Need some opinions on how to refine ceramic cpus

[pepsi78]

Hei everybody ....I sure love my new hobby( Scrap refining.) :shock:

I need some advice on what is best, I have been looking around this forum and elsewhere on how to refine my ceramic cpus.

From what I can see it would be a waste of time to use AR for different reasons.

1 Concentrated nitric acid is hard to obtain
2 Concentrated nitric acid is very dangerous(compared say to chlorine or HCL)
3 Concentrated nitric acid can be expencive in some parts of the world.
=====================================================================
What I want to aim for is getting rid of the base metals first. I want to work on this, base metals have got to go first before refining anything.

I want to be clear on nitric acid, low concentration nitric acid is what I want.

Something that I can handle without worry or better put with less worry.
Something that I can make from nitrate salts, very easy to make (save money)

I'm talking about low concentrated nitric acid, 10% to 20% . You need to dilute your nitric acid anyway to make a nitric bath for the ceramic cpus to get that base metal out of the way before refining it with HCL + BLEACH

Step 1 Nitric Bath
Step 2 HCL+BLEACH

Then the other steps, getting the powder, melting it and so on.

So is this the way to go, seems to me like aqua regia is a waste o time and that on this very forum people are in contradiction. Because using AR means that all the base metals will disolve into the solution with gold and you will have base metals with gold into solution, when precipitating the gold will other elements not precipitate with it ? So extra steps would have to be taken like refine again and again, repeat steps, sounds like a waste of time if you can get rid of the base metals at first then know you can refine with ease because all you have in solution is gold.

I understand that AP is not good for ceramic cpus, then some people come and say that a nitric bath is not good either, then some people come and say that AR is not the way first and you must first get rid of the base metals.

What is the way to go. 1 or 2 ?
1 Get rid of the base metals first.
2 Refine everything with AR or poor man's AR

IS 10% Nitric Acid enough to disolve the base metals in time. I understand that over 60% nitric acid needs to be disolved with water (50% water, 50% Nitric Acid)

I would go even low to 5% nitric acid if it's possible, less danger better for me. Those redish brown fumes are sure ugly :shock: I don't care if it takes longer, I got the time.

Also very important, how not to make your gold dissapear into the diluted nitric bath for leaching and become invisible, once that happens there is no way to filter the gold with the mesh. After the Nitric leach bath I would have to filter the gold to catch it into the filter while everything else gets discharged. So what everyone wants is gold foils that float into the low Nitric Acid Bath.

This thread is only on Ceramic CPU.

My key questions.
1 -What is better. Get rid of the base metals first or refine everything with AR.

2 - If nitric acid bath is best for ceramic cpu and is the way to go then how much Nitric Acid should be use per total, the nitric acid is going to mix with the water and form a lower concentration anyway, per total is 20% nitric acid enough(after mixed with water to form the diluted substance). How not to go too high in prencentage with nitric acid and risk disolving the gold foils into the leach solution, or how not to go too low and not dissolve anything at all.

Thanks, I await your response.

 

[necromancer]

if this is your first go at ceramic cpu i would:

#1: make sure you have read, reread & understand the process very well (including reading Hoke's book)
#2: make sure you follow all the safety precautions to the letter
#3: nitric bath would be best. start with a small amount to test the process on the ceramics

nitric with will make it easier for your first time getting the silver out

#4: before you start, make sure you have read, reread & understand the process very well (including reading Hoke's book) & follow all the safety precautions to the letter

i am sure there will be more responses to your post, hang out and read them to !!

welcome to the forum !!

 

[pepsi78]

if this is your first go at ceramic cpu i would:

#1: make sure you have read, reread & understand the process very well (including reading Hoke's book)
#2: make sure you follow all the safety precautions to the letter
#3: nitric bath would be best. start with a small amount to test the process on the ceramics

nitric with will make it easier for your first time getting the silver out

#4: before you start, make sure you have read, reread & understand the process very well (including reading Hoke's book) & follow all the safety precautions to the letter

i am sure there will be more responses to your post, hang out and read them to !!

welcome to the forum !!

Thanks for the welcome.

It is not my first go with ceramic cpu, I tried it before and I ended up making a big mess :shock: so I decided to read more on the matter.


Is there any specific way to make the Nitric Acid dilution, 50% Water 50% Nitric Acid from what I have seen around by looking. How about other ingredients, some also suggest adding salt to the solution, don't understand what salt would do in this case. I am well aware Nitric Acid alone can dissolve some gold to some point if it is very concentrated.

I make my own Nitric Acid in low concentration with HCL, a nitrate salt and cooper. So I wonder on the concentration in the diluted substance overall.

