My First AP process.

[goldrush2009]

Once are friend from the UK get done he may NOT be a friend No More ?

 

[butcher]

gold rush how about you send me any of the cpu's you dont like? I'll process that kind of sh--(stuff)---t no problem,
its gold.
as long as i can get them at a fair price then I'll process them.

 

[LaurenceOs]

I was well aware they were low yield, i bought them to practise on.

 

[LaurenceOs]

Infact its been a week now and the large majority of the pins are still in tact. Is there anything i can do that can speed up the process?

 

[glorycloud]

I use AP for a day or so just to get the gold pins loose from the CPU. I then take the fiber CPU's out of the bucket and check to be sure all the pins are off. I have just been storing the left over CPU's to process later when I can grind 'em up leach them in AR one day.

I then filter the AP away, rinse the pins in H20 and then use a small amount of nitric acid to get the gold plating loose from the legs. That takes about a day as well. I wash the legs with water by swirling it around in the bucket. The gold flakes are light so they float away from the legs that are still disolving and I pour them off into a filter.
When all the gold is out, I just put the leftover legs in with the mixed iron scrap cases and sell to the recycler.

 

[LaurenceOs]

I decided to let it sit for another week lol, i went and checked it today and the ap was purple?!? What's going on chaps?

Loads of pins still sitting in the bottom, i think i may filter it off this saturday and soak it in nitric.

 

[glorycloud]

That's probably the way to go Laurence.

 

[LaurenceOs]

Did the nitric yesterday..... Really should have done it in the first place lol within seconds it had stripped the majority of the pins

 

[Oz]

All things in life cost 1 of 2 things, time or money. The question is, which do you have a surplus of at that moment. Nitric is expensive to use for recovering gold from electronics due to the low gold yield.

Unless I missed something above...

The good news is the AP saved you on nitric consumption. The bad news is that even if you rinsed your pins well (Harold will tell you about incineration) before putting them in nitric you have made some AR and put some of your gold into solution, most probably re-cemented on the base metals in the pins. Check your solutions very carefully with stannic acid.

 

[Harold_V]

The good news is the AP saved you on nitric consumption. The bad news is that even if you rinsed your pins well (Harold will tell you about incineration) before putting them in nitric you have made some AR and put some of your gold into solution, most probably re-cemented on the base metals in the pins. Check your solutions very carefully with stannic acid.

While it's true that some AR could have been made, assuming there was a substantial amount of base metal present, it would have precipitated any dissolved gold, so there would be no loss, assuming all of the fine particles in the solution were recovered and processed.

It's always a good idea to incinerate when going from one acid to another, so you eliminate the potential to dissolve values prematurely. More importantly, it's a good idea to incinerate the values that have been recovered before they are dissolved. So much of the garbage that has the potential to be troublesome is eliminated that it makes the little side trip worth the effort. Furthermore, depending on the nature of the material in question, it may well be where a potential explosive compound is eliminated, assuming one is using nitric acid.

I heartily endorse incineration in almost all instances.

Harold

 

[LaurenceOs]

Harold, can you elaborate on how we would incinorate,

I really know very little. What are we incinerating? The filters? and doesn't incineration just add more dirt to the mix?

 

[Harold_V]

Harold, can you elaborate on how we would incinorate,

I really know very little. What are we incinerating? The filters? and doesn't incineration just add more dirt to the mix?

I'm at a loss to know if process of incineration is still a question for you, but let me talk about the benefits.

When you incinerate, you are adding nothing to the material that isn't already present. What you do is eliminate a great deal of unwanted garbage that can be troublesome.

Please note that I do NOT recommend that pure gold be incinerated, not unless it is to receive further refining. That could introduce traces of less than desirable contaminants.

A good example of places where I'd incinerate. The first one would be the dark purple/black values recovered from a stripping cell. There's more than metal involved from that operation, some of it troublesome. By incinerating the material, along with the filter, they are eliminated, and all of the values are collected. I would next give the recovered material a boil in dilute nitric acid, rinse, then dissolve with AR, for eventual recovery by precipitation.

Another example would be the resulting shells of gold from pins and other materials, where the base metal is dissolved, leaving behind the values. Again, there is more there than metal, none of which is desirable. Same thing. Incinerate everything, including the filter, and process in the same way as the other example.

Incineration is carried out in a shallow pan, such as an old stainless frying pan. Heated from below, you can burn things without loss, although there may be some carried off in the smoke. It is for that reason I used a filtered fume hood, from which I recovered a considerable amount of gold. Do keep in mind, I processed thousands of ounces of gold, not just a few ounces as is typical of the average e scrap processor.

Does this help? If not, please ask specific questions and I'll try to address them to the best of my ability.

Harold

 

[plamenppp]

LaurenceOs, I will fallow your example with a test number of identical cpus If you want to speed up the process a little mechanically you can do the same I did. I've just kocked down the pins of the green/brown fiber cpus with the "mighty" paper knife. After 10 minutes of practice I was an expert. I was knocking them down row by row. A green fiber cpus takes about 2-3 minutes. The only thing you have to do is "push hard" the base of the top one pin and you will slide the knife down the row.
Do this in a bucket or at a corner of a room because the pins will fly all over the place. You can collect them with a small and not very strong magnet. You will have to wait no more the pins to fall and you will use less acid. Unfortunatelly, you will have to spend some time Look carefully if some of the pins are not cut completely. If so - remove them with the parer knife gently (5-10 "bases" always remain). I hope I have helped you a little