Can't I be profitable and recover gold from every part as a home refiner like the big companies does? If the answer is no , can I know how are the big

[minthethtun]

Can't I be profitable and recover gold from every part as a home refiner like the big companies does? If the answer is no , can I know how are the big companies pulling it off? What type of machines does they use ? Can I buy them easily or replicate their process at home?

 

[orvi]

Being too general often does not help to find answers to your very broad questions. What you intend to do ? What you want to chase ? Where do you make money on this ? How big is your starting capital ? Does you have the material feed needed to run ? (for beginners, this is one of the biggest problems) Does you have at least some intermediary knowledge of used chemistry, alongside with proper safety required to not kill yourself after few years working with nasty chemicals ? Does you have proper place for setting up the shop ?

Break it down as much as possible. People on this great platform are willing to help strangers like you for free, but do not expect to get proprietary informations from big guys even that they are logged here

If you have 100 bucks in the pocket and expecting to beat up well setup refineries and brokers, stop watching motivation videos about Elon or Bezos on YouTube Life does not work this way, at least not in your favor now. Present your exact plans of what you intend to do, and we can go from there

 

[stoneware]

Can't I be profitable and recover gold from every part as a home refiner like the big companies does? If the answer is no , can I know how are the big companies pulling it off? What type of machines does they use ? Can I buy them easily or replicate their process at home?

Read Hoke's Refining Precious Metals Wastes a free download on the forum, from the knowledge gained you'll then be able to make educated decisions.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Can't I be profitable and recover gold from every part as a home refiner like the big companies does?

No. You can be profitable, but not on every part. You can recover and refine from the parts with the most precious metals and sell the low grade stuff to someone else, but unless you want to invest millions of dollars you can't make a profit from the low grade stuff.

If the answer is no , can I know how are the big companies pulling it off?

Massive volume and industrial equipment, also known as economies of scale. If you can process many, many tons per day, you might have a chance.

What type of machines does they use ?

Again, industrial equipment. Big front loaders feeding loads of stuff into industrial shredders, followed by magnetic separators, eddy current separators, etc., then feeding it into massive furnaces.

Can I buy them easily or replicate their process at home?

If you can afford to spend millions of dollars, maybe.

Dave

 

[Shark]

Listen to Dave.

When I first started I tried the “refine it all” method. I ended up with a huge amount of waste to deal with. Then I started doing only the parts that paid the best and/or were the easiest to do. Sourced some better material and moved away from ewaste for a large part. Shipped it to the big boys after cherry picking a few parts and kept working on other stuff, mainly gold filled, some occasional karat stuff. I never planned to get rich but I did make a fair go of it for a small timer working limited hours at it. This past year has been hard on me health wise again and I have slowed down even more but still tinker. Even tinkering around these days I can make a few hundred bucks a week profit and leave me time for other hobbies and family. Of course if you have a few hundred grand or even a few million go for it. We never know what we can accomplish until we try it.

Edit:
Just to be clear, refining wasn’t the cause of my health problems.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

Yeah, I agree. You have to be able to process by the ton (which also means you need access to tons of material to process) and you have to be able operate very efficiently all the way through (including your waste treatment and disposal). Unfortunately that’s not something a small scale company or individual can realistically expect to do.

 

[goldshark]

I think even the big. guys have a number they shoot for in the recovery, and that is not 100%. You have to do the logistics of many aspects of the whole process, then find the number that makes the most economical sense. Small guys just kind of wing it to see if they can make a profit, many times cutting corners that ends up with life long health problems, as well as polluting to varying ends. Refining Karat Gold, or Silver, IE high grade material, can. be done with a fairly small investment, for profit. Big industrial scrapping makes money on volume, with a smaller profit margin, than the previously mentioned business plan.

 

[ricspencer51]

Can cadmium be removed from gold flakes? Will the cadmium melt out or do I need to use a chemical? Thanks, Ric

 

[Shark]

The best thing to do with cadmium is to avoid it. It takes a brutally tough built commercial setup to avoid poisoning yourself and everyone near you to do it right.

