AMD Opteron 2212 for Noob

[rjamjb]

Hi, hoping that you can help a Noob to make sure I’m on the right track. I’ve read a lot and think I have a right approach to this. I’ve a number of questions and hope some of the experienced people on here can point me in the right direction. I’m happy to post updates along the way on this journey to, perhaps give some guidance to people who want to follow along.
I’ve got about 150 AMD Opteron 2212s. These have what appear to be gold plated pinless contacts on one side (about a 1000). I’ve split a couple of these open – see pics.
First question – inside the silver lid there is a gold coloured plating around a green coloured rectangle – is this gold?
If it is gold then can I follow the process I note below for the gold plated contacts?
Cutting the silver lid a bit it appears to be copper inside – is this worth keeping?
Should I cut the green board with all the pinless contacts on up further or will it be ok just put into my chemicals whole?
Should I even bother to take off the silver coloured lid? – These are quite an effort to get off the board and it would be far easier to just put them in the chemicals whole.
My method:
1. Remove all lids from the boards.
2. Put all boards into a beaker and cover with HCL
3. Add H2o2 (I’ve a 12% solution) to the beaker in small amounts, agitate. Leave. Add more H2o2 if the gold doesn’t detatch, repeat until all gold has come off in flakes.
4. When the gold has all come off then filter, wash (in h2o), filter, wash etc until I’ve only the flakes in the filter
5. Wash the filter out into h2o then heat to evaporate the water, leaving just the gold flakes.
I’ll post again about melting the gold down with borax – my sister has a clay firing kiln and I wondered if that would be good to use?

Am happy to take any advice or suggestions to improve this process before I start.

 

[rjamjb]

Here is the picture that I should have additionally added (but accidentally added the same pic twice :-( doh!!)

 

[g_axelsson]

Here is the picture that I should have additionally added (but accidentally added the same pic twice :-( doh!!)

That is why there is a Preview button just to the left of the Submit button.

Göran

 

[rickbb]

You only need to add the peroxide once, to get the reaction going dissolving the copper out from under the gold plate. Once you have a working solution of cupric chloride, (CuCl2), you only need to add O2 by using an aquarium air pump with an air stone, (bubbler).

This process is effective, but SLOW, days or a week or more. Don't stand there watching it expecting it to flake the gold off in minutes, get antsy and add more peroxide. Using too much peroxide will dissolve the gold in addition to the copper. NOT what you want.

 

[Grelko]

Cutting the silver lid a bit it appears to be copper inside – is this worth keeping?

Should I even bother to take off the silver coloured lid? – These are quite an effort to get off the board and it would be far easier to just put them in the chemicals whole.

I’ll post again about melting the gold down with borax – my sister has a clay firing kiln and I wondered if that would be good to use?

Am happy to take any advice or suggestions to improve this process before I start.

Thanks for bringing this up. I've always thought the lids were aluminum? Now I have to check because I could be losing money at the scrapyard.

You should be able to pop the lids off pretty easily if you stand them on their side and split it apart with a paint scraper and hammer. You could also put it in a vise or use visegrips to hold it, and use a heat gun and pop/peel them off with the scraper also.

It depends how hot the kiln gets, you might not be able to melt completely or at all. I'll be using a Mapp gas blowtorch, when I get to that point.

Once you have a working solution of cupric chloride, (CuCl2), you only need to add O2 by using an aquarium air pump with an air stone, (bubbler).

This process is effective, but SLOW, days or a week or more.

The aquarium pump really speeds the process up by alot. I've spent a good month trying to take the gold off ram fingers by letting it sit in a mason jar and mixing it around each day. When I finally got a pump, the next batch only took a couple days.

Now, dissolving plated pins, even with a pump, takes a good while no matter what. (especially since I used WAY too much peroxide and ended up having to completely dissolve everything) It's better to use a sulfuric cell for those.

 

[macfixer01]

The lids are not made of silver, I believe rjamjb was probably just referring to them as silver colored?

 

[rjamjb]

Thanks both some good feedback. I think that I'm going to do a small batch of about 20 each and try both methods 1 - with a small amount of h2o2 added to the hcl and 2 just hcl with bubbling air - need to get an air pump tomorrow - (just the regular ones for fish tanks ok?). I'm aware that overdoing the h2o2 will dissolve the gold so will avoid that.
Attached, my second pic, is a picture of me hacking at the edge of the lid - can see the copper color. I scratched the surface too with a knife and the silver coloured coating is just an overlay. Most of the lid is the copper.
When I get to the kiln/gold melting I'll check the temperature that my sis's kiln gets to - if not I can borrow an oxy acc blow torch so no real problem.
I'll keep posting pics along the way - think that I will be ready to trial my batches tomorrow.
ps did anyone know if the gold coloured surround on the lid is Au?
By the way – as you can see from my first picture the cpu’s I have are very dirty – seems like an aluminium residue of some sort – my previous pictures were of the cpu’s I cleaned in warm water. Should I clean them all, or is this ok without washing first.

