Whats next after shredding?

[mr.data]

I used the AP method for RAM memory before and it worked well apart from the time spend preparing the sticks.
Today I finally got my hammer mill working so I tried shredding it a bit and mix some other gold containing materials.

The nice thing about shredding is that difficult to disassemble parts get really easy. Here is what I started with


And this was the result


My plan was to separate the organics from the metals first and then move on to the next (yet unkown) steps.
I tried floating and magnet separation but that didn't seem to work.

After looking around on the internet and having a discussion with chatGPT I figured I have a few options:

• Further pulverizing and then use a blue bowl like this
• Mechanical separation, electrostatic and/or density and/or air pressure. This seems to be dragging me into a deep hole and I hope there is an easier method
• The other method I came up with was dissolving everything in aqua regia and dropping the gold with SMB and then move on with the other metals

Now the last one grabs my attention the most because it seems the easiest but if someone has better methods, please share, I could not finding much on this forum or the internet.
Also I figured that aqua regia must be an expensive method but can aqau regia be reused?

 

[Yggdrasil]

I used the AP method for RAM memory before and it worked well apart from the time spend preparing the sticks.
Today I finally got my hammer mill working so I tried shredding it a bit and mix some other gold containing materials.

The nice thing about shredding is that difficult to disassemble parts get really easy. Here is what I started with
View attachment 65674

And this was the result
View attachment 65675

My plan was to separate the organics from the metals first and then move on to the next (yet unkown) steps.
I tried floating and magnet separation but that didn't seem to work.

After looking around on the internet and having a discussion with chatGPT I figured I have a few options:

• Further pulverizing and then use a blue bowl like this
• Mechanical separation, electrostatic and/or density and/or air pressure. This seems to be dragging me into a deep hole and I hope there is an easier method
• The other method I came up with was dissolving everything in aqua regia and dropping the gold with SMB and then move on with the other metals

Now the last one grabs my attention the most because it seems the easiest but if someone has better methods, please share, I could not finding much on this forum or the internet.
Also I figured that aqua regia must be an expensive method but can aqau regia be reused?

Recoverable metals are PMs, Copper and Tin.
Best method for that is shredding and grinding then smelting.
Then a Copper cell which will leave the PMs in the slimes.
If you need/want to recover the Tin leach the material in HCl before shredding.

Easiest method is to cut off the plated fingers and remove the chips.
Leach the fingers in AP and then refine the foils.
The chips are pyrolized, incinerated then ground and magnetically separated
before gravity separation and incinerating again.
The concentrates can be dissolved and precipitated or smelted.

 

[mr.data]

Recoverable metals are PMs, Copper and Tin.
Best method for that is shredding and grinding then smelting.
Then a Copper cell which will leave the PMs in the slimes.
If you need/want to recover the Tin leach the material in HCl before shredding.

The smelting is what I want to avoid.
There are a lot of fibers in there that will burn off and leave a toxic smoke.

Recoverable metals are PMs, Copper and Tin.
Best method for that is shredding and grinding then smelting.
Then a Copper cell which will leave the PMs in the slimes.
If you need/want to recover the Tin leach the material in HCl before shredding.

Easiest method is to cut off the plated fingers and remove the chips.
Leach the fingers in AP and then refine the foils.
The chips are pyrolized, incinerated then ground and magnetically separated
before gravity separation and incinerating again.
The concentrates can be dissolved and precipitated or smelted.

I thought that this was the most easiest (known) method as well.
Pyrolysis is something I have thought about a lot but it's insanely difficult to build and apparently very dangerous.
Incineration is possible but then I create some other more difficult problems with authorities here.

I am more looking towards a cleaner method or a better way to achieve the results in scalable manner

 

[Yggdrasil]

The smelting is what I want to avoid.
There are a lot of fibers in there that will burn off and leave a toxic smoke.


I thought that this was the most easiest (known) method as well.
Pyrolysis is something I have thought about a lot but it's insanely difficult to build and apparently very dangerous.
Incineration is possible but then I create some other more difficult problems with authorities here.

I am more looking towards a cleaner method or a better way to achieve the results in scalable manner

Pyrolysis is very easy the way we do it and then there will be no smoke when one incinerate or smelt.
The fibers are glass and will not make much smoke, the polymers and epoxies surrounding the fibers on the other hand, will.

There are multiple threads in here dealing with pyrolysis and processing of chips.

So search the forum and you will find.

 

[mr.data]

Pyrolysis is very easy the way we do it

Can you show me what you mean by the way we do it?

I looked around on the forum and I found some posts about pyrolysis but no in-depth descriptions on how to do it.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Can you show me what you mean by the way we do it?

I looked around on the forum and I found some posts about pyrolysis but no in-depth descriptions on how to do it.

There are literally hundreds of posts about it so you haven't been looking very hard.

Basically what you need is a closed box which vents into the fire (Gas/Wood or Coal)

The gases from the heating of the mass is vented into the fire at a depth which allows the gases to completely burn up and thus add to the heating of the vessel and decompose the VOCs completely.

People have been using upside down paint cans inside burning coals and what not.

Your fantasy is your only limitation.

The only reqiurement is that the gases are heated enough and lead deep enough into the fire to completely decompose.