Mobile (Cell) Phone ribbons & boards

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essexkris

Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2019
Messages
8
Hi all,

Quick background of me, ive have been processing jewellery successfully for a few years now, so understand the do's and dont's for this kind of scrap.

Unfortunately Hoke dosent discus Mobile ( Cell ) phones, since the book is from the early days :D

I have come into possession of approx 500 mobile ( cell ) phones. ( im based in UK)

Im seeking advice on how to best proceed with these. As they are going to contain many base metals in higher amounts compared to the jewellery i have processed.

RIBBONS.

I have attached photo of the ribbons i am talking about. I were thinking to first incinerate these for both methods. ( some do have small components attached )

20190416_204643.jpg

Then 1. Incinerate, and dissolve base metals in nitric acid
2. filter
3. Aqua Riga
4. Sulfamic acid to denox ( if needed )
5. Drop with SMB.

This is a process i would use with jewellery excluding incinerate. ( or if inquation is needed )

Or should i
1. Incinerate & Dissolve in Aqua Riga
2. Filter
3. Cement out on Zinc
4. Wash with boiling water ( several Times ) & incinerate.
5. Dissolve any base metals with nitric.
6. filter
7. Aqua Riga
8. Sulfamic Acid to denox ( if needed )
7. Drop with SMB.

Although this is a longer method i may end with a better product?

Mobile ( Cell ) Boards.

These look a pain with all the components attached to them, so i were thinking to.

1. Use heat gun to burn off organics.
2. Treat with Aqua Riga.
3. Filter
4. Sulfamic acid to denox ( if needed )
5. Drop With SMB

I were think not to waste time in removing all the attached components and soaking in HCL & peroxide to remove gold foils.

Please correct me if i am incorrect.

Ill be honest and say i have no idea on what the possible yield of gold would be with 500 phones.

I'm also unsure if any silver or PGM's is worth extracting.

If you guys and girls with more experience at this kind of scrap could possibly show me the best direction it would be much appreciated.

Quick List of chems and compounds i have at use.

1. Nitric acid ( home made from distillation strength unknown ) My formula ( sulphuric acid 116ml - water
100ml - Potassium nitrate - 202 grams )
2. HCL 36 %
3. Hydrogen Peroxide 12%
4. Bleach
5. Sulphuric Acid 92% ( Drain Cleaner )
6. Distilled water
7. SMB
8. Ammonia Chloride
9. Sulfamic acid
10. Potassium Nitrate
11. Ammonia ( liquid & crystals )

Hope my list would help anyone in giving me the best solution with what i have.

Many thanks and regards, Have a good Easter peeps.

Chris
 
Best solution is to sell the boards.

Those kapton foil cables are not worth processing at all.
 
Dr.xyz said:
Best solution is to sell the boards.

Those kapton foil cables are not worth processing at all.

That may - or - may not be true

Dr.xyz - have you ever actually processed these to determine yields :?: :?: :?:

I say may - or may not be true --- because I have never processed them "on there own"

However - that said - considering there lite weight there is a fair amount of gold plating - also there are small IC chips on some which have gold bond wires & depending on how old the phones they came from there could be Pd in the MLCCs

What I have done with them --- back when I was smelting batches of 30 - 50 pounds of IC chips I would incinerate these ribbons along with my filters from my other gold - silver & PGMs processing

the incinerated ribbons & filters would then go in along with my IC chip smelt so the gold - silver & PGMs from the ribbons & filter would go into the dore of the IC chip smelt

I used silver cement from processing electrical contact points as my collector metal - so my dore was a high silver dore - the dore was then sent out to a refiner that paid on silver, gold & PGMs


The point is - these ribbons do have PMs - the question is - what is the best method to recover them


For me the best method was to "add" them to my IC chip smelt process


If I was to do a wet chem process on them (to figure out yield) I would "first" do a HCl soak on them to rid them of the tin


Kurt
 
Thank you for your input that' is something I could actually do, the ribbons in photo is from only 80 odd phones that I have pulled apart. So far.

