A/P first attempt in progress!!!

[malfeces]

Hi all, I wanted to thank the creators of this forum for all the great information. I have been scrapping ewaste here in Maine for about a year now and have been very interested in learning the process of extracting PM's from electronics scrap. After loads of reading....Hoke takes a while, its not a suspense thriller or anything but man does it have great info. I came to the conclusion that the A/P method would be the easiest one for me to start with as it requires fairly little to get started. So i read lazersteves post on it, read it twice, ok read it about 10 times and watched his videos and finally started my first batch today. I started with 8 oz of gold fingers very neatly trimmed using more tips off this forum. Here are some pics of what is going on.
The First 3 hours of the batch were done outside then after the reaction calmed down a bit I added a bit more H2O2 to the HCL 31.45% mix making a total of 2 parts HCL and 1 Part H2O2 and brought it inside tha garage. I have it covered in a larger tupperware container for the night so my tools dont corrode. At the last agitation all i saw was a bunch of lovely foils floatng around.
I am going to let it go for another 36-48 hours and then start pulling out the cleaned finger boards. Thanks all for all the great info and support!!

 

[nickvc]

Well done on taking the time to learn before starting any real recoveries or refining. I wish more members would do exactly that.
As to putting your container in your garage, bad move, if you seal the container gases are been formed as metal dissolves and the lid will blow, those gases are going to ruin every single metallic object in your garage. Leave it outside with a vent in the lid, or slightly open and away from kids, pets and neighbours, maybe a larger plastic bucket or trash can with a vent to release the fumes and something that can catch your solution if it's knocked over.

 

[malfeces]

OK, 25 gal plastic trash can with 4 inches of sand in the bottom to support the container containing the solution and a round hole in the top of the lid should do.... I think the sand will also prevent the trash can from tipping or being moved. Is metal corrosion a significant concern if this is only done once every 3-4 months? There is only 16 oz of copper 2 chloride in the small bucket.

 

[joem]

Follow the AP thread link in my signature. It's a bit of a read but well worth the learning.

 

[malfeces]

Thanks Joem, great thread!!! So far here is what I have pulled out of my first batch of processing fingers. After reading and performing the aquaintance proceedure described by Lasersteve and your thread and by watching LS's vids I can clearly see that I need a better set up. This was an excellent learning experience though and for those who are new like me I would definitely reccomend it!! I started to clean out the first batch and noticed that less than half the gold fingers were removed. Granted, I did not get the oportunity to agitate the mix much and they were soaking for 48 hours only. I put the ones that still had foils on them back in the CuCl2 for another few days and used a bigger container as I think I had them too crammed a little. I revived the solution with another cup of HCL 31.45% and a 1/4 cup peroxide to make it a nice light emerald green. I took the foils that did come off and did a couple HLC rinses till the color stayed clear then rinsed 4 times with tap water and dried. My plan is to someday fill this vial with foils....hehehehe... THis was really fun!

 

[malfeces]

I don't have a scale that measures in anything smaller than 5 g incriments so I have not posted any data on this one. I will eventually set up for that maybe next year when i try pyrolysis on my bags of flatpacks and eproms.

 

[g_axelsson]

I would suggest that you incinerate the flat packs instead. With pyrolysis you will not get rid of the carbon.

/Göran

 

[malfeces]

OK, so now that the batch of fingers is completely done, I need to disolve the gold in HCL and clorox then precipitate with SMB. I will have to wait until i can get a hold of some SMB for that. Any suggestions where to get SMB cheaply?

 

[maynman1751]

OK, so now that the batch of fingers is completely done, I need to disolve the gold in HCL and clorox then precipitate with SMB. I will have to wait until i can get a hold of some SMB for that. Any suggestions where to get SMB cheaply?

A store that sells beer and wine making products.

 

[Geo]

i buy from Ebay. i buy 10 pounds at a time and have had to buy twice so far. it was around $30 but you can get smaller quantities but its a little more expensive. i think Dudadiesel has 1 pound packages for around $9.

 

[kevinlco]

I buy Bonide Stump Out from Home Depot, one pound for about $8.00 if I remember right. So far it has been working very good for me. Good luck!

 

[Marcel]

If you put your solution in a copper jar and wait 1-2 days it will all happen by itsself like magic without the sulfuric fumes from SMB and at no costs and overdosage problems most people run into when doing this for the first times.