Finding the best method.

[Jeroen scrap]

Hello,

i am new here on the forum and hope to learn.

I have been gathering a lot of scrap in my spare time because i got interested in the process of getting the valueables out of the scrap.
Ofcourse i have watched hundreds of youtube videos and am aware of the dangers of using chemicals to extract silver, gold and other valuables. As well of the fact that the chemicals would cost more than the yield.

As i live in Europe (Netherlands) and the needed chemicals are also regulated and hard to get for an individual i was wondering if others in Europe know how to get the chemicals.

Other than using Chemicals i am wondering what would be another good method. So who can give some advise.

As said before, i started this project out interest. It is not my intention to make it my profession. But yes, i want to learn how to do it myself and do not want to sell all my scrap.

Thanks for pushing me in a direction.

 

[Master Nater]

welcome to the forum! are you looking at using chemicals for refining or smelting with pyrometalurgy instead?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hello,

i am new here on the forum and hope to learn.

I have been gathering a lot of scrap in my spare time because i got interested in the process of getting the valueables out of the scrap.
Ofcourse i have watched hundreds of youtube videos and am aware of the dangers of using chemicals to extract silver, gold and other valuables. As well of the fact that the chemicals would cost more than the yield.

As i live in Europe (Netherlands) and the needed chemicals are also regulated and hard to get for an individual i was wondering if others in Europe know how to get the chemicals.

Other than using Chemicals i am wondering what would be another good method. So who can give some advise.

As said before, i started this project out interest. It is not my intention to make it my profession. But yes, i want to learn how to do it myself and do not want to sell all my scrap.

Thanks for pushing me in a direction.

Welcome, I guess the Dutch community will chime in soon

 

[Martijn]

Hallo Jeroen. Welkom op het forum.

It depends on what kind of material you want to process which acids you need.
HCl 10% is available for us private persons at the pets place previously known as 'de boeren bond'.
I can dissolve gold with it, but i use nitric to create Aqua Regia with the last bit of 5 L 50% HNO3 i bought in 2014, when it was stil possible.
I got another 2.5 liter 68% from an aqaintance who had to get rid of it because of regulations.
Nitric is hard to get and you can make it yourself if you can get the chemicals needed to make it.
The best way is distillung a nitrate salt with sulfuric acid. But you'll need a lab glass distillation set for that.

I now process plated watches I get from my one and only customer. He has a watch dealing buisiness and i formulated the reason for him to justify and buy 96%H2SO4 to process his material In a sulphuric cell.
We just don't tell where it's processed.
We buy it at an internet site called 'werken met merken'

I do treat my chemical waste responibly and don't pollute my surroundings.

I'm looking for ways to recover used acids as sulfuric by creating copper sulfate and electrowinning the copper and sulfuric acid. I have been semi succesfull with a lead anode. I still need a good platinum electrode.

HNO3 for silver can be reused in a couple ways:
if you create silver chloride from silver nitrate, you also create nitric acid back in solution. This can dissolve more silver and so on.
When it's in silver nitrate form it is the.best time to evaporate down to concentrate the solution and get a higher strenght of nitric after conversion.

Another way is in a silver cell. You can refine your recovered silver and sterling silver in it and clear up the copper nitrate electrolytically when it gets to high.
HNO3 in AR is basically lost unless you scrub your fumes in H2O2.

If you need AP to process PCB's or fingers, i can give you liters. Depends on where you live. I'm in Zeeland.

Gold foils can be dissolved in HCl and bleech.
Concentrated bleech and NaOH can be bought at the Axtion in a bottle set.
They now have 1 liter borosilicate glass measuring beakers you can use for the chemistry. I get a lot of my stuff from them.

How much have you studied this forum and which materials and processes did you have in mind?

Martijn.