Mobile(cell) phones- real data from refiner

[patnor1011]

Todor,

Did you happen to check presence of high number of china phones it has less PM's than the rest.

Most of phones are from China. It is sort of urban myth that Chinese electronics have less valuables.

 

[samuel-a]

Hi to all here, I would like to share with you my experiense with Umicore. Sent them 2 monts ago, 2 tons of mobile phones and i have got the results:
AU- 311 grams per ton, payed 95%
AG- 1333 grams per ton, payed 96%
PD - just 40 grams per ton, payed 92%
CU- 18% per ton
(1 MT has 16000-17000 pieses without batteries)
And their treatment and samplaing charge is 3500 dollars, transport 1000 dolars( Iam from Bulgaria). So does it worth it.....no one will give you a phones for free so there is just a little room for profit. Atleast I have tried.

I cant answer my self one thing, why most of the scrap companies(not refiners like Umicore) in Europe pay like 8 Euros for kg cell phones, there is just no room for profit.

Best regards, everyone

Thank you for sharing Todor,

Numbers seems ok to me, but the Pd which i would expect to be somewhat higher. But, it is what it is.
Would you mind give a breakdown of your costs, i.e. - lot charge/sampling, treatment, refining ?

 

[jabemer]

so its like a .30gram of gold per kilo

 

[MarcoP]

so its like a .30gram of gold per kilo

No, it's half of that. He got 311 grams out of two tons.

 

[pattt]

I think he says :

Hi to all here, I would like to share with you my experiense with Umicore. Sent them 2 monts ago, 2 tons of mobile phones and i have got the results:
AU- 311 grams per ton, payed 95%

Pattt

 

[MarcoP]

Somehow I kept missing the "per ton" value, sorry.

 

[arthur kierski]

that result is 0,311grams of gold per kilo and o,04grams of pd per kilo---------------

i insist that these results are not correct----anyone of the members that uses Partnor method for the chips and other methods for the plated cells will get at least double the quantities of gold and palladium that the umicore results showed-----
regards to all
Arthur Kierski

 

[nickvc]

that result is 0,311grams of gold per kilo and o,04grams of pd per kilo---------------

i insist that these results are not correct----anyone of the members that uses Partnor method for the chips and other methods for the plated cells will get at least double the quantities of gold and palladium that the umicore results showed-----
regards to all
Arthur Kierski

If Arthur says its wrong I'd tend to believe him he's had plenty of experience refining all sorts of materials!

 

[MarcoP]

But, doesn't the weight includes plastic, board, screen etc.? He sent whole phones without batteries while the method and the yield you are referring to is about ICs chips only.

Marco

 

[Todor]

Let me tell you all that these results are official from Umicore. They say that 1 ton mobile phones without batteries could contain 300 to 400 grams of AU.
Some member asked me for the charges and taxes. After all the taxes you get the AU for yourself. AG, PD, and CU goes for these taxes.
2 tons of mobile phones is nothing for Umicore , they can tell you everything and you could do nothing.

 

[shmandi]

the results seems very low----in my experiments,i obtained 0,6 or more grams of gold per kilo---i retired about a year and half(18months) ago--but these results i remem
ber-----0,6au and0,15pd-----ag varied depending on the sistem that i used
regards to old forum friends
Arthur Kierski

I am wondering why recycling companies pay only 8 Euros per kilo of phones. Same company pays 163 euro per kilo of i486 processors. It seems that there is much bigger margin on the phones according to gold yield.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

the results seems very low----in my experiments,i obtained 0,6 or more grams of gold per kilo---i retired about a year and half(18months) ago--but these results i remem
ber-----0,6au and0,15pd-----ag varied depending on the sistem that i used
regards to old forum friends
Arthur Kierski

I am wondering why recycling companies pay only 8 Euros per kilo of phones. Same company pays 163 euro per kilo of i486 processors. It seems that there is much bigger margin on the phones according to gold yield.

That is a low price for for I486 processors that is equal to about $65 /lb for them.

 

[shmandi]

163 euros per kg is actually U$83 /lb

I see that Boardsort is paying U$100/lb

 

[Barren Realms 007]

163 euros per kg is actually U$83 /lb

I see that Boardsort is paying U$100/lb

Oops, yea sorry converted wrong. Yes Chris does pay $100 /Lb. and I pay $110 /Lb.

Thanks for catching that conversion error.

 

[arthur kierski]

i worked with unicore in Brazil(before its name was degussa)----a very few times unicores results was correct-----that is why i decided to process material on my own-----i know that is a big company----but that does not mean that their work is correct-----
one kilo of cellphone boards contains 60 to 70 tiny black chips----and these chips have 0,6to0,7grams of gold------no plastic cases ----just plain boards with plated gold and chips

if they think that i am not telling the truth---they can make contact by e-mail or other ways or sue me
Arthur Kierski

 

[ChemGeek]

Todor is reporting 311g of Au per ton (1000kg) of battery free mobile phones as per Degussa / Unicore assay.

I recently got a cheap lot of 30kg of battery and plastic cover free mobile phones, most of old type, sold for $100 by retired mobile serviceman.
After stripping them down dilligently for whole day these yielded 10.5kg of clean (plastic, Fe, Al free) PCB boards with nearly all black chips exposed.
So for simplicity of argument one should assume that 1/3 of weight of mobile phone is clean PCB with chips.

