Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Recovering gold from electronics, page 4
Q. I like everyone else it seems have several hundred pounds of motherboards, ethernet, etc scrap as well as telephone scrap that I need to process. What I have been doing is pulling the cpus and cutting fingers and selling via the internet. What I wonder is what is remaining on the boards and how do I remove it. I think the jumper pins, ide connector, pci slots, etc are gold plated but after many attempts at many methods I have yet to find a way to efficiently remove the pins from the boards. The worst seems to be the pci type slots that just won't let the pins come out of the assembly. Is there a product, acid mixture, or solvent that will dissolve the plastic material and leave only the metal pins? I remove the pin assemblies with a small Dremel ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] tool just clipping the bottom of the leads but the plastic is a very big problem so far. Any help is very greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Chris Colemansurplus - Weslaco, Texas
2006
A. Lots of people seem to be interested in doing this. I found a guy on eBay selling old chips and he said "gold recovery" and I did a little google search and ended up here.
From what it looks like, there is a very small amount of gold inside computers, certainly not enough to be worth your trouble as a private individual. There's probably more gold in a 1 liter bottle of Goldschlager than there is on a chip.
If you're a factory owner with hundreds of thousands of chips and machines, then that's a different story. But if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this isn't one of them. The cost of the chemicals greatly outweighs the value of the tiny bit of gold you're going to recover.
- New York, New York
2006
2006
A. Hello,
If you have electronic scrap , sell it.
Chemical extraction is a dangerous business best left to professionals. And if you are entirely successful , you may only extract 40 to 50% of precious metals anyway.
If you have 40 tons.....sell it.
If you have 200 tons.....sell it.
If you are generating 100 tons monthly , sell it to someone who can make you an attractive offer or a licensed refiner. Of course you can enter into an agreement to get paid on settlement...but don't hold your breath...a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
No one ever went broke making a profit.
No amount of money can compensate for your health.
Hope this helps.
- New York NY USA
A. I think all these people inquiring about refining gold and silver from computer parts are all wasting their time. I agree with the general consensus that there is no significant amount of gold to be recovered from these sources. The health risks greatly outweigh the potential profit margin, if any at all. It amazes me to see people willing to risk their health, as well as the health of others in their immediate environments to get a tiny scrap of gold, expending so much time and energy for the smallest returns. You could make far more money per week working at McDonalds and eat all the fattening food they sell for free. At least it would be a regular paycheck and even healthier for you too, if you can believe that. God help the get rich quick mind. Get a job, it pays more. Lol.
Ryan Maximus- Stamford, Connecticut U.S.A.
2006
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Q. To all the "Experts", A. Thanks, William, but please write down the steps for people to go back and save a pet who is in a burning building :-) Would you not urge people to call 911 instead? And if they have an abiding interest, then urge them to get hands-on training and qualification testing in lifesaving, read books, and don't attempt it unless they have the right equipment? That's exactly what I and many readers have done on this thread a dozen times and counting. If someone knows enough about it to frame a specific question, I think the experts answer it, but "full answers" that can make things understandable and safe for most readers is an impossibility. All we can do is to continue to urge people not to work with hazardous chemicals without hands-on training or outside of a proper industrial facility with the correct gear and PPE. 2006 Don't make the mistake of thinking that I condone an untrained person doing anything that is dangerous. - Campbellsville, Kentucky, United States 2006 Returning to the analogy to your line of work, William, people will go into a burning building to save their pets even though you tell them not to. So let me quote you -- -- So please list the steps our readers should take in entering a burning building to save their pets if they insist on doing so anyway. Actually, your first posting was right: people who are using these dangerous materials without hands-on training are "a danger to anyone within a hundred yards of them". People lacking a background and who will not get training must at least start by reading a book. Otherwise, what topics do we leave out of the discussion you seek? Shall we skip fulminates? Skip the dangers of perchloric acid? Skip that nitric acid will ignite organics? Skip a discussion of goggles? Skip respirators? Skip exhaust systems? Skip waste disposal? Skip the evolution of poisonous HCN gas from acidified cyanide? Skip explosive heat of reaction? Skip treatment of chemical burns? Which safety topics do we omit? We would be happy to have threads on each of those topics and we already do have threads on many of them, but we're still right back to people wanting to skip all those topics :-) Ted, first let me thank you for allowing me to have a voice here. Now then, this will be my final post. You guys keep up the good work and keep me and all the other firefighter/medics in work. William Bemis- Campbellsville, Kentucky 2006 |
A. It would take far too long to acquire any decent amount of gold from electrical appliances, why not collect broken jewelry and when you have a sufficient amount for a small bar, melt it down using a crucible, these can be made or bought the electric crucibles work great although you can make one by using a oil drum cut down with a smaller drum in side and fill with concrete using fire proofing bore a small hole in lid attach a coupling to the wall and fit your gas supply using propane this is a hot burning clean gas, crucible goes inside with some bonami powder and gold into the crucible and turn up the heat, about an hour later hey presto you got gold, advisable to melt the gold more than the melt heat for pouring, make sure you got a good bar mold preferably cast, you can make them out of clay or porcelain fired well, but these want last long,.
