Desoldering with Hydrochloric Acid

[Trigg3r]

Gess the confusion was created by my post, for that i apologise. From what i understand now, its mearealy to remove the solder so the board can be depopulated and later on treated as to retrive the precius metal on it.

 

[eeTHr]

glorycloud;

Thanks for the advice.

But I'm always ready to learn. What is the better method of removing solder?

And is there a better way of removing components, too?

What is the number of the process which you would recommend for us, from the list below?

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=831

Or, if you have a better process of your own, what is it?

 

[glorycloud]

I personally have realized that the time and effort involved in removing components
from boards (other than memory and cpus) is not worth my time. I sell the motherboards
and cards (minus any gold fingers) in bulk to refiners.

Before that I was manually removing flat packs, eproms and pins right there with you.
I used a heat gun as well but the danger to my health for the small return of plated gold
along with the consistent reminders from GSP and others about the value of what I was
working so hard to process and refine helped me stop "wasting" my time and energy.

The big boys are set up to responsibly and much more effeciently handle whatever
escrap I can generate for them. That keeps the skin on my knuckles and the majority
of the acid fumes away from me and the only two lungs I will get in this life.

Long story short, I break down escrap and sell off the majority of what I generate
only keeping and refining the easier and more high grade things like the gold fingers
and some CPU's. I sell off to refiners and also to the ebay crowd. This is America
(at least for now) so feel free to follow your dream until the government mandates otherwise.
8)

 

[patnor1011]

Gess the confusion was created by my post, for that i apologise. From what i understand now, its mearealy to remove the solder so the board can be depopulated and later on treated as to retrive the precius metal on it.

ok gents.
would you explain to me how somebody doing this in garage or garden shack is going to retrieve precious metals from PCBs without actually loosing 3-4 times more than gaining in value of this metals? anyone off say small time home refiners or hobyist just cut fingers, cut out flatpacks, pins maybe monolithics and that is it. you dont have technology and machinery to process PCBs itself. it is like collect by hand every single grain of wheat from field after harvest. believe me if anyone know about simple efficient method of processing PCBs in a shack you will be able to find it here on forum. the biggest mistake of inventors is that they are trying to invent something already invented.
if you take fingers and chips out of ram stick it is still saleable as big boys can process it and get out copper, any tiny bit of gold there and solder too. solder is practically tin which is couple times more valuable than copper - why to dissolve that in acid and create more waste to deal with?

 

[eeTHr]

butcher, glorycloud & patnor;

:roll:

I just think it's funny that we mentioned getting the components off the RAM sticks, which glory and patnor both also mentioned that they did; and also getting the solder off before processing the sticks for Au, in order to keep lead and tin out of the Au solution, which is recommended by essentially everyone; and this resulted in a clamor of replys (a whole page), going on and on about why it shouldn't be done because it would contaminate the Au solution! (Huh?)

And then the link to badastro's "Methods of depopulating PCB's" excellent post is given as the recommended way to do things (#9 of which is HCl---hello?), then there are a couple of posts about how we are unwise because we don't listen to advise (I had asked a couple of times if anyone knew of a better way, and there were no replies except the link to the post by badastro), then a couple of posts saying that the reason HCl is a bad method is because depopulating shouldn't be done at all, which is an entirely different subject.

All-in-all, this forum is great, and has certainly been much more of a help to me than a hinderance---but the way this particular topic went zinging off on a goofy tangent is a real chuckler!

:lol:

 

[dick b]

eeTHr:

It comes down to what works best for you.

I think you will find out that most cherry pick the e waste for the most valuable parts to refine and then deal with the simplest way to dispose of the other components, either by selling it to recyclers or selling it on ebay and the like.

Take a look at lazersteves website because he covers mechanically removing fingers, headerpins and BGA flatpacks. He tries to use the simlpest and quickest way to get the most value for his time.

You can choose the way and the technique that works best for you. Just remember to deal responsibly with your waste stream to protect the environment.

Above all remember that we use chemicals the can be hazardous to your health and use proper safety equipment to protect yourself and your neighbors.

Good fortune to you.

dickb

 

[eeTHr]

dick;

I appreciate your concerns, and it's always good to have them repeated.

You can rest easy, as I have a fume hood, mask with acid rated filters, eye protection and gloves. Also there is a large post by 4metals about waste disposal here.

The profitability is another subject altogether. I'm still learning the basics of recovery and refining, so I could care less about that right now. However, I've seen it said that there is little chance of turning a profit at all with eScrap, and I've also seen where a few old timers are processing nearly all the components as well as those parts you mentioned, and have hinted that they operate at a profit. I guess that discussion would be for a different topic, though.

Thanks for adding to the fray, and good luck to you, too.

Don

 

[king_joolian]

Important update! This also works on CPUS. (tested on fiber intel 200MMX)
Put whole cpu (like a rubbish celeron) in jam jar, add hcl, put outside, dont put lid on
They will fizz, everything will stay golden and the pins will eventually fall out.
Pins need filtering from the solder powder though, use a kitchen strainer.

Cruelty aside, its a shame theres no ivory in any of this e-waste, professionals in certain fields often need vast quantities of the stuff to add to their towers!

.. manually removing flat packs.....used heat......danger to health .....small return.
....working so hard....."wasting" time and energy.

I completely agree that manually removing flatpacks is a terrible waste of effort. Even cutting fingers is a complete nuisance. With pci/isa cards foils almost seem worthwhile, but since when is cutting foils off ram particularly worthwhile?

Even at 'being an a**hole on the internet scale', this solution is economically viable both in resources and time.
It takes 30 seconds.....It costs 30 cents.....Bingo!
Theres a lot more than 30 cents worth of resistors alone in a regular 10L bucket full of any type of circuit board.

Since this hcl desoldering has hardly created a ripple,
Heres the controversial alternative ........ cut off the fingers/ pins the fruitless way, soak gold free boards in pure hcl.......then add heaps of sodium hypochlorite aka chlorox. BOOM! the solution goes crazy, foams up and chows down vast quantities of metal instantaneously. Including exposed gold, so dont let there be any.
Now your chips are free, with the gold safely protected by the plasic shells of the flatpacks.
Dont even think about breathing while doing this.
All manner of crap is now in solution, but thats not what your product is once again, it is the flatpacks you want.
Metals can be precipitated with scrap iron. Or so the stories go

 

[justme2]

I've spent several hours searching for the answer to this problem. it is time to bite the bullet and just ask.

I get several Lbs of copper/alu heat sinks each month the alu is soldered to the copper base.

My method of separation has been heat to separate the fins then a grinder to remove the solder from the surface of the copper .

Is there a chemical process to do this without dissolving the copper ? Any one got a link? THX.

 

[5962rz]

You should not have to remove any solder at all. I separate LOTS of these and sell the copper as #2 copper to the scrapyard willing to pay me the most at the time. The aluminum I separate into either my mlc or extrusion pile. Just my opinion, not sure what your buyer requires. DR

 

[pgms4me]

Most any scrap yard should pay#2 copper price with the solder on. Most want the solder off to get the # 1 price. the grinder is the best way if you need it off,but the price difference between 1 and 2 isnt worth your time,let alone the solder hazardous waste powder going everywhere. i tried it but decided my time was better spent in other e-waste processes. also keep in mind that some copper -aluminum heat sinks that are integrated rather than soldered can be sold for the copper/aluminum price which is a better deal if the majority of the sink is aluminum. Here that is about 1.00 per # currently.