I think I screwed up somewhere

[bpatel60056]

Hello everyone, new to the board and looked for a solution but did not find anything. I'll be as detailed as possible, and hopefully someone has thoughts.

I removed caps and heat sinks from the following CPU's
1 Pentium Pro, 16 Pentiums, 27 Sun Unltra Sparc with pins, 14 Sun Ultra Sparc with out pins, 16 Cyrix 686, 4 IBM 686, 2 Toshiba (Can;t remember the type), 20 386, 14 Various 486, 24 Motorolla CPU's, 4 AMD K5, 6 AMD K6.

Steps :
1 > Broke into 8-10 pieces
2 > Broke the batch into 2 2000ML beakers.
3> Filled with Muratic Acid (32%) to top of CPU's
4> Added water to dilute.
5> Broke to boil (Medium Heat)
6> Added Sodium Nitrate(Instead of nitric acid) spoon every 20 min or so when bubbling stopped.
7> Did this until all metals dissolved Took 6 hours
8> Let cool to room Temp
9> Transfer to a beaker with ice and added Sulfuric acid, about 10 drops
10> Waited an hour
11> Filtered solution into another beaker
12> Added SMB and stirred
13> Waited 24 hours for gold to drop
14> Washed Gold and Weighed.

OK, So not with all those I only for 1.2 Grams and should have gotten a lot more.

I tried adding more SMB and nothing dropped and SMB did not make solution bubble or would indicate excess Nitric.

Any thoughts. I thought I would get a lot more and 1.2 Grams

 

[Anonymous]

Hi there and welcome. A few questions.

Yes your yield should have been higher. Did you take the top gold lids off the pentium pro and pentiums and other chips such as the K5? If so where have you put them because a lot of the gold from the processors with gold lids is in the gold solder round the edge.

How did you neutralise the Nitric in the pregnant solution?

How much SMB did you add and why did you use that quantity?

Have you tested the solution for the presence of gold because you may have left most of it in.

Jon

 

[bpatel60056]

I have removed the lids and have put them aside to process them separately. Which I have not done yet.

I did nothing to neutralize the nitric.

For the smb, I calculated about 8 grams of gold so used 8 grams of smb.

 

[Anonymous]

In that case you it's possible that you have used up some of your SMB neutralising the Nitric instead of precipitating gold.

You need to learn to test your solution for the presence of gold, and you need to learn to neutralise Nitric.

Search the following terms on here: "Stannous Chloride," "testing solutions for gold," "excess Nitric," and so on because the results will lead onto other things of use.

It sounds like you've got part of the processes nailed, but you're missing the finer detail which will turn it into a true success story.

Jon

 

[bpatel60056]

Jon,

Thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction. This is my 1st attempt so still learning. Last question if you don't mind. Do you have an approximate guess(I know all CPUs produce different even if the same type) of what I should expect for yield. I've seems site claiming yields but not sure if they are real or pushing Ebay sales

 

[Anonymous]

As you've noted, yield data tends to vary from information source to information source. A lot of this data is wildly wrong because people have copied other folks figures without actually doing the work themselves. The myth of Pentium Pro fleabay yields of over a gramme per processor is a prime example.

You've mixed all your processors up in a pile and you've refined them together so rather than trying to work out the yield per chip I would recommend that you concentrate on learning to recover your gold effectively and to the fullest extent in this case.

If you utilise the gold testing procedure along with researching the Nitric neutralisation then you'll do very well and learn a great deal in the process.

One final tip that's worth remembering throughout your time refining. You never lose gold until you throw it away. Think on that when you have solutions you can't figure out. 8) 8)

Kind regards, and good luck.

Jon

 

[gold4mike]

Are you 100% sure ALL metals were dissolved?

If you have any remaining metal the gold will cement back out of solution.

I use poorman's pretty much the same way you did and I like to stop adding sodium nitrate before all the metals have dissolved. Let the solution sit overnight so the gold cements back out onto the small amount of remaining metal.

Siphon off most of the liquid to the stockpot.

Start again with poorman's, being careful with the nitrate additions so you use just enough to dissolve the remaining metal and you'll end up with a much cleaner solution to precipitate your gold from.

 

[bswartzwelder]

What results did you get when you tested with stannous chloride. If you didn't test with stannous chloride, you might as well just set everything aside until you mix up a batch. Without valid testing, you have no idea of what you have or for that matter where your values might be. I think that you, like many others (myself included) may have put the cart before the horse.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Bert, you are one of Harold's finest students! If he spent more time on the forum these days, I'm sure he would have made the same post.

Dave

 

[bswartzwelder]

THANK YOU for the kind words, Dave. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, to be sure. However, it has stuck with me and is now at the forefront when I do any work concerning gold. Every time I go outside with the thought of recovering or refining, I always take 2 bottles with me, my gold chloride (purchased online as a stannous chloride test solution) and, of course, my stannous chloride.

I thought I knew too much or was too smart when it came to gold to need stannous chloride. After I lost some gold, the lesson was drummed into my head and I try to teach the same lesson to others with the hope that they won't make the same mistake I did. bpatel60056 only joined the forum on August 11 and already he has made some mistakes. Just like another one on this same section (who got booted off, mercifully), I would hate the thought of someone losing their forum privileges.

I don't know of any way to force people to read before they make mistakes. Most people are just too darn impatient to spend the time reading. They want their gold and they want it NOW, NOW, NOW. A little patience, and a lot of reading go a long way towards their education. I come back to the forum on almost a daily basis to see what new methods may have been developed or discovered.