Hello guys, i was wondering...

[Fox32]

First of all, is a great pleasure to find this forum so complete with information and from what i read until now with some really handy members! I must confess that i am quite new to this game, but i'm a fast learner and i always was pasionate about chemestry, just didn't had the motivation(until now)! So i just bought a Distilation sistem(Liebig), stove, and some other glassware, with saftey i'm all good, with full gas mask, and acid proff mittens, so you can skip the safety advices, and get straight to the deal!

Sooo....my question is, actually, i was thinking to crumble down the whole motherboards (without depopulate it(got some nasty burns from hot sand)) in a crumbler, to a fine powder, or maybe little, little chunks, would i be able to recover the gold from it? Actually i know that is possbible, but what steps to take? I have 100 litres of h2so4, so i can make hcl and hno3 in any quantity, so this isn't a problem. (i have loads of mother boards, but not that many cpu) And saw that some motherboards apperar to have gold circuits, it this true? or is some similar metal...

I was thinking to take all the metals in a row, first copper, then tin and so, is this possible?

i'm not that good at chemestry, just elementary stuff, so i would really apreciate if you guys could give me some advices, or maybe the proces steps, -1 do this;-2 do that,or with what acids to trat first, second etc. very briefly and i will investigate further.
I will take and cherish any advice and i would really apreciate if somone would take 10 minutes of his time to consider what i weant to do.

Ok guys that-s it, i wish you all best regards and a lovely night!

Florin


P.S. Sorry for my english!

 

[element47.5]

"so you can skip the safety advices, and get straight to the deal!"

Do NOT be a fast learner. Do NOT be in a hurry to mix chemicals. You have nothing to prove and nothing you do is going to impress anyone on this forum. There is no amount of precious metals worth your eyesight and/or lungs. A "full gas mask" (whatever that means) is NO protection against NO2 fumes, by the way.

That you are even considering crushing your boards without removing the components, which is an absolute guarantee that you will be left with a rotten, difficult to handle mess, means you have NOT searched nor studied this forum carefully, where literally dozens of posts deal with the importance of removing the components is an indication that you are going too fast and that you have not searched, read, and absorbed things that have stated on this forum dozens of times. So now, you want someone to again, detail the steps required, and exactly why would anyone do that when you haven't read the posts and references ALREADY HERE. What difference is one more iteration of the steps required going to make? You haven't read what is already here.

 

[butcher]

Fox32,
The process you propose sounds like a way to make a mess, lose values and get someone hurt.

Even if you were a professional chemist, or scientist, I would give you the same advice, as I will give you here.

Study the safety aspects, with what we are doing dealing with terribly toxic gases and toxic volatile metals and other toxic or cancer causing agents, and what your proposing to do with circuit boards can be very deadly, we mess with acids and bases that can blind or poison us, or burn us badly, with metals and acids or carbonous materials other dangers exist like explosives or other dangerous reactions.
Have you studied how to deal with the toxic waste your planning on generating, how will you deal with this without poisoning or killing many people with this waste?

So my first advice is to study the safety, and dealing with waste, studying safety will be an ongoing exercise there is no place where you know it all, or stop studying it, and do not take it so lightly, you may know a few things, but at this point you really do not know how much you do not know, once you begin to study this you will begin to see how much you do not know.

Second you need to study Hokes book and do the getting acquainted experiments she teaches in the book, after you do this and you begin to understand what this book is teaching you, you will also understand the problems of the process you proposed to use in your above post, and how that could turn out to be one big toxic mess, with you losing your values in the mess, and how many of the metals in certain solutions are very hard to deal with.

Also study the forum, learn the simple methods, and materials first, before moving to the more complicated processes, learn the processes which are proven to work, this way you get a good understanding of what will work and why, and even following processes, you will run into many problems which can also help you learn how to deal with problems.

Starting out not knowing what your doing and trying to reinvent the wheel is a recipe for disaster.

Begin studying as suggested and you will begin to see how much there is to all of this, it may seem very simple on the outside from the eyes of someone who sees others doing this, if they have no understanding of what we are doing, how or why, but it is actually a very complicated science that can take years of study to learn and understand.

Put up your lab glass and chemicals, collect your scrap, study and when you are ready, with some understanding, start with the experiments in Hokes book, and then when you understand that, start with a very simple process like removing copper from gold plated memory fingers, work yourself up to more complicated processes as you begin first to learn the basics, you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run.

P.S. Using he distilling rig can be very dangerous if you have not done a whole lot of studying on how to use it properly and safely, trying to pull Hot shards of glass and very deadly acids from your flesh, from an explosion could be the results of not studying the safety aspects.

 

[Fox32]

Many thanks guys for the prompt response, and i didn't meant that to sound offensive, yes, my exprimation wasn't the best, but i was just triyng to say that prior of all, i took all the saftey measures that i heard, read, and saw(many thanks to gold'n scrap for the youtube videos) as for full face mask i have this http://www.brenkor.ro/echipamente_de_protectie/protectie_respiratorie/masti_integrale.html with the best filters, also acid proof lab suit and acid proof gloves.(don't mind the language)

by depopulation i mean to say without triming the little fingers that are inserted in the mother board(i don;'t like the process, very laborious), i removed all the parts that could be pulled of with pliers.

My ideea was to treat the motherboard dust through some series of acids, h2so4 for copper remowal, then nitric or hcl for tin and silver, and finnaly i was hoping to treat it with aqua regia to get the gold. \this kinda made sense to me....