I'm glad you told me that Nitric Acid leach is the way to go, it is what I have hoped for, some suggested here on the forum that it's not good for Ceramic CPUs that you can loose some gold into the solution if Nitric Acid is too strong I guess, can't see any other reason, or maybe it will cement with other elements from the pins ?

This should be interesting, we should have a definitive answer on what is best to put contradictions aside once and for all. It's very hard for newbs like me to find answers when not everyone agrees on what is best, and believe me I have searched this forum.

Cheers.

 

[4metals]

Nitric acid and distilled water will not digest any of the gold, adding salt however will. I do not know why you would want to add salt, your goal is to etch out the base metals and any silver (and Pd which may have been used as an activator on the ceramic) Salt would make a mess and leave you with a largely nitric solution with some gold in solution. To recover it you will need to kill off the nitric. Don't go that way, in fact I would like to know where you read about the salt as you either misunderstood or this is another case of you cannot believe everything on the internet.

And distilled water, specifically water without chlorides, is the preferred diluent for the nitric. Always add acid to the water, never water to the acid.

 

[necromancer]

well then......

what happened with the mess from your first try ?

if you stop in the middle of your learning & start again you will only run into the same problem. forcing a "full stop" which is not good.

maybe if you learned to clean up the mess you will be able to fully understand what is happening & what needs to be done.

why don't you walk us through your first process in detail :?:

 

[pepsi78]

Nitric acid and distilled water will not digest any of the gold, adding salt however will. I do not know why you would want to add salt, your goal is to etch out the base metals and any silver (and Pd which may have been used as an activator on the ceramic) Salt would make a mess and leave you with a largely nitric solution with some gold in solution. To recover it you will need to kill off the nitric. Don't go that way, in fact I would like to know where you read about the salt as you either misunderstood or this is another case of you cannot believe everything on the internet.

And distilled water, specifically water without chlorides, is the preferred diluent for the nitric. Always add acid to the water, never water to the acid.

Can't I just use tap water, I know that leaving tap water over night or even boiling would get you rid of most of the chlorine in it, or perhaps it's the hard minerals in the water that are not good and would make the dilution less effective.

I was reading about it on the internet on how salt can make a more potent solution. I won't be using salt now that I know, so thanks.

I did a test the other day, cracked up an old intel pentium ceramic processor and added just nitric acid to see what would happen over night, I covered it in Nitric Acid just over the pins and let it there, next day I did not see any gold floating, it all dissolved into solution, none of the pins are left, no gold foils, nothing, the core where the lid was, where all the gold wiring is also dissolved . So I thought maybe my Nirtric Acid is contaminated with other stuff, maybe...

It is why I was asking on the concentration and on the level of dilution.
Those gold foils are not immortal :mrgreen: they will dissolve into the solution and if they are very tiny they will avoid filtering and slip thruout the filter back into solution. What would hold the gold foils from going into solution if there is no metal to bind them. Since they are very thin they will break up, it;s at least my expirience after only adding nitric acid without water to dilute it.

Thank you for the reply

 

[pepsi78]

well then......

what happened with the mess from your first try ?

if you stop in the middle of your learning & start again you will only run into the same problem. forcing a "full stop" which is not good.

maybe if you learned to clean up the mess you will be able to fully understand what is happening & what needs to be done.

why don't you walk us through your first process in detail :?:

My first try was a typical totally newb novice expiriance, I have tried the poor's man AR without any pre filtering, getting rid of the base metals first.

I crancked up 10 or more K6 procesors after removing the top metalic cover, smashed them up, exposed the core underneath them, put everything in a glass jar. Added 30% Concentrated HCL until I have covered them, I added some water on top of the HCL to dilute it a little bit, I let it get warm on the heating plate and after it got hot I started adding my nitrate salt, in this case Potassium Nitrate. To my expectation it started to bubble as I was expecting and the solution turned darker. I added Nitrate Salt then waited until it got consumed, did the same over and over, added some more, until everything dissolved and there was no more bubbling after adding salt, a good indication that there was nothing more to dissolve. So I went with the next step into letting it sit a little bit then pouring the solution into another container that had some Ice and added afterwards a little bit of Sulphuric acid, ice and sulphuric acid to drop the lead and silver. I let it sit there until it cooled down then I had begun to filter the solution, I filtered it 3 times to make sure all the garbage is gone.

I proceded with SMB to precipitate it turned like mud and the next day I got a nice layer down of brown mud, got rid of the solution took out the mud let it dry, put the tourch on it, and once I did, the brown powder was all gone, it dissolved into nothing to my shock, I looked closer and inspected the cruciable and I could see gold traces glued to it on the bottom.

