Glucose Test Strips

[solar_plasma]

Maybe 16g.

I do not believe that the PM content dictates the price. 0,50 € in gold per 50 pieces can't make the difference if this package would cost 20 or 40 €.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Hi every one, I found this to be very interesting, no I have not read all the posts and have no intention to.

:shock: :shock: :shock:

It would seem only logical that the original cost for the strips would likely dictate the quantity of PM.

If my statement above about cost verses content is correct. Well you can see my point.

I spent 20 years in the medical billing business. The retail price of test strips has a lot more to do with the amounts insurance companies will pay for them than the cost of manufacturing them.

Dave

 

[joekbit]

Ya, never thought about that, "insurance ". I did do something shortly after my initial post on the topic. This has nothing to do with test strips but I thought I would post it given it is related to diabetes.

I pulled 4 of the old meters from the dust pile. So to speak, and cracked them little vaults open. those meters are like vaults, no screws in the 4 I grabbed. I was surprised the amount of gold in them. I made jokes with my wife. Told her they looked to nice to process, just hang them on the Christmas tree. LOL Attached an image. The 2 in the middle showed up best but all the boards just sparkle on both sides. The gold on the edges on the 2 middle ones is double sided. The round platter at the lower left is completely plated both sides, larger than a US dime. It could be a ear ring with the addition of a hook.

 

[Arlea]

Over the summer I had acquired some Accu-Chek strips and was trying to get the plastic off from the glue.... I placed about 40 strips in concentrated sulfuric and forgot about it. Today I stumbled across it and there seemed to be a lot of flakes of gold in it so I strained off the acid rinsed and filtered.... it seems all the gold has fallen off the ends and it seems to bit quite a bit of gold looking at me. I then removed the plastic cover/strip by hand and the gold under the strips was still intact,although now some of the gold is on the removable plastic covering. I am now putting the rest of what is left of the strips into fresh sulfuric acid. My guess is I am going to get a gooey mess.....

Adding this after a couple of hours of working with the strips I have I have found that denatured alcohol seems to take the stickiness away..... but I don't see any residue in the container... hmmm is the glue gone? or just not sticky any more?

 

[kurtak]

Adding this after a couple of hours of working with the strips I have I have found that denatured alcohol seems to take the stickiness away..... but I don't see any residue in the container... hmmm is the glue gone? or just not sticky any more?

No the glue is not "gone" - it has just been dissolved by the alcohol so is now just very dilute glue in the alcohol

you can decant the alcohol off & then do a couple more alcohol washes to rid trace glue from solids - then evaporate alcohol down to recover the glue :lol:

Its not worth as much as the gold though :twisted: :lol:

(process intended as a joke one refiner to another)

Kurt

 

[Arlea]

Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved...

So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)

 

[MarcoP]

Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved...

So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)

Using AP 2:1, yeah, gold would go in solution. As I remember you could use SMB, but I'd prefer to saturate the solution with copper to push the gold out of the solution as dark powder.

 

[Anonymous]

Update on glucose strips.... I dropped them into a solution of AP yesterday (Muratic acid, hydrogen peroxide 2:1) I checked it this morning and the gold is gone from the strips..... and no residue. I am assuming the gold got dissolved...

So now I have to figure out how to get the gold from the liquid... (I am assuming that it is there)

I mentioned this same thing earlier, but on a different thread.

No# 1. Do NOT rely on a ratio. that's why your gold dissolved. It happened to me earlier this year.
No# 2. If you're going to get the gold to float away from the strips, you only need no more than 1 cap full of peroxide. DO NOT use ratios doing this. Just one cap full. If you have an abundance of solution, maybe 2 cap fulls. But don't do like I done... a 50/50 of Muriatic Acid and Peroxide. You WILL dissolve the flakes for sure, which means it will dissolve a gold button.

On the same note: I never read or researched on how to recover the gold once it's in the AP solution. That's next on my "to learn list".

Good luck and stay safe.

Kevin

 

[solar_plasma]

All in all, this thread is developing in a way, that makes it hard to beginners to see through the misunderstandings! If anyone wants to comment, he should be sure to have read the whole tread, so that he knows, what it is saying!

