IC chips: Blending Before or After Pyrolysis?

[Dzimmy89]

Hey All,
I have a Waring professional blender i got on the cheap from eBay, and was wondering if I should use it after pyrolysis on the IC chips or simply blend the IC chips into powder with the blender (assuming they will blend to powder without being burnt first). Do I need to perform pyrolysis on the IC chips at all if I can turn them into powder with the blender? I have the process down pat after they are turned into powder, I just want to make sure I have it right up until the powder part. So basically I'm asking this: Do I need to perform pyrolysis on the IC chips? If I do need to do pyrolysis, can I blend them before or after pyrolysis?

Thanks for the help all!

 

[nickvc]

I am far from an expert on this type of material but if you search the forum I'm sure you will get your answers and explanations as to why. From memory I believe you need to use pyrolysis first, Patnor has a long and excellent thread covering all your questions and detailing his own process for recovering the values.

 

[mls26cwru]

you will destroy the blender and blades very fast if you don't pyrolize first... you will then have to contend with blending silicon glass into shards (and metal legs depending on your material) after...

I dont know if anyone has tried blending the pryolized chips in a water slurry to minimize airborne particles, but I would imagine you will still tear up your blades pretty fast.

 

[Grelko]

you will destroy the blender and blades very fast if you don't pyrolize first... you will then have to contend with blending silicon glass into shards (and metal legs depending on your material) after...

I dont know if anyone has tried blending the pryolized chips in a water slurry to minimize airborne particles, but I would imagine you will still tear up your blades pretty fast.

Edit - If possible, pyrolize them first.

I've gone through a blade in about 6 hours of blending non pyrolized chips in water. Dry, non pyrolized in about 3 hours.

Water - It will work with some chips, but it doesn't mix properly like making a milk shake, even if you crush them into small pieces first. Most of the chips will sit there, while only the ones in the blades path will be chopped up.

(This basically means, every few minutes, you'll need to unplug it, take the lid off, mix it up with a long screw driver, etc, put the lid on, plug it back in and continue for another few minutes. :roll: )

Both - The motor will get very warm and possibly burn out.

You might see sparks while blending dry chips because of the blades hitting the metal. Small pieces of metal/chips are going to hit the sides of the glass pretty hard "This happens dry or in water". There is a chance the glass will break.

Water - The flat ram chips don't blend much at all. The blender more or less shaves the flat side of the chips down.

Water will stop the dust, but if the lid isn't completely on, you'll have tiny black pieces of chips and water coming out.

Water - I noticed that after you're finished blending, if the particles are small enough, a lot of the gold bonding wires might be underneath the plastic o-ring "under the blades" when you unscrew the bottom to rinse it out.

The "pipe crusher" that Patnor uses is much better, if you don't mind the workout for your arms.

You can crush them up without pyrolizing, to get the bonding wires "if you pan them out". It'll take you hours to crush a handful into complete powder. Plus you'll have dust coming out of the top once the pieces get small enough. If you don't crush them up the size of flour, you can miss bonding wires that are trapped in the black part.

If you pyrolize them first, you can just put them into a container "mason jar, etc" and shake it up to break apart the chips, remove iron with a magnet, then sift the powder and pan it. Re-pyrolize any left over pieces and continue.

Edit - Added/fixed

 

[nickvc]

Well done Grelko a very well explained method of processing pointing out the good and bad, personally I know after reading your post what I would do 8)

 

[jason_recliner]

Do you mean "Incinerate"?

Pyrolizing, without oxygen, burns off the volatiles leaving black carbon.
Incinerating, with plenty of oxygen, burns off the carbon leaving white ash.

The reason for the difference is that even small amounts of leftover carbon will suck up your gold, should you allow it in your aqua regia.

[Edit:] Best practice is to pyrolize before incineration, to reduce toxic smoke and nasties. Pat's procedure has it all well documented.

 

[Geo]

Pyrolizing works but all the ash needs to be removed by gravity separation before processing. Complete ashing is best but is not necessary to completely process IC chips.

 

[anachronism]

The reason for the difference is that even small amounts of leftover carbon will suck up your gold, should you allow it in your aqua regia.

No this is not true in my understanding and it has been said a lot on here. Activated carbon will suck up gold from AR. Would one of the serious Professionals please input here because my understanding is that the whole activated carbon thing has got mixed up into some urban myth that leaves people believing that both types of carbon have the same effect.

I can put carbon mesh from a cell into AR and strip the metals from it perfectly well.

I'm more than willing to be corrected on this if my assessment is incorrect so I'm asking for guidance.

Jon

 

[g_axelsson]

The reason for the difference is that even small amounts of leftover carbon will suck up your gold, should you allow it in your aqua regia.

No this is not true in my understanding and it has been said a lot on here. Activated carbon will suck up gold from AR. Would one of the serious Professionals please input here because my understanding is that the whole activated carbon thing has got mixed up into some urban myth that leaves people believing that both types of carbon have the same effect.

I can put carbon mesh from a cell into AR and strip the metals from it perfectly well.

I'm more than willing to be corrected on this if my assessment is incorrect so I'm asking for guidance.

Jon

The effect of adsorbing gold complex on the surface of carbon is called "preg-robbing" and can vary between different sources of carbon. Most effective is on activated carbon, but other sources of carbon can also show this effect. To decide the amount of preg-robbing in a specific sample you need to run tests.

This presentation talks about preg-robbing and how to characterize it analytically.
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2004RM/finalprogram/abstract_72717.htm
A few more articles on the subject can be found by searching for articles citing this paper.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=10461066802837030052

My guess is that pyrolyzed plastics creates a very porous structure of carbon where the surface area is high, mimicking the process that creates activated carbon. Therefore I'm very careful to incinerate chips until they are white straight across the center and not to have any carbon left.

Other types of carbon might show a lot less preg-robbing. For example graphite has a very dense surface and very small surface area compared with other burnt material.

More reading :

Effect of the structure of carbon adsorbents on the adsorption of gold cyanide, A.S. Ibrado and D.W. Fuerstenau, 1992
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304386X9290087G doi:10.1016/0304-386X(92)90087-G
In this article a number of different types of coal are examined. Graphite and activated coal was as effective to adsorb gold cyanide, then lignite, carbon black and bone charcoal at about 10% as effective as activated charcoal. Bituminous coal showed almost no effect.

Kinetics of Gold Chloride Adsorption onto Activated Carbon, T.M. SUN and W.T. YEN, 1992
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/089268759390160O doi:10.1016/0892-6875(93)90160-O
A small quote.

Early in 1801 Henry [9], and later others [10,11], reported the reducing action of charcoal
in gold chloride solution. They observed that metallic gold precipitated on the charcoal
surface. After about 80 years Davis [12] and Davis [13] patented the carbon adsorption
process for gold chloride. But the mechanism of gold adsorption was not studied until the
last decade. In a technical notes, de Siegel and Soto [2] reported that the kinetics of initial
gold uptake was sensitive to carbon grain size, and the favourable pH range was 1 to 8.

Jon, the effect is there but how big it is for your carbon mesh I have no idea. Have you tried to incinerate a piece to see if there is any gold present?

Göran

 

[Grelko]

Do you mean "Incinerate"?
Incinerating, with plenty of oxygen, burns off the carbon leaving white ash.

Yes, this is what I should have said. Once they're white ash, they'll basically just fall apart.

I would incinerate them If could stop the burning plastic smell since I live in the middle of town. Lately I just crush them into powder without burning anything. (I don't have a proper setup to incinerate or even pyrolize right now)

I could continue on about this by adding that, even when the ash is the size of flour, do not try to filter it. :roll: It just ends up giving you some grey water and the filter is clogged with mud extremely fast. It's just a waste of time. In another thread, I was talking about filtering it, kurtak asked about it so I tested my theory. It didn't work. :lol: Using a gold pan is much easier and faster.

The reason for the difference is
Göran

I haven't read about this yet, thank you for the links.

 

[goldeelox]

I granulate my ics, then pulverize to a 100 mesh. 2 machines they work 25 pounds an hour. Then I mix with water and use a Box it’s a sluice to separate the plastic. Then nitric the copper. Then melt works pretty good.

 

[Jado]

I’m not an expert in IC construction or the materials used, but TMK they’re mostly a Silicon slab covered in a Hydrocarbon lacquer encased in Nylon. Complete true pyrolysis (800-850•F for 2-4 hours) should leave a fairly clean chip in a puddle of crude oil. Most people aren’t that patient, and I cannot comment on any leaching that may or may not occur. Any amount of Oxygen in the chamber will allow charring and the formation of water & CO2, thus contaminating the viscous short chain hydrocarbon sludge with Carbonic Acid, which screws with the whole process and will leach a little bit. Who can afford an Argon bottle though? So we’re sitting in the middle looking at true pyrolysis on one side, requiring some DIY and some modifications to an expired US Govt patent from the 19th century… or pyrolyze to the best of your ability (allowing drainage if your temp breaks HC chains, but most people never break 700• from what I’ve read) then Incinerate the leftovers.

Either way, the blender would do better making margaritas.

 

[MrBurritoMan]

What if it was possible to grind up the ICs using a ball mill? I've been playing with this idea for ages. Simple designs could revolve around something like a rock tumbler with stainless steel ball bearings. Has anybody tried this?

 

[Yggdrasil]

I’m not an expert in IC construction or the materials used, but TMK they’re mostly a Silicon slab covered in a Hydrocarbon lacquer encased in Nylon. Complete true pyrolysis (800-850•F for 2-4 hours) should leave a fairly clean chip in a puddle of crude oil. Most people aren’t that patient, and I cannot comment on any leaching that may or may not occur. Any amount of Oxygen in the chamber will allow charring and the formation of water & CO2, thus contaminating the viscous short chain hydrocarbon sludge with Carbonic Acid, which screws with the whole process and will leach a little bit. Who can afford an Argon bottle though? So we’re sitting in the middle looking at true pyrolysis on one side, requiring some DIY and some modifications to an expired US Govt patent from the 19th century… or pyrolyze to the best of your ability (allowing drainage if your temp breaks HC chains, but most people never break 700• from what I’ve read) then Incinerate the leftovers.

Either way, the blender would do better making margaritas.

And at least Margaritas may taste good

 

[Liquidau]

What if it was possible to grind up the ICs using a ball mill? I've been playing with this idea for ages. Simple designs could revolve around something like a rock tumbler with stainless steel ball bearings. Has anybody tried this?

Hey MBM, I’ve got a cement mixer that I use with 1/2”, 1”, and 2” SS balls, but I process pyrolyzed chips, not uncooked ones. And I’m working on my incineration process too because it’s essential to get rid of all the Carbon (from the plastics). As the experts herein have stated, not cooking the chips means that you’re grinding up everything, including some very abrasive glass and silicon. It’s a work in progress for me, but the wisdom of the Forum moderators ensures that you don’t reinvent the wheel. Also, if you end up with ground up everything, the separation of the gold bonding wires is more difficult.