So as per Unicore data, out of 330kg of cellphone PCB one should expect 311g of Au, eg. 0.94g of Au per kg of PCB.

So I do not get a point of other member, Arthur Kierski, who claims that he gets more than Unicore and quotes
0.6 - 0.7g per kg of clean mobile phone PCB.

one kilo of cellphone boards contains 60 to 70 tiny black chips----and these chips have 0,6to0,7grams of gold------no plastic cases ----just plain boards with plated gold and chips

So he is claiming to get more of Au than Unicore and actually he gets less.
Am I missing something?
Much more gold in pins, gold plated PCB-s, gold plated pads under keybords etc?

For 10kg of mobile PCB electronic scrap yard will pay 212 USD. There should be 9.4g of Au there as per Unicore or 6-7g of Au as per results of Arthur.
So they still have a healthy profit margin, contrary to many claims here.

Assuming 0.94g of Au per kg of mobile boards, it seems attractive source for an amateur too. He would get $375 out of 10kg of boards, versus $212 paid by electronic scrap yard. Expenses of chemicals used should be below $20.
Assuming a hobbyst does not count his time, he would be better off processing himself as long as results of Unicore can be realiably reproduced.

He would also get a little Palladium and Tantalum bonus and few bucks worth of silver.

Did anyone try to process these?
"Technology" should be comparable to one applicable for RAM sticks.
Am I correct?

 

[g_axelsson]

As we don't know the age, manufacturer, model... etc of the mobile phones it is impossible to claim the two lots had the same amount of gold per kilo. To do a proper comparison a representative sample has to be taken from a lot sent to Umicore. That is something that is usually done when sending small lots to a large refinery, usually two or three samples, one for the refinery to base the payout, one for the seller to double check and one sealed to send to a third party assay if the two first samples differ too much.
The third party sample could probably be used to check the numbers by an amateur, but I don't think it will be much fun. Usually the samples are fragmented to get a good sample.

... at least that's what I have been told is happening.

This is a problem with presenting yield numbers, it should always be read as one example and not the truth. In the end there is no more gold in scrap than it really are. Manufacturer processes can be changed and processes trimmed to save cost.

GSP have ""The refiner is always the last liar." Louis Labash, 1979" in his signature, but I would like to think that refining is the final truth. ... then I might lie about it, but that's another story. :wink:

Göran

 

[anachronism]

Todor is reporting 311g of Au per ton (1000kg) of battery free mobile phones as per Degussa / Unicore assay.

I recently got a cheap lot of 30kg of battery and plastic cover free mobile phones, most of old type, sold for $100 by retired mobile serviceman.

What kind of age were these phones? Smartphones or older stuff. I ask because if the service engineer was retired, was it older gear?

After stripping them down dilligently for whole day these yielded 10.5kg of clean (plastic, Fe, Al free) PCB boards with nearly all black chips exposed.
So for simplicity of argument one should assume that 1/3 of weight of mobile phone is clean PCB with chips.

If you're getting 30% by weight board then it is more likely to be older phones rather than full screen smartphones.

So as per Unicore data, out of 330kg of cellphone PCB one should expect 311g of Au, eg. 0.94g of Au per kg of PCB.

Based upon old tech. Not modern tech.

So I do not get a point of other member, Arthur Kierski, who claims that he gets more than Unicore and quotes
0.6 - 0.7g per kg of clean mobile phone PCB.

one kilo of cellphone boards contains 60 to 70 tiny black chips----and these chips have 0,6to0,7grams of gold------no plastic cases ----just plain boards with plated gold and chips

So he is claiming to get more of Au than Unicore and actually he gets less.
Am I missing something?
Much more gold in pins, gold plated PCB-s, gold plated pads under keybords etc?

For 10kg of mobile PCB electronic scrap yard will pay 212 USD. Really? Point me to one please, because I would be very grateful. There should be 9.4g of Au there as per Unicore or 6-7g of Au as per results of Arthur.
So they still have a healthy profit margin, contrary to many claims here. Nope.

Assuming 0.94g of Au per kg of mobile boards, (there's your mistake.) it seems attractive source for an amateur too. He would get $375 out of 10kg of boards, (assuming they knew exactly what they were doing) versus $212 paid by electronic scrap yard. (which still needs verification) Expenses of chemicals used should be below $20.
Assuming a hobbyst does not count his time, he would be better off processing himself as long as results of Unicore can be realiably reproduced. They can't because it's old out of date information.

He would also get a little Palladium and Tantalum bonus and few bucks worth of silver.

Did anyone try to process these? Yes Ive had quite a lot refined.
"Technology" should be comparable to one applicable for RAM sticks. Not at all.
Am I correct? Sorry but no.

Hope that helps.

Jon

 

[snoman701]

I recently got a cheap lot of 30kg of battery and plastic cover free mobile phones, most of old type, sold for $100 by retired mobile serviceman.
After stripping them down dilligently for whole day these yielded 10.5kg of clean (plastic, Fe, Al free) PCB boards with nearly all black chips exposed.

WOW...you tore apart 60 lbs cell phones.

I'm impressed.

I will completely tear down a pocket watch and clean each individual part...but won't even begin to think about tearing apart cell phones.

 

[ChemGeek]

@anachronism,
I have sent you PM including details of buyer at stated price.