The powder did not disipate into the wind from the blowtorch pressure, I could see it dissolve under the flame into nothing.

Well that was my first expiriance, I was really disapointed. I still don't understand what happened, and what was the brown substance if it was not gold, what was it. 10 processors K62 should be a value of at lest a gram or more. A gram of gold should be visible to the naked eye, so I thought.

 

[necromancer]

i see you skipped a few steps.

ad your acids to the water not the other way around, having a violent reaction is something you want to avoid
incinerate your powders after using nitrates (do not melt) heat till red & stop
you need to wash your gold powder (hot hcl 3 times, boil in water 3 times)
season your melting dish with borax, i seen nothing about borax in your post.

i would suggest doing more reading, since you are a very new member you can not have downloaded any books or viewed any of the images in the past.

 

[pepsi78]

i see you skipped a few steps.

ad your acids to the water not the other way around, having a violent reaction is something you want to avoid
incinerate your powders after using nitrates (do not melt) heat till red & stop
you need to wash your gold powder (hot hcl 3 times, boil in water 3 times)
season your melting dish with borax, i seen nothing about borax in your post.

Yes, I skipped the borax, as I understand it, it will lower the required temperature for gold to melt, but it's not mandatory ?

Incineration will get rid of the nitrates on the powder I guess ?

How do I go on washing the powder with HCL ? Just cover it a little bit with HCL then boil until the HCL evaporates and powder remains ?

i would suggest doing more reading, since you are a very new member you can not have downloaded any books or viewed any of the images in the past.

[/quote]
No I have not, I'm a newb
Is there a download page or something for books..

Thanks for your replies.

 

[necromancer]

books are in the books section.

please study.

as you study you will find helpful links in other members signature lines (along with in the sections on the main page)

book section

please be sure to read all the posts on the top (sticky posts) they are on the top of every section for a reason.

enjoy

 

[g_axelsson]

I can't read anything about testing with stannous. Read up on testing gold in solution.
If you don't have all the gold in the final melt you have misplaced it along the way. If you threw away the solutions and the scrap you have lost it.

Stannous chloride is the eyes of the refiner.

Also, if your homemade nitric acid is dissolving gold you probably have a chloride contamination somewhere. Nitric acid doesn't dissolve gold by itself, not even the fine wires inside a CPU.
To get rid of the chloride contamination, add a bit of silver or silver nitrate. When addition of extra silver nitrate doesn't create a white precipitation of silver chloride then your solution is free of chlorides and can be used for dissolving base metals without risking the gold. The silver is easily recovered later on.

Göran

 

[Pantherlikher]

Stop what you are doing please...
What did you do with all that liquid you ended up with?

You make Nitric acid... Using what? HCL and a nitric salt? That makes poor man's AR...Dissolves gold...

You asked about why not use tap water... Read and learn... Because it has Chlorine in it as well as other containments.

You keep stating you are a newbie... You do not have to tell us as you are acting like 1. Slow down and listen to help that is given and follow directions.

Put everything away and goto the welcome section of the forum and it will guide you to your learning experience.
You will NOT get rich by just doing it haphazardly. You will, make messes, lose PMs, get frustrated and hurt yourself or others around you.

Please learn how to do what you want...

B.S.
... There is no quick n easy way...

 

[bswartzwelder]

I find it totally amazing that people continue to ask "Where is my gold?". As stated earlier and in many responses to newbies asking this very same question, what are your stannous chloride tests telling you? I won't attempt to do anything (well, almost anything) with gold and chemicals without a goodly supply of Q-Tips and stannous chloride right there. I also keep a supply of gold chloride there as my first test of the day. No sense using stannous chloride if you don't know if it's good or not.

 

[necromancer]

there is more then enough posts on the forum to go start to finish without a single question needing to be asked !

that goes from buying & gathering the ceramics to selling the refined gold.

 

[pepsi78]

I can't read anything about testing with stannous. Read up on testing gold in solution.
If you don't have all the gold in the final melt you have misplaced it along the way. If you threw away the solutions and the scrap you have lost it.

Stannous chloride is the eyes of the refiner.

Also, if your homemade nitric acid is dissolving gold you probably have a chloride contamination somewhere. Nitric acid doesn't dissolve gold by itself, not even the fine wires inside a CPU.
To get rid of the chloride contamination, add a bit of silver or silver nitrate. When addition of extra silver nitrate doesn't create a white precipitation of silver chloride then your solution is free of chlorides and can be used for dissolving base metals without risking the gold. The silver is easily recovered later on.

