CPU collection lot

[kjavanb123]

thanks Geo for your comment on ammonia and hcl which produces this nasty smoke that halt most of my operations. So next time I don't use ammonia anywhere near hcl.

This is last pieces of CPUs for this lot I have had, sadly i didn't get any gold for these big IBM CPUs maybe 0.2 grams I still don't know what went wrong. using nitric leach then AP leach.

Here are the following and last items in the lot, VIA chips, last time i processed one of them produced 0.2 grams of gold powder, so 6 of them would produce 1.2 grams. I just leached them in AR.


I heat them in hcl while adding small increments of nitric, I do this till I get no more reaction or brown fumes from nitric addition.

These are some pics from the AR leach on these CPUs.

After AR leach was completed. I tried to use the minimal amount of nitric to avoid further problem during SMB gold drop.



they look pretty clean once inspected closely. Now after i decant the solution into another beaker with ice and drop sulfuric acid, is it known how much sulfuric is needed to drop all the lead/silver from the solution?


Regards,
Kevin

 

[philddreamer]

Just a few drops of sulphuric for the lead will do, Kev. For the silver, some tap water; the ice might have done this already, if it was from tap water.

Take care!
Phil

 

[kjavanb123]

Phil,

It was tap water ice at the bottom of beaker, however I think the filtered white powder mostly to be lead salt, as I didn't see any MMCs with this type of CPU.

Thanks and regards,
Kevin

 

[Geo]

the silver in this type CPU is in the braze that welds the lids to the body and also the braze that welds the legs to the body.

 

[kjavanb123]

Geo,

Interesting point there. I just had an issue with gold precipitation after I filtered the lead/silver salt from the solution, I tried to test if there is any excessive nitric in the AR solution, so I dropped in few crystals of Urea to the warm AR solution and got some fizzing immediately, so I added till fizzing slowed, added some water, and this time instead of SMB I used copperas, added a spoonful, stirred, it foams up, so I add another spoonful, its foaming settled, and half spoon later no more foaming, so I stopped, the color of solution darkened a little bit, but in case I didn't mess up I dropped in another copper sheet to the solution so if there is anymore gold in the solution it cements on copper sheet.

Pics coming up later.

Kevin

 

[necromancer]

why do you leave your cpu whole?

everyone i see breaks them and makes sure the centre is smashed out

 

[kjavanb123]

Necro,

I smashed the graphite part in the back which covers the back of gold lid, but I don't have access to a torch at home, so I leave the gold lid as it is. Now that CPUs are processed it is easier for me to remove the gold lids to see if there are anything behind.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

For all you following this post, and interested, I finally cemented the gold powder from the AR solution of 6 pieces of VIA CPUs. It looked good, I really don't know what helped, copperas? the SMB? or copper sheets? Since most of the copper being removed from the sheets, I assume that copper did the job of dropping the gold from AR solution and not the SMB or copperas. Your comments are needed on this.

Here is the copper sheet, along with the contaminated gold powder at the bottom.


The same gold powder going through the purifying process, everything looked good after 5x boiling in water, followed by 2 times in ammonia which stick the gold powder together, then 1 time hcl boil. It's being dried as I am posting this. picture and total weight of dry gold powder for 6 VIA CPus will be posted soon.


Thanks all for your support through this post, I have learned a lot more about gold refining.

Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

The finale of my lot #1 processing. I am sure I have lost some amount of gold during the process since it was my very first time in gold refining. The completed dried auric chloride salt weighed 2.567 grams, and the gold button which was produced by putting the gold powder in a lab scale electric furnace weighs 2.566 grams so 0.01 grams of it must have been chloride.

I have another lot, lets call it lot#2, which i will process, this time using what i have learned from this lot processing. Thanks for your help on this post, and I just hope someone might find this post interesting and useful.

The final of 24k gold button produced from the list of CPUs I mentioned in my first posts, but I consider this gold weight as the lowest you can extract from this chip sets.


reg,
Kevin

 

[necromancer]

kjavanb123, so you got, 2.566 grams from your:

1013 grams, or 30 pieces

3 pieces of IBM
12 pieces of VIA
5 pieces of IntelDX4
7 pieces AMD P75
2 pieces of IntelDX2 (486)
1 piece of IntelDX (486)
-----------------------------

in your original post you state you have 38 pieces, i only count 30 in your list

 

[Geo]

that weight is low for the CPU's you processed. you still have gold somewhere, either in solution or on the material.

