Reclaim all or most metals dissolved in AR?

[MadScientist89]

I'd like to recover the silver and copper from my waste. I've found ways to do each but no direct way really. I've got some questions, please and thank you.

1. If this is feasible, could someone provide a barney style breakdown for me?
2. How complicated is this?
3. Is it worth the time?
4. Is there even enough silver to matter?
5. Is there something I can do with the recovered gold to make it worth more than it's spot price? Powder? Wire?
6. Cheapest source of acids? I found a gallon of HCl at Ace Hardware for $10. Nitric acid was like $28 for 1000ml 67%. Sulfuric was $26 for 950ml 98%
7. Why won't my stupid MSB mixture slurry. It just immediately sinks. Does it need heat?


So I was thinking of making the silver and copper into powder to sell. This would help recoup the cost of materials. I am also willing to make copper powder for anyone on the forum at a reasonable price. Since feedstock is impossible to obtain, squeezing more cash out of what we have would be ideal.

I am also looking to do small scale manufacturing. Like copper press pipes or something but I haven't found the product yet if anyone has any ideas. Is there a market for ready-made Stannous Chloride? I know it has a shelf life. Are there any chemicals I could make with relative ease I could sell?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[eaglekeeper]

6. Cheapest source of acids? I found a gallon of HCl at Ace Hardware for $10. Nitric acid was like $28 for 1000ml

Ace hardware does sell sulfuric acid and calcium nitrate garden fertilizer (Lowes sells Spectracide stump remover in a black bottle that's potassium nitrate). With that you can make nitric acid. The home made nitric doesn't work very well with silver unless you distill it, but will work fine for everything else.

7. Why won't my stupid MSB mixture slurry. It just immediately sinks. Does it need heat?

I'm not sure what you mean by this?....SMB, if so what's the source.

Is there a market for ready-made Stannous Chloride? I know it has a shelf life.

With Hydrochloric acid and just about any type of solder, you can make your own stannous chloride. As far as shelf life I don't know.... I've been using the same stannous chloride for at least 2 years. I do have a gold standard solution to check it with before using it.

So I was thinking of making the silver and copper into powder to sell. This would help recoup the cost of materials. I am also willing to make copper powder for anyone on the forum at a reasonable price. Since feedstock is impossible to obtain, squeezing more cash out of what we have would be ideal.

I was going to suggest melting the copper into bars and sell to the scrapyard, but not all yards will buy poured bars.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I'd like to recover the silver and copper from my waste. I've found ways to do each but no direct way really. I've got some questions, please and thank you.

1. If this is feasible, could someone provide a barney style breakdown for me?
What is your feed stock and what is a Barney style breakdown?
2. How complicated is this? See my first question
3. Is it worth the time? What are you doing?
4. Is there even enough silver to matter? What are you refining?
5. Is there something I can do with the recovered gold to make it worth more than it's spot price? Powder? Wire?
There are products selling for more than Spot, but it requires full documentation, expensive analytic machines and a market
6. Cheapest source of acids? I found a gallon of HCl at Ace Hardware for $10. Nitric acid was like $28 for 1000ml 67%. Sulfuric was $26 for 950ml 98% With business licenses you can get acids cheaper in bulk.
7. Why won't my stupid MSB mixture slurry. It just immediately sinks. Does it need heat?
Since you do not explain much I really do not understand, I will guess though, I guess you mean SMB
(Correct spelling matters in Chemistry) And to get it into slurry form , means you make a saturated solution that is not completely dissolved. And if it immediately sinks all is good.
So I was thinking of making the silver and copper into powder to sell. This would help recoup the cost of materials. I am also willing to make copper powder for anyone on the forum at a reasonable price. Since feedstock is impossible to obtain, squeezing more cash out of what we have would be ideal.

I am also looking to do small scale manufacturing. Like copper press pipes or something but I haven't found the product yet if anyone has any ideas. Is there a market for ready-made Stannous Chloride? I know it has a shelf life. Are there any chemicals I could make with relative ease I could sell?

