Electrochemistry i've been robbed ! but all went perfect

[steyr223]

Hello everyone
Just like it says i was robbed of my Au but my process was flawless
Ok i ran approximately 1 lb of big (pencil width 1" long) pins through my H2s04 cell
Along with about 20 pentium 4 cpu's( pins all kinda smashed together so there touching)
Also 5 spark prosessors and a few i don't have the names of
The heat spreaders from all the stuff mentioned above and a few others including Xeon
(The umdersides of the heat simks were loaded with gold)
Lastly about 8 of the platedr ectangles with little wing's and a porcelain cap om top
(The first pic in "scored big today...at least for me)
There's more but dont know how to describe
Any ways didn't get hot never even warm to the touch
I assume not diluted due to the amps hitting zero whem done in the appropriate time
That it takes to deplate the material that i had and have done many times
Filtered all H2s04 through fiberglass charmin plug,dissolutioned with bleach/Hcl,tested with stannous(purple)
Filtered again ,steamed for about 2 hours(had about 250mls of auric chloride) tested again (puple)
Dropped wth smb while om heat (nothing dramatic 30min it looked like about 2 grams or so)
Tested again stannous showed brown from smb
Decanted and washed with Hcl and H2o
Beautiful blond powder(heavy)
Seasoned dish added powders(did not blast any on floor)
Till now all looked normal only one thing different the au formed into
100!s of micro bb's but they all were brought togerher into 1 bb
That probaly doesn't way .2grams
There were no impurity's as you can see im my dish

Any and all input would be appreciated
Thanks steyr223 rob

 

[butcher]

Was all of this material done in the concentrated sulfuric acid cell, if so I would not think you could recover much of the materials gold.

If all of this was through the concentrated sulfuric cell, using electrolysis to remove the gold, I do not see how you maintained an electrical contact with the metal in the material and the anode of the power supply.

Most of the deplating in the cell is sort of line of site between anode and cathode, large flat material unless it can maintain contact with the electrodes, and is revolved, or turned with the side containing gold at least somewhat facing the cathode.

Then gold inside the CPU's, you would not recover.

I do not see the process as I am understanding it at this point as flawless.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what the recovery process or processes you used and how they were done.

 

[joubjonn]

have to agree with butcher. some CPU lids can be done in a cell. the flat small ones with no brazing. otherwise you want to use AR on most of those to get all the gold out. the cell doesn't always work great for pins either. you have to move them around to get them all deplated. I recently used AR on a few pounds of cpu's and it worked great. dissolved everything and the gold dropped nicely after a pinch of sulfamic.

 

[steyr223]

Gentlemen
I apologize for the misunderstanding
all I did was the pins on the cpu!s in the cell the rest is put away for later

Joubjonn i don't know why i tried it but it worked verywell
I just smashed the pins down lightly with a hammer and only had to grab one or two spots
With my anode to get all the pins depleted 8)
I was not trying to get any of the gold inside the CPU

The heatsinks had gold under the top inside the square
They were not completly plated it was more like hit with what a spray paint can would do
They took more time to deplate than i thought necessary (longer than 1 min)
But my solution was not hot and the next piece of material went exactly the amount of time it had in the past
Is there something im missing

Thanks steyr223 rob

 

[joubjonn]

To check you can take a small random sample of the deplated pins and dissolve in AR and test to see if you missed anything.

 

[steyr223]

Joubjonn excellent idea
Actually i do like palladium or etech( sorry) had said
They nuke everything in the end no matter what process it came from
But yes i will test first or i would never know fir sure

By site they definitely look done

I was aiming for 2 grams ivhave never been this much off
Thanks steyr223 rob

 

[Long Shot]

Stery223 - one thing I read on this forum about the heat spreaders with gold that looks like it is sprayed on (brazed was the word used) is that they yield about 1 mg in a perfect recovery, hence 1000 needed for one gram! I had about 25 of these out of a large batch of processors the rest being just nickel plated copper. I elected to just combine them with the others for number 3 copper as it would probably cost more for the electricity needed to deplate them.

 

[steyr223]

Joubjonn.
I put the pins in hcl/bleach heated for about 2 hrs
Stannous test neg so i put in a tsp of potassium nitre
Which after a while dissolved all metal
Still negative

Longshot
I understand most of my material is only flashed, so i m
Not surprised
This would lead me to believe that my H2s04 must be diluted (i know i didn't get it to hot) due to the
Length of time they took to deplate

I must have had some nickel Or other metal in
The mix
I just dont get why my dish looks so clean

Thanks everyone. Steyr223 rob