Smelting

[Barren Realms 007]

Cut you a piece of angle iron and then cut some end plates for it that you can use a C clamp to hold the ends on to use as a mold for a cheap easy fix for now.

I use one similar to this most of the time.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/40-oz-Gold-Bar-Loaf-Cast-Iron-Ingot-Mold-Scrap-Silver-20-oz-Copper-Aluminum-/311530782533?hash=item4888ae7f45:g:7r4AAOSwqrtWn7nT

 

[Shark]

That ingot mold is nice. I had thought it a bit big, but these little crucibles will hold more weight than I thought. I ran a small experiment today and found at 1.5PSI for 20 minutes, then 3.5 for another 20 minutes then on up to 5PSI I will have my first melted copper (without stressing the furnace to much) in about 45 to 50 minutes. Like Frank mentioned I found my second batch to melt in 10 to 15 minutes. The more I learn about this the more fun it seems.

Some time back someone in another post mentioned a corn mold thingy and this gave me an idea.
(found it: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=24289#p257110 )
My first bars. They are only about 3" long.



Again, Thank You, to everyone involved for making this happen for me. This is one of my bucket list-milestone achievements.

Edited for link

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Glad the changes are working for you.

Where is that copper cemented from? If I didn't know better looking at the bars it looks like you have PM's in the bars, but that could just be rust I am looking at.

 

[Shark]

Some of the copper was from clean pipe used just for testing the furnace and burners. Some of it was from legs and wire from incinerated IC chips after running a magnet over them and removing the magnetics.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Some of the copper was from clean pipe used just for testing the furnace and burners. Some of it was from legs and wire from incinerated IC chips after running a magnet over them and removing the magnetics.

Ok, so there is a chance that you have PM's in this then.

 

[Shark]

Some improvement. On my third try with mixed copper and mixed magnetic parts from incinerated IC's. (I only used the internal parts of the IC's with the bars from my previous picture). I still learned a lot from this test batch and I am pleased with the results, for now.

This picture, if I am right, shows what I think is termed as a "mat". The crusty looking parts of iron that layered between the borax and the copper layer.



The bottom. The two beads came from my second attempt. Not quite successful but better than my first.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Hey your getting there and making headway. Cool job. Just be patient and don't try to rush things. :mrgreen:

 

[4metals]

Are you doing these melts with a flux only or are you oxygen sparging as well?

 

[Shark]

The corn ear shapes were with borax only, and mainly copper based. This last one was using borax, sodium carbonate and a small pinch of silica sand. I haven't the tools for sparging yet, but would like to try it.

 

[4metals]

Then hold off on the iron in the melt for a while until you can get it out with O₂ Just do magnetic separations and store it until you are equipped to get more of it out of the melt pyrometallurgically.

 

[Shark]

Then hold off on the iron in the melt for a while until you can get it out with O₂ Just do magnetic separations and store it until you are equipped to get more of it out of the melt pyrometallurgically.

Thanks for the reply. Your suggestion confirms what I saw while working with this material. The headaches multiply once the non copper parts were added. I have been looking into sparging tubes and most seem quite large for my small furnace. Is there a method for choosing a tube size for a given crucible size? Does the tube need to be submerged into the molten metal or will playing the air across the surface be sufficient?

 

[4metals]

Quartz glass tubes come in much smaller diameters for use in a small crucible and flux is actually surface active but sparging needs to bubble through molten metal to contact the oxidizable metal, which on the surface will have a run in with some flux to hold it in the salt form.

 

[VanMarco]

Hello guys

I find this thread very interesting, im not yet thru with all of it, I have a question for you,
Basically I have a relatively large amounts of PCBs which have gold plating, and some components left on
(no ceramic capacitors or ICs), for now, I dont intend to process them to the final recovery for space and time
reasons, but if I wanted to reduce the bulk of the volume they occupy, may I incinerate them and keep only the ashes bearing PMs and other metals?

Also when you refer to incineration I am not quite clear, I know its a bit of self explanatory, but.
I do use a gasification set-up to recover metals from sources where there is resin, plastics etc, but from my setup
I get metals + carbon (char). How do I turn this carbon into ash?

Thanks a lot

 

[4metals]

Carbon char can be burned in open air with little to no smoke until all that remains is ash.

 

[butcher]

Carbon is the result of incomplete combustion, adding oxygen (air) and heat will finish combustion of carbonaceous materials to carbon dioxide gas leaving you with the white ash.

In pyrolysis, we decompose the carbonous materials to carbon with heat by limiting the oxygen or air to ensure incomplete combustion.

How they used to make charcoal is by cutting cords of firewood and stacking it, and burying it under a mound of dirt, they would have a hole to get the fire started and after the wood began burning they would cover the whole to starve the fire of air or oxygen, the result was incomplete combustion of the wood to charcoal. if the wood was left in the open air to burn the wood would completely combust to ash.

Electronic materials, (and many ores), can produce a wide array of very toxic gases most of which will not only poison us but also can poison our environment or the are when these gases are in large enough quantity, in pyrolysis re-burning of these dangerous gases, can assist in adding heat to fuel the operation and ensure we are putting less of these deadly gases into the air around us or into our surroundings. Re-burners or re-burning of these gases is required along with scrubbers to scrub the fumes of contaminants,in the industrial setting.

 

[Shark]

Here is how I made the big bar in the last pictures above. While there are things that I changed later (like my shoes) the basics are the same. I thought I had posted this before, but that is what I get for thinking sometimes.

This is mainly a mixture of copper pipe and non magnetic parts of IC.s At the last minute I added two tablespoons of magnetic parts with a very aggressive flux. (another mistake I wasn't prepared for)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-jfd1Wz4S8[/youtube]

 

[Shark]

The current working furnace in action. I really like the way this one works with the newest burner, heats well, and fast, and can get way hotter than I ever expected in such a small furnace. The new burner is built on 8x1/2 inch iron pipe with a 1/2x 1 1/4 inch reducer. 1/4 inch copper tubing with a 3/64 hole for the gas to exit from. This combination allowed me to do away with the extra air from the compressor as well.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KUbKLnq7O4[/youtube]

And a few of the results that still need to be refined yet.

 

[kjavanb123]

One point I see you did not make mention of (when dealing with whole CBs) is that they need to be shredded "before" going to pyrolysis/incineration --- ...

Kurt

I did a test today on my pyrolized depopulated CBs. I took a sample and cut it to smaller pieces and put them in a mixer that no longer is used for food mixing.

Here is a sample pyrolized CB. Cut into smaller pieces.


Here is the mixer.


Here is the result.


I was trying to pulverize the pyrolized CBs to concentrate the metallics from the ash in my homemade blue bowl, but because the fibers turn into fluffy stuff in the mix, it was not working in blue bowl.

Based on this experiment, in regards tk kurtak statement about shredding boards prior to pyrolize, I think it would be much better to shred boards after pyrolysis/incineration, it would be a lot easier on shredder and it increase the speed of throughput.

Thanks
Kj

 

[Palladium]

I miss Frank!

 

[kjavanb123]

The nickel will stay with the copper.

What about Tantalum? Does it oxidize and report to slag or stays with copper?


Thanks
Kj