Are you doing these melts with a flux only or are you oxygen sparging as well?
Smelting
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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?
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.
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
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
Carbon char can be burned in open air with little to no smoke until all that remains is ash.
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 hole 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 air 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.
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 hole 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 air 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.
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)
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)
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.
And a few of the results that still need to be refined yet.
And a few of the results that still need to be refined yet.
The moderators would like to thank all of the members who contributed to the original thread that this post was based on, as well as those who asked questions showing what was missing. Because of the extra length and interest in this thread we have created the above, consolidated version making for an easier read. We encourage all members to read, comment, and ask questions in the original thread, Smelting.
The moderators have edited some posts in this thread that made reference to posts that were deleted. We strive to make these Library threads as concise as possible by deleting posts that do not add information to the original topic. All of the original posts are still preserved in the thread listed above.
The Library threads should not be considered to constitute a complete education. Instead, they're more like reading a single book on the subject of recovery and refining. There is so much more information on the forum, and it is impossible to include it all in these condensed threads. Members are strongly encouraged to read the rest of the forum to round out their education.
The moderators have edited some posts in this thread that made reference to posts that were deleted. We strive to make these Library threads as concise as possible by deleting posts that do not add information to the original topic. All of the original posts are still preserved in the thread listed above.
The Library threads should not be considered to constitute a complete education. Instead, they're more like reading a single book on the subject of recovery and refining. There is so much more information on the forum, and it is impossible to include it all in these condensed threads. Members are strongly encouraged to read the rest of the forum to round out their education.
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