I agree, i have a lot of learning to do, and i did searched the forums (this is not the first) but, you see my friends, the deal with forum learning is the same as gold recovery, you have to process a mountain of scrap, for that 2 g of good information.

I thank you all, for reply, i'l start reading some hoke now.

have a good night!

 

[butcher]

Florin,
Nobody is down on you, we are just trying to get you off the wrong path of thinking and back onto the right road.

The tin in solder from circuit boards for one thing, would not be easily dealt with in the process you propose; it would make this a mess.

When you study Hokes, you will see how she takes steps to prepare the scrap before she processes it, and how different materials use different processes, many times these little steps which may not seem to important can mean the difference between getting gold and losing gold in one big mess, with electronic scrap this is even more important, as it is loaded with some very troublesome metals, In Hokes book, when you do the experiments she teaches, you will get a good understanding of how different metals react with different acids, and how some metals become problems in acids or solutions, which can cause us to lose a lot of our values.

Enjoy Hokes book with a good drink, and just be safe, I can patiently wait until I see the fine gold you will be melting, but in the mean time study, and collect more scrap, take the small steps needed, so you will do well when you make those big steps.

Keep safety as top priority.
We need to keep you around, as a valuable forum member.
patience, gold has a lot of patience, we need patience to get that gold.

 

[element47.5]

"this kinda made sense to me...."

See, this is the problem. It is not a matter of what makes sense. You don't know what you are doing....and everyone started that way at some time or another....and so, what "makes sense" has nothing to do with anything. You don't have the knowledge to evaluate what makes sense or what does not. It makes utterly no sense to me how a 400 foot long airplane can fly, but they do, every day. It is a matter of what works, what is worth doing (in terms of input [eg; chemical] costs versus what your yield can be expected) and what can be achieved given a primitive lab setup.

The people who can make these processes work are FANATICAL about procedure; safety; fume handling, waste handling. They have studied, over and over, the techniques. This isn't making a salad and if you get too many cucumbers in the bowl it's no big deal.

There are many folks on this forum who can help you, but you show yourself as a complete beginner. And that is fine. Nobody wants to "help" you to blind yourself or poison the kid or dog next door to where you live or ruin the paint on your neighbor's car.

There is no way around the harsh truth that you have to read, study, read, study, read, study, and very carefully plan out what you are going to do. There are a hundred ways to go wrong and only one or two or three to go right.

 

[steyr223]

NFlorin buddy pal
Welcome to the form, you sound like
You got what it takes to do this
Just turn it down a notch :rollo:
I see you're going to read hokes
Good .
when you get a little antsy
Type in the search box up top
A/p or acid peroxide ,this will
Most likely be your first
Process
Be safe have fun
Steyr223 rob

 

[Fox32]

Thank you guys, really are some nice people here. well, the painfull truth is that i am an absolute beginer, and like any beginer(i guess) i want to do it all as fast as possible, well now it makes sense that, that won't happen, and another thing that really makes sdense now is reading that book. So that's what i'm gonna do, along with a nice cup of tea. And tomorow maybe i'l start with something easy like making some HCL or HNO3, to work my hand.

Thank again guys for your patience, you have been really helpfull despite that probably i'm the tenth noob to ask the same "stupid" questions.

Best Regards!

 

[Pantherlikher]

Welcome aboard and hopefully you will see there is all the help you need to accomplish what you wish to "learn".
Your last reply stated you will work your hand by making Acid...

NO!!! Do Not make anything. Period.

Read the book and see it in your head. Then read again and find the process of what ever you want to do here in the forum and see it again in your head.
Start to finish.

Following a recipe is easy. This is not.
After making acid, what do you plan on doing with it?
What will you do with the fumes, odd smell? Die?
When you have made the mess, what do you plan on doing with it?
Most important:
What is the final product you want and how will you properly dispose of all of the waste? Spent acid?

All of this needs to be clearly seen in your head and any questions asked before you do anything...

Please read and make a plan of what you want to do and then write down all rules and directions completely before you even look at doing anything.

BS.
The blind eagerness of anyone to do anything only creates disaster...

 

[Fox32]

Thanks Pantherkiller for you thoughts and care, i won't do anything stupid, i was just reading the hoke's book and is quite interesting.
As for the acid, i made some hcl couple of times back in the highschool from salt and h2so4, so i was thinking to make some just to recover my shape.Of course in school we had a fume hood, primitive one but still, i'l be making my tests outside where is nice and airy. As for disposal of wastes, 4metals's tehnique that he described in wastes topic, seemed pretty safe and not that complicated.. But is a long road until there... i was planing to make a small batch and store it so when i'm ready to refine my first scrap i'l have some handy.

one thing puzzles me, if grinding mother boards is a messy business, what process do you use to recover the tiny plating from motherboards? i think every little bit helpes... http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ehow/images/a06/vj/qq/remove-gold-circuit-boards-800x800.jpg

thank you, all the best!

 

[RikkiRicardo]

Hi Florin

First put in your head what these people are saying to you they are just here to help
Where in Romania are you i live in Cluj and i have a
Refining Lab sorry my Romanian is bad Start reading Hoke then safety then PM me and we can talk
if i can help you i will

Rikki

 

[Fox32]

Hey riki, nice to see a felow contruy man here.

well, i understand that, and i am gratefull for it, who knew what might have hapend if i started something and made a stupid mistake like pouring water in acid.

But i am here to learn,and in my experience the best way is asking other people, and as i stated i will only start something once i know i am fully ready fir it start to bottom, till then i'l read and ask.
Have a great day!