Smelting 41 kgs of mlccs followed by large scale cupellation

[gaurav_347]

isn't this something I've seen Umar Iqbl do on Youtube. the guy is from Karachi, Pakistan and he has a channel known as gold recovery.

Yes he is the same guy. Jump to the first page and you can see that i have mentioned it.

 

[Rougemillenial]

i find it foolishly idiotic that Umar used DMG to get the palladium out. there's a lot of organic waste, the yield is low, and it's extremely impure since the voluminous precipitate is excellent at chelating impurities. that palladium he has gotten couldn't possibly be over 50% pure. should've used ammonium chloride to crash platinum out then use chlorine gas to crash ammonium hexachloropalladate out. the waste goes directly into the sewer along with some unreacted PMs which is extra idiotic. He'd make much more money if he took the time to neutralize the waste and ensure his health is safe :shock:. I'm aware that there aren't any environmental regulations in Karachi but dumping it is simple ridiculous. you might as well just be flushing money down the toilet :evil:. it's cool that he made a cupel from scratch and shared the flux recipe but that's where the major contributions end. I've done a far better job at responsibly disposing of waste in my smart car garage with no ability to send it off than he has in his industrial park. Though I guess when your life expectancy is about as low as the value of the dollar, you don't think about ensuring your safety. :lol:

 

[4metals]

Rougemillenial,

I do not know if you have followed this thread earlier but 2 members were banned , one for stating the "stupidity" of the person who made the video for safety reasons and the other for defending the actions of the people in the video and getting into what amounted to a personal conflict between members. But the genesis of the argument was calling the person who made the video stupid.

And here you are calling him foolishly idiotic. There is a lot to be learned from video's like these, both what to do and what not to do. But name calling can only drive him away and prevent future postings. Maybe you think we will learn from the video's you have posted, OH wait a minute you never posted any video's. We can find plenty of critics who sit in their easy chair and spout their opinions while demeaning others, and it is not acceptable. Constructive criticism, yes totally acceptable, name calling is not.

So if you want to act like your name implies, (rogue: a dishonest or unprincipled man, Google definition) it will have consequences.

 

[Rougemillenial]

Rougemillenial,

I do not know if you have followed this thread earlier but 2 members were banned , one for stating the "stupidity" of the person who made the video for safety reasons and the other for defending the actions of the people in the video and getting into what amounted to a personal conflict between members. But the genesis of the argument was calling the person who made the video stupid.

And here you are calling him foolishly idiotic. There is a lot to be learned from video's like these, both what to do and what not to do. But name calling can only drive him away and prevent future postings. Maybe you think we will learn from the video's you have posted, OH wait a minute you never posted any video's. We can find plenty of critics who sit in their easy chair and spout their opinions while demeaning others, and it is not acceptable. Constructive criticism, yes totally acceptable, name calling is not.

So if you want to act like your name implies, (rogue: a dishonest or unprincipled man, Google definition) it will have consequences.

Ok I did take it too far here and I apologize for my cynical outlook on Umar and the lack of safety precautions. Also my board name rougemillenial is based on my tendency to do things that can be considered radical, spontaneous, and outrageous though I try to keep a good separation between online life and real life where I do a lot of things that could be considered risky. It doesn't reflect my level of honesty and morality. Some would call it non-representable or hyperbolic and I will change my alias if the forum has any issues with it as I mean no harm or malice in my responses despite sometimes being a bit over the top. Also I never posted a video due to a lack of recording equipment and my desire to do things only if I can do it correctly. I would rather wait until I have a setup that works well and makes high quality videos that can contribute to the wider community of scientists rather than some shoddy setup in the garage with horrible lighting, poor audio, and lacking any level of professionalism. That's just my way of doing things. I'm a collector so this also applies to my extensive collection of minerals so I get a new piece worth $5000 instead of a $100 sample of the same material due to the quality and my go big or go home mentality. Also, maybe it's my lack of word positioning skills that causes people to mistake what i'm directing my harsh criticisms to,thus causing the notion that I'm personally attacking the person's character which I'd never mean to do. As for the value of the dollar line, as cruel as it sounds, the life expectancy of Pakistan citizens is way lower than people in the west. Also I do make a lot of jokes in real life that many would be rather appalled at, but when they get to know me they realize I'm one of the most intelligent and kind people they'll ever meet as my words do not reflect my personality 80% of the time as I make light of dark topics as a way of getting past a harsh reality. But I didn't direct the "foolishly idiotic" quote at Umar but rather the process and destruction of the environment by dumping gallons of toxic waste down the drain. I'd never want him to quit youtube or his passion as he has much to contribute and I support his operation despite the environmental impact. Though I do think that he should be a bit more careful about dealing with waste as to prevent loss and make a higher profit. I don't expect him to do this as every person has a different opinion about subjects and I support peoples ability to think for themselves. I just want to help them make a higher profit margin while making it more environmentally friendly as that'll draw more customers. This would allow for a competitive edge to form thus causing economic stimulation in an impoverished area

