Hi everyone! As some of you read in other thread, I’m a newbie in this world, but I’d like to try at least once about refining gold from some scrap (and it’s not for the money, just for the pleasure of doing it), so after learning and investigating I’d like to know what experts like you think about the process I’ll follow. I’d like to point that I’ll be lucky, and I’ll be able to use a more or less well equipped lab for the occasion; a friend of mine works in a high-school and they found interesting the idea, so they’ll borrow the chemistry lab: equipment, some chemicals, a “professional” hood exhaust and so on, the only things missing for now would be sulfamic acid, SMB and a mask.
Before telling all the process, I’d like to ask about using pure Stannous Chloride Dihydrate for the stannous test (they have that in the lab), I read about it but still not quite sure to transform it in a usable test (with hcl? Just heating?).
And now, speaking about what I’m going to do, I have 2 different materials to process; I will do each and after that melt the resulting gold of both.
First what could be considered around 80 ddr2 ram module’s gold fingers already de-soldered. For that, this is the process I’m thinking to do:
For the second one I bought one Intel Pentium Pro and four R80186, for this this is the process what I’m thinking to do is pretty similar, but:
I have taken the small BGA chips from the ram too, they should be around 900 of them, if the other two goes good I maybe try to refine the gold in them too, but that will be for a future.
Anyway, thanks for your time and anything you have to say!
PS: I'm sure it's already known, but in the tour post about the commonly used chemicals the source is broken.
Before telling all the process, I’d like to ask about using pure Stannous Chloride Dihydrate for the stannous test (they have that in the lab), I read about it but still not quite sure to transform it in a usable test (with hcl? Just heating?).
And now, speaking about what I’m going to do, I have 2 different materials to process; I will do each and after that melt the resulting gold of both.
First what could be considered around 80 ddr2 ram module’s gold fingers already de-soldered. For that, this is the process I’m thinking to do:
- Put the fingers in distilled water and add some nitric, heat and add more nitric as needed until all base metals are dissolved (medium heat). I didn’t say but I won’t be adding huge amounts of nitric, just small amounts of it. Then filter it after it colds.
- Take what is left, and make AR. Like before, I’ll be adding HCL and the nitric after in small doses until it’s dissolved (medium heat). Then filter again after it colds.
- The resulting solution should be the one with the gold in there, so use sulfamic acid to be sure there is no exceed of nitric and after that add SMB to precipitate the gold, filter it once is all precipitated, clean with water few times and ready for melting.
For the second one I bought one Intel Pentium Pro and four R80186, for this this is the process what I’m thinking to do is pretty similar, but:
- Crack the processors in few pieces and like before, do the first step with nitric to get rid of base metals (low~medium heat). Now, even if I filter the solution instead of taking out the ceramics there could be still gold so I’ll put them in AR too.
- Take what is left from the previous point, and put it with HCL and add in small doses the nitric until all the metals are dissolved (low heat). Now, before filtering add some water to dilute it a bit and because after I investigated I saw that there could be some lead in the solution, add a small shot of sulfuric acid to precipitate it and give some time. After that, filter the solution.
- Now there should be just the solution with the dissolved gold, to remove any excess of nitric I’ll add sulfamic acid and once it’s ok, SMB to precipitate the gold and when it’s done, filter it and clean with some distilled water. After that, it should be ready for melting.
I have taken the small BGA chips from the ram too, they should be around 900 of them, if the other two goes good I maybe try to refine the gold in them too, but that will be for a future.
Anyway, thanks for your time and anything you have to say!
PS: I'm sure it's already known, but in the tour post about the commonly used chemicals the source is broken.