Non-Chemical Pyrolize quads chips in assay furnace?

[924T]

In a bid to duplicate the Patnor Process, I just searched for a coal supplier in my town, and found there
is none. The closest place to get coal here is 2.5 hours away; I did discover that they sell coke, too.

Aside from the inevitable complaints by my neighbors about "what's that smell" from burning coal, I have no place
to store a ton of coal (which is how it's sold around here), and charcoal is only available during the summer
cookout season.

So, I'm wondering if quads and BGA chips could be pyrolized in an assay furnace?

I've got 2 110v furnaces (although my small Vcella needs a new heating element), so if using a furnace will
work, I won't have to go out and buy anything to be able to conduct some pyrolizing experiments.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Geo]

there are alternatives. natural gas,propane and scrap wood to name a few.

 

[924T]

Thanks, Geo!

I had just assumed that coal produced more heat than charcoal or wood, so it's interesting to find out
that scrap wood, which is plentiful here, would work.

Is there an optimum temperature to aim for, to properly pyrolize i.c. chips?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Geo]

the organic plastic bodies should decompose to ash at around 620 - 980 Fahrenheit. with a little engineering, wood will burn twice this hot if given enough oxygen.

 

[924T]

Thanks, Geo.

I imagine a very small squirrel-cage fan, or a blow dryer, would provide enough Oxygen to get a wood
fire up to around 900F ?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Geo]

i use a Dollar General brand hair drier.

 

[924T]

Geo,

Just found out today that if you hit burning wood with enough air, it will easily generate 850F,
and that's in the temperature range you indicated, so I'm going to go with wood.

Not sure if I should pursue old/broken pallets (which I'd heard were made of oak), or help myself
to the fallen tree limbs so common here.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[element47.5]

i use a Dollar General brand hair drier.

Quote of the year, LOL!

 

[grance]

I use wood pellets in my smelting furnace they work very well and theres a local saw mill that turns there saw dust into them so there cheap

 

[acpeacemaker]

Speaking of mills there are several where I live. They mill wood flooring and leave huge piles out in the parking lot for free. Oak burns a hot dry heat, which is what use. Also, I was speaking to a wood craftsmen that told me red oak or red cedar will cause nasal cancer just from the dust. I don't remember which one.

 

[goldsilverpro]

As I understand it, to pyrolyze means to apply heat to vaporize the organics in the absence of oxygen, leaving the carbon unreacted upon. Incineration means to burn the material in the presence of oxygen, resulting in a white ash with no black carbon remaining. In this case, you want to incinerate and not to pyrolyze. You definitely want to get rid of the carbon.

 

[924T]

goldsilverpro,

I was wondering about that------------pyrolosis is what's done, and correct me if I'm wrong, when they
remove all organic material from wood, coal, or peanut or coconut shells (etc.) to make activated carbon.

So if what's being done to the I.C. chips is actually incineration, the chips could be put in a pan with no lid
(simply to keep the chip ashes and values from combining with the fuel ashes if you're using wood, coal, charcoal, etc.),
which would expose them to Oxygen,placed over a 620-980F heat source, and they would incinerate?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[goldsilverpro]

Right. Charcoal, activated carbon, etc. is made by pyrolysis. Pyrolysis can pose an explosion problem if the vapors coming off are confined. If there is even a slight leak of air into the chamber holding the hot confined off-gases, the temperature can raise quickly and an explosion can occur. A guy I knew was going to get rich by pyrolyzing tires. He had backers and a fairly large experimental setup. His idea was to condense the vapors and produce oil. He claimed to get a drum of oil, a lot of carbon black, and steel (from steel belted radials) from a ton of tires. He had about an explosion a week and some were fairly large. Every time I saw him, he was covered from head to foot with carbon.

 

[924T]

I just started the search for a clean 55 gallon steel drum today----------It looks to be the solution to
my concerns about being able to incinerate I.C. chips outdoors during the winter months here.

I saw the Elastec company mentioned in a different post; I went to their website and checked out
their products, because they fit 55 gal. drums. Their products look to be very well made, but
$2,730 for a drum lid with a blower pack is out of my price range right now. There were some pictures of
their units being operated in the winter, which prompted me to begin sourcing a 55 gal. drum.