Göran

I tested for chlorine with a chlorine tester and it returned none, altho this is what it returned I have added another processor for test and in stead of dissolving the inside of the pins it started with the gold coating to my disatisfaction.

Insignificant amounts of chlorine will dissipate over night like from tap water, or boiled.

I think there is something wrong with my nitric acid ? Why is it taking off the coating first and not dissolving the inner side of the pins. Can cooper chloride do this ? I think my nitric acid is contaminated with some other elements, I tested it and it is nitric acid indeed, it will fume hard in reaction to cooper.
But I think it has some other things in it.

 

[pepsi78]

Stop what you are doing please...
What did you do with all that liquid you ended up with?

You make Nitric acid... Using what? HCL and a nitric salt? That makes poor man's AR...Dissolves gold...

Nitric acid can be made from HCL a nitric salt and cooper.
Here is how I do it, method 2 with a reactor vessel.
The cooper reacts with these elements actually to form nitric acid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yE7v4wkuZU

I think I understand what you are saying now, part of the solution from the reactor container spilled into the reciving vessel due to high pressure instead of vapouring out, but in very limited amount. It can't be poor man's AR because only the vapours are suppose to travel to the recieving vessel, but the soultion rose up and some of it crossed over but in a very limited amount, I think this is enough to melt my gold and I just have to start over.

You will NOT get rich by just doing it haphazardly. You will, make messes, lose PMs, get frustrated and hurt yourself or others around you.

I don't expect to get rich from it I see it at best as a compensation.
I don't plan on stopping on gold, but it is my first step.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Stop what you are doing please...
What did you do with all that liquid you ended up with?

You make Nitric acid... Using what? HCL and a nitric salt? That makes poor man's AR...Dissolves gold...

Nitric acid can be made from HCL a nitric salt and cooper.
Here is how I do it, method 2 with a reactor vessel.
The cooper reacts with these elements actually to form nitric acid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yE7v4wkuZU

I think I understand what you are saying now, part of the solution from the reactor container spilled into the reciving vessel due to high pressure instead of vapouring out, but in very limited amount. It can't be poor man's AR because only the vapours are suppose to travel to the recieving vessel, but the soultion rose up and some of it crossed over but in a very limited amount, I think this is enough to melt my gold and I just have to start over.

You will NOT get rich by just doing it haphazardly. You will, make messes, lose PMs, get frustrated and hurt yourself or others around you.

I don't expect to get rich from it I see it at best as a compensation.

What he is not telling you in the video is when you use HCL to make your nitric you have the good posability of having chlorides in you final nitric that is produced. You should not use this on silver production because it produces silver chloride, also when you process gold bearing items you have the possability of dissolving part of your gold during the reaction. Using the sulphuric process has the same possabilities but with less problems.

 

[pepsi78]

Stop what you are doing please...
What did you do with all that liquid you ended up with?

You make Nitric acid... Using what? HCL and a nitric salt? That makes poor man's AR...Dissolves gold...

Nitric acid can be made from HCL a nitric salt and cooper.
Here is how I do it, method 2 with a reactor vessel.
The cooper reacts with these elements actually to form nitric acid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yE7v4wkuZU

I think I understand what you are saying now, part of the solution from the reactor container spilled into the reciving vessel due to high pressure instead of vapouring out, but in very limited amount. It can't be poor man's AR because only the vapours are suppose to travel to the recieving vessel, but the soultion rose up and some of it crossed over but in a very limited amount, I think this is enough to melt my gold and I just have to start over.

You will NOT get rich by just doing it haphazardly. You will, make messes, lose PMs, get frustrated and hurt yourself or others around you.

I don't expect to get rich from it I see it at best as a compensation.

What he is not telling you in the video is when you use HCL to make your nitric you have the good posability of having chlorides in you final nitric that is produced. You should not use this on silver production because it produces silver chloride, also when you process gold bearing items you have the possability of dissolving part of your gold during the reaction. Using the sulphuric process has the same possabilities but with less problems.

Sulfuric acid is not that easy to get to make nitric acid with it. And nitric acid bath is the only option because I don't want to use poor man's AR with all the base metals inside the solution, I had a horrible expiriance wit Poor Man's AR, with two tries, the second one everything turned black when I tried to melt it.
The powder was brown, here is my gold and when I put the torch on it, it turned black, like black petrolium oil, it cooled down and formed a very hard surface, I had a hard time cleaning up my melting pot. :|

I figured I have to get rid of everything before processing gold and making it powder.

