CPU Fibre for precious metal recycling

[peterross149968]

Dear all,
I have been away. Now I'm back. Busier than ever.
I have several collections of electronic components in need of recycling in my lab. (Still being built formerly the chicken shed).
Here are a couple of jars of CPUs that I have burned and crushed to a powdered mass. Stored in glass several jars.
How shall I process the fibres for gold, silver, platinum, copper precious metals.
I welcome advise on how to best proceed so not to make mistakes. I have read Hoke and many other books.
So is anyone interested in helping me put from writing a plan of action to selling the precious metals.
I'm turning to this forum for help. When I deem the help has contributed to the outcome, then I will make a small donation to the site.
Anyone have negative opinions, speak now or forever keep your peace. X Peter Ross

 

[anachronism]

Dear all,
I have been away. Now I'm back. Busier than ever.
I have several collections of electronic components in need of recycling in my lab. (Still being built formerly the chicken shed).
Here are a couple of jars of CPUs that I have burned and crushed to a powdered mass. Stored in glass several jars.
How shall I process the fibres for gold, silver, platinum, copper precious metals.
I welcome advise on how to best proceed so not to make mistakes. I have read Hoke and many other books.
So is anyone interested in helping me put from writing a plan of action to selling the precious metals.
I'm turning to this forum for help. When I deem the help has contributed to the outcome, then I will make a small donation to the site.
Anyone have negative opinions, speak now or forever keep your peace. X Peter Ross

As per the boldened line, that's extremely kind of you to offer Peter! Could you quantify what will be the bar you are setting?

It might be my PC but ~I can't see your pictures. Seeing the pictures would contribute to the outcome don't you think?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Dear all,
I have been away. Now I'm back. Busier than ever.
I have several collections of electronic components in need of recycling in my lab. (Still being built formerly the chicken shed).
Here are a couple of jars of CPUs that I have burned and crushed to a powdered mass. Stored in glass several jars.
How shall I process the fibres for gold, silver, platinum, copper precious metals.
Depending on how you separated and incinerated them there should not be much else than Gold and a minute amount of Silver. If you did not remove the components there may be some traces of Pd
I welcome advise on how to best proceed so not to make mistakes. I have read Hoke and many other books.
So is anyone interested in helping me put from writing a plan of action to selling the precious metals.
We do not particularly like the if then do that approach until the processor understand the chemistry and processes behind the reactions.
So it is better you read enough to formulate a cause of action, then we can adjust that later.
Just a heads up, if there are many MLCCs they should be removed and processed by smelting.
I'm turning to this forum for help. When I deem the help has contributed to the outcome, then I will make a small donation to the site.
Anyone have negative opinions, speak now or forever keep your peace. X Peter Ross

I for one do not click on files that are not previewed in the forum.
So if you chose to convert the images to .jpg, .png or similar they will be visible on the forum.
There is no need for that kind of resolution anyway.
No one demands that the members donate anything and the amount of help is in no way determined if one have donated or not.
We are of course happy if someone do, but that is it.

Comments in bold inside quote.

 

[BShan]

Your icloud should let you export photos as jpg or png, those formats are much more widely compatible. I can't open heic without paying at least 99c to some random app dev.

But maybe some more info about the initial starting material would be helpful too. Like, the package type of the CPU, and if it had pins. Most CPUs these days seem to be pinless or sometimes pinned flip-chip, meaning instead of connecting the traces to the chip with bondwires, the chip is flipped upsidedown and glued to the board with conductive glue to connect the traces to the chip. But maybe you are talking about those large plastic-encapsulated BGA chips, or some other different kind of CPU package.

Generally, I think you can expect a bunch of fiberglass and some copper from the traces and layers within the fiberglass board, with a minute trace of nickel and gold if there was gold plating on the traces. If you had pins, additionally assume probably a kovar-like alloy, with some lead-free solder alloy, is in the mix. Also generally, I think you will need to separate the fiberglass fluff from the metals, so probably will be needing to dissolve all metals, whatever the least-risky method for that is, depending on what metals are present. But filtering is involved here, and ashes will clog your filters, and hold on to solutions which at that point may contain your metals, so removing ashes is higher priority first. This probably easier and safer to do before involving any wet chemistry.

