Mordern Boards/cpus

[LaurenceOs]

I have a number of modernish boards laying around, motherboards with fancy chipsets, graphics cards and hard drives.. I cant remember where but i remember someone telling me that modern boards have little or no PM, after looking at the contacts they did seem rather coppery.. (they're msi and asus mobos, nvidea and radeon gfx cards)

Also, being yet another newbie, lose the plot a bit with all the acronyms used. Obvisously anyone remembers au ag pt pd from school but what is AP or AR process?
Feel free to post any others that i may need to know.

Cheers guys, brilliant forum, i was glued last night

Laurence

 

[LaurenceOs]

Also credit cards chips... i have a number of credit cards laying around with chip and pin thinggy, anything on them?

 

[leavemealone]

Good morning laurence and welcome.
Let me start by saying that almost any answer you will need,is found somewhere on the forum.If you intend on trying to process the material yourself then I highly suggest you spend a lot of time reading the forum before you start.If you do decide to dive into the adventure just let us know and we can help steer you into the right direction.
Now onto your questions,first about the boards,almost every board made has some kind of PM(precious metal) in it.And you're right the newer ones normally have less than the older ones.If it is used in a computer,chances are one of us on the forum can recycle it,and recover and metals used.As far as AR and AP....both are liquid solutions that we use to turn certain solid metals into liquids,its called digesting or dissolving.AR stands for aqua regia and its a mixture of muratic and nitric acids,AP stands for acid peroxide and is a mix of muratic acid and hydrogen peroxide.
Like I said if you plan on trying this,spend a LOT of time(days if not weeks) reading and absorbing information first before even trying to get what you need.You can waste a rediculous amount of time and money if you don't know what you are doing first.Knowledge is the key.I hope this helped.
Johnny

 

[LaurenceOs]

Yeah i intend to, im just gonna stockpile all potential materials with precious metals untill i've learnt enough.

What about mobile phone SIM cards, the chip contacts are yellow and shiny but before trying to test them i thought i'd ask you guys

 

[leavemealone]

Yes they are gold plated.

 

[LaurenceOs]

Sweet i've got loads of them, and i just pulled apart a friends old nokia 7600 and it seemed to be a miniature gold mine, should i Post pics of these boards to see what you think?

 

[leavemealone]

Everyone here loves to see pics of material,so yes if you can get some pics together throw them on here and let us all take a look at them.
Thanks,
Johnny

 

[LaurenceOs]

Heres what I found. You can imagine i got excited but it didnt wanna get to excited without asking for your opinions.

What do you think?

 

[leavemealone]

Pretty nice,but unfortunately they are low grade(plating is very thin).It would take several hundred pounds to make a single ounce of gold,and they are a pain to clean up.
Johnny

 

[lazersteve]

Laurence,

Welcome to the forum,

If you follow the Guided Tour Link in my signature line it will help you learn some of the basics.

The forum recently moved so a few of the links still need to be patched up, especially in the rough guide to the forum. I'll fix them when I find some extra time.

Steve

 

[LaurenceOs]

ok ta chaps, but what about the battery connecters in phones, surely they use a thicker plating?

 

[LaurenceOs]

All the links in the guided tour just go to search bar, and even how to make nitric acid is too common words apparently...

 

[qst42know]

The majority of recipes are here from the early days before I found the forum.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2887935/GOLD-REFINING-FORUM-HANBOOK-VOL-1

 

[nicknitro]

Laurence,

Welcome aboard, you have gotten some great advice from the masters. I wish I had learned about the forum before I got started refining. I got some bad advice from Ebayers, and my first few batches turned into peat bogs. LOL

LeavemeAlone,

Great advice, and very well posted, I think you should be a moderator. You have the patience, and excellent morale to deal with newbie issues. Well done Johnny.

Good Luck All,
Nick

 

[LaurenceOs]

hahaha are my questions that tedious? i'll read

 

[LaurenceOs]

and they are a pain to clean up.
Johnny

How so? surely it is dissolved and seperated like any other scraps?
Again if this is another stupid question please bare with me, i am still learning :S

 

[leavemealone]

I think you should be a moderator

Thanks nick, I wish.....god knows Im on here enough.But I am grateful enough to just be able to help.It wasnt too long ago that I was right where he is and I am glad that I recieved the help I did to get me where I am now,and its a pleasure to be able to give something back.Thanks again for the kind words.

leavemealone wrote:
and they are a pain to clean up.
Johnny

How so?

Those particular boards(and almost all cell boards)are loaded with adhesives and soft plastics.The adhesives can dissolve in your AP and turn into a "gummy" material that the gold flakes tend to adhere to.It is a HUGE pain trying to get them back.And the soft plastics will dissolve or partially dissolve in AC and create a filtering problem.A good way around both of these problems is to take tin snips and cut the visible gold plated material away from everything else,DO NOT discard the leftovers,put them in a container and save them for later.Take your visible gold pieces and soak them in the same solution(discussed on another thread)used for removing masking.It is very tedious,time consuming,and not very rewarding financially,but if you definitely want to process them that is what you will need to do.
And no your questions are not tedious,it shows your desire to learn. 8)
Johnny

 

[LaurenceOs]

Ok brill, im learning fast here.

Theres one video on youtube that shows a company that does the normal stuff for cpus but for the boards the just incinerate the lot and then melt off the metals for seperation. Perhaps we could do something similar to tackle the problems of adhesives and the like... what do you think?

Also my local plumbers merchants are selling 5 litres 32% hydrochloric acid for £9.50 ($15.46usd)... is this the strength i will need and is it a good price? Also where can nitric acid be found if you're not buying off the net?

The more i learn the more questions i have, its a little annoying lol i wish i had one of you guys infront of me so i could pick your brains.

Thanks for the help!

Laurence

 

[leavemealone]

The price on that muratic is pretty high,but thats based on prices here in the states.I wouldnt know what an "average" price would be over the pond.However if you find its a decent price then definitely get it,it is exactly what we all use over here.I wouldnt know where to send you for the nitric.Are you not able to get it online or is it that you are not allowed to purchase it from over there?You can purchase Sodium nitrate from ebay and use concentrated sulfuric acid to make your own nitric(or a very close relative of it).

Chances are the video you saw was from a friend of ours here on the forum.

Any more questions.......just ask.
Johnny

 

[qst42know]

Theres one video on youtube that shows a company that does the normal stuff for cpus but for the boards the just incinerate the lot and then melt off the metals for seperation. Perhaps we could do something similar to tackle the problems of adhesives and the like... what do you think?

Laurence

Incineration would do the job but lots of black sooty smoke full of a whole range of environmental toxins.

Certain to bring the authorities to give you all kinds of problems.