Home built centrifuge - gold concenrates from IC's

[nickvc]

Dan many modern, not all, platinum alloys contain cobalt which is magnetic this is usually the casting alloys not the wire and sheet from what I have found so separating the platinum is easy with a magnet with a strong plastic bag over it if your dealing with castings, not so easy if you have a mix of alloys but if you just have platinum and palladium then nitric will dissolve the palladium leaving the platinum.

 

[butcher]

I keep a good one gallon stock pot, and a five gallon bucket fairly good stock pot, the five gallon bucket gets the waste from my good stock pot, and solutions not worth going into the gallon stock pot, so I would not have stock pots to run through your new toy.

But I do have that elephant in the room I would like to try your toy on, my waste buckets of metal sludge waste that takes me forever to dry out (which seems to be almost on hold during the winter months), I wonder how it would work to spin out the salt water and help spin dry the waste, or at least get it almost dry?

Now dog-gone-it I want a new toy to try out.

I do like the looks of some of that mud your making with that thing.

 

[rusty]

I keep a good one gallon stock pot, and a five gallon bucket fairly good stock pot, the five gallon bucket gets the waste from my good stock pot, and solutions not worth going into the gallon stock pot, so I would not have stock pots to run through your new toy.

But I do have that elephant in the room I would like to try your toy on, my waste buckets of metal sludge waste that takes me forever to dry out (which seems to be almost on hold during the winter months), I wonder how it would work to spin out the salt water and help spin dry the waste, or at least get it almost dry?

Now dog-gone-it I want a new toy to try out.

I do like the looks of some of that mud your making with that thing.

I'm not here to promote a sale but assist you with building your own toy.

You can sub the DC motor and related hardware for any half or third HP AC motor that runs 1125 rpm rotation does not matter, I've yet to use the speed control other that to start and run the motor.

The 6 inch solid round polyethylene will set you back $60.00 for a foot which is all you need.

it would work like a hot &76%, you may even be surprised to find some values in your sludge buckets, once again using the table bellow if your material from the more dense specific gravity range these will be the first to collect into the grooves of the bowel once they have been depleted the next densest materials will take the place of the more dense material previously depleted from feedstock.

Copper with its unique color and SP makes a good indicator.

With the sludge pots I have there are known values, I have the same problem filtering and drying,

I already know that copper skates across the densely compacted precious metals leaving trace amounts on the compacted surface, it is only when the grooves begin to completely fill with copper that I know I have depleted the more dense metals and it is now time to quit processing. It would be foolish to purposely ad more copper to good cons.

If by chance I have sent traces of precious metals to tailings it's no big deal I can send the tailings to a refinery who will catch those traces, the idea here is to hasten the cash flow.

The outer tub is made from a discarded propane tank with a few bits of scrap metal welded to it, a couple of bearings and a junk yard motor.

 

[Dan Dement]

Nick,

I do not know about you but I REALLY do not care from for the Cobalt alloys of Platinum. Most of those that I see after several years have a rust colored grain in the metal which is certainly a turnoff for this old jeweler. I do not recycle any cobalt Platinum and only send it in to be recycled. We actually buy all our metals pure and alloy them ourselves. Considering Palladium is about 90% of our manufacturing business, keeping all the metals separate is certainly a challenge. Our mutual friend Lou & I have been working on some new alloys and we are getting very near with an announcement on some different alloys. It's interesting where some GRF friendships take you. Keeps life interesting for us old Jewelry dogs!

All the best!

Dan

 

[rusty]

My last cons, same material, wet and dry pictures.

The dry matte has a purple tinge to it.

 

[butcher]

MMM that does look good.

 

[skippy]

I'd like to see if the machine can spin metal hydroxides out of waste solutions as an alternative to a filter press. You might need to make the liquid additions slower otherwise the light metal hydroxides are going to shoot off as quick as anything.

You could make up some solutions of nickel, or iron, or aluminum in hcl, neutralize them dillute and see what the machine can do.

 

[rusty]

Cut away diagram of a commercially manufactured centrifuge.

 

[rusty]

I'd like to see if the machine can spin metal hydroxides out of waste solutions as an alternative to a filter press. You might need to make the liquid additions slower otherwise the light metal hydroxides are going to shoot off as quick as anything.

You could make up some solutions of nickel, or iron, or aluminum in hcl, neutralize them dillute and see what the machine can do.

The type of bowel used on my experimental centrifuge would more than likely recover hydroxides as long as they are a solid particulate with a greater specific gravity than any other had another adulterant with a closely related SG this material would also co-adhere to the bowel.

