Non-Chemical black powder from ic's transistors and other componets.

[uzippy11]

Greetings,

Steve here again, First I would like to say thanks in advanced for any and all help....I love this site and I am trying to gain all the knoladge I can so that I can someday help someone else who needs help.
I am reading the book and It is great! Can't wait to finish it..

I have access to all the circut boards I could ever want. I have a local scrap yard who sells me fully populated boards for 10 cents a pound. These are not mother boards but boards from all other electronics.

Lots of great stuff I pull off the boards! I clamp the boards in a vibrating vice I rigged up and with a heat gun all the parts just fall off.

I take all the Ic's transistors scr's and tiny switches and throw them into a bucket. when i get 5 lbs I incenerate then in my furnace that I use for melting and casting metal. I fire it with ground coal and blow air into it with a hair dryer...It gets HOT! after about 10 min all the parts turn solid white /gray.....then I take it all and grind it to fine powder in a coffee grinder. Then I take out all the bigger metal parts and what I have left is a fine black powder( like baby powder) and lots of fine gold specs. I can see with the naked eye LOTS OF GOLD.

ok so now I need to know my next best step....with the fine powder.

I have researched what others have done and tried several things.. so far and it did not work for me. I tried to pan out the tiny gold specs but I could not get it to work...I don't have any skills at this ....I have tried to study this and know i need practice at it. I also put the powder in a jar and put in just enoufgh hc + bleach to try to just desolve the gold but had no luck..... should this work?...is it possible to just desolve the gold and make a gold bearing solution and filter out the remaining black
particals? Is panning the best way to go? if so can someone give me some tips to pan out the tiny gold specs? I tried to put the powder on a sheet of paper and gentaly blow off the black stuff but this did not work.

Can someone please guide me to the next spep...I can see lots of tiny gold specks and have an endless supply of boards ........I am just STUMPED as how to seperate the tiny gold specs from the rest of the powder....

Thanks again for all and any help...when I learn the right steps and process I will pay it forward and help someone else.....but the last thing i want to do is give someone bad information.

Steve.......known to others as uncle zippy the clown....as I am a proffesional clown.

 

[samuel-a]

Hi uncle zippy

If you are looking at mechnical seperation, in my mind you would have to resort to some kind of a wave table or a blue bowl.

Wet leach of so much ash and base metal is fruitless in my mind.

You can always resort to smelting the ashes if all else fails (though not as easy as it sounds).

 

[nickvc]

It sounds similar in nature to a jewellers sweep that has been incinerated, the first job is to remove any steel or iron with a magnet, don't throw these parts out but use them for cementation in the stock pot just in case they have values trapped in them. The ash could well contain tin and other metals so first put in a beaker and add hydrochloric and bring to a boil, filter the ash through a vacuum and now the filtered powder will need digesting in AR and in this case brought to a gentle boil to help agitate the powder, use a watch glass on the beaker, when you have cooked your ashes for about 2-3 hours, allow it to cool and vacuum filter it and wash through several times with hot water or until it runs clear then precipitate your solution. This method if done right will recover around 90% of your gold and any PGMs at the first pass so another treatment will be needed to recover the balance, if you get much more than 10% on the second treatment you may need to do a third. This method will never recover all the values and any silver will be left as silver chloride very similar to refining catalytic convertors, it's not perfect so maybe someone else can suggest a better method or process for your material.

 

[NoIdea]

I am sort of in the same spot as you, i have run out of money to buy more HCl acid sooooo, me gunna try what samuel-a suggested and with more borax than usual. First ash, secondly remove magnetics from powder (somewhere i posted a magnetic separater using HD magnets and an icecream container, i still use it for powders), wash with boiling water, then wash with boiling battery acid two or three times (so as to remove as much of the base metal as posible), and again with boiling water until solution goes clear. I hope someone else will do the refining for me.

I clamp the boards in a vibrating vice I rigged up and with a heat gun all the parts just fall off..

Now thats a cool idea, i could just see me making one and having the vibration set way too high, then watch the components fly around the work shop. :lol:

I am a proffesional clown.

Wicked, im a bit of a clown too. would be nice to get paid for it though. :mrgreen:

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Deano

 

[uzippy11]

Thanks guys...I think it is just amazing what one can learn and accomplish when you have people helping people....the world needs more of this.

just love to be surrounded by smart people... and people who think outside of the box.

Thanks to all who offer help........thanks sam or the suggested wave table and blue bowl......I will try this first.....I also want to learn the chemical route as well.....but for now my funds are limited.

I will try to study this and reasurch it out....maybee I can set something up and give it a shot....... As far as chemical process goes still working on that end of it...I still need to study up on ar.....so far I have had good luck with processing the fingers with ap and dropping the gold with a product called stump out.

Any one who has any tips on the blue bowl or wave table setup that would be great!

Ps... If you ever have a problem rembering your right foot from your left foot......It's easy just take off one shoe....now you have one Left!

What did you expect from a clown ? Thanks again

 

[Buzz]

what I have left is a fine black powder( like baby powder) and lots of fine gold specs

Maybe you didn't incinerate long enough?
If you put the powder through a second incineration, it could be that those black specks get turned into ash too.
I don't know, just guessing here.

 

[patnor1011]

Buzz is right on the spot. Incinerate again, you will reduce it this way further (amount of material).
Incineration do not work on center piece - it will be like broken glass. If you are trying to dissolve gold use AR gently heat and stir often, acid need to get in contact with gold and if you still do have a lot of burned fine soot from plastic it may make dissolution harder or longer.