 

[Rougemillenial]

The fact that he did this without using acids to separate the metals from the substrate was a very good choice. Unfortunately ceramic adsorbs PM salts thus making extraction equilibrium unfavorable. Though I personally use copper as a collector metal, it's simply a mater of preference and I have better access to copper than lead though either way you have lead in the capacitors so cupellation is likely necessary regardless. the cupels seem to be made of wood ash which isn't as effective as calcium triphosphate but it does still work well. The blocks left afterwards still have some lead but far less. i.e. a couple percent at most. I would love to see someone use chlorine and HCL to dissolve a large amount of gold and compare the cost and time of refinement to the aqua regia process as that would give a good idea on which method is more economical. Also I do think that this process can be optimized to make a safer and more efficient process. I do commend Umar for doing it on an industrial scale, partly to give me an idea on how to deal with my stuff(selfish reasons), but also because it gives people another way go about processing MLCC's or anything else with high ceramic content such as old CPU's and ceramic scanner boards and DLP chips. I do know how to make DMG but it involves the use of ethyl nitrite and hydroxylammonium salts so I doubt I'll be able to do that for a while, and I'd much rather use chlorine and ammonium chloride as I find it to be more efficient. Also his choice of using salt instead of hydrochloric acid was very good as HCl doesn't have a alkali counter ion for the nitrate to form a water soluble salt so It makes aqua regia instead which drives the pH down hindering the silver chloride from coming out of solution. By the color change I think it might have converted the palladium nitrate into sodium tetrachloropalladate which can be reacted with ammonium chloride and chlorine to make insoluble ammonium hexachloropalladate which can be filtered, washed with dilute ammonium chloride and calcinated to get highly pure palladium. the insoluble stuff left after the gold is dissolved is probably a mixture of rhodium, ruthenium, silver chloride, and other PGMS.

 

[anachronism]

Hey Rouge

If your name is designed around being radical and challenging then that's great but you might want to change it from meaning pink. If you ask a moderator they'll alter it to rogue, which I'm sure is what you intended.

Jon

 

[Rougemillenial]

Hey Rouge

If your name is designed around being radical and challenging then that's great but you might want to change it from meaning pink. If you ask a moderator they'll alter it to rogue, which I'm sure is what you intended.

Jon

good to know

 

[4metals]

Except don't ask me to change it as I have no clue how to do that. Significantly above my pay grade!

 

[gaurav_347]

All,

I smelted 10 kgs of ic ashes . Got 3.9 kg of lead dore waiting to be cupelled . I thought I would continue in the same thread unless mods want me to make a new thread. I have got a cupel made just like the one in the video out of slaked lime and bone ash (tri calcium phosphate) which is kept for drying. I will upload more pictures as I go ahead. Before I do that I wanted to know will it be necessary to add silver during cupellation or should i just process this as it is ?


Regards,
Gaurav

 

[johnny309]

The only thing that is going to count is the temperature....watch nature....the dens metals will sink....thats why you should have a greater furnance.....Sn and Pb will sublimate.....silica around 950 degrees Celsius is liqiud and can be pour of...and so on..... metals with high melting point and gravity over 10 will stay of the bottom....

 

[kernels]

All,

I smelted 10 kgs of ic ashes . Got 3.9 kg of lead dore waiting to be cupelled . I thought I would continue in the same thread unless mods want me to make a new thread. I have got a cupel made just like the one in the video out of slaked lime and bone ash (tri calcium phosphate) which is kept for drying. I will upload more pictures as I go ahead. Before I do that I wanted to know will it be necessary to add silver during cupellation or should i just process this as it is ?