I can get my hands on nitric salts and HCL to make my nitric acid, sulphuric acid is hard to obtain here.

how can my solution be contaminated with chlorine if I tested it with a tester stick and it returned zero, I checked it to see if my tap water that I left for two days before using had any chlorine and it did not.

I put my nitric acid, I put my water, mixed then used a test stick for chlorine trace.

When I made my nitric acid, I put too much cooper and this created a violent reaction and it bubbled too much and it reached the hose that connected the reaction vessel generator with the recieving one, a little amount spilled over into the reciever vessel but in a limited amount.

Is there another method maybe for dealing with the base metals.

What do you suggest making nitric acid with. I love the idea of getting rid of base metals first then leaving only pure gold, like with gold fingers from ram.

Thanks.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Sulfuric acid is not that easy to get to make nitric acid with it. And nitric acid bath is the only option because I don't want to use poor man's AR with all the base metals inside the solution, I had a horrible expiriance wit Poor Man's AR, with two tries, the second one everything turned black when I tried to melt it.
The powder was brown, here is my gold and when I put the torch on it, it turned black, like black petrolium oil, it cooled down and formed a very hard surface, I had a hard time cleaning up my melting pot. :|

I figured I have to get rid of everything before processing gold and making it powder.

I can get my hands on nitric salts and HCL to make my nitric acid, sulphuric acid is hard to obtain here.

how can my solution be contaminated with chlorine if I tested it with a tester stick and it returned zero, I checked it to see if my tap water that I left for two days before using had any chlorine and it did not.

I put my nitric acid, I put my water, mixed then used a test stick for chlorine trace.

When I made my nitric acid, I put too much cooper and this created a violent reaction and it bubbled too much and it reached the hose that connected the reaction vessel generator with the recieving one, a little amount spilled over into the reciever vessel but in a limited amount.

Is there another method maybe for dealing with the base metals.

What do you suggest making nitric acid with. I love the idea of getting rid of base metals first then leaving only pure gold, like with gold fingers from ram.

Thanks.

Just because your chloride tester dosen't show chlorides does not mean you do not have any.

When you used poor mans AR what did you use to drop your gold out of solution? How much solution did you have? How much gold were you expecting from your solution. It sounds like you had copper in with your gold when you tried to melt it.

 

[pepsi78]

Sulfuric acid is not that easy to get to make nitric acid with it. And nitric acid bath is the only option because I don't want to use poor man's AR with all the base metals inside the solution, I had a horrible expiriance wit Poor Man's AR, with two tries, the second one everything turned black when I tried to melt it.
The powder was brown, here is my gold and when I put the torch on it, it turned black, like black petrolium oil, it cooled down and formed a very hard surface, I had a hard time cleaning up my melting pot. :|

I figured I have to get rid of everything before processing gold and making it powder.

I can get my hands on nitric salts and HCL to make my nitric acid, sulphuric acid is hard to obtain here.

how can my solution be contaminated with chlorine if I tested it with a tester stick and it returned zero, I checked it to see if my tap water that I left for two days before using had any chlorine and it did not.

I put my nitric acid, I put my water, mixed then used a test stick for chlorine trace.

When I made my nitric acid, I put too much cooper and this created a violent reaction and it bubbled too much and it reached the hose that connected the reaction vessel generator with the recieving one, a little amount spilled over into the reciever vessel but in a limited amount.

Is there another method maybe for dealing with the base metals.

What do you suggest making nitric acid with. I love the idea of getting rid of base metals first then leaving only pure gold, like with gold fingers from ram.

Thanks.

Just because your chloride tester dosen't show chlorides does not mean you do not have any.

When you used poor mans AR what did you use to drop your gold out of solution? How much solution did you have? How much gold were you expecting from your solution. It sounds like you had copper in with your gold when you tried to melt it.

I used meta sodium bisulfite to drop the gold, I had covered the processors in HCL just over the top, added a little bit of water to let the Ions flow and added my nitrate salts in repeated steps until it stopped fussing and bubbling. I had 12 ceramic amd k6 processors, that value around 5 dollars each in gold. There was more than a gram in those processors, what I got is black glue instead of gold, everything turned black as it melted then it hardened after I let it cool down, as stated I had a hard time cleaning my pot from the black rock it formed. This was my second try with Poor mans AR.

I think I'm just unlucky, bad luck. I figured that other stuff will drop with my gold from the solution and ruin it, that is why AR sucks ass, and it is why I want to avoid it.

Even if the powder is unwashed and it melts harder, it should finaly melt and you should see some gold at least as little as it is.