Smelting video

[kjavanb123]

All,

After a long waiting, I video recorded our smelting process.

Feed materials are actually components depopulated manually from about 74 lbs of mixed motherboards and 2 kg of cards.

They were pyrolized prior to smelt. Please leave comments.

I will be doing more sample smelting specially on cell phone boards, ceramic catalytic converters and telecomm boards.

You can check out the video at
https://youtu.be/Ttv-qLxTs90

Best regards
Kj

 

[butcher]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[4metals]

When using a rotary melt furnace like you have I would suggest collecting your fluxes and having a flux remelt day when you fire up the furnace and re-melt all of your slags and pour into a large cone mold. when you examine your slags before melting you will need to determine if you need a collector pool of molten metal to make the process more effective. If you choose silver as the collector it is easy to assay it and use the silver as is for further inquarts and continue your use and reuse of silver to collect other values.

 

[kjavanb123]

Butcher,
Thanks for your comments.

4metals,
We do save up the slags, and main collector used in rotary furnace is lead, then silver at the stationary furnace.
In my experience slags from rotary has 1 or 2ppm per ton of slags. But using a cone mold is an excellent idea, thanks.

Regards
Kj

 

[4metals]

So that bee hive shaped furnace is a cupellation furnace with a bone ash base. I thought that is what that was!

Do you have different pour spouts on opposite sides of the rotary?

 

[4metals]

I had one too! But used silver or copper as a collector.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Butcher,
Thanks for your comments.

4metals,
We do save up the slags, and main collector used in rotary furnace is lead, then silver at the stationary furnace.
In my experience slags from rotary has 1 or 2ppm per ton of slags. But using a cone mold is an excellent idea, thanks.

Regards
Kj

Kevin in the videos that were shown is that your operation or someone elses operation that allows you to use their equipment?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgvV3Cs_VdnCyIpYkJ27ew

 

[kjavanb123]

So that bee hive shaped furnace is a cupellation furnace with a bone ash base. I thought that is what that was!

Do you have different pour spouts on opposite sides of the rotary?

Actually the buttom of that stationary furnace is not made of bone ash, it is made of refractory cement, and it oxidize the lead ingots and as you can see in part I of video it gets tilted and lead oxide is poured off into the pot shaped piece under the furnace.

This lead oxide is reused in rotary furnace again.

 

[kjavanb123]

I had one too! But used silver or copper as a collector.

reverb furnace and cone molds.jpg

Neat. I remember seeing this lovely setup in your posta few years ago.
So you used silver or copper then went to electrolysis path?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

I had one too! But used silver or copper as a collector.

reverb furnace and cone molds.jpg

4metals, a couple of questions.


I noticed you have 8 cone molds on the table in the photo.

When you processed with that rotary furnace how many mold's were required for the slag and how many for the actual metal were used and accumilated?

How much material were you able to max process with that furnace in each load?

I notice on the right side of the furnace is the drive assembly and the burner on the left. How did the exhaust system hook upto that unit?

Looking at the picture I don't see any marking on the drum indicating that it rotated/turned during it's operation so am I wrong in assuming it stayed stationary during the process and was only rotated to empty the contents of the chamber after the completion of the of the melting process?

Looking at the size of that thing I'm guessing it was a 3-4M BTU/Hr fuel requirement?

That is a massive sucker.

 

[kjavanb123]

Butcher,
Thanks for your comments.

4metals,
We do save up the slags, and main collector used in rotary furnace is lead, then silver at the stationary furnace.
In my experience slags from rotary has 1 or 2ppm per ton of slags. But using a cone mold is an excellent idea, thanks.

Regards
Kj

Kevin in the videos that were shown is that your operation or someone elses operation that allows you to use their equipment?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgvV3Cs_VdnCyIpYkJ27ew

He is my partner, as I am doing the PGM and gold refining and also invest in raw materials.

He still does jewlery sweeps smelting. That is why he has the rotary and I suggested a partnership with him because we can do large volumes.

Regards
Kj

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Butcher,
Thanks for your comments.

4metals,
We do save up the slags, and main collector used in rotary furnace is lead, then silver at the stationary furnace.
In my experience slags from rotary has 1 or 2ppm per ton of slags. But using a cone mold is an excellent idea, thanks.

Regards
Kj

Kevin in the videos that were shown is that your operation or someone elses operation that allows you to use their equipment?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgvV3Cs_VdnCyIpYkJ27ew

He is my partner, as I am doing the PGM and gold refining and also invest in raw materials.

He still does jewlery sweeps smelting. That is why he has the rotary and I suggested a partnership with him because we can do large volumes.

Regards
Kj

That's good. I like the simplicity of the setup. :mrgreen:

 

[4metals]

The melts done with silver, the preferred route as I ran a lot of material with silver, were cleaned up in a silver cell. And PC boards, after pyrolysis were done with copper and cleaned up in a copper cell.

The furnace as it is seen in the picture was not where it operated, believe it or not it was portable. A long exhaust hood with a bag house, almost like a one car garage enclosed on all but 1 end, housed either the reverb or the pyrolysis oven as needed.

The furnace did not spin 360 degrees, while operating it rocked and stopped just shy of material flowing out of the spout. It had a travel of about 260 degrees to keep the charge moving. I had a de-slag spout on one side which was poured into huge wheeled cone molds until metal began to pour out, then it was switched to the other side spout by tipping in the other direction, that side had a smaller pour spout. Then either the smaller cone molds or bar molds were used. I do like the way Kevin's furnace pours into a cradled crucible on a slide.

The furnace I had was connected to a 6" gas pipe (natural gas) and an average pour was 5000 ounces of copper, more weight for silver. The gas hookup on furnace took a long time to interchange the pyrolysis oven with the reverb but I ran a lot more material requiring incineration or pyrolysis than I did in the reverb, and considering the cost of the bag house and hookup, switching them out was still cost effective.

 

[4metals]

Kevin,

Actually the bottom of that stationary furnace is not made of bone ash, it is made of refractory cement, and it oxidize the lead ingots and as you can see in part I of video it gets titled and lead oxide is poured off into the pot shaped piece under the furnace.

OK you lost me here. The video does not show the pouring off of the lead. And if you were pouring off lead it would be mixed with PM's so you would get no separation. From the video it appears the thin plate of metal which is remaining on the bottom of the furnace is what remains when bone ash absorbs the base metals and lead and cools enough to solidify, leaving the precious metals behind. This is what contains your values.

If the bottom is not compressed bone ash, how does this happen? What am I missing?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

The melts done with silver, the preferred route as I ran a lot of material with silver, were cleaned up in a silver cell. And PC boards, after pyrolysis were done with copper and cleaned up in a copper cell.

The furnace as it is seen in the picture was not where it operated, believe it or not it was portable. A long exhaust hood with a bag house, almost like a one car garage enclosed on all but 1 end, housed either the reverb or the pyrolysis oven as needed.

The furnace did not spin 360 degrees, while operating it rocked and stopped just shy of material flowing out of the spout. It had a travel of about 260 degrees to keep the charge moving. I had a de-slag spout on one side which was poured into huge wheeled cone molds until metal began to pour out, then it was switched to the other side spout by tipping in the other direction, that side had a smaller pour spout. Then either the smaller cone molds or bar molds were used. I do like the way Kevin's furnace pours into a cradled crucible on a slide.

The furnace I had was connected to a 6" gas pipe (natural gas) and an average pour was 5000 ounces of copper, more weight for silver. The gas hookup on furnace took a long time to interchange the pyrolysis oven with the reverb but I ran a lot more material requiring incineration or pyrolysis than I did in the reverb, and considering the cost of the bag house and hookup, switching them out was still cost effective.