 

[nickvc]

Simple answer NO.
But you can make money you just have to understand what’s worth your time and effort, this is all layed out here on the forum for free but it takes time to understand and read sometimes several times to really understand, we tend to cherry pick the items worth the small time refiner recovering and finally refining.
You have not invested the money time or education to compete with big refiners so why try when by educating yourself you can still do well, don’t be greedy.

 

[orvi]

Can cadmium be removed from gold flakes? Will the cadmium melt out or do I need to use a chemical? Thanks, Ric

Cadmium need to be nicely contained and whole path of refining designed the way it will be contained and undiluted. Nice (or the worst) thing about cadmium is - it will burn to volatile CdO. Incredible PITA for unprepared and not properly equipped refiner, but very nice and clever trick used by skilled ones. You need to have reliable and efficient particle scrubber and melt the feed in air atmosphere. Cd will burn and collect in the scrubber. This is the only sane way how to deal with Cd in the feed. Otherwise it would end up diluted here and there in the liquids, which are then incredibly difficult to strip free of Cd and contain it in some very small volume to be disposed of - as disposing Cd waste can get pricey very very fast

 

[Shark]

…don’t be greedy.

Seems I started making more money when I went the route of “doing less”. I went back to doing it for fun and got back to enjoying what I was doing.

 

[orvi]

Seems I started making more money when I went the route of “doing less”. I went back to doing it for fun and got back to enjoying what I was doing.

Less is sometimes more yeah, in this business for sure many mixed lots I treat exactly like this. Process 2/3, pass that tedious 1/3 of material to the bigger guy, practically without or only with little profit. But in sake of my mental and physical health
First decision is to agree with yourself, you won´t process whole boards from there, everything goes much easier

 

[goldshark]

Can cadmium be removed from gold flakes? Will the cadmium melt out or do I need to use a chemical? Thanks, Ric

Where is the Cadmium entering your stream?

 

[orvi]

Where is the Cadmium entering your stream?

If you work with old e-scrap materials - then solders. Cadmium has low melting point and makes nice soldering alloys. It was also used for making silver jewellery, AgCd alloys, also with gold, not to mention quite a bit of jewellery solder mixtures used.

Not a long ago, I disclosed processing MLCCs where in some Cd solder is used. Mainly in Pt ones - to solder PGM flakes to the copper leads of the cap. Somehow they figured out that platinum better solder with cadmium solder, so they used it for these. Pd ones rarely has any Cd in the solder.

 

[GoIdman]

Can't I be profitable and recover gold from every part as a home refiner like the big companies does? If the answer is no , can I know how are the big companies pulling it off? What type of machines does they use ? Can I buy them easily or replicate their process at home?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

If you want to make profit you will not do (stay away from) refining, just recovery and selling....Buy cheap, recover the values, sell the rest material to scrapyard reinvest your earnings....if you do it right, you will end up with the recovered material (values) as profit with your initial investment rotating and always yielding you a few % of value material which you can sell to refiners for good money.

If you do not have the initial investment budget ( at least a few k USD) to equip a proper lab and make yourself a steady material sourcing, don`t even bother thinking of doing this stuff since you will end up crippled or seriously injured by the chemicals.

Study...study..study....Hoke...Hoke..Hoke... and when you have a little spare time read som more Hoke.

What i described above is what i am currently doing ..it works fine... i buy cheap (motherboards, graphic cards, RAM, Processors, medical boards) remove the most valuable parts, then resell it for the same amount or higher money and reinvest....

Study the forum, gain knowledge...Stay safe.

Pete.

 

[Shark]

Hoke is a great study piece, but lacks the ewaste knowledge needed to get ahead with it. The forum is where the know how for ewaste comes into play. Both are very important when trying to get started, especially in electronic scrap.

 

[NobleMetalsRecovery]

I find the subject of Cadmium interesting and serious. How do you know when you come across it in general?

 

[NobleMetalsRecovery]

Another way to put it is, "how do I avoid cadmium"?

 

[stoneware]

Another way to put it is, "how do I avoid cadmium"?

After looking at this product line up, think cadmium is here to stay. Mind blowing.

Cadmium Line Up.