There are no base metals, well, maybe some traces of iron from the tiny amounts of dried blood. So for recovering you can go straight to the dissolving of gold and you will get a fine yellow solution that will be colorless after precipitation. Since we can see, what happens, we are fine with AR, only using the calculated amount of nitric and/or adding enough drops until all gold is dissolved withing some hours.

I don't know, why someone would choose HCl/H2O2 at all for those. HCl/NaClO works well, too, though tending to be more liquid volume to handle.

The glue is no problem. Wasted time to try to remove it.

Incineration has the disadvantage of making a lot of very fine white powder compared to the tiny amount of gold.

 

[solar_plasma]

testerman

On the same note: I never read or researched on how to recover the gold once it's in the AP solution. That's next on my "to learn list".

This is a good example, why we should differentiate between AP and CuCl2-leaching. You can dissolve pure gold powders or thin, pure gold layers with AP and use your reductant of choice. CuCl2-leaching is used to dissolve base metals, ideally mostly copper, freeing gold foils for example from plated circuit boards.

It is this CuCl2 solution, you are talking about. If you have dissolved any gold by mistake or consciously, you will recover it, just by going on dissolving copper. The dissolved copper will push out any dissolved gold by electron transfer. To all, who are confused about this: Search for butcher's many explanations of how AP/CuCl2/copper II chloride works, read and live it.

 

[andysuth]

So if the strips have no base metal on them, why do we need to use AR?

Can't we just remove the gold and then heat up to 1000°C to reform into a solid block?

Cheers,

Andy

 

[solar_plasma]

1) We don't need to. It's just fast at leaching through the glue, less work and less liquids. HCl/cholox works, too.

2) No. You end up with a lot of white ash with a tiny little content of gold.

By the way, in my understanding AR is used on thick pieces (with not too much silver), hard to dissolve otherwise alloys, base metal free ashes or pure gold and best if you have a clue about the weight of gold to dissolve. So, there are only a very few exceptions, where your AR will meet base metals (ceramic cpu's might be one).

 

[solar_plasma]

I see, you did mean to scrape off the gold. Should work...after some years of scraping.

 

[andysuth]

I see, you did mean to scrape off the gold. Should work...after some years of scraping.

Hi,

Thanks Solar Plasma.

I'm a quick scraper.....

Did you mean I get loads of white ash when heating the entire strip?

I'll do an estimate in the volume of gold in the tracks later, but the question is more if the tracks have any impurities other than gold.

They look like slightly more complex strain gauges to me, and I don't think strain gauges are alloyed / plated / bimetal.

Andy.

 

[Anonymous]

Depending on how your test strips are made (with a shield covering most of the metal or some of it), you would have to peel off the covering, and if it doesn't have any covering to the strip, you can.... Uhhmmm... DO THIS OUTSIDE!!!

Take a glass jar, and then put a 50/50 of 91% isopropyl alcohol and 3% peroxide into it, AFTER you have the test strips in there. If you have a plastic lid to the jar, you can punch a few holes in the jar to let the gasses escape. Let it sit for a day or so, with every now and then (4 hours or so) swirling the jar, or taking off the lid, and using a clean wooden stick to stir up the mix. The glue, will come off and once you decant the jar, rinse well with hot water a few times.

After rinsing well, pick up a few pieces and there should be no stickiness when you rub them in between your fingers.

Your strips are now ready to be refined.

Don't incinerate because without the proper incinerator, you will not only lose your values, it'll let off too much toxic pollution and it can be deadly.

AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.

Just make sure you're wearing protective gear on every part of you for safety reasons.

Kevin

 

[solar_plasma]

AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.

I can't say anything about your other advices, other than that you don't need to remove the glue. But once you are advising that AR and AP will dissolve silver, I get doubts. Sorry, but I think you should be more careful giving advices. It should be more clear, what you are assuming, what you know from reading (source) and what you know by experience.

@andysuth
Yes, at least akku-cheks have pure gold traces, no evidence of base metals. Scraping isn't a good idea, I tried. You need more than 2000 pieces to get a gramm of gold. How many hours do you want to work for 30$....60h? 120h? - Or only one? If you scrape, you need to remove the glue or you will be forced to incinerate.

If anyone likes to add something new, then examine the grey strips. There has not been posted a lot about contents and processes for those.

