eWaste from PC scrap

[dofustofy]

Hey guys,

I had a member of my family drop off today a 30 gram gold nugget that was from a melt of various computer scrap.

They did not go through the process of refinement, and have ask me to recover the gold from this eWaste. My question, can I treat this computer scrap that was all melted into a 30 gram button the same, as if I were recovering, and refining some gold fill jewelry, using distilled water, and nitric acid boils to dissolve any base metals that followed along when they melted.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Screenshot attached.

 

[4metals]

Without knowing how they got the e-waste into the button form we can only assume. I take it you have no way to get an XRF result to see approximately what it is?

It looks like it is high in gold percentage and if it was e-scrap it potentially has high copper as well. Although it looks like they melted some foils or something high percentage gold.

I would melt it along with about 3 ounces of sterling silver to inquart it and part it with nitric. Done right this should get you above 99% gold. You can take that to higher purity with aqua regia. The Silver can be cemented from the parting solution and recovered on heavy copper wire.

If this was melted contact pins don't expect a lot of gold but from the color I suspect not.