I think you misunderstand me. Sell them for the scrap weight. You won't achieve close to that by refining at home.
CuCl2 (AP) Process Chemical Formulas... Need help figuring out where I went wrong~
- Thread starter LT_golden
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Hi ChemGeek,
Without a better understanding of your situation, I have to agree with anachronism here... With the low, low price of PCBs that you are getting, why not sell them at the higher market price and buy black cap BGAs, like the older Intel South Bridges? You don’t need to find out whether the boards works or not, just sell them as they are.
Apparently, per info elsewhere on this forum, as well as at least 2 YouTube channels, these BGAs could net you 10~12g of gold for a kg of the input materials. For example, Tzoax has done a comprehensive comparison of various types of materials, with the BGA results here:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22951&hilit=Incineration#p240807
Also, DDR2/3 memory BGA ICs seem to be the second-best, at around 4~5g of gold per kg of material, as discussed here (same thread, different posts):
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22951&hilit=Incineration#p241264
So depending on the prices of these BGAs, I would think that you might be well-served in selling your PCBs and using that money to buy those BGAs for your processing...? They’d be easier to process, too, right? Additionally, there’s just be one single product instead of multiple... at least, that’s how it seems to me anyway.
Thank you for this info. So what about acetates clinging on to glass and especially plastic surfaces? I have a couple of plastic buckets used for soaking bare PCBs using the vinegar-salt-peroxide method. I have used dish detergent and the rough side of a dish scrubber to go through them twice, and each time after they air-dry, I could still see traces of the acetates (at least I thought that’s what the traces were, as in this picture.
The buckets even smell a little metallic and also a little bit like hydrochloric acid. Should I try scrubbing with ethanol/acetone? The buckets are made of polypropylene, so acetone should be okay... I had another glass jar with the same problem, but after several days of soaking with reverse osmosis (RO) water with almost daily water changes, the smell and traces went away.
Actually... though probably somewhat unrealistically, 99.99% pure gold is what I’m aiming for for this first try at gold recovery/refining. :lol: This is why I’m kinda compulsive about cleaning. And now that I’m about done with recovery and moving into refining, and I read that the gold foils and precipitates should be cycle-washed with hot HCl, hot distilled water, hot ammonium hydroxide, and hot water.
Ammonium hydroxide is a little expensive... but I did find an ammonium-based drain cleaner — you could smell the darn thing as soon as you opened it, and with litmus it tested as strongly alkali. If my goal is to get 99.99% purity, do you think it’d be okay to wash with this ammonium-based drain cleaner?
Thanks a lot to you and everyone else helping me out.
ChemGeek said:
Without a better understanding of your situation, I have to agree with anachronism here... With the low, low price of PCBs that you are getting, why not sell them at the higher market price and buy black cap BGAs, like the older Intel South Bridges? You don’t need to find out whether the boards works or not, just sell them as they are.
Apparently, per info elsewhere on this forum, as well as at least 2 YouTube channels, these BGAs could net you 10~12g of gold for a kg of the input materials. For example, Tzoax has done a comprehensive comparison of various types of materials, with the BGA results here:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22951&hilit=Incineration#p240807
Also, DDR2/3 memory BGA ICs seem to be the second-best, at around 4~5g of gold per kg of material, as discussed here (same thread, different posts):
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22951&hilit=Incineration#p241264
So depending on the prices of these BGAs, I would think that you might be well-served in selling your PCBs and using that money to buy those BGAs for your processing...? They’d be easier to process, too, right? Additionally, there’s just be one single product instead of multiple... at least, that’s how it seems to me anyway.
ChemGeek said:
Thank you for this info. So what about acetates clinging on to glass and especially plastic surfaces? I have a couple of plastic buckets used for soaking bare PCBs using the vinegar-salt-peroxide method. I have used dish detergent and the rough side of a dish scrubber to go through them twice, and each time after they air-dry, I could still see traces of the acetates (at least I thought that’s what the traces were, as in this picture.
The buckets even smell a little metallic and also a little bit like hydrochloric acid. Should I try scrubbing with ethanol/acetone? The buckets are made of polypropylene, so acetone should be okay... I had another glass jar with the same problem, but after several days of soaking with reverse osmosis (RO) water with almost daily water changes, the smell and traces went away.
