Is my head in the clouds?

[djbenner2000]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to get a majority opinion on whether or not what I plan on getting out of this is really viable.

I am working with a partner. His family owns a metal scrap business and space in a leased out warehouse. My father works as a Network Engineer for the local hospital system and they produce an enormous amounf of electronic waste, especially now that they have been purchased by a larger company. Me and my partner have had the oppurtunity to pick as much from their "pit" as my truck can carry, and we are working on being their go-to guys instead of Goodwill. We store this in the warehouse. I don't know the legalities of doing the chemistry in the warehouse. I know it is zoned for both commercial and industrial and that I would need permission first from the land owner. (Where is the best place to work given the limits of a hobbyist?)

Anyways, before this gets too long, basically, I am pulling in large amounts of electronic scrap for free, and I have a free place to store it all. I am a full time college student, but still have plenty of time and this summer I will be part-time and will have even more time. I don't plan on quitting my day job, which is yard service I do for another friends chain of houses for the autistic, but I work that alone and the hours are for me to decide.

With basically everything being free, except for the chemicals and waste removal, and having a lot of free time on my hands, I want to at least break even. Do you guys think this is possible processing electronic scrap in my current state?

 

[butcher]

djbenner2000,
Spend that free time learning this as much as you can before jumping in, learn how to mechanically separate and sort the scrap, (high-grade), how to sell the base metals, aluminum, copper, steel and other metals, try and find a market for the plastic, look into how to resale the circuit boards and other portions of the materials to the big refiners, by high-grading your valuable material will take less storage, it will keep you busy making some money, without using chemicals, you may also find it more profitable to sell some of the high grade material than to try and recover the values yourself.

As far as trying to recover or refine in a storage ware house, that would be a bad Idea in my opinion, even if you had permission, as these corrosive toxic gases generated and waste generated, may ruin other peoples goods stored in the warehouse, also you could end up with many unwanted troubles from this idea.

Work hard in college studying, as an education is a very important tool, work hard studying the forum as it also can give you a great education, and become a handy tool.

You are smart for not quitting your day job, as recovery and refining electronic scrap on a small scale, you will find it is not as profitable as you may dream it is, if you work hard you may make a few dollars, but I have always felt you could make more money and work less with a job at the local hamburger joint, seeing the glitter of gold gives many dreamers gold fever, be careful of this disease.

Hope this helps

 

[2ndgenerationrefiner]

first of all your head is completley NOT in the clouds, iv been told so many times in my life that im full of it and that the plans iv made are no good and still i went ahead with them and succeded so dont be discaregd even if some people raise an eyebrow when they hear about your plans. its by Entrepreneurship that people make it big and all the others remain with theyre doubt.
from my experience you need five important things to succed:
a) good smart mind
b) learn everything there is to know about the field your entering
c) Persistence
d) Persistence
e) Persistence.........

as for the situation u r writing about thers only one way to play that card in my opinion. be the middle man.
entering the world of high vol e-scrap refining is tough to impossible. there r many reasons for that which i wont mention here (permits, cost of labor, red tape, learning curve etc...) i think that since you can store a lot of e scrap do just that and ship it to a refining company who is trustworthy and reliable.
my advice would be someone in chaina. shipping rates are very low these days and they posses the tools to make a very good job for your complete satisfactory. i understand that if u were to be the perminent go to guy for the hospital the scrap wont be free any more?
anyway store as much as you can and in the meenwhile start compering prices and even make some test for the average Au amount in your stored scrap at a trustworthy proffesional refiner.
with some luck and a lot of.....Persistence you can make it work and open a pipeline, and who knows mybe one hospital is just the begininng......
(becuse e-scrap is just about vol.....)
cheers

 

[Acid_Bath76]

I think Butcher nailed it on the head! Refining has become more of a passionate hobby than a bread winning endeavor for me. I spent a lot of money screwing everything up before taking a step back and really learning the basics. Between school and this hobby, I'm able to get through school somewhat comfortably, but then again I use the word from "comfort" from a soldiers perspective. It's tempting to jump in with both feet, taking it slow now will save you the pain later. Besides, reading HOKE and really understanding HOKE is going to take some time. All that material coming in can be stored, and the low grade/mid grade can be sold to pay for your eventual set-up. When you're feeling ready, you'll have a couple pesos saved up and a better idea of what it's going to involve concerning equipment. Then again, when you see the prices some of the materials are fetching, you might forget all about refining, and just taking that cash and buying gold It blows my mind what some people are paying on fleabay! Anyhow, best of luck in whatever course you decide to run with. If you decide to recover/refine and do your homework, there will always be knowledgeable people here to help you out in a pinch. With that said, make sure you do your homework Have a good one!

 

[djbenner2000]

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I've been learning a mile a minute. I have been reading Hokes online, but my computer slows down when I view it online. Maybe it is time to scrap it :mrgreen: The prices for Hokes online are in the $225 to $275 range. Anyone know where to get it cheaper?

As for seperating and selling to others to refine, while I understand that that is probably more profitable, I'm really just interested in the chemistry. I want to refine the precious metals whether it is profitable or not, and just wanted to know if I could expect a return on my efforts. So, I really shouldn't call it a business and I don't plan on registering it as one, but I have a habit of getting into expensive hobbies and was hoping maybe this one could be self-sufficient. I'm working in tandem with my friends metal scrap company, so any plastic or base metals that I do not want would just go to them.

I want to make sure that I do this legally, or legally enough that I won't be causing problems on a small scale. What Federal Laws are there regarding storage of these hazardous chemicals? Our local ordinances don't mention the storage of chemicals. I am working with my chem teacher to get me hooked up with a waste management company.

