SIM E-waste Recovery

[haveagojoe]

Why can't I just dissolve the copper and nickle base metals in nitric acid leaving only the gold, silver and whatever trace metals weren't listed in the missing 0.2% of the 99.8% accounted metals from the XRF test?

You can. It's just expensive, hazardous and will produce waste acid. If you have done an expected yield calculation as I suggested, you will see that using Nitric to dissolve the base metals will not be economical.

HCl and peroxide won't immediately dissolve copper by themselves. The common approach we use, nicknamed AP after "Acid Peroxide" is actually a Copper Chloride etch. It needs some copper to be already in solution for it to work, since the etching is achieved through a redox reaction (oxidation-reduction) of Copper (ii) Chloride oxidizing metallic copper into Copper (i) Chloride. The Copper (i) Chloride then takes on Oxygen to form Copper (ii) Chloride and can subsequently oxidize further metallic copper. Hydrogen Peroxide can be used as the source of the additional oxygen for this reaction, but since HCl+Hydrogen peroxide can also dissolve gold, we generally prefer to use an air bubbler to replenish the oxygen supply to keep the reaction going and to prevent the buildup of Copper (i) Chloride which is recognizable as an insoluble whitish sediment.
To create Copper Chloride solution, use a piece of oxidized copper- which has green verdigris on its surface. Either dip it or scrape it into a small volume of HCl. The solution should turn slightly green; this means it contains Copper (ii) Chloride. Only a small amount is needed since it will create more through the reaction cycle.
Copper Chloride etching solution can be reused many, many times, so acid waste is kept to a minimum.

 

[Jerry McGoohan]

You can. It's just expensive, hazardous and will produce waste acid. If you have done an expected yield calculation as I suggested, you will see that using Nitric to dissolve the base metals will not be economical.

HCl and peroxide won't immediately dissolve copper by themselves. The common approach we use, nicknamed AP after "Acid Peroxide" is actually a Copper Chloride etch. It needs some copper to be already in solution for it to work, since the etching is achieved through a redox reaction (oxidation-reduction) of Copper (ii) Chloride oxidizing metallic copper into Copper (i) Chloride. The Copper (i) Chloride then takes on Oxygen to form Copper (ii) Chloride and can subsequently oxidize further metallic copper. Hydrogen Peroxide can be used as the source of the additional oxygen for this reaction, but since HCl+Hydrogen peroxide can also dissolve gold, we generally prefer to use an air bubbler to replenish the oxygen supply to keep the reaction going and to prevent the buildup of Copper (i) Chloride which is recognizable as an insoluble whitish sediment.
To create Copper Chloride solution, use a piece of oxidized copper- which has green verdigris on its surface. Either dip it or scrape it into a small volume of HCl. The solution should turn slightly green; this means it contains Copper (ii) Chloride. Only a small amount is needed since it will create more through the reaction cycle.
Copper Chloride etching solution can be reused many, many times, so acid waste is kept to a minimum.

Okay thanks. As I'm still at the verification yield stage, Nitric Acid seems the easier option and I can use those results to base on.

I'm using 5ml of nitric acid in a 10ml beaker currently with the characteristic Blue from Copper in solution.
I'm dissolving 2 SIMs using pH strips to monitor acidity. The 22kt nitric test solution indicatored 3 (red) on pH strips, dark brown 12-14 after copper dissolving and adding distilled H2O pH colour was back up to 3 (red) on pH test strips with visible bubbling.
There were gold specks in solution.

Alongside gold refining, I watch a lot of economics, sharemarket, money flow's etc. My gold shares in ETF and miners are up 20%+ post pandemic., my silver coins similar. Central Banks were working off bad fundamentals post 2008 GFC is my guess. The only way you get negative rates, as in to the US 10 year Treasury Sept 2019, the same month as the Repo market crisis and one month before Event201 in Oct 2019, is when the Central Banks printed sooo much money it drove bond prices up and yields (interest rates) negative for the first time in economic history.

My bet is Gold will be a store of value over the decades whereas dollars won't be. So I can afford to take my time with this project is my thinking.

 

[Darkthirty]

Okay thanks. As I'm still at the verification yield stage, Nitric Acid seems the easier option and I can use those results to base on.

I'm using 5ml of nitric acid in a 10ml beaker currently with the characteristic Blue from Copper in solution.
I'm dissolving 2 SIMs using pH strips to monitor acidity. The 22kt nitric test solution indicatored 3 (red) on pH strips, dark brown 12-14 after copper dissolving and adding distilled H2O pH colour was back up to 3 (red) on pH test strips with visible bubbling.
There were gold specks in solution.

Alongside gold refining, I watch a lot of economics, sharemarket, money flow's etc. My gold shares in ETF and miners are up 20%+ post pandemic., my silver coins similar. Central Banks were working off bad fundamentals post 2008 GFC is my guess. The only way you get negative rates, as in to the US 10 year Treasury Sept 2019, the same month as the Repo market crisis and one month before Event201 in Oct 2019, is when the Central Banks printed sooo much money it drove bond prices up and yields (interest rates) negative for the first time in economic history.

My bet is Gold will be a store of value over the decades whereas dollars won't be. So I can afford to take my time with this project is my thinking.

"Invest in lead, it'll get you all the gold you can carry"

 

[haveagojoe]

The 22kt nitric test solution indicatored 3 (red) on pH strips, dark brown 12-14 after copper dissolving and adding distilled H2O pH colour was back up to 3 (red) on pH test strips with visible bubbling.

That's a misread of your pH strips. There's no way for the solution to go from 3 to 12 and back to 3. The brown colour is just red plus green from the copper.

Alongside gold refining, I watch a lot of economics, sharemarket, money flow's etc. My gold shares in ETF and miners are up 20%+ post pandemic., my silver coins similar. Central Banks were working off bad fundamentals post 2008 GFC is my guess. The only way you get negative rates, as in to the US 10 year Treasury Sept 2019, the same month as the Repo market crisis and one month before Event201 in Oct 2019, is when the Central Banks printed sooo much money it drove bond prices up and yields (interest rates) negative for the first time in economic history.

My bet is Gold will be a store of value over the decades whereas dollars won't be. So I can afford to take my time with this project is my thinking.

In my opinion there's no doubt the value of gold will continue to appreciate relative to dollars, though its purchasing power remains roughly the same over the decades.

However, I think you may be disappointed by the amount of gold in these SIMs. It won't be a lot. Respected Youtuber Sreetips managed to recover just 1.7g from around 6lb of SIMs: Video

The reason the yield is so low is that they are very low karat.

If you achieve a similar yield with your 1.4kg, you could expect around 0.875g of gold.