ChemGeek said:
Actually... though probably somewhat unrealistically, 99.99% pure gold is what I’m aiming for for this first try at gold recovery/refining. :lol: This is why I’m kinda compulsive about cleaning. And now that I’m about done with recovery and moving into refining, and I read that the gold foils and precipitates should be cycle-washed with hot HCl, hot distilled water, hot ammonium hydroxide, and hot water.
Ammonium hydroxide is a little expensive... but I did find an ammonium-based drain cleaner — you could smell the darn thing as soon as you opened it, and with litmus it tested as strongly alkali. If my goal is to get 99.99% purity, do you think it’d be okay to wash with this ammonium-based drain cleaner?
Thanks a lot to you and everyone else helping me out.
I never use scratched or etched glassware for my gold solutions. We regularly put hundreds or thousands of dollars worth in a beaker, trying to be cheap and using a bad beaker could be a really expensive lesson. There are a number of stories about broken beakers on the forum.
Just saying...
Göran
Just saying...
Göran
@anachronism,
I have checked prices currently on offer, calculated profits and decided to listen to your advice.
It is a way to go. It may well be a better idea to become a *white van man* than do home refining.
Actually in view of these prices there are very few items profitable for reclaiming by small operation.
Ram memory sticks are perhaps one of very few such items and they give a chance to yield 50%+ more of values than a scrap yard would pay (after some research I assume, these would give ~1g of Au per kg of RAM sticks, not separated fingers and chips - am I correct?).
So once you collected 100kg of these or more, it makes sense to try.
Internet offers on eBay and alike are usually bad jokes or idiot hunting operations.
I also suspect that auctioned lots of gold fingers or pins sold for home refiners might be already *cyanide washed* for a while but they still look fine, particularly for novices and even to professionals if perpetrator was not too greedy - you should watch closely *edges* of components to spot such cheat - that is where gold goes first and it looks a bit different than a normal wear.
@LT_Golden,
Yes, I agreed with advise given.
What are your favorite sources of BGA chips other than *fool seeking auctions on eBay and elsewhere*?
Personally I am sceptical about electronic sources yielding more than 7-8g/kg but who knows?
Re acetate stains - don't worry about these and treat them as fatamorganas. These kind of stains are common on glassware and other labware and they have no impact on normal work.
Only analytical lab would be concerned.
In industry no one would be concerned about "metallic smelling" bucket/vessel as long as it is free of washable material and not contaminated in obvious way. You are using acetone or other solvents only to wash away organic mess.
I disagree with opinion of other member about necessity to work with "pristine glassware". The only glassware to be avoided is one with cracks or significant scratches, eg made by contact with hard metal.
Glassware etched with hydroxide is fine unless damage is really substantial (what would require days of operation at more than 100*C with concentrated NaOH). You will not need to do that in gold refining anyway.
Beakers and flasks in company where I was working were used until cracked, "starred", or broken. There was often $ few thousands in such a beaker and noone cared (including company owner).
Incidents were exceedingly rare but all workers were professional chemists.
"Worn beaker just fallen apart mythologies" have more to do with generally clumsy chemist than with old glassware falling apart upon mildest stroke.
Mind you, have seen 2.5 L glass "Winchester" bottle for reagents standing on the bench and just shattering into pieces for no reason while watching it.
Strange events do happen... rational explanation is "material stress" related to bad manufacturing practice, irrational one... well... magick.
Regarding purity of gold:
Banks storing 400 ounce bars are happy with 99.9%.
What's wrong with them?
But yes, for 4 and 5 "9" you will need distilled water and other fanciness in final stages.
You will also need professional smelting crucibles, like ones made of fused alumina or quartz, electric furnace capable of 1300*C, professional forms for pouring etc.
Anything above 3 "9" is not easy.
Regarding "hot ammonium hydroxide".
This concept for me is a nonsense. "Ammonium hydroxide", eg 20-28% solution of ammonia (NH3) in water is a liquid of sharp, repugnant smell.
If you made it hot, this sharp repugnant smell will fill your room and you will either run away or get suffocated if more than a tiny amount of "ammonium hydroxide" got hot.
