then obviously AR. If not then it's a straightforward process to take the visible gold. The trapped gold connectors are a completely different process but it's a lot easier to do this knowing that the rest of the gold is taken care of.

Jon.

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

Here are some photos from the back of pealed gold plating. Gold bonding wires are visible.

Gold plating removed from the plastic part,


The back of removed piece,


Chip after incineration, no smoke at all, maybe it was a tiny sample,


I dissolved the incinerated pieces in AR, and sent it out to be analyzed by a local lab for Cu, and Au. Will post results.

Thanks
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

An update on fuel card, the guy whom I contacted regarding the cards communicated with me that due to security issues they can't hand me the cards unless it is shredded and grinded, which I requested to send me a sample to investigate and test, I assume for treating that massive amount of cards shredded and grinded best option would be a shaking table or jig, please advise.
He confirmed 800,000 pieces already processed like that (grinded) and 400,000 more this month.

Regards
Kevin

 

[Palladium]

Some of my most profitable jobs have been the ones i turned down.
Chasing money will lose you money quick. I turn down just a many jobs as i take most times. Just something to think about.

 

[glondor]

The grinding of the whole cards really throws a monkey wrench into the whole process. You would need some kind of electrostatic separation to get rid of the bulk waste plastic. Depending on the type of grind done, perhaps some kind of density calibrated flotation would work as well. It did just get more complicated.
If the grind is fine enough, exploring a nitric bath and then an A/R leach may be a viable option now tho. Rinsing or filtering would have to be carefully done. Volumes of solution would be an issue. Palladium has a very valid point.

 

[Anonymous]

For the yields and work involved I would suggest that this really should be the point of walking away.

Pick your battles Kevin. This one's a load of work for very little return.

 

[patnor1011]

I would not attempt any separation of this material. It is close to impossible. Also I would not attempt to treat this material in acid it will be a waste of time and money. The only viable option for this kind of material is total incineration. But to incinerate so much of plastic one really need to have proper equipment in place or face long time in government sponsored accommodation.

 

[Smack]

Some of my most profitable jobs have been the ones i turned down.
Chasing money will lose you money quick. I turn down just a many jobs as i take most times. Just something to think about.

So much truth in that Palladium, sometimes one CAN try too hard and have too much determination for so little gain. A very wealthy man once told me, "Your better off doing a little work and making good money than breaking your back doing a whole lot of work just to break even".