Paul Batespureinkuk - Doncaster
2006
I too saw the eBay sale for 10 lbs of "Recycling" CPUs and decided to research the topic. I am proud to say that I will NOT be attempting to conquer this chemistry experiment. I am smart enough to know NOT to try this. I'm sorry, but to spend $.80 to recover $1.20 in gold using toxic chemicals does not make sense to me. I can make more money cutting lawns!
- Vero Beach, Florida
2006
Q. I in no way plan to even try this, but find it interesting that people would consider such a dangerous task. Lack of understanding to the dangers I think. One question: Why wouldn't you grind to a fine powder, then separate by weight, then just melt out the gold? Gold is so heavy it should separate easily and I don't understand the need for all the chemicals. The melting process would probably still leach some pretty toxic gasses, but less then all the acid use, as the other substances could be removed before melting. Anyway just my two cents worth. Oh yeah, working at McDonalds would provide a better income, I agree.
Kevin Longbrake- Marysville, Ohio
2006
A. I have experience in recovering gold from a variety of sources but not specifically in e-scrap.I am posting this information on this board to see if any one has attempted the recovery process on e-scrap.
The process of gold recovery can be improved by treatment to recover or remove lead and tin. The scrap has to be burnt to remove plastics. This burning process will produce toxic fumes from the destruction of the plastics and the formation of toxic fumes of mercury, zinc oxide as well as arsenic and antimony oxides. Excellent ventilation is mandatory during this incineration step. The resulting solid material from the burning process, cinder or calcine as it is called is usually crushed and then leached with caustic solution to solubilise the lead and tin values contained in the e-scrap.This caustic dissolution step has to be done using protective suit, rubber gloves
⇦this on
eBay or
Amazon [affil links] and face shield
⇦this on
eBay or
Amazon [affil links]
because the caustic solution will produce a severe caustic burn.The fumes will damage your eyes or lungs if ingested. The lead and tin values are converted to soluble plumbate and antimonate respectively. This step should will also dissolve any arsenic and antimony in the e-scrap as arsenate and antimonates which are also very toxic. The residue from this stage obtained by filtration will contain copper, gold, silver and the Platinum group metals(PGM).This should reduce the weight reporting to copper, gold,silver and PGM recovery.The hot caustic solution free of any solids is treated with scrap aluminum beverage cans that have been stripped of the plastics by burning. This will produce metallic lead which will form as balls and will sink to bottom along with tin. During the process hydrogen evolution will occur and if not done in a location with excellent ventilation hydrogen explosions can possibly occur. The lead and tin are recovered by filtering. If the metals are not removed when the reaction is done they will go back into the caustic solution. After the lead and tin are removed the solution should be neutralised with muriatic acid to produce a neutral solution that is neither acid or basic for safe disposal. This is very important because if too much muriatic acid is used the solution will turn acidic and then there is the danger of produce Arsine and Stibnine gases which are also very toxic.
- Hillsboro, Oregon
2006
2006
A. If you have a lot of gold, you are in the gold refining business. If you have a lot of copper, you are in the copper refining business.
Connectors are comprised of mostly copper and very little gold. Simply refine the copper using copper sulphate
⇦this on
eBay or
Amazon [affil links] salt in aqueous solution with very little sulfuric acid for free acid. The connector should wither away leaving the gold "glove".