Thanks in advance guys.

Comments in Bold inside quote.

 

[MadScientist89]

My feedstock is pinless CPUs currently. I'm trying to pull out the gold then get the copper and silver from the waste. I want to take that copper and turn it to wire or anodes or powder to sell like on amazon or ebay. I means SMB I typo'd. Sorry I realize now I didn't say much about my feedstock which is important.
Barney style means simplify it like I'm a kid.

@dave: thanks for the info man yeah scrapyards can't verify purity with ingots or some such nonsense

 

[Yggdrasil]

My feedstock is pinless CPUs currently. I'm trying to pull out the gold then get the copper and silver from the waste. I want to take that copper and turn it to wire or anodes or powder to sell like on amazon or ebay. I means SMB I typo'd. Sorry I realize now I didn't say much about my feedstock which is important.
Barney style means simplify it like I'm a kid.

@dave: thanks for the info man yeah scrapyards can't verify purity with ingots or some such nonsense

I have not processed them myself, but as I understand it, pin less CPU's are very low level scrap with very little Gold.
And if there is Silver at all there is not much.
Sorry about that.

 

[MadScientist89]

What do you use as feedstock Ygg? It was more proof of concept to make sure I could successfully and safely complete the task. Currently waiting for the gold mud to settle for my very first yield.. Turning the heatsinks into copper powder seems like a potential avenue for recouping cost. Are there reagents I can make and sell from the materials gained through these processes?

I paid $150 for 10lbs of pinned processors but with heatsinks removed will be here soon

 

[Yggdrasil]

What do you use as feedstock Ygg? It was more proof of concept to make sure I could successfully and safely complete the task. Currently waiting for the gold mud to settle for my very first yield.. Turning the heatsinks into copper powder seems like a potential avenue for recouping cost. Are there reagents I can make and sell from the materials gained through these processes?

Sadly my feed stock more or less dried out, so I have not refined in a while.
Still have some unprocessed material, but it was for the most part complete PC and Laptops.

 

[Yggdrasil]

What do you use as feedstock Ygg? It was more proof of concept to make sure I could successfully and safely complete the task. Currently waiting for the gold mud to settle for my very first yield.. Turning the heatsinks into copper powder seems like a potential avenue for recouping cost. Are there reagents I can make and sell from the materials gained through these processes?

I paid $150 for 10lbs of pinned processors but with heatsinks removed will be here soon

How did you process this lot ?

 

[MadScientist89]

How did you process this lot ?

HCl + H202 to remove plating then A.R. precipitated with SMB

How do I collect copper from my mixture of H2SO4/HCl/HNO3/H20? I threw all the heatsinks with gold into that solution

 

[Yggdrasil]

HCl + H202 then A.R. precipitated with SMB

How do I collect copper from my mixture of H2SO4/HCl/HNO3/H20? I threw all the heatsinks with gold into that solution

You do not dissolve Gold until all base metals are dissolved.
If there is still base metals present when you start dissolving Gold, the Gold will cement out on the base metals.
And in the case of the solution still have PCBs in it, the cementation can and will also happen inside the PCBs.
That Gold might be considered as "lost"
The Copper in solution can be recovered by cementing on Iron.

 

[MadScientist89]

You do not dissolve Gold until all base metals are dissolved.
If there is still base metals present when you start dissolving Gold, the Gold will cement out on the base metals.
And in the case of the solution still have PCBs in it, the cementation can and will also happen inside the PCBs.
That Gold might be considered as "lost"
The Copper in solution can be recovered by cementing on Iron.

I planned on filtering the solution the heatsinks are currently in the aforementioned solution. Wash them then A/R the sediment and precipitate with SMB. Should I reverse electroplate the heatsinks instead?

 

[Martijn]

5. Is there something I can do with the recovered gold to make it worth more than it's spot price?

Make jewelry.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I planned on filtering the solution the heatsinks are currently in the aforementioned solution. Wash them then A/R the sediment and precipitate with SMB. Should I reverse electroplate the heatsinks instead?