Kind regards

Russell

 

[glorycloud]

Russell - that "dirtiness" is probably thermal paste. At this point in your learning
process it's best to just wipe it off with a paper towel or rag.

 

[rjamjb]

Thanks glorycloud,

I'll go with that and wipe them with a rag.

Russell

 

[MarcoP]

A good rule to follow is to know what you dealing with. A logical consequence is a well planned process.
You are still confused about HCl/H2O2 (known as AP, Acid Peroxide) and you haven't searched about your feedstock type.

I'm a newbie too and at the beginning, before joining this board, I went ahead like you are now. Luckily it lasted as much as my first batch, a couple of weeks or so. I'd like to ask you to put your chemicals and torch away, search and surf within this board while continuing dismantling your ewaste wearing gloves, do not throw anything away, everything in its own bucket.

By doing so you will certainly avoid losses and gain responsibility.

Start with New Member Answers.

Yes that is gold, sulfuric cell.

In Pentium 4s, the thermal paste contains silver. I'd check your processor datasheet for more details and cleanly scrub the paste or if you want to use paper towels, save them. The few time I had to deal with it, I used a clean cut tool (blade, ruller or whatever) to remove most of it, then a paper towel to wipe out clean. The lid will need to end up in a sulfuric cell, so it must be clean.
If the thermal paste is of value, save it; otherwise goes to a ewaste bin to get rid of it with responsibility as nothing is worth more then health, human, animal or vegetable it may be.

AP, start with washing to de-grease the fiber board, put inside a colander and place half way inside a bucket where the hose coming from the air pump already is, centered at the bottom.
Hydrochloric Acid to cover, a couple milliliters of Acid Peroxide per liter and turn the air pump on (yes fish tank is ok), wait days.
Do this inside a fume good with fume scrubbers or outside in a very well ventilated area very far from people, animals, buildings, cars etc.. Chlorine gas was used in chemical bombs and you are about to make some, not considering that electronic scrap constantly hides heavy and poison metals.

There are no shortcuts, we've got to study.

Marco

 

[rjamjb]

That's great feedback Marko, am reading and learning about everything I can on here - am half way through Hoke - although that book is a bit dated there some great basic tips to understand the fundamentals.

I will indeed pause a while before commencing. The couple of things I've learned so far re my chips.

Definitely need to detach the lids from the bases. That will take me a while as they are a pain to separate.

HCL and a very small amount of H2o2 - AP approach to start things.
Bubbling air through for a day/days until most of copper under gold has detached the gold plates.

I have an outhouse away from any day to day activities/third parties and will undertake this first activity there. There is an outside area I can use safely.

I will also try just HCL and air in case that is effective for my particular chips. (no H2o2).

I am also aware that these chips contain very very small amounts of gold on the plates - there are no legs just little round discs on the contacts and the chips are not likely to give great yields (0.1g per chip is what I'm hoping to achieve) - so any dissolving of the gold in AP will reduce yield dramatically.

Don't want to jump too far ahead so will save the lids and the sulphuric acid approach until I've researched that further.

I'll still start with about 20 of each approach (i.e. non-H202, just HCL - and H2o2 plus the HCL) and see where things go.

Any thoughts on whether I should cut up the bases (green fibre with the gold dots on) or just put them in whole? - I've cut up a couple and dont identify any 'hidden' gold underneath anything?

Russell

 

[MarcoP]

If you just use HCl and air bubbler it will probably work, just take weeks to start the reaction and months to finish.

If you except 0.1gr per chip you are going to be really disappointed. You might need 20, or more. I don't have any data and that is guesstimate.

Marco

 

[Grelko]

The lids are not made of silver, I believe rjamjb was probably just referring to them as silver colored?

I should have cleared that part up a bit. I meant the copper when he cut the lid, I didn't mean that I thought the lid was silver plated. They just seem to be aluminum plated over copper, some have the small square of gold plating on the inside.

I have an outhouse away from any day to day activities/third parties and will undertake this first activity there. There is an outside area I can use safely. Russell

This may seem like an odd question, but I'm just being on the safe side for rjamjb's health.

