Pyrolysis reactor

[kjavanb123]

All,

Since I have been manually depopulating boards, and have accumulated lbs of ICs, SMD capacitor and Ta capacitors. I designed the following prototype as a pyrolysis reactor to rid of fumes, then incinerate them following ball mill, and finally smelting.

This design is from NoIdea's post as following, please comment.

The original design by NoIdea,


I have turned a liquid gas tank into the reactor, with objective of handling large quantites of ICs and other components.


It may not be seen in the picture, but the small pipe that gets connected to blower, is actually blowing air to the coals which will be around the reactor as the heat source. The other pipe that is welded to the tank will be carrrying the fumes from the components tonthe blower pipe.

The materials will be fed through the openning on top, with a cap screwed tight.


I am going to stack fire bricks around the tank and fill the gap between them with hot coals. There will be an incinerator which is being assembled tommorow.

Regards,
Kj

 

[kjavanb123]

Update on pyrolysis. Added a handfull of SMD capacitors, Ta capacitors, card slots, and couple of ICs, to test the pyrolysis. It worked great no smoke except for the burner which uses gasoline, toward the end of pyrolysis which is around 30 minutes, there was a tiny fire came out of the top cap, but no smoke or fumes related to burning the plastics.

Let the reactor cool off, and emptied it, everything was crispy when touched by fingers, easily break, here are some photos.

Materials that are being pyrolyzed using my reactor,


Pyrolysis unit at work.


Here are the materials after pyrolysis treament.


Thanks NoIdea and forum for your ideas, it has really helped out.

Regards
Kj

 

[kjavanb123]

Next I put 40 lbs of mixed ICs, to get them ready for incineration, it worked awesome, no smoke, just the gasoline, which I will replace with gas so it is cleaner.

After 2 hrs into the pyrolysis, here is the result, they were crispy and easily broken.


Tommorow they will be incinerated, ball milled, then smelted.

Regards
Kj

 

[canedane]

I like your idea of Noideas pyrolizer, and i like you do the process in two steps. It is easier to make a nearly smokeless process when you pyrolize the materiel first, and easy and fast to do the incineration in the next process.
If it was my equipment i will connect a scrubber, just to on the safe side with pollution.
Good work Kevin!
Best regarts from Henrik

 

[patnor1011]

What you did with IC is still incomplete incineration, they need to stay there much longer till they are white and break in powder pretty much by itself. Your IC are still black, full of carbon which will pose risk of value loss during AR stage of recovery. Not to mention you will need ball mill to grind them to powder.
Try to leave them roasting for longer time.

 

[kurtak]

What you did with IC is still incomplete incineration, they need to stay there much longer till they are white and break in powder pretty much by itself. Your IC are still black, full of carbon which will pose risk of value loss during AR stage of recovery. Not to mention you will need ball mill to grind them to powder.
Try to leave them roasting for longer time.

Pat

As much as what I underlined above has always been the advice given its just not true - I did a post about this awhile ago which you can read here :arrow: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11827&p=230896&hilit=incineration#p230896

Its only important that the "final" concentrates get "incinerated" to white ash before doing the chem work on them (&/or before smelting them which is what I do)

I just pyrolyzed a 67 lb batch of chips Thursday & milled them Friday & will be sifting & washing them this next week --- I will be posting a thread (with pic's) on the entire process in the near future

pic is "some" of the milled IC powder from my current batch - notice it is "very" black - lots of carbon - this is NOT going to be a problem at this stage of the game - the final "concentrates" will get re-incinerated to white ash - that's when &/or where it is important

Edit to say; --- Pat there is nothing wrong with the advice you are giving (incinerate chips to full white ash) --- I am only saying it is not necessary until it comes to the final ash concentrates that is going to be leached

Kurt

 

[kurtak]

Kevin

I would be a bit concerned about gases (from the pyrolysis) building up inside that reactor which could lead to a "potential" explosion

I am using my big smelting furnace to do my chips in (details on the whole process will be coming soon)

Pic 1) Chips are in full blown pyrolysis mode - note the orange flame coming out the top hole - little or no smoke - the gasses are being burnt up inside the furnace due to cyclone action of the flame inside the furnace produced by the furnace burner

pic 2) note there is no longer an orange flame coming out top furnace hole - this indicates that pyrolysis is complete as volatiles have been burnt off

pic 3) finished pyrolyzed chips

Kurt

 

[patnor1011]

I agree with what you said Kurt, but notice that your IC are white and Kevins just charred black. I wanted to say that if he just leave them there a bit longer he will save time at the end of the day. Milling or grinding will be easier and faster with properly incinerated material.

