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Hello all,

just found this forum after some extensive research on the net and its overwhelming with information - great -


So then to my question

I have in excess of 200kg CPUs. They start at the famous Pentium Pro over 286, 386 up until the latest pentium 4 (also huge amounts of RAM modules, motherboards, mobile phones, gold plated connectors etc, etc.). I constantly get additional material that I carefully store.

I am planning to be self employed soon (in the area of scrap metal and electronic waste) and was wondering what to do with those CPUs (or generally with the gold platet material). I already know every company within a thousand miles that buys CPU's and have been offered around €80,- /kg for the ceramic ones so selling them would bring in a lot of cash. However, they want to earn as well refining them and now to the question...

Would it be advisable for someone how doesn't know about chemicals to attempt (after very careful reading of the material this forum provides) to refine those CPU's as well as tons of motherboards in the future?

When I make the move to being self employed I'd expect about 500kg of motherboards, Rams and CPU's to come in every week.

Any feedback is welcome

Regards
In Love With
 
Welcome to the forum. Generally speaking the members of this forum recover the precious metals chemically from electronic scrap either by dissolving the under-plate and collecting the foils or by electro-stripping to concentrate the values. Some time spent reading will expose you to a wonderful array of techniques used by the members.

The quantities you are discussing, with the possible exception of higher grade hybrid circuits, are never processed by refiners to yield fine gold. Instead most refiners will either incinerate the material to yield powdered material which can be sampled and assayed and shipped to a smelter and the metallic fractions are melted with copper to ship to copper refiners. Neither of these methods are actually refining. What is actually necessary is to get the material in a form where it can be sampled representatively so you know what each shipment is worth. So for your application, very little chemical know how is necessary.

If I were doing what you are attempting to do I would be talking to refiners who will be performing the sampling techniques I have mentioned above before they pay you for your material. The closer you can get to selling to the end refiner, the smelter or the copper refinery, the better your yield will be. You have enough material to take in for processing where you can watch and sample your lot. I would do this at different refiners, learn the best sampling methods for the material you generate, and then investigate investing in the equipment to sample on your own and sell directly to the end refiner. This way you cut out the middle man and his profits. Only the last guy to see the sampled material actually sees the pure precious metals contained in your material, every other guy just nibbles a bit off your plate before passing it on.
 
4metals said:
Welcome to the forum. Generally speaking the members of this forum recover the precious metals chemically from electronic scrap either by dissolving the under-plate and collecting the foils or by electro-stripping to concentrate the values. Some time spent reading will expose you to a wonderful array of techniques used by the members.

The quantities you are discussing, with the possible exception of higher grade hybrid circuits, are never processed by refiners to yield fine gold. Instead most refiners will either incinerate the material to yield powdered material which can be sampled and assayed and shipped to a smelter and the metallic fractions are melted with copper to ship to copper refiners. Neither of these methods are actually refining. What is actually necessary is to get the material in a form where it can be sampled representatively so you know what each shipment is worth. So for your application, very little chemical know how is necessary.

If I were doing what you are attempting to do I would be talking to refiners who will be performing the sampling techniques I have mentioned above before they pay you for your material. The closer you can get to selling to the end refiner, the smelter or the copper refinery, the better your yield will be. You have enough material to take in for processing where you can watch and sample your lot. I would do this at different refiners, learn the best sampling methods for the material you generate, and then investigate investing in the equipment to sample on your own and sell directly to the end refiner. This way you cut out the middle man and his profits. Only the last guy to see the sampled material actually sees the pure precious metals contained in your material, every other guy just nibbles a bit off your plate before passing it on.
Click to expand...

The most valuable free advice. Just read and listen.
 
Hi 4metals,

- thanks for your answer -

I genereally agree, the closer you get to the company that actually processes your material, the higher your yield will be. That said you need about 500-1000kg CPU's (with 1000kg realistically beeing the better amount to start negotiating on) for a 'smelter' to take you seriously. Also, as you know there are very different amount of gold in each CPU type so even if you sample a probe consisting of

1 Pentium I
1 Pentium MMX (plastic)
1 Pentium p3 (plastic)

and get results that you are happy with, that doesn't mean that if you agree to sell 2000x of each that you'll get the same result. Smelters, at least from my own experience, are well known for giving you a great probe and then simply 'steal' from your actual shipment. A friend of mine who sold 10 tonns of motherboards (platinen 1a) was being offered €4,- /kg for it. He refused and wanted to use them for recovering what was actually in there. The end result was an insulting €2.12,- /kg.

Also, I don't have a problem in carrying on collecting CPU's for another 5 years to get to 1000kg to then turn to those and sell them as seen (i.e. I give exact quantities of what types of CPU's I have and let them bid).

Last but not least I don't think its too easy to attempt (at least not for motherboards etc.) if you're living in Germany (which I am) given the amount of regulations they have ...

Regards
In Love With
 
Welcome to the forum.

There are variables you have to look at here.

Are you getting your stuff for free or are you having to pay for it?

Does your current job go along the same lines as you doing this type of work?

Do you have a storage area for processing large quanities of product?

If your current job has nothing to do with this type of recyceling and you are seeing the gold stars in your eyes step back and look at a bigger picture. Once you turn this from a hobby to a job you will look back and tell yourself this is not as much fun as it was when I started out. Do you have the drive to make yourself go out and do this day in and day out. Remember this major point is that most people recycle E-waste as a hobby not as a job.

If you have never processed any of these items to remove the PGM's and that is what you are interested in finding out if that is what you want to do. The easiest thing for you to process at this time that would possibly give you an idea on what is involved is to take the ram/memory that you have and process the gold plated fingers off of them. If you have sound cards vidio cards and the like process these fingers at the same time. Take the cards & memory you have and remove the fingers from the cards and memory. Sit down on a sat & sun and gather all you have and remove all the fingers at one time. This will let you know the time involved in accumilating the items you can process for PGM's. Do a search on this forum for HCL/Peroxide process and process a small amount say 1/2 lb. I know you are in Germany but you can do the metric conversion 8) ). http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=8 This individual is Lasersteve. One of the leaders of this forum. Go to his website and watch his videos, also follow his links on this site.

This is enough info for you to get started up to the point that you have the gold off of your fingers. When you get ready to disolve your gold serch for the process HCL/Clorox. Read up on the process here on the forum before you do them.

4metals give good advice.

GLTY and hope this is what you are looking for.
 
You are correct, a smelter needs bigger lots to make it worth your while. They only accept feedstock that fits into their smelting process. That is what opens the door for smaller, so called refiners, to do business. If you think you are going to start a business and march right into a large scale smelting operation looking to do business on your terms might I suggest you don't quit your day job.

The refiners I suggested you take your material to have the ability to sample your material. They charge you per pound incoming and usually for a percentage of the gold contained. They in turn produce a product the smelter can take and process directly. The refiner you will go to will charge more than the smelter but you know the content of the lot from having it sampled.

Sampling is, in itself, a science. You have to go and observe and learn. You have to separate your materials by certain physical properties which prevent getting a good homogeneous sample. These are the techniques you have to learn to maximize your income. A refiner will not be too anxious to process material which cannot be properly sampled as he too can loose on the deal. By going to watch your lots granulated and stream sampled you will learn what materials have to be separated and why. The operators of the refinery will be taking out materials from the lot and returning them to you if they will cause improper sampling, you need to learn this aspect of the business. You're not going to mix heavy ceramic circuits with plastic pcb's or scrap cell phones as they will not fall through the sampling splitters evenly and your sample will be not be representative.

After you have witnessed the sampling and learned the tricks you can make a business decision as to whether you purchase your own sampling machinery or continue on with a middle man. The margins anyone buying by the pound has to work into their price are too restrictive for what you are doing. You have to know your material.

You also have to be able to compare quotes from different refiners to see who is giving you the best possible deal. Often quotes can be confusing because one refiner can process at a good rate for one type of material, never assume other materials are as good a deal. You have to look at minimum deductions, assay splitting limits, incoming quantities and many more differences which enable the smaller sampling refiners (or collectors) to make a bigger profit margin. You have to learn what payable metals are present in each type of material you batch together and apply that knowledge to the rates quoted. For example you may have rhodium in one type of material, but the refiner has a minimum deduction for rhodium your lot may be too small to add up to the minimum so he won't have to pay on the rhodium. So you have to know this and ship lots big enough to meet the minimum deductions.