Just a time consuming process...
 
Kurt. Don't expect xyz to answer you. He never does when he's questioned. He just fires comments out there and doesn't back them up. He's done it to quite a few people already.

Still waiting for some pics of his own results too because that would be a good start towards building a credible reputation rather than just putting everything down.

Jon
 
I really like Kurt's method, but that is no surprise as I have learned much from his posts and conversations with him. I have processed a lot of "worthless" material simply by keeping a large bucket of AP around. Anytime small lots came up that didn't seem to fit in else where, I would drop it in the AP bucket and forget it. My current bucket has not been processed in about 8 months now. I just remove the boards and other waste pieces and add more material to it. While it isn't much help if you need your gold quick, it can make a nice savings for the future. Enough enig material can add up given time :D

I used to run a good bit of ink cartridge ribbons in AR or hydrochloric acid and bleach and often just added the cell phone ribbons in with them. While it didn't help with the IC's and other pieces, it did remove the gold from the ribbons, and left the other items for later. If you can smelt them like Kurt, I would give it a try as it will get all the metals at the same time.
 
I hadn't thought about just letting them soak in ap and to just keep adding the ribbons as and if I get more, do like the idea of just letting the " amounts" build up over time like a stock pot..

Chris.
 
Do we agree that foil cable itself is worthless? Just copper and kapton.

Of course if one has more stuff to process using similar methods, then they can be added together. But if you have nothing else to process, there's no way you make a profit.

Anyway it would be wise to cut away useless cable and process only parts with enig and components.
 
As I say the phones cost me nothing, so would only cost my time and chemicals to run these. To me if it contains precious metals no matter how small just save them up for the future. It soon mounts up.
 
Dr.xyz said:
Do we agree that foil cable itself is worthless? Just copper and kapton.

Of course if one has more stuff to process using similar methods, then they can be added together. But if you have nothing else to process, there's no way you make a profit.

Anyway it would be wise to cut away useless cable and process only parts with enig and components.
Depends on the cable.

Pretty much all e scrap is “worthless” in that regard.

Meaning simply, it is all low value pm beating waste that has no appreciable value until you get a bunch of it. There are some of the ribbon cables that do have au value, even if trace.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
essexkris said:
As I say the phones cost me nothing, so would only cost my time and chemicals to run these. To me if it contains precious metals no matter how small just save them up for the future. It soon mounts up.

Time is my most valuable commodity.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Agree time is valuable to which is why I were seeking the best possible solution to processing these, as mechanically taking phones apart is quite time consuming process which has to be done.

Thanks for everyone's input you all have been informative.
 
Enjoy the journey Kris.

I don't think there's one refiner here who hasn't spent many hours trimming and collating loads of components that we thought had loads of gold, only to find that on balance it wasn't worthwhile. The moment when we realise that only certain things are worth doing is a real turning point.

I'm guilty of that- as are most of the lads here. It's just a step in the journey. 8) 8)

Jon
 
Thanks Jon,

As I do process jewellery and love the chemistry and reactions that take place, thought doing these phones I got for free would be more of a challenge which I like and learning different process as I go along with it.

Regards

Kris.
 
I process batches of cell phone boards using the so called AP process.

I depopulate the boards and discard the components as I don't have that many and would rather concentrate on what I know how to do. Saving up all those microscopic MMLC's until I had enough to bother with selling or processing would take me years and years.

I throw the de-populated, de-soldered boards in the AP with all the other gold plated PCBs and process them all the same.

By waiting until I have a gallon bucket full to process makes it worth doing. And AP is not time consuming, just put the boards in, turn on the air bubbler and come back in a week to filter out the foils.
 
Thanks rickbb this is the process I am now looking at doing.going to get all the boards ready to process all at same time.

Regards.
 
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