Merged Topics on Ceramic CPU Recovery with Yields

[jimdoc]

Butcher just explained how to get rid of the nitric with evaporation in his last post.

Jim

 

[Harkey1]

Thanks for pointing that out to me. I mis read his post.
I'm on it.
Thanks again. I will let yall know how it comes out.

 

[samuel-a]

Part -1

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ_R8Gr26kk[/youtube]


Part - 2

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4CcaTVJqY[/youtube]

All comments, suggestions and questions are welcomed 8)

 

[nmlfreitas]

Very nice videos samuel-a. It will help a lot.
Thanks

 

[Geo]

Great videos Sam.

will this work the same way with ceramic IC's like Eproms? this is a sample of about ten pounds i ran through some old AP to remove the legs, i think it did very well.

notice the holes where the legs were?

the etching stopped well before it reached the center.

 

[samuel-a]

Geo

I'm not certain the gold content (if there is any) will justify the process.

From my experience, copper tends to complicate a direct AR process, both the leaching and precipitation.


With CPU's (lids removed) you can expect in solution:
Au, Ag, Pb, Sn, Fe, Co, Ni

None of which pose much truble in dilute solution. With Pb being most persistent, followed by Ag.

 

[philddreamer]

Very good Samuel!

Thank you!

Phil

 

[goldsilverpro]

Excellent as usual, Sam!

Geo,

Those ceramic DIPS are generally 2 flat pieces of ceramic held together with fused glass. The ceramic contains 5-10% glass, so everything fuses together. With the legs still on them, I once heated them up to about 900F (I'm thinking) and then quenched them in water. The glass pulverized and they fell apart. Worth a try. Heat one up with a torch and drop it in water. Of course, you don't want to melt anything.

I ran a couple of buckets of them. After quenching, I think I tumbled them a little, as is, in a cement mixer to thoroughly break the metal lead frame away from the ceramic. I don't remember if I dried them first or not. The ceramic pieces were still whole.

That was 35 years ago. However, I just found a couple of companies on the internet that sell modern parts like those. They both said that glass was used to seal the parts.

There are many ways to skin a cat, of course.

Chris

 

[Geo]

will do.

 

[jack_burton]

Looking for the like button.... Great video's Sam!

 

[vegaswinner]

Thanks for the guide Sam,,, I'd been hoping a genuine video tutorial would appear for ceramics... I have a couple of questions, would this process work with ambient temperature AR? If so I'd assume it would take longer, any idea how much extra time would be required? Also, is it absolutely necessary the pins be detached from the cpu? I've tried so many times now on numerous ceramics and the pins just refuse to fall out. Ive been heating them with mapp and giving a good flick but they wont detach. Thanks

 

[samuel-a]

Thanks for the guide Sam,,, I'd been hoping a genuine video tutorial would appear for ceramics... I have a couple of questions, would this process work with ambient temperature AR? If so I'd assume it would take longer, any idea how much extra time would be required? Also, is it absolutely necessary the pins be detached from the cpu? I've tried so many times now on numerous ceramics and the pins just refuse to fall out. Ive been heating them with mapp and giving a good flick but they wont detach. Thanks

vegaswinner

The process could be done without heat.
I do not do it cold mainly due to the low activity of the AR, remember, my suggestion is not to pre-mix 4:1 AR, but slowly adding the nitric.
The consequence being, that one would have to add more nitric then actually needed just to keep the reaction going in a reasonable time period.

You can use excess nitric (at 4:1 ratio) and later use urea, but you must learn how to test your solution and really know what you are doing, every step.
potentially, dissolution can take a full day or so.
With heat, it goes down to 2-3 hours (and less acid consumption)


For the record, i did not suggested to remove pins from ceramic type CPU's, but from the fiber type.
The pins at most ceramic type CPU's intrude the ceramic, the pin actually looks like this: -|-----

 

[vegaswinner]

Thanks for your reply Sam... Which tests would i need to familiarize myself with? I am familiar with stannous for the purpose of testing for pm's in solution, but I am not familiar with any other tests as yet. Although I would be using nitric I would follow your guide not pre mixing AR, adding it incrementally to the HCL until the reaction exhausts. Would this be a situation where instead of urea I could follow one of Harolds tricks and add a gold button to the mix to use up excess nitric? Sorry if I misunderstood regarding the removal of pins, in your video at 31 seconds you just briefly mentioned pins removed notice the kovar metal. I take it from your reply kovar is not contained in any ceramics? Thanks

 

[samuel-a]

vegaswinner

Knowing how and when to test with SnCl2 is part of every recovery process. If you know it you are good to go.

I can see now where the confusion come from, the picture at sec 31 of the removed pins was taken for sake of demonstration.
To do that, i have leached one cpu in nitric acid to a point which the pins fell off.


I think very highly of Harold's method, though i came to learn that no "de-NOx"ing is needed if you add only minimal amounts of nitric.
Say you happen to add too much nitric, Urea can be quite useful (and fast) in this case, mainly due to the high volume of the resulting solution.

De-NOx-ing is an added step which could be avoided easily, both by the experienced operator and the novice.

 

[Geo]

i tried a couple of experiments with the ceramic chips and this is what happened.

i heated one to a cherry red and dropped it into cold water like Lou suggested, it did come apart but the fused glass did not separate like i was hoping. i may have over heated the chip and melted the glass so i will try this one again at varying temps.

i then put a couple in fresh hcl and warmed it to 100 degrees C. the hcl reacted to the glass. after about 15 minutes the two ceramic layers came apart and the glass turned into a white powder sediment.this makes me think that this could be a pretreatment to remove the glass and legs from the chips for further processing, perhaps in AR as per your videos.

 

[Smack]

i tried a couple of experiments with the ceramic chips and this is what happened.

i heated one to a cherry red and dropped it into cold water like Lou suggested, it did come apart but the fused glass did not separate like i was hoping. i may have over heated the chip and melted the glass so i will try this one again at varying temps.

i then put a couple in fresh hcl and warmed it to 100 degrees C. the hcl reacted to the glass. after about 15 minutes the two ceramic layers came apart and the glass turned into a white powder sediment.this makes me think that this could be a pretreatment to remove the glass and legs from the chips for further processing, perhaps in AR as per your videos.

Geo, would the dissolved glass pose a problem when you try to get the silver out of nitric?

 

[Geo]

it may add a step. i havent dealt with the white powder yet.ive heard hot hcl will dissolve silver which then precipitates as silver chloride when it cools.im sure the glass has silver mixed with it but the glass is non-reactive so i dont see a problem converting with sulfuric and steel.the added step would be to dissolve with nitric to separate from the glass.

 

[arthur kierski]

Very,very good Sam------
thanks and congratulations
Arthur

 

[Acid_Bath76]

Nice videos! Just curious, but why don't you do an initial leach with hot HCL?

 

[goldsilverpro]

i tried a couple of experiments with the ceramic chips and this is what happened.

i heated one to a cherry red and dropped it into cold water like Lou suggested, it did come apart but the fused glass did not separate like i was hoping. i may have over heated the chip and melted the glass so i will try this one again at varying temps.

i then put a couple in fresh hcl and warmed it to 100 degrees C. the hcl reacted to the glass. after about 15 minutes the two ceramic layers came apart and the glass turned into a white powder sediment.this makes me think that this could be a pretreatment to remove the glass and legs from the chips for further processing, perhaps in AR as per your videos.

I can't see HCl reacting with the glass. Maybe it's some sort of epoxy on those particular parts.