A passive stripping system

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This started as an experiment that frankly produced results far beyond what I thought they would. I chose to offer it because of the results achieved. I consider it to be nothing more than an alternative to other systems. It does offer the capability of leaving it alone for days on end and it will go right on doing what it does.

AgSO4 is white unless contaminated by something else, which is a very real possibility. I certainly don't know everything that is in e-scrap. My specialty is unusual mineral states and their extractions. I still have some of the yellow silver and I take a look at it to try to determine the state.

Randy in Gunnison
 
My first run was 22 ounces of silver, 3 ounces of gold, and 7 ounces of palladium.
Click to expand...

The value of these PMs is about $4,700. The value of the boards in the photos doesn't seem to be greater than $5/pound. That would mean that you would have to run about 1000 pounds to get these values. I doubt if you could get more than 10# to 20# of boards, or less, in that 7.5 gal container. That would mean that you ran 50 to 100 batches. To get 7 oz of Pd, it would take about 19 pounds of monolithic capacitors, at 2.5%. Is there any other source of Pd on the boards - I doubt it.

All this is guesswork on my part, of course.

How much weight of electronic material was run to collect these values? What type materials were run?
 
The pics are not really a very good representation of my first run by this system. I took them to share with a few interested people back when
I first ran this thread. They do not represent the total of boards that were processed -- but neither can I give an exact weight except in the metals recovered. Remember this was just an experiment. The next time I do this I will do better documentation of all facets.

Randy in Gunnison
 
The vast majority of refiners may not treat you fairly, but I'm having a hard time thinking they'd simply steal your material. There may be a question with what you shipped, perhaps not being what you expected. A phone call to them may be in order.

Big question. If you sent doré, how is it you know the content? Did you have your metal assayed? If so, by what means?

Harold
 
For me, the color of his precipitates means little--it is common to have solution and impurities entrained in a precipitation that can make white compounds a different color. I have seen it many times. Let alone solution concentration/temperature/which way the wind is blowing and all the other variables that affect crystallization and precipitation.

For me, it is the chemistry that is confusing. I just don't see it. I'm not out to say it's impossible but it's beyond my experience--I must be a traditionalist or something. More power to Randy if this is working as well as he claims but Chris raises valid points on the quantity of material required for those yields.

It's always a heartbreak to tell someone that the stuff they think is gold (or insert other precious metal) powder is in fact just plain rust :-/ For me, the proof comes when you melt it. Get it consolidated, judge by melt characteristics, and for God's sake, get a density! If it's mostly gold, it's going to be over 17 g/cc, there aren't very many dense things like that out there.


As for the silver sulfate, put it to the test! Dissolve it up in hot dilute H2SO4 and then add sodium chloride. If you get that familiar curdy precipitate, well, most likely it is what it is! As for the gold, dissolve it up, and see if stannous works in addition to it being the right color. So many easy little tests that save much worry!

There isn't any magic to this guys, 'tis common sense and thinking rationally if your results are reasonable. If something sounds too good to be true, well, it probably is and if it isn't you're pleasantly surprised.

I think rather than needing a bunch of my inane chemistry babble on this board, maybe I ought to delineate exactly why the scientific methods is so nice for the pursuit of knowledge.

When you chase these metals, you must have a plan and you must know what to expect. Generally, they do the same thing quite reliably, especially towards the end. Most often it's knowing what you've got and when you've got it all that is the difficult part.

I'm just saying what I think needs to be said. This doesn't go to Randy or anyone in particular, for all I know, he's right. I can only speak for what material I process, otherwise I'm off shooting in the dark. I can say to Randy that there's a lot of qualitative tests that should and darn well better be done before you send off some ''suspect'' material to a refiner.

Lou
 
I am currently doing a small scale experiment using this method with silver plated nuts used in jet engines and nothing but silver plated nuts to see if the plating comes off. This way it reduces the varibles and will verify the results. I will post my pictures and results after the testing is finished.
 
Lou said:
It's always a heartbreak to tell someone that the stuff they think is gold (or insert other precious metal) powder is in fact just plain rust :-/
Click to expand...
At the risk of offending, and that is certainly not my intention, having refined commercially for years, and having a policy of entertaining everyone and anyone that has a legitimate claim to ownership of the material in question, I experienced kooks and weirdoes like you can't believe. Sadly, and I don't mean to imply that anyone on this board is the same, the worst offenders I ever encountered were generally those that considered themselves prospectors. Rarely did they have even the most basic understanding of gold, and had expectations well beyond reason. Some even insisted that their gold contained no silver, although they were at a loss to explain to me why it might need to be refined.

I had one very negative experience-----from a person that had stripped pins for a long time, and had concentrated the foils in a plastic container, which he delivered to me for refining. In it were bits of insulation and traces of other debris, but the worst offender was that the foils were wet, not dry. He had weighed the container along with the contents, and had grandiose thoughts of recovering nearly a pound (avoirdupois) of gold, less my fee, which was 10%.

