NEW TO THIS FORM : NEED ADVISE

[mxk8612]

Hello I am new into the extracting precious Metal from Scrap,

I started with Computer Rams, extracted chips and gold fingers separately.

My Questions is related to yield , I was able to recover 0.5 gms of AU in 1 KG of RAM on an average in multiple processes I ran.


The Steps I followed is below :

1. After Extracting Chips on Hot Plate, Dipped gold fingers in AR ( 3 HCL:1 Nitric Ratio), for almost one hour
2. Dipped chips in HCL to remove any extra soldering and washed the chips with water. Burnt the chips using Butane, once chips are cooled down grind them in grinder and washed them 5-6 times to remove all the plastic content and dipped the bottom of the chips in AR.
3. Once reaction was complete filtered both AR into one container using cotton filter, Used Urea to Neutralise any Nitric once no reaction (no bubbles) were seen mixed the solution with SMB and kept it overnight for the dust to settle down.
4. Next day filtered ( Using Chemical Paper Filter) the solution again , whatever dust collected placed it again in AR for reaction. after 1 hour Same Neutralised the liquid of Nitric and added SMB and placed it overnight to settle.
5 Last step filtered again the solution , whatever dust collected placed in small furnace along with Borax to recover Gold.

MY QUESTIONS ARE :

Any problems you see with my process ? I believe recovery is less in RAM as compared to published online.

Can anyone help in making my process more efficient

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hello I am new into the extracting precious Metal from Scrap,

I started with Computer Rams, extracted chips and gold fingers separately.

My Questions is related to yield , I was able to recover 0.5 gms of AU in 1 KG of RAM on an average in multiple processes I ran.


The Steps I followed is below :

1. After Extracting Chips on Hot Plate, Dipped gold fingers in AR ( 3 HCL:1 Nitric Ratio), for almost one hour
2. Dipped chips in HCL to remove any extra soldering and washed the chips with water. Burnt the chips using Butane, once chips are cooled down grind them in grinder and washed them 5-6 times to remove all the plastic content and dipped the bottom of the chips in AR.
3. Once reaction was complete filtered both AR into one container using cotton filter, Used Urea to Neutralise any Nitric once no reaction (no bubbles) were seen mixed the solution with SMB and kept it overnight for the dust to settle down.
4. Next day filtered ( Using Chemical Paper Filter) the solution again , whatever dust collected placed it again in AR for reaction. after 1 hour Same Neutralised the liquid of Nitric and added SMB and placed it overnight to settle.
5 Last step filtered again the solution , whatever dust collected placed in small furnace along with Borax to recover Gold.

MY QUESTIONS ARE :

Any problems you see with my process ? I believe recovery is less in RAM as compared to published online.

Can anyone help in making my process more efficient

Welcome to us.

Yes I see a lot of problems with your process.
Among them is that we never dissolve the Gold until it is free from base metals.
We use Copper Chloride etch or pure Nitric depending on price and availability of Nitric for this.

Next we NEVER use AR 3:1, we add HCl to cover what we want to dissolve,
then add Nitric in small amounts until it is dissolved.
And we do not neutralize the solution (Neutralize means bring to pH 7 ie Neutral).
We decompose the Nitric by deNOxing it.
Urea is not a good substance for this, Urea is a good fertilizer but not a good deNOxer.
Best is not to over use the Nitric, next is Sulfamic acid or evaporate and hydrate with HCl.

No need for Borax when melting pure Gold.

Most of the Gold are inside the Chips, these need to be pyrolized and ashed.
Then ground and ashed again until no more Carbon remains.

Here is for your studies.

1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: Screen Readable Copy of Hoke's Book
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: Safety
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: Dealing with Waste

Suggested reading: The Library

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/

 

[mxk8612]

Welcome to us.

Yes I see a lot of problems with your process.
Among them is that we never dissolve the Gold until it is free from base metals.
We use Copper Chloride etch or pure Nitric depending on price and availability of Nitric for this.

Next we NEVER use AR 3:1, we add HCl to cover what we want to dissolve,
then add Nitric in small amounts until it is dissolved.
And we do not neutralize the solution (Neutralize means bring to pH 7 ie Neutral).
We decompose the Nitric by deNOxing it.
Urea is not a good substance for this, Urea is a good fertilizer but not a good deNOxer.
Best is not to over use the Nitric, next is Sulfamic acid or evaporate and hydrate with HCl.

No need for Borax when melting pure Gold.

Most of the Gold are inside the Chips, these need to be pyrolized and ashed.
Then ground and ashed again until no more Carbon remains.

Here is for your studies.

1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: Screen Readable Copy of Hoke's Book
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: Safety
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: Dealing with Waste

Suggested reading: The Library

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/

Thanks a lot, I will change our process and re run.

How much Sulfamic acid should I put to denOx the solution ? Any idea
I wanted to know if anyone has extracted gold from 1kg RAM DDR2&3, if Yes what has been the yield. I am sorry if this question has been answered in the past here but tried searching in the forums and could not get any information.