 

[rusty]

The cons once again incinerated, we're going for the gold next.

 

[mlgdave]

excellent job Rusty, yes the commercial units are VERY expensive and what you have made works just as well from what I can see, great job!
you will definitely want to run your buddies black sands from the mining operation and shock him!

Mlgdave

 

[rusty]

excellent job Rusty, yes the commercial units are VERY expensive and what you have made works just as well from what I can see, great job!
you will definitely want to run your buddies black sands from the mining operation and shock him!

Mlgdave

Thanks Mlgdave, any improvement on how much gold is recovered from the claim would be a bonus, my share is from the wee end.

 

[butcher]

I am still wondering about converting the wife's washing machine on spin cycle, but every time I begin thinking about it she gives me a funny look :lol:

 

[rusty]

I am still wondering about converting the wife's washing machine on spin cycle, but every time I begin thinking about it she gives me a funny look :lol:

If memory serves me right it was a woman washing the miners work cloths who discovered flotation.

Cons after HCL leach, tan brown.

I think that the centrifuge may have also captured tantalum ( SG 16.654 ) from the ash which is definitely adding to the final weight of the cons recovered. As expected not a whole lot of copper ( SG 8.96 ), which is evident from the HCL leach.

This will be my test tube sample.

 

[rusty]

Just to give you an idea of the weight to volume there's 2 grams of bone dry cons in each test tube. We'll see what tomorrow brings, this is if I can get my nitric keg free of the ice.

 

[skippy]

Rusty,

I hope you get lots of gold from this! I forget the history on what you've done to get this far - do you still have metallics you melted left to process?

 

[rusty]

The powder, 2 grams in each test tube comes from the same lot, from left to right.

Starting material sheared IC''s from mother boards and daughter cards, I suspect the majority of the insoluble powder left behind in the AR is tantalum along with a few other goodies.

A better explanation for the noob, the material I'm working with is everything that would shear off from the mother boards and daughter cards, removed anything that would stick to a magnet then incinerated the left overs.

After incinerating, ball milled, then I ran the ash through the home built centrifuge to gets cons, the cons consist of metals heavier than copper ( SG 8.89 ) with small traces of copper in the cons.

Since I had included everything from the motherboards and daughter cards it was expected that the centrifuge would also capture tantalum ( SG 16.69 ) along with gold ( SG 19.32 ) , Platinum ( SG 21.45 ). These are all heavier that copper ( SG 8.89 ) which is where I stopped concentrating the cons.

Stopping the concentrating operation at the point of copper collecting in the bowel however leave me with trace amounts of copper in the cons.

Had I not previously leached the incinerated ash with a dilute nitric, silver ( SG 10.50 ) and palladium ( SG 12.02 ) would have also shown up in the cons.

Test tube number one once again using an HCL leach shows me that after my initial HCL pre leach there are some base metals left behind, a better rinse would help to remove the residual base, test tubes 2 and 3 had also been pre leached using HCL.

Test tube number two now has a dilute nitric leach, something has gone into solution leaving a beautiful tan powder behind, it's the gold in the powder giving it this nice tan color. Also the solution from this tube was decanted then adding HCL to check for silver chloride precipitate which tested negative.

Test tube number three has the classic gold chloride color with a hint of green, I suspect platinum will show on a stannous test once the gold has been precipitated. Also there appears to be a slight white precipitate forming on this vial. The addition of sulphuric acid may tell a story - tin or lead.

The white precipitate could also be calcium hydroxide or calcium nitrate from my well water.

The color on test tube 3 has lost the tan color due to the powder giving up its gold to the AR. The insolubles left behind I suspect is mostly tantalum which AR has no effect on.

After precipitating the gold and testing for other values in tube 3, I'll be able to make a better decision in which direction to proceed with the large lot, 7 lbs of cons waiting to be processed.

As Ms.Hoke teaches us in her book acquaint yourself with the material your working with.

1. HCL leach
2. Nitric acid 50/50 water
3. Aqua Regia

 

[butcher]

I like this thread, it is kind of like watching a movie, and now you stopped the movie right at the most suspenseful moment, I cannot wait to see the test results.

 

[nickvc]

I'm with you there Butcher as usual a fascinating thread from Rusty, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he recovers loads of values, it'll cheer me up immensely.

 

[gold4mike]

I feel like a sports fan sitting in the bleachers, watching my team (Rusty) win big. The suspense is killing me too :mrgreen: