IC powders

[madelyn]

I have a jacket over the crucible and can easily reach white hot temps. It's just that my variac is rated for 12 amps and I'm running it on 25 to 30 amps 600 volts , so it gets to hot when melting about an hour.
I have to switch my igbts so that I can draw less current and more volts, maybe up to a 1000 volt at 20 amps would be good and keep the whole circuit nicely cool.


Can someone please advise on the borax and palladium?

 

[Research135]

I'll re-phrase:
Your heat insulation of the graphite crucible is inadequate.
Keep going like this and you will eventually admit it, after a minor or major setback.
What is the temperature rating of your insulation jacket?

 

[madelyn]

I don't know the temp rating on the jacket ,but I have a white ceramic refractory cement that is rated for 3000 Celsius which I will be using for for my larger graphite cruicible. I'm still trying to figure out how I will mold the jacket becuase it can't be to thick as I wil loose conduction when the coil is to far from the graphite.
Option 2 is to place the coil inside the jacket so that the coil can be very close to the graphite.

 

[Research135]

Option 2 is to place the coil inside the jacket so that the coil can be very close to the graphite.

No, no, no, no, no!.

Try to build the following (from the inside out):

1-Powders or metals to be melted. 1800-2000 C. Compact them into a pellet, if possible.
2-Impervious small crucible. Sintered Zirconia or Sintered Magnesia. 1900-2100 C.
3-Graphite jacket or small crucible covered in refractory. 2100-2200 C.
4-Insulating jacket.
5-More insulation.
6-Even More insulation. Total 4,5,6 minimum 50 mm.
7-Refrigerated Induction coil.

Aim for something like this, but smaller:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdDX48OUjGI

 

[Research135]

Can someone please advise on the borax and palladium?

I did already.
Here it is again: NO FLUXES ARE USED to melt platinum or palladium. Or any of the other four PGMs.

 

[madelyn]

Can someone please advise on the borax and palladium?

I did already.
Here it is again: NO FLUXES ARE USED to melt platinum or palladium. Or any of the other four PGMs.

Its for when I'm melting the mixed ic powder or slag to recover the PM?

 

[Research135]

Madelyn: I give up. Good luck with your experiments.

 

[madelyn]

2-b-1-Incinerate it in a steel drum with a porous glass fiber cover. (Maybe you need an afterburner too, if you care about the fumes).
2-b-2-Smelt the residue with lead added as a collector, litharge, borax, and soda ash, well mixed.
2-b-3-Assay and sell the lead ingots.[/quote]

How else wil I get the slag nice and thin for the metals to flow?
I wil not be using any salts for melting my refined PGMS.

 

[Research135]

..., borax, and soda ash, well mixed.

Good luck Madelyn.

Did you make that induction furnace yourself or is it someone else's work?.

How did you get an oscilloscope in Namibia?. Show me the welding equipment you used to build the capacitor bank, and the refrigerated coils.

I don't believe anything from you!. My problem for sure...

This thread might help you:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=22581

edit, over and out: Lead alloy flows liquidly, nicely, beautifully... with all precious metals in it. The slag with the borax comes off with one hammer blow, after cooling.

 

[madelyn]

My goodness!
I wil try and explain in more detail what I mean about the borax and palladium it seems that you have difficulty understanding this.

If I crush my ics I have to mix it with borax and soda ash to get a liquid melt, so what happens if there is palladium in the ic mix since I'm not allowed to melt PGMS with fluxes?
I hope that someone can give some clarification to this?
And would you really ask me something that stupid! to confirm I builded my own induction heater?

 

[Research135]

to confirm I builded

That will suffice, yes.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Let's keep things positive folks.

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

Research - I'm a little puzzled and you may be able to help me out but could you let me know why you think someone couldn't get hold of an oscilloscope in Namibia?

 

[Justincase]

My goodness!
I wil try and explain in more detail what I mean about the borax and palladium it seems that you have difficulty understanding this.

If I crush my ics I have to mix it with borax and soda ash to get a liquid melt, so what happens if there is palladium in the ic mix since I'm not allowed to melt PGMS with fluxes?
I hope that someone can give some clarification to this?

I regularly use flux with silver containing P.G.M.'s ,as long as they are in a weak alloy I do not see it doing any harm and is necessary to flux off some of the impurity's.
If you where trying to melt pure P.G.M.'s it is advised to very lightly season your crucible with some borax and to avoid carbon crucibles completely.
I am unsure if seasoning is advised for zirconia crucibles but I think I read that it was not.
I have only melt small button's Pure P.G.M.'s by torch as of yet as from what I have seen you need to have the hole melting and casting unit in a controlled atmosphere chamber to get good result's.
That would be your next job to situate your coil in a vacuum chamber and have it so it could tilt an pour.

 

[Geo]

The most major problem I see with this is the metal is heated internally. This means the gold wires is most likely to melt. Molten gold is a powerful solvent for other metals and will alloy with any metal it comes into contact with. If it is your intention of collecting the wires for further refining, I'm afraid you are making a mistake. If you are planning on processing ALL of the metal in the chips after you do this step, then proceed.

 

[johnny309]

Melt is good...adding enought Cu....Al and Fe will remain in the "slag" ..as silicates or oxides...then copper cell.... mud is processed further.....
PRO: all the gold will be recovered(even from magnetic gold platted legs....which is removed when panning)
On the other hand ....much more energy consumed.....much more time involved.....but for bigger quantity ....is the best way...

 

[MarcoP]

I've randomly picked up this existing and related thread where to ask a question. How do we properly dispose of the ash coming from incinerated plastics and or integrated circuits? I mean, after we are sure that none, or a trace amount, of PMs are present in the ash, can we just send it to a common council rubbish yard, dispose of it as hazardous or do you put it aside and when enough send it to a refiner?

Marco

 

[Smack]

I put mine in with the circuit boards that are headed to the refiner just in case I did miss a little of the good stuff.

 

[Geo]

From my research on the subject, the plastic IC bodies are infused with cadmium oxide. Cadmium has been used in PVC since it's invention as a stabilizer. Cadmium oxide is used in the plastic bodies to inhibit thermal breakdown of the plastic over time and to restrict oxidation of the plastic. Once the plastic bodies have been incinerated, the cadmium is free and becomes airborne particulates. I recommend that you should deal with incinerated plastics while wet or damp. This will reduce the amount of dry dust in the air. I also recommend that all solids be placed in a sealed container and sent to the landfill. in the USA, landfills must conform to state regulations that restrict pollution from the landfill going into ground water.

 

[Anonymous]

At the risk of getting on my old soapbox.

Why on earth we advocate incinerating unknown product in the full knowledge that most people are not going to do it safely beggars belief.

Then we recommend using sulphuric cells to rookies, and sodium Hydroxide when both will result in instant blindness in the wrong hands and an unlucky droplet whilst on the other hand certain leeches are considered taboo.

Balanced safety I get but this is completely skewed.

Jon