 

[Martijn]

2. Dipped chips in HCL to remove any extra soldering and washed the chips with water. Burnt the chips using Butane, once chips are cooled down grind them in grinder and washed them 5-6 times to remove all the plastic content and dipped the bottom of the chips in AR.

What do you mean with the bottoms of the chips?
The gold is as tiny wires in between the legs and the silicone die.
So what did you put in AR and did you test the solution with stannous?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thanks a lot, I will change our process and re run.

How much Sulfamic acid should I put to denOx the solution ? Any idea
I wanted to know if anyone has extracted gold from 1kg RAM DDR2&3, if Yes what has been the yield. I am sorry if this question has been answered in the past here but tried searching in the forums and could not get any information.

Sulfamic acid are used hot 90 C until no more reaction.
DeNOx come from (de NOx) Nitrogen Oxygen and x a number.

 

[garyowendick]

Welcome to us.

Yes I see a lot of problems with your process.
Among them is that we never dissolve the Gold until it is free from base metals.
We use Copper Chloride etch or pure Nitric depending on price and availability of Nitric for this.

Next we NEVER use AR 3:1, we add HCl to cover what we want to dissolve,
then add Nitric in small amounts until it is dissolved.
And we do not neutralize the solution (Neutralize means bring to pH 7 ie Neutral).
We decompose the Nitric by deNOxing it.
Urea is not a good substance for this, Urea is a good fertilizer but not a good deNOxer.
Best is not to over use the Nitric, next is Sulfamic acid or evaporate and hydrate with HCl.

No need for Borax when melting pure Gold.

Most of the Gold are inside the Chips, these need to be pyrolized and ashed.
Then ground and ashed again until no more Carbon remains.

Here is for your studies.

1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: Screen Readable Copy of Hoke's Book
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: Safety
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: Dealing with Waste

Suggested reading: The Library

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/

Nice response. Not to nitpick, but concentrations of nitric acid are used for dissolving base metals. Not pure nitric acid.

Keep up the great work!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Nice response. Not to nitpick, but concentrations of nitric acid are used for dissolving base metals. Not pure nitric acid.

Keep up the great work!

It was for simplicity and to promote self studies of course.
All details was left out.

 

[Dreamer]

Once you separate the chips. Boil in HCL. Incinerate until your flame no longer turns orange. This will take a while but be patient. After you gind everything to a fine powder, screen it with at least a 60 mesh screen. The fine Gold wires will pass through the screen with the ash ( the metal caught by the screen will have trace, but minimal gold-rinse it well later) After take a magnet and remove any ferric metal remaining in the ash. Gravity separate the remaining gold strands from the ash and collect it into a beaker. You will then have a viable starting material to begin your chemical recovery process which yggdrasil wisely critiqued. Expect 1.5-2.5 grams per Kg of clean BGA chips depending on Vintage and manufacturer (from my experience).

 

[Dreamer]

It sounds like you left the copper and ferric metals in your starting material. The gold is the last metal to go into solution ( reactivity series) and the volume of acid you would need will cost more than the value of the gold you will recover. Again, from my experience.

 

[Yggdrasil]

It sounds like you left the copper and ferric metals in your starting material. The gold is the last metal to go into solution ( reactivity series) and the volume of acid you would need will cost more than the value of the gold you will recover. Again, from my experience.

This is not exactly true, but as long as there are base metals available,
the Gold will always cement out on the base metals, wherever they are.

 

[Martijn]

Once you separate the chips. Boil in HCL. Incinerate until your flame no longer turns orange. This will take a while but be patient. After you gind everything to a fine powder, screen it with at least a 60 mesh screen. The fine Gold wires will pass through the screen with the ash ( the metal caught by the screen will have trace, but minimal gold-rinse it well later) After take a magnet and remove any ferric metal remaining in the ash. Gravity separate the remaining gold strands from the ash and collect it into a beaker. You will then have a viable starting material to begin your chemical recovery process which yggdrasil wisely critiqued. Expect 1.5-2.5 grams per Kg of clean BGA chips depending on Vintage and manufacturer (from my experience).

I think he washed out the bonding wires with the 'plastic' and leached the metal baseplates or silicon dies (bottom parts) in AR.

 

[kurtak]

Hello I am new into the extracting precious Metal from Scrap,

I started with Computer Rams, extracted chips and gold fingers separately.

My Questions is related to yield , I was able to recover 0.5 gms of AU in 1 KG of RAM on an average in multiple processes I ran.


The Steps I followed is below :

1. After Extracting Chips on Hot Plate, Dipped gold fingers in AR ( 3 HCL:1 Nitric Ratio), for almost one hour
2. Dipped chips in HCL to remove any extra soldering and washed the chips with water. Burnt the chips using Butane, once chips are cooled down grind them in grinder and washed them 5-6 times to remove all the plastic content and dipped the bottom of the chips in AR.
3. Once reaction was complete filtered both AR into one container using cotton filter, Used Urea to Neutralise any Nitric once no reaction (no bubbles) were seen mixed the solution with SMB and kept it overnight for the dust to settle down.
4. Next day filtered ( Using Chemical Paper Filter) the solution again , whatever dust collected placed it again in AR for reaction. after 1 hour Same Neutralised the liquid of Nitric and added SMB and placed it overnight to settle.
5 Last step filtered again the solution , whatever dust collected placed in small furnace along with Borax to recover Gold.

