Best way to process

[bswartzwelder]

From what I've seen on the board, the following seem to be the preferred methods of recovering gold:

1. For computer chips, incinerate or use a ball mill

2. For circuit boards, cut off gold plated fingers and treat with AP

3. For hard drives, put discs in sodium hydroxide to get rid of the aluminum platters leaving a platinum rich layer behind

4. For gold pins, use AR or electronic cell

5. For non gold rich items, remove plastic and separate according to metal type for recycling.

Please let me know what errors I have in the above mentioned processes. Also, is it worth the time, money, or effort to try to retrieve the aluminum from the dissolved disks? If so, what method would you recommend?

I am still having some computer problems and in order to finish reading Hoke and the other recommended reading, I have found out Santa will be bringing me an E reader.

 

[element47]

From what I've seen on the board, the following seem to be the preferred methods of recovering gold:

1. For computer chips, incinerate or use a ball mill

Incineration is used to remove organic oils or organic whatever from material to be refined. Organics can have incredibly irritating effects upon refining processes. You would think that dumping stuff into strong acids would obliterate various organic residues, but it isn't that way. Incineration is a preparatory procedure only. It refines nothing. Placing items into a ball mill is also (only) a preparatory procedure, typically used to crush the outer packaging of integrated circuits (eg; "chips") so that the innards can be attacked by chemical treatment. It refines nothing.

2. For circuit boards, cut off gold plated fingers and treat with AP

Correct.

3. For hard drives, put discs in sodium hydroxide to get rid of the aluminum platters leaving a platinum rich layer behind

Somebody might well correct me, but I have seen nothing on this forum to indicate that Pt can be economically recovered from hard drives UNLESS the drives are some older, highly specialized type. Modern ones, no.

4. For gold pins, use AR or electronic cell

No. I have no idea what the meaning of the term "electronic cell" is. The most popular way seems to be to pass an electric current between the gathered pins in a copper basket as anode in a sulfuric acid bath with a lead cathode. Lazersteve's website has a video of this process. AR, Aqua Regia, the acid mixture that can dissolve gold, is not used.

5. For non gold rich items, remove plastic and separate according to metal type for recycling.

Again, the terminology is troubling. PC circuit boards yield roughly 1/2 of 1% gold from the gross weight of fingers and are treated with the AP process. I would not call 1/2 of 1% "rich". In fact, I would not call anything involving e-scrap "rich". If you call e-scrap, which is generally the thinnest, most paltry source of PMs "rich", then what do you call a busted 18K earring? "Overwhelming?"

 

[bswartzwelder]

I meant eletrolytic cell instead of electronic cell. Also, for non gold rich, I was thinking of recycling of anything else in the escrap which doesn't contain gold. Sorry for the confusing terms.

 

[Claudie]

I think there is more money in the Aluminum from the HDD platters than you will ever get from Platinum. Be aware of what you are doing if you intend on putting Aluminum into Sodium Hydroxide. :shock: