kjavanb123
Well-known member
All,
After consulting with a firm in Singapore as I am waiting for him to provide me with the list of equipments and prices I had a brainstorm on how to process PCBs for precious metals.
Following is the concept design for a system that will recover 98% plus of precious metals along with base metals. I am sure your input on upgrading this system will help a lot.
1. PCBs feed, 200 kgs per day, on a 24 working day per month it would be around 2.8 metric tonnes of PCBs per month.
2. Manual Separation of components:
2-A: South/North bridges ICs
2-B: Pins from slots
2-C: Pins from CPU sockets
2-D: Pins from connectors
2-E: The remains of the PCBs
3- Process 1:
To process the 2-A, suggested incinerating, following by a grinding and using either centrifugal separation to extract the free gold particles from the black ICs
4- Process 2:
This process will extract gold from gold plating components which is 2-B, C,D also the plastic layer which black ICs from 2-A are laying on top of it. Suggested method for this process is either sulfuric cell, or cyanide leach.
5- Process 3:
The remaining of dismantled PCBs are to be crushed and milled into 0.5mm by size, then dissolution by reagent such as sulfuric or nitric acid to remove base metals such as copper, tin, and nickel from the boards, extract copper from the solution using electrolysis. The spent solution after copper stripping which contains tin, nickel and I assume some silver could be sold to the tin/nickel refiner.
6- Waste Solution treatment:
Any of these processes would produce some solution that need to be taken care of to be released into the sewage system, waste in this design are cyanide leach waste solution, and waste from process 3 which still contain some value metals such as tin and nickel. So only cyanide leach waste solution, and waste solution
from process 1 need to be taken care of.
7- Fume hood:
Each of processes would require some fume hood that is connected to the a central fume scrubber. Different fume hood designs are discussed on the forum.
9- Fume Scrubber:
The collected fumes from processes would be safe using fume scrubber, can an automobile catalyst converter be used as fume scrubber?
Your input on this system is appreciated.
Thanks
Kevin
After consulting with a firm in Singapore as I am waiting for him to provide me with the list of equipments and prices I had a brainstorm on how to process PCBs for precious metals.
Following is the concept design for a system that will recover 98% plus of precious metals along with base metals. I am sure your input on upgrading this system will help a lot.
1. PCBs feed, 200 kgs per day, on a 24 working day per month it would be around 2.8 metric tonnes of PCBs per month.
2. Manual Separation of components:
2-A: South/North bridges ICs
2-B: Pins from slots
2-C: Pins from CPU sockets
2-D: Pins from connectors
2-E: The remains of the PCBs
3- Process 1:
To process the 2-A, suggested incinerating, following by a grinding and using either centrifugal separation to extract the free gold particles from the black ICs
4- Process 2:
This process will extract gold from gold plating components which is 2-B, C,D also the plastic layer which black ICs from 2-A are laying on top of it. Suggested method for this process is either sulfuric cell, or cyanide leach.
5- Process 3:
The remaining of dismantled PCBs are to be crushed and milled into 0.5mm by size, then dissolution by reagent such as sulfuric or nitric acid to remove base metals such as copper, tin, and nickel from the boards, extract copper from the solution using electrolysis. The spent solution after copper stripping which contains tin, nickel and I assume some silver could be sold to the tin/nickel refiner.
6- Waste Solution treatment:
Any of these processes would produce some solution that need to be taken care of to be released into the sewage system, waste in this design are cyanide leach waste solution, and waste from process 3 which still contain some value metals such as tin and nickel. So only cyanide leach waste solution, and waste solution
from process 1 need to be taken care of.
7- Fume hood:
Each of processes would require some fume hood that is connected to the a central fume scrubber. Different fume hood designs are discussed on the forum.
9- Fume Scrubber:
The collected fumes from processes would be safe using fume scrubber, can an automobile catalyst converter be used as fume scrubber?
Your input on this system is appreciated.
Thanks
Kevin