SIM E-waste Recovery

[Jerry McGoohan]

Hi, it appears this is the place to be so appreciate any advice in the right direction, thanks. I saved around 70,000 early 2000 satellite SIM cards from landfill from previous company before taking a redundancy a couple months later.
A little time offs given me a chance to prepare 4 jars tared weight of approx 1.4 kg
type 1 and type 2 SIMs (PIC 1&2) out of the plastic card.
I had an XRF test performed (PDF scan attach) wherein
type1 SIM 0.15gwt (oval) tested 8.9 AU 2 karrot, with mostly CU &NI base metal and
type 2 (square) tested 4.4AU 1 karrot & 3.7AU on another XRF machine.

Having watched the BETTER YouTube E-waste Recovery chan's, skimming Hokes Book chapters and reading this fine blog I'd like to start the AR separation of AU foil, dissolving base metals CU, NI. There's trace AG and 0.2% unaccounted on the XRF test.

I've slowly built up glass and safety ware, crucibles, borax, SNCL2 for stannous is ordered as is metabisulfite.

I understand the basic variables that can affect yields being aeration, saturation, heat, E waste size etc as a few variables of many. Electronics is more my forte, so quite new to this. I did take chemistry at school but failed for dropping the Acid (bada boom,feel free to reuse that joke...or not).

QUESTION 1: Before I go any further I should mention the HCL 5L I have is only 23%, is this strong enough.for AR?? I also have H2O2 3%, but if I could use aeration, H2O or heat effectively instead of the 3% perxiode to start base metal dissolve with a longer time frame, perhaps?

QUESTION 2 SIM recovery yields seem low, Another SIM XRF test from a YouTuber was 1 SIM only, 3.6 XRF AU, 20mg AU recovery using 50% HCL 50% H2O AR base metal CU, Ni dissolve as sample. Why are Youtube larger batches of SIM recovery yields seemingly so low?

Any pointers to get started much appreciated. B.T.W. I tried a small donation to the blog but you don't accept Paypal?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hi, it appears this is the place to be so appreciate any advice in the right direction, thanks. I saved around 70,000 early 2000 satellite SIM cards from landfill from previous company before taking a redundancy a couple months later.
A little time offs given me a chance to prepare 4 jars tared weight of approx 1.4 kg
type 1 and type 2 SIMs (PIC 1&2) out of the plastic card.
I had an XRF test performed (PDF scan attach) wherein
type1 SIM 0.15gwt (oval) tested 8.9 AU 2 karrot, with mostly CU &NI base metal and
type 2 (square) tested 4.4AU 1 karrot & 3.7AU on another XRF machine.

Having watched the BETTER YouTube E-waste Recovery chan's, skimming Hokes Book chapters and reading this fine blog I'd like to start the AR separation of AU foil, dissolving base metals CU, NI. There's trace AG and 0.2% unaccounted on the XRF test.

I've slowly built up glass and safety ware, crucibles, borax, SNCL2 for stannous is ordered as is metabisulfite.

I understand the basic variables that can affect yields being aeration, saturation, heat, E waste size etc as a few variables of many. Electronics is more my forte, so quite new to this. I did take chemistry at school but failed for dropping the Acid (bada boom,feel free to reuse that joke...or not).

QUESTION 1: Before I go any further I should mention the HCL 5L I have is only 23%, is this strong enough.for AR?? I also have H2O2 3%, but if I could use aeration, H2O or heat effectively instead of the 3% perxiode to start base metal dissolve with a longer time frame, perhaps?

QUESTION 2 SIM recovery yields seem low, Another SIM XRF test from a YouTuber was 1 SIM only, 3.6 XRF AU, 20mg AU recovery using 50% HCL 50% H2O AR base metal CU, Ni dissolve as sample. Why are Youtube larger batches of SIM recovery yields seemingly so low?

Any pointers to get started much appreciated. B.T.W. I tried a small donation to the blog but you don't accept Paypal?

Yes 23% is good enough for AR
Stannous can be made easily by simply dissolving Tin in HCl
No need for aeration for AR, that is for Cupric Chloride aka AP.
It might be an oversight but you do not mention Nitric?

The majority of the Gold will be in the Chips, these will need pyrolyzing and ashing when you are finished with the surface leaching.

Just as a precaution, put a few SIMs in HCl for a day or three and the same with Nitric just to make sure the plastic won't turn into goo.

 

[haveagojoe]

QUESTION 1: Before I go any further I should mention the HCL 5L I have is only 23%, is this strong enough.for AR?? I also have H2O2 3%, but if I could use aeration, H2O or heat effectively instead of the 3% perxiode to start base metal dissolve with a longer time frame, perhaps?

I think you mean AP not AR. AP is the nickname for Copper Chloride etching, from "Acid Peroxide", that's what I'd use for these to recover the gold foils. AR is Aqua Regia, which is HCl and Nitric acid, and can be used to refine the foils after you've recovered them, although many of us prefer HCl+chlorine for this kind of material.

23% HCl is fine; we tend to avoid using peroxide for Copper Chloride etching these days as it can dissolve the gold; just add some oxidized copper (green) and use an air bubbler. Heat isn't necessary just give it time.

QUESTION 2 SIM recovery yields seem low, Another SIM XRF test from a YouTuber was 1 SIM only, 3.6 XRF AU, 20mg AU recovery using 50% HCL 50% H2O AR base metal CU, Ni dissolve as sample. Why are Youtube larger batches of SIM recovery yields seemingly so low?

The gold used for these is not pure 24kt, it's probably 14kt or less. So while you might recover 20mg of foils per SIM the actual gold content after refining is probably around half that.
Edit- I just re-read your post and it says 2kt and 1kt- so 1/12th and 1/24th gold by weight of the foils.

There may be more gold inside the chip under the visibly exposed gold part, but as Yggdrasil says, that would need to be recovered seperately afterwards using a different process.

Edit 2: In case you did mean AR not AP, it would be possible to leach the gold directly in AR (dissolving the gold, rather than the AP process which dissolves the copper which the gold is plated onto, releasing foils). However it would need such a large volume of AR it would be uneconomical. Best to recover the foils first with AP and then refine them by dissolving them with AR or HCl+chlorine, or HCl+peroxide is another method.

 

[Martijn]

Jerry, you are double posting, this is against forum rules, and copy pasting the same text mistakes pointed out several times.

hi, I have a similar project with around 70,000 SIM satellite cards of 2 descriptions. A large oval and the regular square as (pictured).
I paid 40$ to have them XRF tested and they returned 8.9 AU and 4.4 AU for the SIMs while in the plastic. The oval weighs approx 0.15 and I'm unsure for the square. I've prepared 1.4 kg for refining of approximately equal amount in 700g weights.

I've seen SIM treated with HCL and 50% water to dissolve the nickel I'm guessing but not the copper as copper does not dissolve into HCL. BView attachment 66604View attachment 66602View attachment 66605View attachment 66600View attachment 66601but is this the most effective way and if not, what yields could I expect from this treatment? Any pointers would be greatly appreciated and also the best way to remove the epoxy.



(pictured below). shapes.

As an electronics and instrumentation technician, I understand you want clearly written instructions, please do so yourself. So for your understanding of writing correct things:
carat: (noun) a unit of weight for precious stones = 200 mg. caret: (noun) a mark used by an author or editor to indicate where something is to be inserted into a text. carrot: (noun) deep orange edible root of the cultivated carrot plant.
a karrot is not spelled correctly.

Chemical names are written in a certain way. First letter big, second letter small.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Jerry, you are double posting, this is against forum rules, and copy pasting the same text mistakes pointed out several times.


As an electronics and instrumentation technician, I understand you want clearly written instructions, please do so yourself. So for your understanding of writing correct things:
carat: (noun) a unit of weight for precious stones = 200 mg. caret: (noun) a mark used by an author or editor to indicate where something is to be inserted into a text. carrot: (noun) deep orange edible root of the cultivated carrot plant.
a karrot is not spelled correctly.

Chemical names are written in a certain way. First letter big, second letter small.

He asked where he should put this thread and he was recommended to make a new which he have.

Edit to add:
Regarding the double posting, it is not a full double post as far as I can see, and to give the thread context it make sense.

 

[4metals]

Any pointers to get started much appreciated. B.T.W. I tried a small donation to the blog but you don't accept Paypal?

This is a question for @Nugget

 

[4metals]

While there are a few decent threads on the forum for using AP, this recent and ongoing approach, which is totally new to the forum, may interest you as your material seems well suited for its use. Find that thread HERE