Regards,
Gaurav

Looking forward to seeing your progress gaurav, please keep us updated.

 

[gaurav_347]

All,

I smelted 10 kgs of ic ashes . Got 3.9 kg of lead dore waiting to be cupelled . I thought I would continue in the same thread unless mods want me to make a new thread. I have got a cupel made just like the one in the video out of slaked lime and bone ash (tri calcium phosphate) which is kept for drying. I will upload more pictures as I go ahead. Before I do that I wanted to know will it be necessary to add silver during cupellation or should i just process this as it is ?


Regards,
Gaurav

Looking forward to seeing your progress gaurav, please keep us updated.

Kernels,
I was planing to go ahead with cupellation yesterday but unfortunately the cupel cracked . Probably because it retained some moisture due to heavy rainfall in my city. It was made of tricalcium phosphate and slaked lime. I have made one more cupel but this time out of portland cement and slaked lime only. I have kept it for drying. So probably over the weekend I will have the results which i will update here.

Regards,
Gaurav

 

[gaurav_347]

All,

This is just a thought but can I use plaster of paris as a binding material in addition with slaked lime / bone ash for making cupels?

Thanks,
Gaurav

 

[kernels]

All,

This is just a thought but can I use plaster of paris as a binding material in addition with slaked lime / bone ash for making cupels?

Thanks,
Gaurav

Gaurav, I have 0 experience with fire-assay / smelting, so this idea might not work, but . . .

If you are worried about your cupel breaking / cracking / falling apart, why not form the cupel inside a welded mild-steel box, then put the box containing the cupel and dore straight into your furnace.

 

[gaurav_347]

All,

This is just a thought but can I use plaster of paris as a binding material in addition with slaked lime / bone ash for making cupels?

Thanks,
Gaurav

Gaurav, I have 0 experience with fire-assay / smelting, so this idea might not work, but . . .

If you are worried about your cupel breaking / cracking / falling apart, why not form the cupel inside a welded mild-steel box, then put the box containing the cupel and dore straight into your furnace.

Sorry for the delay in replying back . We did an assay on the dore and found that there was 13 grams of gold . Unfortunately I don't have the reports with me anymore . There was apparently some silver too. We sold the dore to a refiner who paid 90% of the gold only. I guess it was a good deal . Staying away from lead as of now as a fellow recycler is suffering from lead poisoning, Even though he had all the scrubbers in place .

 

[Behnam2070]

Where are the videos Why I can't see them??!!

 

[g_axelsson]

Seems like the youtube embedder isn't working any longer. Here are the links.

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UoIU6Ef-o
Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9jFjXVo6Tk
Part 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niblGgpB7aQ

Notice at around 7:45 in the third part, the sparks shooting off the molten palladium. It's from absorption of oxygen in the molten metal, and when it solidifies the oxygen is released like a 1500 C fizzy drink. The sparkles shooting off is palladium.

This batch of 41 kg of mixed MLCC gave 420g of silver, 47.5g of palladium and 10.4g of gold.
Looking at the pictures on the starting material it's obvious that it's not very clean. Pieces of glass, a steel screw, resistors, small IC:s... So some of the silver and gold might have come from other components than MLCC:s.

Göran

 

[Behnam2070]

Seems like the youtube embedder isn't working any longer. Here are the links.

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UoIU6Ef-o
Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9jFjXVo6Tk
Part 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niblGgpB7aQ

Notice at around 7:45 in the third part, the sparks shooting off the molten palladium. It's from absorption of oxygen in the molten metal, and when it solidifies the oxygen is released like a 1500 C fizzy drink. The sparkles shooting off is palladium.

This batch of 41 kg of mixed MLCC gave 420g of silver, 47.5g of palladium and 10.4g of gold.
Looking at the pictures on the starting material it's obvious that it's not very clean. Pieces of glass, a steel screw, resistors, small IC:s... So some of the silver and gold might have come from other components than MLCC:s.

Göran

Thank you for your guidance
I use lead, silver, borax and sodium carbonate Now do you think I should use cast iron or graphite crucible?

 

[g_axelsson]

I have no idea as I've never done any smelting. Maybe someone else of our members could help with that.

Göran