Does anyone happen to know if the chlorine/hydrogen fumes from the HCL/H2O2 dissolving metals, combined with methane etc, from an outhouse, to become something even more of a toxic mix for your health?

All I know, is that it would be very flammable, especially if the fumes get concentrated, but could it have the potential to self ignite, since an outhouse is a confined space even with the window and/or fan?

Besides that, you would definately want a fan blowing the fumes away from you also "fume hood, scrubber, etc", if you are working inside a small area like that.

Edit - typo

 

[g_axelsson]

The fumes from copper chloride etching is not chlorine, it's hydrochloric acid. It will corrode any metal in the vicinity, especially if done inside a small room and with a bubbler.

The fumes from hydrochloric acid and bleach is chlorine mostly.

Göran

 

[Grelko]

The fumes from copper chloride etching is not chlorine, it's hydrochloric acid.
Göran

I might be mistaken, but aren't the fumes actually hydrogen gas escaping from the hydrochloric acid (hydrogen chloride) and copper, since the copper takes the chloride from the HCL? Something like HCL+Cu = H CuCL2, or would it still be HCL+CuCL2 ? "Even though HCL doesn't actually etch copper without an oxidizer like peroxide, air, etc. to start the reaction." I never had chemistry in school, but I'm slowly learning it here.

Just asking because HCL isn't flammable by itself, but the fumes that result when it oxidizes metals are. I'm trying to memorize the MSDS for all the chemicals I'm using also.

Edit - I should have stated that the fumes from HCL+H2O2 wasn't chlorine gas, but instead, it's the result of HCL+CL, thanks g_axelsson. I hate addicently giving out mis-information

 

[g_axelsson]

You are forgetting about the O2 part. The copper chloride works by two separate processes.

1. CuCl2 + Cu -> 2 CuCl (dissolving copper)
2. 4 CuCl + 4 HCl + O2 -> 4 CuCl2 + 2 H2O (regenerate the leach)

No hydrogen emitted. The fumes is from evaporating HCl.

Göran

 

[Grelko]

You are forgetting about the O2 part. The copper chloride works by two separate processes.

1. CuCl2 + Cu -> 2 CuCl (dissolving copper)
2. 4 CuCl + 4 HCl + O2 -> 4 CuCl2 + 2 H2O (regenerate the leach)

No hydrogen emitted. The fumes is from evaporating HCl.

Göran

Now, would the number 4 in the equation technically mean 3 molecules "or atoms?" of Cu, plus 1 of CuCl2, combining to make the 4 CuCl2, mixing with the 4 HCL + 1 of O2, and that's how the electron exchange actually takes place "magnetically? gravity?" Then you're left over with 4 CuCl2 molecules and 2 H2O? So the 2 HCL left over molecules, would re-combine with the H2O to continue the process, or do they turn into the fumes? Or am I still missing something?

I'm actually suprised, that after all these years online, chemistry is one of the only things I never read much about, because I've always been interested in it.

By the way, sorry for taking this way off subject, I should download an E-book or take a college class someday for basic chemistry. Unless I learn it here first :lol:

 

[g_axelsson]

You are forgetting about the O2 part. The copper chloride works by two separate processes.

1. CuCl2 + Cu -> 2 CuCl (dissolving copper)
2. 4 CuCl + 4 HCl + O2 -> 4 CuCl2 + 2 H2O (regenerate the leach)

No hydrogen emitted. The fumes is from evaporating HCl.

Göran

Now, would the number 4 in the equation technically mean 3 molecules "or atoms?" of Cu, plus 1 of CuCl2, combining to make the 4 CuCl2, mixing with the 4 HCL + 1 of O2, and that's how the electron exchange actually takes place "magnetically? gravity?" Then you're left over with 4 CuCl2 molecules and 2 H2O? So the 2 HCL left over molecules, would re-combine with the H2O to continue the process, or do they turn into the fumes? Or am I still missing something?

I'm actually suprised, that after all these years online, chemistry is one of the only things I never read much about, because I've always been interested in it.

By the way, sorry for taking this way off subject, I should download an E-book or take a college class someday for basic chemistry. Unless I learn it here first :lol:

Start here for example http://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Chemistry/1/Chemical-Equations/56

Göran

 

[kurtak]

My personal opinion on these CPUs is that you are far better off selling them out right

They are currently going for $2.75/lb at boardsort & "most" of that value is due to the heavy copper lid on the top - not the (very little) gold content

Kurt

 

[Grelko]

Start here for example http://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Chemistry/1/Chemical-Equations/56

Göran

Thank you very much for this link. I'll be reading all about this for a while.