If you done "heating of ammonium hydroxide" under fume cupboard, you will be fine but most of ammonia will evaporate and you will end up with solution containing not much of ammonia.
So to summarize all that "hot ammonium hydroxide solution", unless a very diluted one (and useless), can be present only under pressure, in autoclave.
Ammonium hydroxide or solution of ammonia in water is not really expensive either. Maybe $2-5 per gallon or so.
If you want profits you need to investigate cheap chemicals sources. Buying stuff in stores for "consumers" will ensure that large proportion or even all your profit is gone.
I have checked prices currently on offer, calculated profits and decided to listen to your advice.
It is a way to go. It may well be a better idea to become a *white van man* than do home refining.
Actually in view of these prices there are very few items profitable for reclaiming by small operation.
Ram memory sticks are perhaps one of very few such items and they give a chance to yield 50%+ more of values than a scrap yard would pay (after some research I assume, these would give ~1g of Au per kg of RAM sticks, not separated fingers and chips - am I correct?).
So once you collected 100kg of these or more, it makes sense to try.
Internet offers on eBay and alike are usually bad jokes or idiot hunting operations.
I also suspect that auctioned lots of gold fingers or pins sold for home refiners might be already *cyanide washed* for a while but they still look fine, particularly for novices and even to professionals if perpetrator was not too greedy - you should watch closely *edges* of components to spot such cheat - that is where gold goes first and it looks a bit different than a normal wear.
@LT_Golden,
Yes, I agreed with advise given.
What are your favorite sources of BGA chips other than *fool seeking auctions on eBay and elsewhere*?
Personally I am sceptical about electronic sources yielding more than 7-8g/kg but who knows?
Re acetate stains - don't worry about these and treat them as fatamorganas. These kind of stains are common on glassware and other labware and they have no impact on normal work.
Only analytical lab would be concerned.
In industry no one would be concerned about "metallic smelling" bucket/vessel as long as it is free of washable material and not contaminated in obvious way. You are using acetone or other solvents only to wash away organic mess.
I disagree with opinion of other member about necessity to work with "pristine glassware". The only glassware to be avoided is one with cracks or significant scratches, eg made by contact with hard metal.
Glassware etched with hydroxide is fine unless damage is really substantial (what would require days of operation at more than 100*C with concentrated NaOH). You will not need to do that in gold refining anyway.
Beakers and flasks in company where I was working were used until cracked, "starred", or broken. There was often $ few thousands in such a beaker and noone cared (including company owner).
Incidents were exceedingly rare but all workers were professional chemists.
"Worn beaker just fallen apart mythologies" have more to do with generally clumsy chemist than with old glassware falling apart upon mildest stroke.
Mind you, have seen 2.5 L glass "Winchester" bottle for reagents standing on the bench and just shattering into pieces for no reason while watching it.
Strange events do happen... rational explanation is "material stress" related to bad manufacturing practice, irrational one... well... magick.
Regarding purity of gold:
Banks storing 400 ounce bars are happy with 99.9%.
What's wrong with them?
But yes, for 4 and 5 "9" you will need distilled water and other fanciness in final stages.
You will also need professional smelting crucibles, like ones made of fused alumina or quartz, electric furnace capable of 1300*C, professional forms for pouring etc.
Anything above 3 "9" is not easy.
Regarding "hot ammonium hydroxide".
This concept for me is a nonsense. "Ammonium hydroxide", eg 20-28% solution of ammonia (NH3) in water is a liquid of sharp, repugnant smell.
If you made it hot, this sharp repugnant smell will fill your room and you will either run away or get suffocated if more than a tiny amount of "ammonium hydroxide" got hot.
If you done "heating of ammonium hydroxide" under fume cupboard, you will be fine but most of ammonia will evaporate and you will end up with solution containing not much of ammonia.
So to summarize all that "hot ammonium hydroxide solution", unless a very diluted one (and useless), can be present only under pressure, in autoclave.
Ammonium hydroxide or solution of ammonia in water is not really expensive either. Maybe $2-5 per gallon or so.
If you want profits you need to investigate cheap chemicals sources. Buying stuff in stores for "consumers" will ensure that large proportion or even all your profit is gone.