Geo, the Dollar General blow dryers are looking more appealing every day, and will probably become
the forced air source for my 55 gallon incinerator.

This, for me, is a fun project.

Thanks for all your answers and help, good people of the GRF!

Cheers,

Mike

 

[malfeces]

55 gal drum for incinerating? How many chips you got? I am new and an idiot to boot so don't take anything i say as the best advice but after the hours of reading I have done and many many videos if this process, I think if you release your inner MacGuyver you can creat something that will do the trick for way less money. I would think for around $50 you could set yourself up with some fire brick, the dollar general hair dryer, maybe an iron pipe to direct the air into the base of the brick furnace and a cast iron pan and you should be good as gold.....heheheh....gold.....

 

[acpeacemaker]

I've actually found over the summer that smaller is better for me. I've tried close to a 55' and the amount of ash can be somewhat overwhelming. If you do a process simalar to Pat's process, I found 1 lb lots to be way easier. Plus when you go through your first pan you can put the ash in a 10 inch cast iron skillet. I use a mini oven and dry it back out. Then mill the remaining ash with the back of a blunt axe head right in the pan. Then the ash gets sprayed into a 1 gallon wide mouthed pitcher and cleaned, then put back into the gold pan. I've found a lot of gold still trapped in the ash from the first go around.

 

[DONNZ]

Scrap yards that allow bone picking and some metal yards have bone piles.

Useful things I've collected.

 

[924T]

Thanks, malfeces!

Yeah, I was getting a little goofy there with the 55 gallon drum idea----------after thinking about it,
I became certain the uptight neighbors here would be freaking out if I had a large steel drum in the
back yard with flames shooting out the top.

I don't have that many chips, yet. I've been chiseling chips off of motherboards for 3 weeks now, and
have 4 40 oz. Skippy peanut butter jars nearly full; 1 is very close to a Kg, the other 3 are in the
750-850 gram range. I've got maybe another 120 motherboards to go, and then it's on to the PCI
cards, then the floppy/hard drive/CD-DVD boards, then the ram chips. I'm hoping to have 5 to 8 Kg of chips when I'm done.

I'm separating the dual inline I.C.'s from the quads, the large quads from the small quads, and the
Northbridge chips from the Southbridge and video chips, and I'd like to end up with at least a Kg of each
grouping, so that I can record the pyrolysis outcomes and compare them. I'm curious to find out if the
small quads have the same yield as the large quads, etc., because I hope to start buying chips after I
gain some competency with the pyrolizing process, and I do want to get the pricing correct, and fair.

Or maybe it's better to just lump them all into a pile and run them that way-----I don't know yet.

Somewhere around here there is a stainless steel stockpot that I think I could turn into a small incinerator.
Normally I don't try making equipment because I'm a mechanical dolt-----my brother got all the mechanical
skills, it seems. My skill areas are in marketing and communications, but I'm thinking I can get past that
obstacle, with all the ideas and input available from the forum.

Any and all ideas are very much appreciated!

Cheers,

Mike

 

[924T]

Thanks, acpeacemaker!

You've told me something that I absolutely did not know, which is to keep the "batch" size to around 1 lb.,
to keep things manageable, and the fact that you have already been there, done that, with the 55 gal. drum
approach makes the information all that much more meaningful to me-------many thanks.

You said that you dry the ash out in a mini oven------------that would be after panning the Au out of the
pyrolized chip remnants, so the ash would be wet from the water from the panning process?

That's a cool idea to 'mill' the dried ash in the iron pan with the back of an axe head. It sounds like you've
got your process well optimized.

If I screw this up, royally, is there a chance I could drive to Springfield and watch you actually running a
batch of chips, and what would you charge for such an observational tutorial?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[924T]

DONNZ,

It looks like you've found some cool stuff and came up with novel uses for it/them-----------I like it!

The one scrap yard I've frequented locally won't let loose of a thing-----sell, trade, nothing.

There's another one that I'll have to hit, and find out what their policies are.

I'd bet it's some sort of insurance/liability thing dictating the policies.

Cheers,

Mike