I have acquired 56 pounds of connectors. I am wondering if I can throw all the connectors into a bucket full of HCL with a fish tank bubbler feeding oxygen into it. plastic and all to get the flakes off? Will the plastic possibly dissolve? Will other metals inside connectors effect reaction? Sorry, I am completely new to scrapping connectors
Electronic connectors pin removal
- Thread starter Jim821
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kjavanb123
Well-known member
Hi
Welcome to forum. Dropping that load into acid will create a mess and loss of tiny flakes of gold. Your best bit is to study posts regarding connectors then process them.
Welcome to forum. Dropping that load into acid will create a mess and loss of tiny flakes of gold. Your best bit is to study posts regarding connectors then process them.
Some of the plastic's will start dissolve in the acid. It becomes a sticky, gooey mess. The ones that don't dissolve trap your gold foils inside the connector housing and you use a huge amount of wash water trying to remove them. If they are low grade pins, the foils aern't so much the problem as the time it take clean up the excess waste it creates most of the time. It can be time consuming, but pulling the pins would be the best way most of the time.
You can take one of each kind of connector and place it in a small amount of AP or HCL and see which ones become the biggest problem. Even then I would strip all the excess base metals out I could.
You can take one of each kind of connector and place it in a small amount of AP or HCL and see which ones become the biggest problem. Even then I would strip all the excess base metals out I could.
nickton
Well-known member
what's the difference between HCL and HCI? 
Hydrogen chloride has the chemical formula HCl. A colorless gas at room temperature it forms white fumes of hydrochloric acid ( also using the formula HCl), upon contact with atmospheric water vapor. Hydrogen chloride gas and hydrochloric acid.
Upon contact, H2O and HCl combine to form hydronium cations H3O+ and chloride anions Cl− through a reversible chemical reaction:
HCl + H2O → H3O+ + Cl−
The formula for Hydrogen (H), we never write Hydrogen with a lower case h (h) or h+, always H+.
The formulas for Chlorine (Cl2), or Chloride (Cl-), we never write cL, CL, cl, c-L, C-l, etcetera.
HCl is the formula we do not writeit as , hCL, Hcl,h+cL-,HCL, ClH...
When we all use the same proper formula or abbreviation, we are all on the same page of what we are talking about.
Upon contact, H2O and HCl combine to form hydronium cations H3O+ and chloride anions Cl− through a reversible chemical reaction:
HCl + H2O → H3O+ + Cl−
The formula for Hydrogen (H), we never write Hydrogen with a lower case h (h) or h+, always H+.
The formulas for Chlorine (Cl2), or Chloride (Cl-), we never write cL, CL, cl, c-L, C-l, etcetera.
HCl is the formula we do not writeit as , hCL, Hcl,h+cL-,HCL, ClH...
When we all use the same proper formula or abbreviation, we are all on the same page of what we are talking about.
Jim821 said:
When I started out on this forum, I read a post by Harold that was something to the effect of, "the most effective way to process everything is to start with incineration". My initial thought was something to the effect of, "this is coming from someone who processed before pollution was a big deal".
After a year, I've found that if you intend to make a profit doing this, and don't want to work until your hands bleed...his advice is really really good.
Harold's experience was with jewellery not ewaste.
I've not incinerated anything to date.
I've not incinerated anything to date.
anachronism said:
It was, and I know you haven't...in fact, I thought of you as I was typing the response, my admittedly often non-accurate memory of your statement is "I don't burn anything, and I sure get the gold". I carry that snippet with me every time I look at a new item.
Do you have an opinion on the most efficient manor of processing plated metal firmly held within a matrix of unknown polymer?
Are your boards ultimately processed by controlled thermal depolymerization?
Could you show me some examples of the type of boards you mean please?
The connectors.
So these ones are particularly frustrating. While I can probably buy the tools to remove the pins one at a time, it's a little time intensive and amphenol and ITT are very proud of their tools. Even then, the crimps are such that it is then necessary to do a full dissolution in nitric if you want to extract all of the gold. Some of these get even more involved, having gold pins molded in place.
Some of the plastic is nice and simple, whack it with a big ole hammer and it disintegrates. Some, have nice rubber boots that make that more challenging. The ones with various soft polymers are the ones that can be more difficult, as the polymer often doesn't like acid (although not as common with aerospace scrap like these are, as they tend to be teflon jacketed wire)
All in all, my experience suggests that pyrometallurgy would be best for these, especially when talking about efficiency. The plastic will crumble to ash after pyrolization/incineration, leaving pins, die cast cases and stainless or steel screws. That's relatively easy to sort.
Some of the plastic is nice and simple, whack it with a big ole hammer and it disintegrates. Some, have nice rubber boots that make that more challenging. The ones with various soft polymers are the ones that can be more difficult, as the polymer often doesn't like acid (although not as common with aerospace scrap like these are, as they tend to be teflon jacketed wire)
All in all, my experience suggests that pyrometallurgy would be best for these, especially when talking about efficiency. The plastic will crumble to ash after pyrolization/incineration, leaving pins, die cast cases and stainless or steel screws. That's relatively easy to sort.
Attachments
Now, either GSP or 4Metals (sorry guys, I mix you up) wrote that they had a large quantity of these, and the most efficient way was to cut them in half with a v shaped shear, I believe lengthwise. then you could peel away the aluminum/zinc case, and the plastics would come apart pretty easy...but, that in and of itself is quite the investment in equipment. I've just been saving these up, I figure at some point I'll figure out a profitable way to process them.
Sno
If you split the case on these and remove it the plastic internals can be removed using a hammer mill.
If you split the case on these and remove it the plastic internals can be removed using a hammer mill.