My main concern is fume control. Usually, I would just stopper off a reaction vessel and bubble the NOx through water, but with the huge beakers I expect I'll need, I need to construct a fume hood. I also saw a fume hood for purchase under $500. How do you guys control your NOx fumes?

I don't believe I will be setting up in the warehouse. It isn't well lit and the owner has everything to lose and nothing to gain by allowing us to work their. Do you guys just work out of your garage or maybe a shed. We may put convert the garage into a lab. I even got permission to bust a hole in the wall to extract fumes.

I believe I understand the AR process and I am now working on the Acid Peroxide method and HCl/Cl. Naturally, I heard about the AR process first and so learned it first, but would any of these other two processes be better suited to processing PCBs, CPUs, and RAM?

One last thing; I know I have asked a lot of questions that are probably widely available on the rest of the forum, but this one I could not honestly come by.

Assuming .7mL of HNO3 can dissolve 1 gram of Au, the 1 L of HNO3 can dissolve about a kg of Au which, at $50 a gram, is equal to $50,000. Given a kg of gold, I would need:

1 L Nitric Acid 31$
4 L Hydrochloric Acid $80
2.5 lbs. Sodium Metabisulfite $18
3 lbs. urea $5

for a total of $134 in chemicals to dissolve a $50,000 amount of gold. Is there really so much base metal and inefficiencies that that profit margin is void? My math must be wrong. I know Nitric acid is needed initially to dissolve base metals before AR can be used, but is so much extra used that the cost exceeds the revenue? Even when I am officially listed for the hospital system's scrap, they will not charge me a penny. The only other unknown, persistent cost will be for waste management.

Thanks again everyone, and sorry for the length of my post and the many questions asked. I am both tired and excited, so I tend to ramble.

 

[butcher]

djbenner2000,

I bought my Hoke's book from here:
http://www.actionmining.com/Catalog.PDF

I remember GSP making a post of someone who sold it a little cheaper.

Base metals need to be removed from values before they are dissolved into solutions, this can consume a lot of acids and also generated a lot of fumes and waste to deal with, you make this sound so easy.

You are on the right track studying Hoke’s book, and the price of the book is worth every penny, it is much easier than reading on a computer, I love my Hoke's book and wonder why it took me so long to buy one, instead of trying to read the printed computer copy.

I was not trying to discourage you in learning to recover or refine, but wanted you to see that that gold shine is bright, and sometimes we are blinded by it.

Sounds like you do have the right Idea, studying, considering safety, waste disposal, and costs before you begin, keep up the good work.

 

[Acid_Bath76]

As for fume hood construction, there are some ingenious contraptions on this site with diagrams and all. Depending on where you get your materials and who constructs it, you could save a lot of money. When I first starting looking, it seems there were two avenues: sucking the fumes out, and using the pressure from the fumes released during the reaction to push the fumes through the scrubber. The latter being less space intensive. I think the plans I had ran around $300-$400. That's not too bad considering commercial units can run into the thousands. It's all here. As for getting a copy of HOKE. I just downloaded it to a data stick, went to the university, bought a $5 ream of printer paper, and printed the whole thing out in the computer lab. Put it in a binder, and there ya go.

 

[nickvc]

With e scrap there's as much if not more value in the base metals than in the precious metals so I'd suggest spending plenty of time reading how some of our members realise the best returns from every part of it. Careful separating and breaking down the items will be a must even down to the boards where values can be inside chips but not obvious unless you know what to look for, the stripped boards need to be graded so they can be sold on on when you have the volume.
Your basically cherry picking the parts that allow recovery and refining to be possible with a good chance of a return on the money needed to process them.
You have a lot to learn but seem bright enough to find your way through the mountain of reading and studying needed to be successful at this, given that you have a free unlimited supply of this material you should make money but your going to earn every cent, this, e scrap, is not a business that you make big money in without a lot of work and a lot of knowledge.
I wish you luck and look forward to seeing your endeavours in the not too distant future.

 

[Geo]

i have at least 1,000 pounds of scraped boards of all kinds. the largest majority still have gold in the board as i cut the pins and all components off even with the board. there's still a lot of solder on them as well. after looking them over and thinking about the next few hundred pounds i will add to them, ive been thinking about trying to find a buyer for them. anyone have any luck selling this type of stuff? just wondering what it could be worth. i would be happy with just 50% of the metal in them.

 

[glondor]

Just a little thought. If you have scrap that is 1% by weight AU ( which is good) and you want to get a kilo of gold, you must eliminate 99 grams base metal per gram of gold. 247.5 kilos base metal per kilo gold. Of course there is scrap that yields much higher than 1% by weight but it is a good example.

 

[nickvc]

Hey Glondor check your maths on that... I think you may be a little confused there, 100 kilos of scrap at 1% gold will get you a kilo.

 

[glondor]

OOps yes you are right. dyslexics should not do math. Somehow transposed grams and....um, I dunno. I will look at it later when I can untangle it. It made absolute sense at the time :lol:

 

[kuma]

It made absolute sense at the time :lol:

I have this problem occasionally too , :lol:

 

[steyr223]

hi all hope everything is good
great stuff djbenner2000 i hope it all works out
please keep us updated

geo i'm pretty tired but i think you asked if anyone
bought what i call obliterated boards ,after the refiner
picked all the visable gold off

my guy "silicon salvage" out of i think buena park ,ca.
buys pc cards with the fingers gone at about $2.50/lb
and has purchased motherboards missing all the pins

i haven't tried to sell any thing missing the flatbacks yet
but

i posted this info before and the owner dan or chuck said it was ok
when i was checking prices on 486 gold back cpu's for a member here
on this form

feel free to contact them and by the way i have no ties what so ever
with them
in fact i will for warn you and all other readers
these guys will get you coming and going

i hope this helps
steyr223