MY QUESTIONS ARE :

Any problems you see with my process ? I believe recovery is less in RAM as compared to published online.

Can anyone help in making my process more efficient

Almost everything you did was WRONG

You NEVER put the gold plated fingers directly into AR - you first put them through a process to remove the gold plating from the fingers in order to "recover" that gold plating as gold foils - you then process those gold foils with AR to "refine" them

Concerning the IC chips - there are MANY more step you need to go through to effectively recover the gold from the chips then what you did

I used to process IC chips in 40 - 60 pound batches & I have posted a great deal of info here on the forum & I certainly do not have time to post all that info again

So you can start by searching this forum using search words like IC chips - or - incineration - IC chip incineration & use my user name (kurtak) in doing those searches --- you will find LOTS of info on how to process the chips

Kurt

 

[kurtak]

I think he washed out the bonding wires with the 'plastic' and leached the metal baseplates or silicon dies (bottom parts) in AR.

That is what it sounds like to me also - whether that is right or not - he did not come close to going through all the steps required to recover the gold from IC chips

Kurt

 

[kurtak]

screen it with at least a 60 mesh screen.

60 mesh is not fine enough

A 60 mesh piece of carbon is big enough to hold a gold bonding wire - that 60 mesh piece of carbon that is holding a gold bond wire will then wash away during the washing (concentrating) process which means at least "some" gold is being washed away

You NEED to grind & screen to "at least" 80 mesh

an 80 mesh piece of carbon will not hold a bond wire

There is a BIG difference between 60 mesh & 80 mesh

Kurt

 

[mxk8612]

What do you mean with the bottoms of the chips?
The gold is as tiny wires in between the legs and the silicone die.
So what did you put in AR and did you test the solution with stannous?

I am sorry was not able to explain properly, I mean I washed away all the plastic matter after incineration using water 6-7 washes, yes I was able to collect all the wires and connector after washing. I placed the wires and connectors in AR with out removing base metals. I am still confused how to remove all the base metals from IC chips after washing ? Is it Nitric Acid alone ? or anything else. Any idea

 

[mxk8612]

Almost everything you did was WRONG

You NEVER put the gold plated fingers directly into AR - you first put them through a process to remove the gold plating from the fingers in order to "recover" that gold plating as gold foils - you then process those gold foils with AR to "refine" them

Concerning the IC chips - there are MANY more step you need to go through to effectively recover the gold from the chips then what you did

I used to process IC chips in 40 - 60 pound batches & I have posted a great deal of info here on the forum & I certainly do not have time to post all that info again

So you can start by searching this forum using search words like IC chips - or - incineration - IC chip incineration & use my user name (kurtak) in doing those searches --- you will find LOTS of info on how to process the chips

Kurt

Thanks Kurt for your response . Do you have any process of to recover" gold plating as gold foils ? If you have posted in the past and can provide me the link

 

[Martijn]

Thanks Kurt for your response . Do you have any process of to recover" gold plating as gold foils ? If you have posted in the past and can provide me the link

Look for AP process a.k.a. Copper chloride leach. remeber: trash in trash out!, clean cut fingers, no solder, no components wil give you the best result.

When we dissolve gold, we don't want any epoxy, plastics, organics or carbon it there.
Porous materials like PCB's soak up the AuCl, (active) carbon absorbs it, and organics sometimes tend to go boom with nitric.

Just a side note: after incineration, there is no plastic! it's incinerated.. you mean the white ash? was there black powder left? chances are you threw away some bonding wires.

Not sure what you mean with connectors, I guess the metal legs.
You can sift the gold bonding wires from the legs as they are of very different dimensions. Some wires will be stuck or balled up in between the legs, you can inspect with a jewelers loupe.
Some leach the legs in AP for traces of gold but that's what the are, traces.

Martijn.

 

[Dreamer]

I am sorry was not able to explain properly, I mean I washed away all the plastic matter after incineration using water 6-7 washes, yes I was able to collect all the wires and connector after washing. I placed the wires and connectors in AR with out removing base metals. I am still confused how to remove all the base metals from IC chips after washing ? Is it Nitric Acid alone ? or anything else. Any idea

The screening of the material will remove the vast majority of the base metals. As Kurt pointed out, an 80 mesh screen is optimal. The gold wires will fall through with the ash. It seems like you missed this step in your concentration process and went straight to "washing".

 

[patnor1011]

After all that incinerating, screening, washing and magnet steps I used to wash concentrate in warm nitric/water to remove all traces of copper and any silver or tin present before proceeding to dissolve gold.