Diabetes strips (gold )

[cleanbucket1]

Hello. Always looking for new things to discover gold in and maybe some of you that have been doing this for a while can help.
Obviously you wouldnt want to collect these from anyone you do not know for the fear of self contamination of diseases, BUT, if anyone has them, the plastic pieces you have to replace every so often have 2- 4 gold fingers on them depending on the tester. HEY, GOLD IS GOLD RITE....
Also, the strips themselves seem to have gold routes such as a computer board does with copper. Not all types but the ones my Gramms uses does. These have a thin clear layer of plastic over them that has to come off ( I soak them in soap and hot water. Not sure if that on the strips is recoverable gold, but when I find out ill let you know, Or if anyone else has an explanation, PLEASE, im all ears. I have not yet tried to process.

 

[samuel-a]

Yes, the strips have plated gold on traces of some conductive mylar as well as contact points.
easly recognizable.

The silvery looking one are Pd.

 

[cleanbucket1]

Very nice. Thank you samuel. You wouldnt happen to know any kind of yield by weight ratio on this material would you? On the gold that is..

 

[samuel-a]

Never had enough of it to come up with a number...

Also, there are so many manufacturers... even if i had the numbers, they would have been worthless.

 

[cleanbucket1]

LOL. Thats so very true. My grams saves hers for me, so I get the same ones each time. In the future when I get them all together and run a batch ill share the info. Probably wait til I get atleast 1 pound.
Thanks for your time.

 

[gold4mike]

I'm glad I bumped into this thread. I recently bought about 50 Blood Glucose test units at an auction that include a base unit, a hand held smaller unit and many bottles of the unused test strips. There's no visible gold on the test strips but the units each contain 4 circuit boards and the connectors are fully plated.

I'll try to separate the layers on the test strips and see what I can find.

Thanks!

 

[etack]

hey Mike in Dayton on craigslist a person will buy them from you.

http://dayton.craigslist.org/hab/2780336240.html


Eric

 

[Jason1]

Also, the strips themselves seem to have gold routes...Not all types but the ones my Gramms uses does

Right, from what I gather, not all of them use Gold.My dad was using OneTouch Ultra which doesn't "appear" to have any sort of Gold plating on the strips (but may have some other sort of metal worth saving, I don't know). Now, he uses Accu-Chek strips, which clearly have Gold/Gold plated contacts. Just one more reason to stay after him about his blood sugar lol.

...Not sure if that on the strips is recoverable gold...

I processed some of the latter strips along with some other gold plated items so I couldn't say whether they're "recoverable," but I do know the gold comes off in AP. Being so thin, they have a nasty habit of getting stuck together as well.

 

[samuel-a]

Being so thin, they have a nasty habit of getting stuck together as well.

I totally forgot about it.
A 30 minutes soak in plain hot water will relive it from all of the gooey paste. The water will turn yellow IIRC.
Then, direct AR/HCl+Cl.

 

[Jason1]

I totally forgot about it.
A 30 minutes soak in plain hot water will relive it from all of the gooey paste.

I will remember to do that in the future. Thanks

The water will turn yellow IIRC.

What's IIRC? (I'm new to this)

Then, direct AR/HCl+Cl.

AR, Is that right? or did you mean AP? (Again, I'm a newbie, so sorry about all the questions)

Jason

 

[Geo]

AR = Aqua Regia

AP = acid(hcl) + peroxide(will not dissolve gold unless excess amounts of peroxide is used and then only small amounts will dissolve).

hcl/cl = hcl acid (muriatic acid) + chlorine (household bleach,sodium hypochlorite)

if you are familiar with aqua regia then use that, if you are familiar with hcl/cl then this will work equally as well. if you don't know one or the other of these two processes then you should study the reactions and practice using them as both are very good tools to have your inventory.

oh yea,IIRC is an abbreviation for "if i remember correctly" which is not to be confused with texting lingo.

 

[Jason1]

Oh, ok. He was saying AR or HCl+Cl. I got it. Thanks

 

[jack_burton]

Well as a side note, it would explain why they are so expensive... I'm a type II diabetic- my strips are around $100 a month, depending how often I check. Guess I'll start a new stockpile to get my money back! :shock:

 

[jimmydolittle]

My wife at one time had a meter that had the gold fingered test strips, I can't remember what it was called. As I recall, the strips had an indent where the finger was placed to take the sample. She has had several over the years.

 

[bigredlee]

I am reading through this and anything that comes in contact with blood is a real safety concern. I work in the sterilization industry and I would never touch these with my bare hands pre-sanitization. The industry standard is 180F for 180s minimum in a wet environment(boil them for five minutes for good measure.) This will kill any living pathogen, although it will not denature the proteins in the spores, so it will never be sterile in boiling water. The A/P should do the trick to chemically sterilize though, wear your latex gloves!!

 

[solar_plasma]

I am reading through this and anything that comes in contact with blood is a real safety concern. I work in the sterilization industry and I would never touch these with my bare hands pre-sanitization. The industry standard is 180F for 180s minimum in a wet environment(boil them for five minutes for good measure.) This will kill any living pathogen, although it will not denature the proteins in the spores, so it will never be sterile in boiling water. The A/P should do the trick to chemically sterilize though, wear your latex gloves!!

If you get those from unknown sources/people, incineration would be the most safe and clean pretreatment. Since I get my material only from family members, I am fine with standard lab hygiene and straight AR.

 

[alexsalter3d]

AHAHAHAHa -i'm type 1. Looks like i've just found a use for the like, 9 Testes I do a day then, lmao

 

[solar_plasma]

There is another thread about this you should read. The incredible yield two members posted in the beginning has never been confirmed though. I think they have not been active for a long time anymore. Expect about 1g from about 2400 pieces, if they are golden.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=16336

 

[Shaul]

The Accu Chek test strips (the ones with two silver-colored metallic strips) contain Palladium.

Shaul

 

[jeneje]

Here is a great source for Accu Chek Test Strips-Fire Assay Data.
http://refinementofpreciousmetals.com/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=901
Ken