I can see that being used as a portable unit. Actually not as much of a problem as most would think as long as the hookup for natural gas was arranged for. I can see it as a propane setup being even less of a problem for refueling as a portable setup. if you wanted to go that route.

UHH the mice are running on the ferris wheel with ideas now!!! 8)

 

[4metals]

In NYC back in the '80's a 6" natural gas pipe was welded and had companion flanges, so getting it in position where the short length of flex connector that was legal would work took some time, then just bolting up the flange. Maybe an hour to change them out. The pyrolysis unit only needed a 2" line so that was cake.

I would think a scaled down 30 gallon drum sized one of these would be quite useful. Still I wouldn't use lead as a collector. Something about seeing the grandkids grow up makes me prefer copper or silver.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

In NYC back in the '80's a 6" natural gas pipe was welded and had companion flanges, so getting it in position where the short length of flex connector that was legal would work took some time, then just bolting up the flange. Maybe an hour to change them out. The pyrolysis unit only needed a 2" line so that was cake.

I would think a scaled down 30 gallon drum sized one of these would be quite useful. Still I wouldn't use lead as a collector. Something about seeing the grandkids grow up makes me prefer copper or silver.

Hooking up a 2" line is a piece of cake time wise and material wise.

Lead is out of the question. Silver would be my preference.

 

[Shark]

UHH the mice are running on the ferris wheel with ideas now!!!

I would think a scaled down 30 gallon drum sized one of these would be quite useful.

Yep the mice are chugging along and that 30 gallon drum was close to what they were working at,

 

[kjavanb123]

4metals,

The operator adds silver to the molten lead ingots in that stationary furnace, and that silver be mixed and alloy with all the precious metals exist in feeding lead ingots from rotarty furnace.

There is a few second frame in part I video, where tiny stream of molten lead is pouring into the mold at the bottom.

Here is the photo of mold filled with lead,




That thin piece of metals at the end of video part I, is the added silver plus any other silver and precious metals in the lead ingots from rotary furnace, which gets cleaned up as it is red hot, and also hammered before put into nitric acid.

And as for the spout for slags and one for metals, our rotary has only one output, they pour the molten lead first, and I guess the operator can determine the molten slags from the molten lead.

I really like the rotary furnace as for my experience has much better recovery of PMs, and it makes the smelting time faster vs my stationary furnace which I had been using before this partnership.

The entire smelting from start to time we melted the gold was 6 hours, he said it would have taken 1-1.5 hour more melting time had the batch been 500 kg.

Oh an one more thing, operator mentions using natural gas instead of diesel for furnaces, make the time to get to needed temprature longer.

Best regards
Kj

 

[4metals]

Let me summarize this from what you have said;

The lead ingots from the rotary furnace are poured in the first part of the video. Lead is your collector metal. These are added to your stationary furnace which is shown in the picture above.

When the lead melts, the operator adds silver to the furnace. I assume this is essentially inquarting because without the silver you would not be able to successfully part with nitric acid. So the silver addition is at least 3 times your expected gold content.

I did see the stream of molten lead alloy pouring off into the round mold. Are you saying all of the lead will pour off and leave just precious metals on the bottom? That is not cupellation.

From looking at the design of the furnace, it does not appear to tip to pour out the molten metal but maybe it does and I just don't see it. If it doesn't tip and the bottom is a dish shaped bowl made of refractory it must be difficult to empty out when the metal is molten. Are you sure they don't slag off the crust on top of the melt into the pots and the lead and base metals absorb into a bone ash base? If this isn't your shop, maybe they're not telling you everything. From the video, I cannot see how you could get the silver and gold alloy for parting the way you describe it.

Please explain how you get separation of the precious metals from the lead. While working at a mine in Ecuador I used cupellation extensively to clean up doré metals and never experienced the values separating from the lead, but the furnace I used did not have an oxidizing flame blowing directly at the charge. The lead and base metals were absorbed into the bone ash hearth.