Just because your scrap has visible gold don't assume you will be paid for it or you will even profit from it if you don't learn the business from the refiners standpoint. None of these things are too difficult for an intelligent person to learn and observe but don't think you will get top dollar for your scrap if you don't really know the material and all of your options.

There's a sizable learning curve ahead of you and you have yet to pass the first turn. Observe, ask questions and you will succeed. You have enough material coming in to make a go of it, now the ball is in your court!
 
Hi Barren,

first of all let me answer a few questions:

Are you getting your stuff for free or are you having to pay for it?
most stuff is for free, some I buy on eBay

Does your current job go along the same lines as you doing this type of work?
Yes, I am running a scrap metal company and electronic waste has been a part of it ever since I've started.

Do you have a storage area for processing large quanities of product?
200kgs of CPU's can still easily be stored in a basement, hehe. But once I go ahead be self employed I will rent a small warehouse and ofc trade all metals (copper, alloy etc.) so the e-waste will only be a part of it.

As with regards to taking fingers etc. off mainboards and cards I'll have to say - no - In a good month I make 1000kg of mainboards and I am currently working with company's having a shredder ... It cost about 40 Euro's a ton to use the shredder (that's their cost). The shreddered material then goes to large scale smelters and they extract the gold (So I wouldn't really want to mess with this process in place, my thinking is more directed at the higher quality, ceramic CPU stuff etc.)

As for the chemical process - I'll start reading when I made a decision whether to sell the CPU's at one point or not (if not, then I'll prolly be reading all the info I can get).


4metals:

sampling ... Yes that's the issue here. One company I am working with told me recently, they'd pay me €80,- /kg for ceramic CPU's as long as they weren't any alloy caps on them (like the AMD K6). Well, I know for sure that old pentium pro, 286-486 and even the ceramic Pentium I are worth a lot more then €80,- /kg but they don't make a difference. So why not sell them the junk ceramic and sell the really valuable stuff even to traders that deal with CPU's more exclusively?

... and I rather sell my stuff tel quell (sold as seen) then going through sampling processes. That way I might get less for my products but the risk is entirely on the smelter/refiner.

See my job is trading and that is what I'm good at, so I'd assume I could get very good money for the CPU's (especially if I carry on collecting for a few more year to reach 500-1000kg) ...


That said, I've also got very heavily plated material, old russian stuff and the golden squares from broken ceramics ... Those I'm sure contain a very high percentage of gold which I could extract myself as I don't think that for small quantities that I hold anyone would pay top dollars so to speak ...

hmmm ... what to do, lol

thanks again for all your replies

Regards
In Love With
 
Quote
... and I rather sell my stuff tel quell (sold as seen) then going through sampling processes. That way I might get less for my products but the risk is entirely on the smelter/refiner.



The refiner who is equipped to sample properly takes little or no risk. You are thinking of ceramic cpu's on a piece by piece basis, they are sampled in powerful granulators which break them into small particles and a well mixed pile of various ceramic cpu's can be sampled with great accuracy.

The key is separating your material by how they will be processed.
 
4metals said:
Quote
... and I rather sell my stuff tel quell (sold as seen) then going through sampling processes. That way I might get less for my products but the risk is entirely on the smelter/refiner.



The refiner who is equipped to sample properly takes little or no risk. You are thinking of ceramic cpu's on a piece by piece basis, they are sampled in powerful granulators which break them into small particles and a well mixed pile of various ceramic cpu's can be sampled with great accuracy.

The key is separating your material by how they will be processed.
Click to expand...


Hi 4metals,

I agree, seperating is very important ... That's why I carefully seperate each an every one of the CPU's. For examples I've got differnt stacks of

286 - 386 - 486 - Intel Pentium I - Intel Pentium MMX (Plastic) - AMD K6 with alloy cap - etc.

I've been given a few more insights of what can be done with the material and will be keeping a close eye on things here. I might try the gold refining on the most precious stuff I got (as already mentioned) as I don't think one will be able to score a good price on that

Happy sunday all
In Love With
 

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