Usually we do a Copper Chloride leach on the material and thus release the Gold foils from the material.
Then we collect the foils and dissolve them in HCl/Bleach HCl/Peroxide or AR.
The Gold less material can then be dissolved or melted or what ever fits your process.

 

[MadScientist89]

Make jewelry.

That would be great, but I am artistically talentless.

Usually we do a Copper Chloride leach on the material and thus release the Gold foils from the material.
Then we collect the foils and dissolve them in HCl/Bleach HCl/Peroxide or AR.
The Gold less material can then be dissolved or melted or what ever fits your process.

Okay, I can copper chloride leach the heatsinks next time. Do foils dissolve into solution with HCl and H202/Bleach? I thought AR or Nitric acid was necessary.

 

[Yggdrasil]

That would be great, but I am artistically talentless.

Okay, I can copper chloride leach the heatsinks next time. Do foils dissolve into solution with HCl and H202/Bleach? I thought AR or Nitric acid was necessary.

Gold foils will dissolve in both HCl/Bleach and HCl/Peroxide.
The Peroxide need to be strong, how strong it has to be I really do not know.
But 12-30 % will dissolve Gold.
Nitric will not dissolve Gold alone.

 

[Martijn]

That would be great, but I am artistically talentless.

Okay, I can copper chloride leach the heatsinks next time. Do foils dissolve into solution with HCl and H202/Bleach? I thought AR or Nitric acid was necessary.

Copper chloride aka AP is meant for thin copper traces that dissolve relatively fast and release the gold plating from circuit boards.

Thick copper takes a lot of acid and even more time.

What kind of waste are you trying to recover copper and silver from?

I run a copper sulfate cell and just toss thick copper based (partilally) plated parts in it and recover the precious metals from the slimes. If there is too much copper left from small parts, i melt and cast it in anodes and run it again.
You end up with pure copper that you can sell as copper 1.

 

[Martijn]

My feedstock is pinless CPUs currently.

What kind of waste are you trying to recover copper and silver from?

Sorry. Did not read that.
Lots of info here on cpu's.

 

[MadScientist89]

I run a copper sulfate cell and just toss thick copper based (partilally) plated parts in it and recover the precious metals from the slimes. If there is too much copper left from small parts, i melt and cast it in anodes and run it again.
You end up with pure copper that you can sell as copper 1.

I'm pretty new to chemistry and stuff. Can you explain or provide a video about how to do that? Is there a market for silver/copper/zinc powder I could use to pay for my hobby?

 

[andu]

You should google a bit for finding the cells, but the very search bar in this page should suffice.

Any metal in powdered or oxide form tends to cost more if you want to buy it, but perhaps a bit harder to sell?
I believe in a nothing to waste policy so i'd pile up most if not all elements i stumble upon.

 

[Martijn]

I'm pretty new to chemistry and stuff. Can you explain or provide a video about how to do that? Is there a market for silver/copper/zinc powder I could use to pay for my hobby?

There is a lot of info on a copper refining cell here and on internet. You seem to be in a hurry and i must say you need to slow down.
Please read this thread:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threa...imple-question-and-get-a-simple-answer.21412/
Then have you read the 'dealing with waste' and 'safety' section?

To protect members against themselves we ask them to first study and ask when needed.
You need to learn the basics. Start small and ask before you try anything.

Tossing a bunch of metals in a mix of chemicals and then ask how to solve it, is not the way. Solution in that case: read dealing with waste.

Then the next challenge: powdered metal is very hard to analyze. It will be a snapshot of part of the powder of one batch at that moment in time, not saying much about the entire lot. How will you provide quality certificates and specification sheets for your product to sell?
I make powdered copper in a CuSO4 cell by running a high current through it. But that is not pure, uniform size, etc.

So please explain what you hope to sell for what price.