Gold plated CPU lids

[xXthruXx]

Hey.

I'm new to gold recovery, i'm doing some reading-up and gathering materials before I try my 1st recovery.

I found these for approx. 10$usd (see the attached photo).
Do you think it's a good price? It's 1kg, lids only.
What method should I use to recover this type of gold from plating?

Thanks in advance for any help clarifying this. : D

 

[g_axelsson]

Here is a good thread to start with. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=22826

I don't know the yield of this material but the price for pinless CPU:s from boardsort is $2.75 per pound and that gives a hint.

Göran

 

[patnor1011]

You will most likely not recover 10$ worth of gold from these. Not to mention cost of recovery. They are eye candy but in this case more like fools gold.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Not worth the $10.00.

Best way to process them is to soak them in warm HCL to remove the tin plating, wash them real good with water and dry them up and deplate the gold with a sulphuric cell.

 

[MarcoP]

Not worth the $10.00.

Best way to process them is to soak them in warm HCL to remove the tin plating, wash them real good with water and dry them up and deplate the gold with a sulphuric cell.

I imagine the tin layer would also be between the copper and the gold plating, if left long enough in HCl with some kind of agitation would the acid eat the tin layer so a gold foil will fall off? Just like AP.

Marco

 

[g_axelsson]

I think that the plating is nickel under the gold and the tin isn't tin but indium.

This is a lid where I removed the solder part with hydrochloric acid, it's still grey where the solder was.



The gold that was removed with the solder should come down as a fine silt when dissolving the solder.

The rest of this batch was sitting in HCl a bit too long and in the end it turned into copper chloride leach. This removed all nickel and started to etch the lids, finally the gold fell off as foils but it took quite a lot of the copper too. The foils are thick as really good fingers.

Göran

 

[MarcoP]

Did the HCl turned into CuCl2 because the air bubbler, or maybe surface air? If that's the case, could an air tight container with a plastic back air flow protection valve (used for aquariums) mounted on slow down or stop the formation of Copper II Chloride.

I have everything for a sulfuric cell from star to finish but the craving to work with concentrated sulfuric, so I'm asking trying to avoid it.

Marco

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Not worth the $10.00.

Best way to process them is to soak them in warm HCL to remove the tin plating, wash them real good with water and dry them up and deplate the gold with a sulphuric cell.

I imagine the tin layer would also be between the copper and the gold plating, if left long enough in HCl with some kind of agitation would the acid eat the tin layer so a gold foil will fall off? Just like AP.

Marco

My mistake it's not tin it is nickle ( too early when I made the post :roll: ). AP is not really a good route for processing these, takes too much time and too much chemical to be cost effective.

 

[g_axelsson]

Just surface air, I left the jar with the lids out too long after I picked up the fist one for a check. I think some work came in the way, possible out of town, so when I came back to it, it was already green. Then it was standing outside until quite a lot liquid did evaporate. I haven't cleaned up that mess yet, everything is covered by a green copper chloride crust.
Right now I have some left over acid from chemically component removal of ram memories and I'll use that to dissolve the crusts.

I did some checking on a few lids and it turned out to have loosened the gold between 60% up to 100%. Probably depending on how tight the pieces have been sitting. The ones with gold still on ended up in the stock pot.

Göran

 

[Anonymous]

Whichever way you do them these really are incredibly low grade material if you don't mind some straight honesty.

 

[patnor1011]

But it is a nice addition to stock pot.

 

[MarcoP]

Might be also used as a good source of copper for cementing.

Marco

 

[g_axelsson]

Cementing silver would be a good way to use them, thanks, hadn't thought of that myself. It even comes with a nice hole for hanging them above the bottom.
Then you get the gold back as the silver cell slime or adds to the gold if the silver is used in inquarting. Works for me.

Time to clean up that jar of lids!

Göran

 

[MarcoP]

Basically we could separate the lid from the fiber body and put them both in the same HCl bath, just to get rid of one bucket, warm preferred. This way we 1) clean the lid from the nickel plating, 2) get rid of any tin from the silicon for solder or holding the pins and 3) dissolve indium paste/solder freeing gold trapped in it.

Lot of Stannous Chloride produced but no risks to produce colloidal gold since no gold is actually dissolved, only fine and settable powder. If air tight (partially closed lid, springy enough to let any internal build up pressure out but closes back straight away, otherwise an aquarium valve as above) should be a decent way to go, at least that's what i believe. Only Tin, Nickel and Indium in solution. Any silver will report in sediments as Silver Chloride along with gold powder, gold foils, gold pins and silicon dies.

If I don't get any negative feedback I will save this on my notebook. Will also try to mechanically agitate the solution to limit any CuCl2 formation and test if the gold plating could be separated from the copper lid by dissolving the nickel layer underneath.

Marco

Edited

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Basically we could separate the lid from the fiber body and put them both in the same HCl bath, just to get rid of one bucket, warm preferred. This way we 1) clean the lid from the nickel plating, 2) get rid of any tin from the silicon for solder or holding the pins and 3) dissolve indium paste/solder freeing gold trapped in it.

Lot of Stannous Chloride produced but no risks to produce colloidal gold since no gold is actually dissolved, only fine and settable powder. If air tight (partially closed lid, springy enough to let any internal build up pressure out but closes back straight away, otherwise an aquarium valve as above) should be a decent way to go, at least that's what i believe. Only Tin, Nickel and Indium in solution. Any silver will report in sediments as Silver Chloride along with gold powder, gold foils, gold pins and silicon dies.

If I don't get any negative feedback I will save this on my notebook. Will also try to mechanically agitate the solution to limit any CuCl2 formation and test if the gold plating could be separated from the copper lid by dissolving the nickel layer underneath.

Marco

Edited

What works on paper doesn't always work in real life.

But you can go down that road and find out. 8)

 

[solar_plasma]

Göran, do you think the gold is completely removed where the indium has been? If so, I wonder if the indium can be used for dissolving also the rest of the gold using an electric soldering iron and in an another step it could be recovered by dissolving the indium in a short HCl bath or maybe concentrated oxidizing acid (H2SO4 or HNO3), that will leave the nickel untouched because of passivation.

 

[g_axelsson]

Göran, do you think the gold is completely removed where the indium has been? If so, I wonder if the indium can be used for dissolving also the rest of the gold using an electric soldering iron and in an another step it could be recovered by dissolving the indium in a short HCl bath or maybe concentrated oxidizing acid (H2SO4 or HNO3), that will leave the nickel untouched because of passivation.

Yes, solder is a good solvent of gold plate.

I wouldn't recommend nitric acid though, it can get ugly quickly if it penetrates the nickel layer.

Göran