Gold inside chips (black, flatpacks - not CPU)

[patnor1011]

Few more pictures as promised of material I started with.

 

[patnor1011]

And picture of that 1,7g in small 10ml glass vial.

 

[patnor1011]

I have these but they may require bit different approach - they were marked on box as Au/Pd plating - this is probably plating on pins inside chip. I can get about 3-4 pounds of them.

 

[patnor1011]

And I have some of these, I did separate them from the rest as I am not sure if there is anything inside. I guess they will be my next experiment.

 

[samuel-a]

Great pictures Pat.

So.. iv'e setup my mini coal fired kiln for some trial and error.
took a little video to: (better mute your speakers)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuh4HpmR2DM[/youtube]

The fan is rated 12V but for the trial is working on 5V. With the 12V connected, this buster blows all the ash out... haven't figured if it's a good thing or not... :mrgreen:

Iv'e punched some holes at the bottom of a SS jug so the smoke will exhaust stright into the heat, which i rekon is about 800-900C, enough to bearly smell any burning plastic.



The kiln works as i expected it to, i think i need to make some minor size enhancements to perfect it.
I did notice however, that as the ash build up, it's getting harder to maintain high temp'....

p.s. - Pat, on your last picture, i would expect a very low Au/Pd/Ag yield out of them processors...

 

[philddreamer]

Very ingenious Samuel! I like it. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Very ingenious Samuel! I like it.

I agree.I like the idea of making the vent holes above the bottom,so you don't lose any material.

 

[dtectr]

Great pictures Pat.

So.. iv'e setup my mini coal fired kiln for some trial and error.
took a little video to: (better mute your speakers)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuh4HpmR2DM[/youtube]

The fan is rated 12V but for the trial is working on 5V. With the 12V connected, this buster blows all the ash out... haven't figured if it's a good thing or not... :mrgreen:

Iv'e punched some holes at the bottom of a SS jug so the smoke will exhaust stright into the heat, which i rekon is about 800-900C, enough to bearly smell any burning plastic.



The kiln works as i expected it to, i think i need to make some minor size enhancements to perfect it.
I did notice however, that as the ash build up, it's getting harder to maintain high temp'....

p.s. - Pat, on your last picture, i would expect a very low Au/Pd/Ag yield out of them processors...

Based on my own less-than-successful experiments in the past, I believe your combustion process needs oxygen with the IC's, not just with the charcoal.

The charcoal you are using as a fuel source is created by burning carbonaceous material (wood, from various and mysterious sources :shock: ) in a reducing (oxygen-free) atmosphere, leaving unburned carbon to use as a more efficient fuel.

if you "burn", "incinerate", "roast", "fricasee'", 8) or "whatever", carbon-based materials (i.e. "plastics", from petroleum products) in a reducing atmosphere, you will still wind up with an abundance of carbon, which you actually want to eliminate, as it acts as a precipitant, in some cases, and a general pain in the a** in most others.

If you could inject the oxygen/air into the combustion chamber, an effect that, I imagine (without proof ), was created by convection in Pat's hearth/forge/kiln, the results could be even better.

just my redneck, uneducated dos centavos.

dtectr

 

[samuel-a]

just my redneck, uneducated dos centavos.

uneducated? :mrgreen: You know what you are talking about Sir 8)
Everything you said is correct exept that carbon being a reducing agent, in it's elemental state it absorb metals ions, but not reducing them. As far as i know.
Of course there are organic reducing agents (like oxalic acid... ascorbic acid etc'...).

Tough, just to clarify, i did not claim my setup will incinerate(combust) the material, by the contrary, it pyrolyse the material.

 

[Geo]

after you bake the oils and resins from the plastic the metals are free to be reacted upon by whatever method of your choice to separate the base metal from the gold.the reason you cant just toss the plastic IC packages into a mill is it will gum up after the friction causes heat to rise to the point of melting plastic.once the resins have been baked out you can simply dry shake them in a bucket and the fiberglass will fall apart,after that just put a garden hose in the bucket and allow it to overflow (gently) stir with a suitable utensil (wooden board) and the lighter material like fibers will wash over the top leaving metal in the bottom.

 

[rusty]

after you bake the oils and resins from the plastic the metals are free to be reacted upon by whatever method of your choice to separate the base metal from the gold.the reason you cant just toss the plastic IC packages into a mill is it will gum up after the friction causes heat to rise to the point of melting plastic.once the resins have been baked out you can simply dry shake them in a bucket and the fiberglass will fall apart,after that just put a garden hose in the bucket and allow it to overflow (gently) stir with a suitable utensil (wooden board) and the lighter material like fibers will wash over the top leaving metal in the bottom.

Geo you'll find that finely divided metals will float so don't forget to add the soap.

 

[patnor1011]

yes, you have to first make all material wet - to sink it in bottom. It is good to stir properly as it tend to form balls where dry powder is in middle. When everything is wet then you can start to get rid of junk.
I just prepared 1200g of chips from RAM sticks to try to get some numbers for you guys. Then about 1000g of bigger square chips and about 3 kilos of different types.
I do not use charcoal, regular hard black coal, well I will do some pictures. I plan to use bottom from floppy drive - it is flat with sides and metal is not thick so it will get red hot quicker.

 

[samuel-a]

Yes, iv'e been using charcoal, not coal, sorry for the confusion.

 

[patnor1011]

I hope I will finish all my material this week but I do have some numbers. I did 1 kilogram of chips from RAM sticks only and I have managed to pan out lets say concentrate. It was then put in HNO3 and resulting weight is 1.1g. It is mostly gold but I can see small amount of dark powder there too - very fine crushed ceramic powder. My subjective estimate is that this represent less than 10% of total weight but I will know for sure when I purify and process that in AR.
Right now I am somehow convinced that yield from all sort of black square flatpacks or chips (all which have more than 16legs) will be in region of 1g for kilogram and slightly more in top black part of green BGA chips with gold corner called south and north bridge. I am trying to put together some kind of handbook with plenty of pictures for download for members as I have a lot of pictures and don't want to increase costs of running this forum by uploading them all here.

 

[philddreamer]

Thanks for the update Pat!

Phil

 

[Claudie]

Are you just measuring what you were able to pan out? Wouldn't there still be some Gold left in the ground powder from the packages that you would miss?

 

[Geo]

one question? if my understanding is right there is gold inside the ceramic substrate itself.doesnt the entire piece have to be turned into fine powder to get all the gold out?

 

[Palladium]

Could you not just use an ap process, then hcl/clorox, and filter out the ceramic. I do this with smd's. Sure would save all that panning.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

one question? if my understanding is right there is gold inside the ceramic substrate itself.doesnt the entire piece have to be turned into fine powder to get all the gold out?

Yes it does.

 

[samuel-a]

Are you just measuring what you were able to pan out? Wouldn't there still be some Gold left in the ground powder from the packages that you would miss?

I was thinking the same thing.

Though, about 1 gram of 1 Kg of chips sounds about right, maybe bit on the lower end of possible yields. but that's a guestimate...
I ran some black IC chips (not RAM) before that produced 0.001% (by mass).


Pat, did you try leacing the panned left over material of the RAM batch with dilute nitric?
I suspect that you will find silver and palladium as well...
Maybe later you could leach with dilute AR to recover when ever gold that slipped the panning.