Extreme amount of Gold plating?!

[rickbb]

Theoretically, cleaning silver off from aluminum is really easy...you just dip in nitric acid. The aluminum is non-reactive, or at least reacts very slowly, so the silver is dissolved into silver nitrate.

Wouldn't it be easier to put them in lye to dissolve the Al from underneath the silver coating? Then you would have metallic silver foils to wash and melt and not have to recover it from nitrate first.

 

[etack]

Theoretically, cleaning silver off from aluminum is really easy...you just dip in nitric acid. The aluminum is non-reactive, or at least reacts very slowly, so the silver is dissolved into silver nitrate.

Wouldn't it be easier to put them in lye to dissolve the Al from underneath the silver coating? Then you would have metallic silver foils to wash and melt and not have to recover it from nitrate first.

No a big part of the money in them is the Al. its high grade in big chunks. there's little money in them to start with $1.50-$3.00# it total metal value depending on sidewall thickness and plating thickness.

Eric

T

 

[jrobison0307]

The boards do yield well particularly the first board. Butcher these are boards from Ericsson or Nortel microwave Base stations 3G/4G.

I refine a lot of tonnes of these.

The plating is not necessarily as thin as you would think because the boards sell for many thousands of dollars each, and are designed for extremely low rates of failure. A few bucks of extra gold really isn't a concern in this application.

Any more information you'd like to share about these boards 5 years later

 

[kurtak]

anachronism is no longer an "active" member here so you likely will not get an answer

Kurt

 

[jrobison0307]

Thanks brother, I appreciate that

 

[jrobison0307]

I have read this thread more than once to say the least. I have about 200 of these units, havent even had the seals broke on them, I have taken some apart over the years. I was hoping to learn but under circumstances I will be looking to get rid of them. Should I take them all apart and seperate the boards. Would someone here share with me what they would do in my case? Are would anyone be interested in some of them? Any response or advice would be greatly appreciated.