 

[Anonymous]

AR or AP would work in removing/dissolving the gold and (or) silver after this point. Whichever method you decide to use, will work.

I can't say anything about your other advices, other than that you don't need to remove the glue. But once you are advising that AR and AP will dissolve silver, I get doubts. Sorry, but I think you should be more careful giving advices. It should be more clear, what you are assuming, what you know from reading (source) and what you know by experience.

@andysuth
Yes, at least akku-cheks have pure gold traces, no evidence of base metals. Scraping isn't a good idea, I tried. You need more than 2000 pieces to get a gramm of gold. How many hours do you want to work for 30$....60h? 120h? - Or only one? If you scrape, you need to remove the glue or you will be forced to incinerate.

If anyone likes to add something new, then examine the grey strips. There has not been posted a lot about contents and processes for those.

My advice was to the fact that someone was wanting to strip gold test strips. What advice I gave was wrong this time?

Also, like you should know, not everyone does the same thing, yet we can achieve the same. Maybe my methods don't hold up to your standards, but they work. I've read other people's suggestion on certain processes, and even though I knew that was their way of doing things, I didn't post replies to them stating that they're giving bad advice or doing something wrong. Maybe my process is longer to you, but at least it gives a person to try to see if it works for them or not. Let that person decide if they want to take that route. I guess alcohol and peroxide is bad advice to use to strip glue off of test strips. I know of different ways to do the same thing, and I could have suggested every one of them, but why would I do that when the one (I) feel would be more comfortable and less dangerous to do.

Oh, and for the record, I have pounds of the Bayer "SILVER" test strips that I removed the glue EXACTLY from the process I'm posted about. My post was to simply remove the glue without having to spend money if the chemicals were readily available. And, from the 1 lb of test strips I did so far (SILVER), I had the silver stripped off of all of them within 1 hour. So, on that note, I'm not giving bad advice. I'm telling how something can be done, and I'm not telling anything less safer than using goo gone crap and other chemicals. I'm talking about something probably already in the home. You should try it one day. You might find it easier than you think.

I forgot an important note to add. If you do NOT remove all the glue from your test strips, you will not get all your gold or silver out of them because they will get trapped in the glue. I tested this theory with nitric acid before and when I didn't get my expected silver out, I did a batch removing the glue, and then I processed my silver with my other method, and I recovered more silver than using nitric. Don't believe me?.. try it. The same with the gold too. You can't just process that stuff like that and think you're going to dissolve that glue away. Your gold will get caught in that glue once you go to filter the solution.

Kevin

 

[solar_plasma]

My doubts evolved, when you were saying AR and AP will dissolve silver. AR will hold a very little amount of silver complex. AP not. Both would in the best case make silver chloride, if at all.

I tried with and without glue, every kind of household solvents, hot water, hot water with NaCO3, scraping, AR, HCl/chlorox, even iodine, with and without incineration. I got the same yield each time.

You are right, many roads lead to Rome.

 

[Anonymous]

My doubts evolved, when you were saying AR and AP will dissolve silver. AR will hold a very little amount of silver complex. AP not. Both would in the best case make silver chloride, if at all.

I tried with and without glue, every kind of household solvents, hot water, hot water with NaCO3, scraping, AR, HCl/chlorox, even iodine, with and without incineration. I got the same yield each time.

You are right, many roads lead to Rome.

you answered your own question, and that is everyone does the same thing differently, yet, you achieve the same results. But, I'll say to you, that you aren't doing something correct if you're getting the same yields and still using different chemicals/methods. I have been getting different results, and the one that gave me the highest yields was the method I stuck with.

Hint.... Nitric acid does not get 100% of silver off of test strips or mylars. When you use nitric, do you see traces of that silver still there, whether black or a darker grey, or even near white? If so, you're probably leaving some silver behind. You see, we all can learn different techniques to achieve the same thing. I hardly use nitric acid, except for inquarting or making AR, or other testing. Other than that, I've learned to spare the Nitric.

Kevin

 

[solar_plasma]

You just can't compare the gold traced glucose strips to silver mylars, two different things. And saying I do something wrong when I get the same yields from different processes from glucose strips is somewhat entitled. When you didn't get the expected yield from golden glucose strips with glue, then you just didn't leach properly.