Keyboard mylars smelting

[kjavanb123]

All,

A major scrap yard owner is sending me materials to do toll refine for him. First batch we did was 6kg keyboard mylars.

6kg mylars prior to pyrolysis,


Pyrolysis result,


Smelting completed, silver is cooled and removed from furnace,


Result was 68.2g of impure silver,


I am going to dissolve this silver in nitric acid, I suspect few grams of Palladium in it as well, then precipitate Pd using DMG, and silver using copper and melt it to see exactly how much got recovered from keyboard mylars.

Regards
Kj

 

[Grelko]

Palladium in mylars? This is the first I've heard about this. This is interesting, If you can please post the results when you are finished.

 

[Long Shot]

Indeed, interested in the Palladium thing as well, please let us know. I have a fair stack of mylars (not 6 kg though) and definitely do not want to miss out on that.

 

[kjavanb123]

All

I should apologize for putting that statement like that, let me clearify the palladium in silver recovered from mylars I suspect is furnace contamination from our previous smelting operation where we re-smelted slags and litharge from another smelter that we recovered 38g of Pt and Pd. not from mylars.

I will do update the numbers today.

Regards
Kj

 

[wrmahaff]

All

I should apologize for putting that statement like that, let me clearify the palladium in silver recovered from mylars I suspect is furnace contamination from our previous smelting operation where we re-smelted slags and litharge from another smelter that we recovered 38g of Pt and Pd. not from mylars.

I will do update the numbers today.

Regards
Kj

Any updated numbers?

 

[kjavanb123]

Hi,

Sorry for not updating that yield number. Have been busy week. The yield from 6kg mylar sheets was 64g purified silver which we dropped as silver chloride, then using zinc powder and sulphuric acid converted to silver metal powder.

So we got 10.6 grams per kg of mylar sheets or 4.8g per lbs of mylar sheets.

Regards
Kj

 

[Anonymous]

How many mylars are there to the KG approximately?

 

[kjavanb123]

No idea how many mylars equal to a kg, maybe weigh one and divide 1000 by that weight to give you number of mylars per kg.


Regards
Kj

 

[Anonymous]

No idea how many mylars equal to a kg, maybe weigh one and divide 1000 by that weight to give you number of mylars per kg.


Regards
Kj

Thanks for being so helpful, if I had one to weigh I would. Hence why I asked....

 

[kjavanb123]

Here is an old post, by me, there are some numbers tha might help you out,

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4924&p=191579&hilit=Mylar#p191579

Regards
Kj

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kevin I found the info I needed on that thread you linked me to. I also found that you were getting 24g per Kg of Mylars using the method on your old thread as opposed to the 10.6g using this method.

I asked about how many mylars there were to the Kg because something in the back of my mind was suggesting this 10.6g yield was too low. What do you think?

Jon

 

[nickvc]

I suspect some silver is still tied up in the flux, smelting is an art as much as anything, it's a long learning curve to get it spot on with temperatures, time and various mixes of fluxes to consider.
We have seen cross contamination in other projects where not all the values were extracted on the first attempt, I think Kevin needs to tinker with some of the variables to improve his process.

 

[kjavanb123]

Spaceship,

I realize that my yield for keyboard mylars using dilute nitric acid is different from these samples we smelted. I can think of two possiblities, one, our furnace is large that can handle large lots of 100kg or more, so losses might happen when we smelted 6kg mylars, two, as it with x-ray films, the keyboards mylars might have different types and therefore different yields?

Nickvc,
My smelting operator has been doing this with anode slimes, jewler sweeps and minerals for more than 25 years and I have seen his work with my materials before, back then we even re-melted the slags, but that only produced trace amount, like 600kg slags and lithrage from many smelting, only produced 1g gold, which tells me we got 99% of gold there was in our furnace.

Regards
Kj

 

[Smack]

Two different mylars will vary just like two different circuit boards so you should expect different yields.

 

[Anonymous]

Two different mylars will vary just like two different circuit boards so you should expect different yields.

True Smack, however the average yields on mylars are pretty well documented, so based upon that there's a loss going on here. Sometimes being helpful means being honest- regardless of whether it's something someone wants to hear or not. Kevin wants to operate this as a service for people to send him product and refine for them, and therefore it has to be a process that doesn't involve over 50% potential losses wouldn't you agree?

It needs more work, and I am sure that this work will be put in by Kevin and his team, but would you send your material on a toll basis to anyone who had 50% of the gross yields attained by others? That's rhetorical because you wouldn't because you're not stupid.

Jon

 

[kjavanb123]

All,

I am going to do a simple test once I receieve that large batch of industrial fime from gas company. We process 5kg films using sodium hypochlorite method, 5kg cyanide method, and 5kg pyrolysis and smelting, that should test my furnace efficency on same materials.

Again, when smelt a batch, we keep the slags and even litharge of the that smelt for the client, he can keep it there, we can do re-melt with his slags and litharge plus fresh lead ignot, so whatever metals left in the slag or litharge, or even in furnace will be recovered.
We did the samr thing with RAMs, as I was curios myself to see how well furnace worked, remelted the slags and litharge and only got 0.7g of gold.

Regards
Kj

 

[Smack]

Right, I wasn't saying the yields were on par, just saying don't expect the same results from mixed anything. Do expect different results every time.

 

[nickvc]

Kevin I'm not trying to put you or your operation down far from it but were it me I'd be having assays done on the waste fluxes to check that all the values were out at least for the first few with new product that's never been processed by your team that way before.
If your stuck for cheap, fast and reliable assays send me a message and I'll give you the contact details.

 

[Anonymous]

All,

I am going to do a simple test once I receieve that large batch of industrial fime from gas company. We process 5kg films using sodium hypochlorite method, 5kg cyanide method, and 5kg pyrolysis and smelting, that should test my furnace efficency on same materials.

Great, that makes a lot of sense especially as it's a relatively new process to the team. This way you'll be able to track your progress in an analytical manner and that can only be a good thing 8) 8)

Jon

 

[kurtak]

Two different mylars will vary just like two different circuit boards so you should expect different yields.

That is true but only to a point - when there is a dramatic difference (per kg) in recovery between processing "similar" material by way of one method & another there is good reason to believe the method that is "way" under is suffering a loss somewhere/somehow so you better start looking for why & where (which is what Jon & Nick are pointing out)

In this case Kevin got (plus/minus) 20 g/kg Ag using the nitric process - & in the smelting process he only got (roughly) 10 g/kg --- that's (roughly) a 50% difference --- that is unacceptable --- I could understand a 5 - 10% difference

Its the same point I was making in this thread :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=23508&p=247788#p247788

Kevin has invested a great deal of time & money in this - it not a hobby for him - therefore Kevin owes it not only to himself but to his clients as well to figure out if he is suffering a (substantial) loss - & if so why &/or where

Kurt