 

[g_axelsson]

Kevin

I would be a bit concerned about gases (from the pyrolysis) building up inside that reactor which could lead to a "potential" explosion.

If you are worried of a gas explosion, add a bit of water first, then the chamber will be filled up with water vapor and the air is pushed out when the steam is formed. No explosion risk as there is no oxygen left.

Göran

 

[Shark]

I may be missing something, but how is the cap held in place? I am not seeing the threads that hold it?

 

[kuma]

I agree with what you said Kurt, but notice that your IC are white and Kevins just charred black. I wanted to say that if he just leave them there a bit longer he will save time at the end of the day. Milling or grinding will be easier and faster with properly incinerated material.

I agree with this statement, leaving them a while longer would save time and effort in the long run.

When they're white/grey like this:



...they're a piece of cake to grind up with something as simple as a pestle and mortar, like this:





(Note to Mods, I've tried and struggled but couldn't remember/figure out how to add images to posts, my apologies for links to external sites, I'll gladly delete on request.)

 

[FrugalRefiner]

kuma, take a look at the Attaching Images or Files, Working with Attachments post in my Tips thread.

Dave

 

[kuma]

Thank you Dave, all sorted now

Chris

 

[kurtak]

Ball milling is the way to go (at least for large batch processing)

Harbor Freight cement mixer - the small one (1 & 1/3 yard I think) $150 on sale

Balls - Legend Mining - 20 lb load (has 10 lb 1 inch balls & 10 lb 1-1/4 inch balls) plus 10 lb of 2 inch ball --- about $35 for the balls plus about $35 shipping = $70

Total mill cost = $220

that's cheap considering I just milled 67 lb of chips in one day with it --- which would have take me a week (or more) with my old mortar/pestle &/or rolling pin method

Kurt

 

[Anonymous]

Never mind the milling method Ive got to say that where you live looks truly beautiful Kurt.

 

[kjavanb123]

Thanks all for your feedback. I pyrolyzed ICs a lot longer 3 hrs, then milled them, and smelted them. From 25.110 kg of mixed ICs, got 30g of gold.

Gold from ICs


Back of it,


And gold button in its sources


Again thanks forum.

Regards
Kj

 

[kurtak]

Thanks all for your feedback. I pyrolyzed ICs a lot longer 3 hrs, then milled them, and smelted them.

Regards
Kj

Kevin

Did you go direct from milling to smelting --- or did you do some sort of concentrating before smelting ? (blue bowl, miller table, shaker table etc.) & if so did you re-incinerate the concentrates to turn any carbon to true ash

Also what about the kovar wire legs & copper wire legs - did you use magnet to remove magnetics &/or sifting to remove kovar &/or copper

By the way I should say sorry - I didn't mean to hi-jack your thread

Kurt

 

[kjavanb123]

Kurtak,

After milling, I just bagged everything including powder, legs and silica, and smelted everything, and that was the result. It is almost 0.6g per lb of ICs.

I have another batch of 20kg ICs this Sat that will be pyrolyzed, milled and directly smelted, along with SMD, Ta caps.

Regards
Kj

 

[kurtak]

Kevin

I for one would like to hear more details about your full process :!:

1) when you load the pyrolysis reactor - do you load it with the "full" load right out the gate - or do you start with a smaller load & ad to it as epoxy is reduced to carbon/ash

2) how many lbs (or kgs) will the reactor do as a full load - &/or starting load & addition sizes (if you do it that way)

3) what is your milling method (ball mill, rod mill, hammer mill, etc.)

4) being as how you are not concentrating - what is you flux to IC ash ratio in order to slag off such a large volume of ash/carbon

5) I assume you have a lot of carbon after milling - are you re-incinerating to reduce the carbon (powder) to ash - or just going right to smelting

6) what is your flux make up & the amount/ratio of each ingredient/component

7) how are you treating the smelted metals to part the base metals from the gold (&/or other PMs)

8) any other details you can think of posting would be nice along with more pictures

Kurt

 

[kurtak]

Never mind the milling method Ive got to say that where you live looks truly beautiful Kurt.

Thanks & yes it is a very nice place - 40 acres about 2/3 wooded with a small pond & creek - nice A frame house & the old barn (which is were I have my shop, lab, & storage set up) & it is surrounded by other wooded property &/or farm fields

Dinner (deer & wild turkeys) walks through the yard every day

My closest neighbors are 1/2 mile away (one to the east & one to the west) the rest of the neighbors are a mile or more away

There are a lot of Amish that live in this area (the horse & buggy people)

Its a very good - very rural area - with good neighbors that look out for & help out each other --- & yes I LOVE IT

Kurt