Still, I think if you can provide more info, you'll have some lightbulb moments to connect with what you've read in Hoke's book or on the forums here, just while typing out your thoughts, but also folks here might can give you more specific guidance.

Edit: I say generally because that's where I feel my understanding level is at. Other folks here know much more details; I just wanted to share that the more info you can provide, the more help you will probably get. And I'm not sure about getting advice about selling, GRF's mainly concerned with the processes of recovery and refining.

 

[adam mizer]

The picture file (.heic) is saved by your phone. Some phones came with this default.
High Efficiency Image Format
If you dig into your phone picture settings you can save as jpeg.
I had this issue several years ago and found that you can change this picture save setting.

 

[peterross149968]

As per the boldened line, that's extremely kind of you to offer Peter! Could you quantify what will be the bar you are setting?

It might be my PC but ~I can't see your pictures. Seeing the pictures would contribute to the outcome don't you think?

Apologies, my phone is set to picture .heic format which I am trying to ammend.

Your icloud should let you export photos as jpg or png, those formats are much more widely compatible. I can't open heic without paying at least 99c to some random app dev.

But maybe some more info about the initial starting material would be helpful too. Like, the package type of the CPU, and if it had pins. Most CPUs these days seem to be pinless or sometimes pinned flip-chip, meaning instead of connecting the traces to the chip with bondwires, the chip is flipped upsidedown and glued to the board with conductive glue to connect the traces to the chip. But maybe you are talking about those large plastic-encapsulated BGA chips, or some other different kind of CPU package.

Generally, I think you can expect a bunch of fiberglass and some copper from the traces and layers within the fiberglass board, with a minute trace of nickel and gold if there was gold plating on the traces. If you had pins, additionally assume probably a kovar-like alloy, with some lead-free solder alloy, is in the mix. Also generally, I think you will need to separate the fiberglass fluff from the metals, so probably will be needing to dissolve all metals, whatever the least-risky method for that is, depending on what metals are present. But filtering is involved here, and ashes will clog your filters, and hold on to solutions which at that point may contain your metals, so removing ashes is higher priority first. This probably easier and safer to do before involving any wet chemistry.

Still, I think if you can provide more info, you'll have some lightbulb moments to connect with what you've read in Hoke's book or on the forums here, just while typing out your thoughts, but also folks here might can give you more specific guidance.

Edit: I say generally because that's where I feel my understanding level is at. Other folks here know much more details; I just wanted to share that the more info you can provide, the more help you will probably get. And I'm not sure about getting advice about selling, GRF's mainly concerned with the processes of recovery and refining.

I wonder if by boiling CPU fibres in distil water, HNO3 and C6H8O6 (Ascorbic Acid) to dissolve the base metals including Ag²+, Cu²+ leaving the gold behind and other insoluble wafers etc, can I use electrolysis to remove the cu²+ ions from solution into copper which I can melt into mini ingots, will gold and other precious metals be stuck in the solid copper, or can I expect them to fall to the bottom of the electrolytic cell beaker?
I am not in hurry.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Apologies, my phone is set to picture .heic format which I am trying to ammend.

I wonder if by boiling CPU fibres in distil water, HNO3 and C6H8O6 (Ascorbic Acid) to dissolve the base metals including Ag²+, Cu²+ leaving the gold behind and other insoluble wafers etc, can I use electrolysis to remove the cu²+ ions from solution into copper which I can melt into mini ingots, will gold and other precious metals be stuck in the solid copper, or can I expect them to fall to the bottom of the electrolytic cell beaker?
I am not in hurry.

Start your studies now please.
Ascorbic has no use at this part of the process.
Where do you find such information?

 

[BGDOCK]

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