Hello everyone! I would just lurk but I was told to introduce myself so please forgive me
I am looking for a way out of my career path and want to explore reclaiming gold from E Waste as a source of income because I have a connection that I can get my hands on a lot of it for next to nothing.
I have absolutely 0 experience and have never even attempted to buy the equipment required, I stumbled upon this forum in my research and hope by some miracle I can be as helpful to any of you as you all have been to me this far.
Thanks! I'll be around if anyone feels like messaging a green pea
Hi
doing e-waste generate money just from certain quantity of processed material. Also, highly dependent on how rich the material is. It is very hard to set your own operation and function in a way you will generate good revenue from it.
First point is, refining and recovery of metals from such complex material is hard venture - this is very good to absorb and digest beforehand, and just accept that it is true. You will need machinery, place to run the operation, permits, certifications and most importantly - trustworthy, reliable and HIGHLY EDUCATED workers (at least one very skilled and educated person in the field of chemistry and pyrometallurgy). Upfront costs are huge.
On the other hand, you can do what most of the guys do. Buy the scrap from your sources, pile it up big time, process and sort it to attractive sellable form and then negotiate with big companies, which will buy it or refine it for you. This model is much more viable with limited resources and knowledge. But competition is high in this field (not saying that, as we use to say here, "holes" on the market cannot be found).
I (as chemist by profession, with experience with running small scale operation dealing with precious metals) can recommend some things for you to look:
1. You need to be familiar with at least basic inorganic chemistry, both hydrometallurgical (treatment in solution) and pyrometallurgical (in molten phase - smelting and melting). Then, you need to study more deeply regarding process scale up, getting familiar with big chemistry equipment, and also big furnances. Chemistry of gold and silver, alongside copper and tin is relatively predictable and say "mostly easy" (for intermediate skill level chemist). These will be your paying elements from regular escrap. Maybe some pinch of palladium. But chemistry of platinum group metals is often orders of magnitude more complicated.
2. Safety. Recovery of metals isn´t office work. It include deadly elements, deals with toxic substances all of the time, and can result in unexpected and ugly accidents. Doing it safely on large scale is very hard thing, but it should be your top priority. Going bankrupt isn´t as bad as being dead or acquiring severe illness (and then going bankrupt).
3. Know the market, observe how others doing it, make your research and predict your possibilities. Think more about bad outcomes than good ones.
4. Research required permissions, certificates and all paperwork you need to do this kind of job. E-scrap is most of the times considered as hazardous waste (at least here in EU, it is very tough to obtain all paperwork needed before draining your bank account, if you are regular person). Be aware of that. Know the local laws and requirements, if you don´t want to risk lawsuits for "partisan" work.
Admitting that this venture could be out of your reach is not defeat and the end of the world. I realised it myself, after I found myself in particularly peculiar situation regarding operation which I was a part of. If I continued the work after some tragic events happened, I would probably end up in very ugly situation regarding my mental health and bank account.
From the start, refining was only my hobby. Then, I partnered with my friend and helped his operation grow with my knowledge and hard work. Then, it was my part-time job (after my real day to day, I done some stuff for him during afternoons - sometimes even whole nightshifts). And when I was ready to make it my full time job, things gone south in a particularly ugly and sad way. From one day to another, I needed to re-think my position, and accept the fact that running this operation alone would be such a burden on me, that I will probably bankrupt myself in order to keep it alive, alongside with wrecking my mental health.
I encourage you to try it. This wasn´t meant to discourage you, only to remind you it is not an easy business to run. Reselling and collecting this stuff is much easier to try on larger scale. If I could reverse time few years back, I would build from there, and then consider to set up my own operation to actually refine and recover metals from these materials.
