Merged Topics on Ceramic CPU Recovery with Yields

[philddreamer]

I took the 7 & a half pounds of PP's in the pic above, broke them down some more, (not as small as would have liked to), & proceeded to run thru AR one more time. I had to do it in 2 batches, since the coffee pot could not handle all 7 & a half pounds. It was still difficult to stir, but I managed.

So, to make it short, I recovered another 3.6 grams! 8)

I still have about 10 more pounds...

Phil

 

[Smack]

Have you ever looked at some of the ceramic chips on edge and under magnification like 60x magnification? I was told a while back by a guy who used to do them that you have to mill them to powder to get all the gold out of them. As I have looked at them I can see the layers (like 3) and gold specs that look like it's right in the ceramic compound.

 

[maynman1751]

So, to make it short, I recovered another 3.6 grams!



Phil

Too cool! Congrats! Gotta love it! 8)

 

[lazersteve]

Phil,

From the photo you posted all of the gold appears to be on the surface of the left overs in areas I previously mentioned, so proper exposure to the acid solution may be the key, not crushing. I can see how crushing can help expose the area under the dies/cores to acid, but I'm still not convinced it is necessary to pulverize them to a fine dust to get all of the gold.

Perhaps what needs to be done is a comparison test of two new cpus, run side by side, one crushed, one with uncruhed but digested down until the core falls out and the tunsten/copper top is completely digested so as no copper/gold cemntation is taking place inside the tungsten matrix.

I would be will to bet if you simply run the leftovers as is with again no additonal crushing you will see more gold.


Steve

 

[cnbarr]

Perhaps what needs to be done is a comparison test of two new cpus, run side by side, one crushed, one with uncruhed but digested down until the core falls out and the tunsten/copper top is completely digested so as no copper/gold cemntation is taking place inside the tungsten matrix.

I would be will to bet if you simply run the leftovers as is with again no additonal crushing you will see more gold.

Steve

LOL, Steve,
I am one step ahead of you, I just started a test batch this morning. One 2lb batch of standard ceramic Pentiums(no gold lids) broken into 3-5pcs as normal, and one 2lb batch crushed to roughly 1/4" minus. Both bathed in nitric and then ran in AR side by side, I should have results by tomorrow afternoon.

I am also re-running 9lbs of Pentium and Amd K-5 (double sided gold caps processed w/out the lids, I ran those in the cell), which I recovered 16.5g from, to find out how much I may have missed.

I also had no means of crushing, and this thread inspired a DIY project, I built a power mortar and pestle from an old propane tank with the top cut off and my hilti hammer drill with a section of 3/4" black pipe welded to an old 5/8" masonary bit. In 5 minutes crushed 2lbs quite effectively.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone,
Chris

Oh I can post pics of the hammer drill mortar and pestle and the crushed material if anyone wants to see?

Edit: I just realized we were talking about PP's and not ceramics in general.

 

[philddreamer]

Steve, I agree that the first run should have been thru nitric, in order to get rid of the copper & tungsten lid. It's basic, get rid of the base metals first...
By not doing that, I created the need of extra leaching.

I don't want to pulverize, just crush to smaller pieces.
I just crushed my left overs down so the pieces would be exposed more to the acid like you suggested earlier, & it worked; I just have a problem when I try stiring the pieces in the coffee pot, in order to keep them exposed to fresh acid.

I'm just glad I didn't throw the ceramics away & was able to recover that much gold from them.

Thanks!

Phil

 

[lazersteve]

Phil,

I'm not against breaking up the cpus as far as is needed to get the gold out in a minimal number of passes.

As you know the more you crush the cpus, the harder your filtration cycle becomes. The really fine ceramic particles from excessive crushing is a real pain to filter as you well know, additionally this fine ceramic material can trap gold solution if not throughly rinsed, making more waste solution in the end.

I think with a properly thought out digestion cycle and reaction setup, one could conceiveably recovery a large percentage (>95%) of the total gold content in a single pass with minimal crushing, perhaps even with whole cpus.

I still feel the tungsten copper alloy is the true culprit for trapping the gold. Maybe a test on cpu types with the gold plated top verse those without built in heat spreaders on top as test batches of crushed and uncrushed for ceramic cpus with and without tungsten/copper tops.


Steve

 

[philddreamer]

Phil,
I'm not against breaking up the cpus as far as is needed to get the gold out in a minimal number of passes.

As you know the more you crush the cpus, the harder your filtration cycle becomes. The really fine ceramic particles from excessive crushing is a real pain to filter as you well know, additionally this fine ceramic material can trap gold solution if not throughly rinsed, making more waste solution in the end.

I think with a properly thought out digestion cycle and reaction setup, one could conceiveably recovery a large percentage (>95%) of the total gold content in a single pass with minimal crushing, perhaps even with whole cpus.

I still feel the tungsten copper alloy is the true culprit for trapping the gold. Maybe a test on cpu types with the gold plated top verse those without built in heat spreaders on top as test batches of crushed and uncrushed for ceramic cpus with and without tungsten/copper tops.
Steve

Steve, I agree with you 100%!
Thanks again!