When the smoke cleared, he received 5½ ounces troy.

The man was livid. He demanded I account for the balance of his gold. No amount of explanation would serve the purpose. I had kept the filter, so it was placed on the scale along with his container, his share of the gold, and weighed. I then filled the contain with water to the line (which was evident by a ring) with water, and came up with an almost identical starting weight. Not good enough. He went away knowing I had stolen his gold. :roll:

The honest refiner's worst enemy is ignorant customers.

Harold
 
Hi all,

I'm still a newbie, and don't want to seem rude to anyone... but

I have been noticing the huge pissing matches in this thread. I am quite interested in what everyone has to say. I'm sure there any may out there that would like the meathod to be proven thorough some scientific means.

By doing this it would be of great benefit to all on the forum.

What I(and probably everyone) whould be looking for is:
- what the process is.
- how the process is conducted. i.e step by step instructions.
- and some solid scientific proof of the values and purity recovered.

Hope we can all work together to acheive this :D

thanks,

Goldmelts
 
Sheckers system stripped the pins off a 386 chip and made monolithics and gold-plate fizz. Mixed e-scrap produced multi-colored precipitates in H2O+H2O2+copper-sulfate.
 
goldmelts said:
I have been noticing the huge pissing matches in this thread.
Click to expand...
It's not so much a pissing match, but a check on reality. Claims that are being made make no sense to those of us that have exceptional educations in chemistry (Lou and GSP), or those of us that have years of experience in refining (GSP and myself) albeit, in my case, a complete lack of chemical education.

Still, in spite of my lack of education, there are some things that simply don't make sense, and that gut feeling is reaffirmed by those that know better. A good example is the dissolution of silver by sulfuric acid. In industry, processing slimes, silver was digested by boiling concentrated sulfuric, in cast iron kettles. Claims being made here make that sound unnecessary. I don't agree. I also don't agree that a huge amount of silver is coming from boards. What could the source possibly be?

What I have tried to do on this forum, as one of the moderators, is to insure that no BS gets posted. Someone does that, I call them on it immediately. It's tough enough learning to refine properly without having some yahoo posting stupid ideas (no, I'm not interested in the theory that there's lots of ways to skin a cat). If the substance and claims of the comments in the pictures posted by Scott2357 (for Shecker, they are NOT Scott2357's comments) are correct, there won't be anyone more thrilled than I am to endorse the process, but right now it sounds like a pig in a poke. You, as well as other readers, need to know that to save yourself from pursuing something that may waste your resources and time--leading you down the wrong path.

Right now it's waiting game. We're waiting on Shecker to provide more information, something to back up his claims. I'll eat crow with the best of them if I'm proven wrong, but, in the mean time, it would pay you to keep an open mind and wait for the details to shake out. You just might be grateful for the "pissing matches" you spoke of. They have a way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the expected results when dreamers collide with folks that deal with reality.

In case you're wondering, no, I don't believe in the tooth fairy. :wink:

Assuming the information that has been posted is correct, purity won't be good. It is not a refining process, but a recovery process. Look at it as concentrating values so they can then be refined.

Harold
 
Hi Harold,

I totally agree with every word you said. I'm just trying to promote the idea of mutual education and learning.

Lets be civil and just and the truth will be sorted out in the end. I just don't want this interesting discussion to be sidetracked by our egos. This is not directed to anyone specifically but to the group.

After reading the thread, I can say what it all sounds good, but there is no direct scientific evidence to prove it.

Even if the metal dore assay comes back from the refiner, there is still no direct evidence.

It would be good to see, the sludge/ PM values tested with accepted practices, and pictures of the results posted here.

Thanks.

Goldmelts.
 
I wish to state one more time that this started strictly as an experiment on my part. I wanted to see if it would do anything. I expected little or nothing.
I was surprised with the results. Over a period of a week I watched the gold on the fingers and pins disappear and I checked the volume of sludge accumulating in the bottom of the tank. Certainly there was a great deal of copper building up from reaction with steel and aluminum components and I believed that any pm's would accumulate with the copper. I did not anticipate that monolithic caps would also be stripped. But it was very easy to see a distinct change in the boards after about a week. Tiny copper bits were adhering to many components so I went over them with a wire brush and added the results back to the tank. It was plain to see that in the case of fingers and pins the gold was gone. Examining the processors the plated pm material was also gone (only after breaking off the tops).

All of this was melted into Dore. I talked with Glines and Rhodes before shipping the Dore. They wanted it but did not bother to tell me until after they received it that they have a significant remelt fee. I am disabled living on a limited income. I still cannot afford this fee. The silver and gold melted with the copper. The palladium made a distinct matte phase.
All of this was then remelted for shipping.

I will continue the experiment at some future date and do a better job of documenting the before, during, and after results. The experiment will continue.

Randy in Gunnison
 
thats great shecker, can't wait to hear more from you. :D

I was thinking, maybe you can send a sample to the more experience forum members for testing.

They can then give us the low down of what is in the sample.
 

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