The copper collected at the cathode is pure electrolytic copper.
Voltage should be low and current densities should be low as well to get a good plating. Please note that de-copperising is a long process and I do it in two stages. First stage, de-copperise as fast as possible bulk connectors, fingers, etc. This will also turn the copper sulphate into iron sulphate as iron is exchanged by cementation. No worry, it still de-copperised once the copper sulphate is gone.
Then take the copper "mud" and slowly refine it again. This should leave hard copper on the electrode and will remove impurities such as gold which was dropped in the first stage.
Once I'm left with de-copperised gold "leaf", I send to refiner. The copper is sold as pure #1 copper.
The process is a continuous, renewable process.
Regards,
- Edmundston, NB, Canada
I've got about 15 lbs of gold plated circuit boards, Does any one have the specifics on how to glean the gold from them. I understand the concept of reverse plating but the specifics and chemicals are the unknown factor. If you know, Please post for me
Allen SeabridgeHOBBYIST - Vancouver, Washington
2006
This has been said a few times in this thread, but I'm sure it can't be said enough. All of you who are trying to extract gold from modern day electronics (IC sockets, edge connectors, monster cable, etc.) are wasting your time. 1 OZ gold = ~ 500$ You'd need about 50 computer mother boards to extract 1 oz of gold. You really didn't think electronic manufacturers lay this stuff on thick, did you? we're talking microns, and it's used to enhance the conductivity of the part - not to protect the part.
But let's say you persist: You'd need $200 in chemical supplies. 20$ in electrical energy - You'd have to pay $50 for safe disposal of the chemicals. You'd need about 40 hrs of work to extract your oz of gold. You'd end up with a profit of 250/40 hrs = 6$/hr. Downside: Explosion, poisoning, environmental contamination, acid burns, accidental blinding, secondary party (human or animal) incidental accidents, bylaw infractions and hefty fines, fires and death. You'd be better off desoldering the chips and selling the 555's, 7808's, clock crystals, bus connectors and fan for .50 cents each for a profit of 400$ for 50 mother boards.
- Andover, Massachusetts
2006
There's a program now showing on the travel channel about gold mining and recovery. It seem that it is easier to recover and more cost effective, to remove gold from electronics than to remove it from the ground. It was said on this show that there is about three oz's gold per ton of computer. It seems to me the best way get proper information on recovery, Is to go to the Retired Business Men's association and consult someone in the field of metals.
On this show the parts are crushed then ground up. This may answer the question of metal removal from parts! Any way you look at it this would be a very profitable business being it done properly.
- Snow Camp, North Carolina
2006
2006
To Mr. Panjala Mukesh, Can I use another substitute from sodium meta nitro benzene sulphonate at Mr. Panjala Mukesh' methods?
Is economical the recovery of glass frames? Can we recovery which metals and how methods are used?
I have a terminal electrolysis equipment recovery of silver from photographic waste solutions. But, I can not use it for bleach-fix solutions which content Fe_EDTA complexes. Because, it has low amperes (6 Amps). Have you any methods To decrease effect of Fe-EDTA, a chemical solution?
Thank you,
I am a chemical engineer - Ankara, TURKEY
How to get gold from CPUs? I want to know about how I can extract gold from CPUs of mother boards?
Syed Sajid Ali- New Delhi, India
2006
Hello I live in Tennessee and I have a large amount of computer boards and I'm looking for a dealer to sell them to can any please give me a listing of dealers near me?
Thomas ThurmanCOMPUTER BOARDS RECYCLING - DAYTON, Tennessee
2006
2006
I need to find all of these people who are recovering gold from scrap in their basements. As an environmental professional and remediation specialist I could make a fortune!
Seriously, I would advise anyone considering chemical reclamation of gold from scrap to really think twice before embarking on such an endeavor. The risk (to your health and the environment) is not worth the reward.
In a perfect set-up, you "might" recover 6 to 10 troy ounces of gold from a ton of high grade scrap, the costs to recover the gold run will run about $3000 a ton, leaving you a net of about $3000 on the high side, and guys trust me, the set up to effectively process a ton of scrap is not cheap. Not something you can do in your basement in a month. Oh well, that's my 2 cents worth.
Best of luck in all that you do.
- Knoxville, Tennessee
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