Phil

 

[vegaswinner]

Every time i read about ceramics I read about taking the lids off with heat, although I have had success once the majority of the time I have failed. The other day I picked up a nice load of cpu's and needed a quick way to remove lids so I tried a more focused torch, other than roasting the cpu i failed. This was not good seen as I had quite a few to get through. So I tried a more brutal approach using a punch and hammer. This worked surprisingly well, in some cases not only separating the lid but breaking the cpu into enough pieces for processing it also put a nice hole through the central core potentially exposing gold that would otherwise be sandwiched between the layers. I made a video for anyone interested, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt0NErBd-w

 

[philddreamer]

Nice video, Vegas!

It works good for you, & that's the bottom line. 8)
We all have a preferred method & we've made a habit of using the same one over & over, for one reason or another. As long as its safe & you achive your goal! Just make sure you brake the silicon chip & expose any gold that is behind it.

I like to heat my ceramic cpu's with a propane torch & burn any junk that's on them, (prior to leaching), & the soldered chips come off at the same time.

Thanks & take care!

Phil

 

[philddreamer]

While searching for some information on IC's & other chips, I went to the site:
http://www.cpu-galaxy.at/Index.htm
that GSP & Kuma have made mention on previous posts. I love that site!

There, I found the section on Pentium Pro's... very interesting,

http://www.cpu-galaxy.at/CPU/Intel%20CPU/Pentium%20Pro/Intel%20Pentium%20Pro%20section.htm

Phil

 

[cnbarr]

I just started a test batch this morning. One 2lb batch of standard ceramic Pentiums(no gold lids) broken into 3-5pcs as normal, and one 2lb batch crushed to roughly 1/4" minus. Both bathed in nitric and then ran in AR side by side, I should have results by tomorrow afternoon.

I have the results of these two test batches, and honestly I was quite shocked by the results. I let the broken batch run 3hrs longer then the crushed batch just to ensure completion. The resulting button from the broken was 2g total and the button from the crushed batch was 2g total, so I combined them into one button.

Not only was I expecting yield higher then 1g/lb, I was also expecting a difference in yield between the two. I first thought that something had gone array, but where the results were identical I can't deny the numbers. Any thoughts, ideas, criticism, or experience's with ceramic Pentium 1 are more then welcomed.

Oh and congratulations to the winners of the contest.

 

[Claudie]

Thriftybits is currently paying $35.00 a pound for these CPUs. Ebay is getting $66.00+ per pound for them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1lb-Scrap-Ceramic-Processors-for-gold-recovery-recycling-Pentium-/110822796026?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cd8daafa

Hmm.... :|

EDIT: http://www.thriftybits.com/pricelist.html
The thrifybits price was from December.

 

[cnbarr]

Thanks for the info claudie, I thought about ebay for minute, but I think I will hang on to what I have left and run some more tests.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I just started a test batch this morning. One 2lb batch of standard ceramic Pentiums(no gold lids) broken into 3-5pcs as normal, and one 2lb batch crushed to roughly 1/4" minus. Both bathed in nitric and then ran in AR side by side, I should have results by tomorrow afternoon.

I have the results of these two test batches, and honestly I was quite shocked by the results. I let the broken batch run 3hrs longer then the crushed batch just to ensure completion. The resulting button from the broken was 2g total and the button from the crushed batch was 2g total, so I combined them into one button.

Not only was I expecting yield higher then 1g/lb, I was also expecting a difference in yield between the two. I first thought that something had gone array, but where the results were identical I can't deny the numbers. Any thoughts, ideas, criticism, or experience's with ceramic Pentium 1 are more then welcomed.

Oh and congratulations to the winners of the contest.

At the current price of gold at $1725.40 you made $221.92 if you can sell your gold at spot price, if you sell it at 98% you will receive 217.49. We currently offer $52.50/lb for these and you would have reveived $210.00, no fuss no muss and no chemicals. But I like holding my gold too.... 8)

 

[Oz]

We currently offer $52.50/lb for these

Per pound for ceramic Pentiums without the gold heat sink?

 

[cnbarr]

At the current price of gold at $1725.40 you made $221.92 if you can sell your gold at spot price, if you sell it at 98% you will receive 217.49. We currently offer $52.50/lb for these and you would have reveived $210.00, no fuss no muss and no chemicals. But I like holding my gold too.... 8)

I sure do like holding my gold, I've saved up about 2oz in the past couple of weeks and when my mold gets here I'll try my hand at a pour.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

We currently offer $52.50/lb for these

Per pound for ceramic Pentiums without the gold heat sink?

Yes sir.

 

[lazersteve]

Cnbarr,

Your results support my theory that the gold is being trapped in the tungsten copper alloy top plate. Since normal pentium ceramic cpus do not have this integrated top plate heat spreader, the results are identical for crushed and uncrushed. Other ceramic cpus without integrated heat spreaders should not require crushing either: 286-486 ceramic types, motorolas, i960, AMD x86s, AMD K series, AMD athlon/duron ceramic series cpu, etc.

Your test leads me to believe the only cpus that require crushing (to approximately 1/4" sized pieces) are the ones with an integrated heat spreader on top (Cyrix x86, Pentium Pro, HP, etc.). A rule of thumb is that if it has a gold plated top, then it needs to be either crushed or processed in diluted nitric acid to remove the base metals (specifically the copper portion of the top plate) completely before processing for gold.

Nice work.

Steve

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Steve,

Here is a positive test for gold inside the ceramics of some 186 chips that I crushed to a powder and ran in AR, these chips had already been processed for any exterior PM's before they were crushed and the test done of the crushed material.

I will agree 100% with you about the heat spreader cementing out your gold, it will definetly do tat

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=6026&start=140