 

[kjavanb123]

kjavanb123, so you got, 2.566 grams from your:

1013 grams, or 30 pieces

3 pieces of IBM
12 pieces of VIA
5 pieces of IntelDX4
7 pieces AMD P75
2 pieces of IntelDX2 (486)
1 piece of IntelDX (486)
-----------------------------

in your original post you state you have 38 pieces, i only count 30 in your list

Well, the following were in the lot too, which i didn't process

3 pieces of MMX Intel, silver lid
1 piece of Celeron Intel, silver lid
1 piece of 9921 AMD
1 piece of Athlon, AMD
1 piece of 256 Intel

So these I haven't processed yet, and I know I messed up on IBM chips which were holding more gold than the rest. I practically lost all the gold in there, during the AP leach. But I have learned a lot from processing this lot.

I have another lot which i will share the info on that in another post.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

that weight is low for the CPU's you processed. you still have gold somewhere, either in solution or on the material.

Geo,

I know it's too low, cause I practically got nothing out of 3 IBM gold lid chips, and 6 of the VIA chips I processed produced only 0.5 grams of gold, i did the same chip first only one of them produced 0.2 grams of gold powder?! So I must have lost the gold content somewhere down the road during different leaches.

I have another lot mostly intermediate CPUs and ceramic types, which i will process soon, using the knowledge i gained on this lot. Basically, this 2.56 grams of gold would cover the CPUs purchase costs and a little extra money. what did u estimate the gold content of the list i mentioned would be if processed correctly? I was expecting 4 grams.

How about the following instruction to process next lot?

1- Dilute nitric leach to remove base metals including silver
2 -Decant, add water, boil, decant, repeat few times
3- Add hcl and boil, add nitric in small increments to dissolve gold foils
4 -Drop the gold with copperas, or can I use copper sheet to cement gold?

Regards,
Kevin

 

[Geo]

nitric acid has a hard time dissolving iron. it can, but theres a easier way to deal with ceramic CPU's. samuel-a has some videos on the entire process. when i do ceramics, i follow his instructions as best i can and i have always had success.

break the chips in 4-6 pieces.
place pieces in a beaker and add hcl and warm.
add nitrate in small increments.add and wait till the red fumes stop and add more.
continue the dissolution until all metal is dissolved, do not add more when you cant see any more metal. filter while warm.
test solution with stannous chloride to assure the presence of gold.
let solution cool and add a few drops of dilute sulfuric acid to precipitate the lead.
add solution to ice so the solution will chill.this serves two purposes, it allows the silver chloride to precipitate and dilutes the solution.
when the ice melts,filter all white precipitate from solution.
add solution to the vessel you precipitate your gold in and add the precipitant of your choice.
be sure to test the spent solution with stannous chloride.

 

[kjavanb123]

Geo,

This procedure is exactly what I have used on 2 different ceramic chips, and since I must have used some excessive nitric during leach, I had to deal with loss of gold during precipitation. Now, can copper sheet be a more trouble free precipitant than smb or copperas?

Thanks
Kevin

 

[Geo]

you can use copper to cement values, but it will cement every thing lower than copper (gold, silver, palladium) plus you will have some of the copper in the powder. if you want a rough recovery then it should work fine but keep in mind that cementing is not considered refining, its strictly recovery. the resulting powder will have to be refined.

of coarse, after you get the contaminated powder, you can dissolve in hcl/Cl. it is much more forgiving than AR but only works well on foils and powders.

 

[qst42know]

3- Add hcl and boil, add nitric in small increments to dissolve gold foils

Are you forcing your reactions by running too hot?

In an open top vessel actual boiling is best reserved for when the gold is safely on the bottom. Otherwise you may be spraying considerable values over the top.

When gold is in solution don't boil, just gentle heat.

 

[kjavanb123]

how do i delete a post?

 

[kjavanb123]

3- Add hcl and boil, add nitric in small increments to dissolve gold foils

Are you forcing your reactions by running too hot?

In an open top vessel actual boiling is best reserved for when the gold is safely on the bottom. Otherwise you may be spraying considerable values over the top.

When gold is in solution don't boil, just gentle heat.

qst4,

Indeed, that word should have meant gentle heat. I tried just 3 fiber CPUs and followed the nitric leach, then decant and washed, then followed by an AR leach. Here are the result.


Nitric leach, guessing removed most of base metals, and the color of this solution either Ni or Co nitrate.


Here is pic of CPUs after completion of nitric leach.


Gold solution after nitric leach completed, the remains after some series of water wash and rinsing, dissolved in hcl and some heat, then filtered


Here is the stannous test for gold solution, shows small amount of gold.


I just added copperas to the above gold solution and waiting to see if it precipitate.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[kjavanb123]

Ok now the last gold solution you can see in previous post, I added enough copperas to changed solution from light yellow to dark brown, waited for few hrs and solution cleared out still brown, and no precipitant at the bottom? It shows gold in solution before I added copperas.

Regards
Kevin