Recover gold from computer boards?

A. Amy,
Yes there is gold on most computer boards. The bad thing is that the parts or parts of the board are gold plated, usually in microinch thickness on top of nickel. It would not be profitable unless you were to collect hundreds of computers. By the time you collected all those computers the price of gas you pay today to get them would nullify any profit. Almost all landfills forbid computers to be dumped these days, so you would have trouble getting rid of them after you did retrieve any gold. Sorry, but those are the logistics.

Ed. update: The first link above is broken. Thankfully, Internet Archive preserved a copy here
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The second link was removed by EPA, possibly because its links were too dated. The Internet Archive preserved a copy here
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A. Hi Steven. We don't censor, we post whatever suggestions are offered, which range from "don't do it" to "here's how to do it". Post what you wish!

But the "they'll do it anyway" argument applies to a thousand things. The fire department doesn't teach people "the safest way" to go back into a burning building for their pets, even though we all know that lots of people die doing it. Do you accuse the fire department of "rather hearing of families burned up"? Driver training isn't offered to 13 & 14 year olds, although many try to drive at that age.

As for us offering safety instruction, the first rule in every chemical safety course is: "Never Ever EVER Work Alone!!" -- do you solemnly swear that you'll follow this most important rule without fail before you ask us to move on to rule #2? If you're going to simply blow off the most important thing we have to tell you, what is the point?

Still, if there was a way of providing necessary safety instruction via internet postings, we could try; unfortunately there is just no place to start that doesn't leave a dozen ways that people can kill themselves. If we warn people of the terrible danger of poisonous cyanide, they may explode their house by substituting picric acid or creating ammoniacal fulminates.

People in industry must receive annual hands-on training to work with a half-dozen or fewer chemicals in a specialized, routine, circumstance. In the giant one-room schoolhouse called the internet, where post-docs in chemical engineering and grade school kids are equally likely to read a posting, it just isn't realistic to think that a manageable set of warnings for safe chemical experimentation can be developed. Don't fool with chemicals you don't understand unless you've had extensive, regular, hands-on instruction, have been fitted with PPE by a professional [yes, I know, some people won't shell out for PPE, so we're supposed to tell them how to stay safe if they won't], and have had the site certified by a chemical safety expert.

Personally, I side with every environmental organization in the world in asking that people not do amateur recycling of electronics. It's not just that your competition is starving Asian children risking their health for almost nothing -- it's also that amateur recycling of e-waste is a wrecking ball which scatters toxins absolutely everywhere, while simultaneously cherry picking the small amount of value in the waste, thereby making responsible recycling of e-waste completely impossible.

As for people spending $2 a pound for waste, yes, there are certainly people who will sell their waste for $2 a pound rather than paying for disposal if they can :-)
Regards,

"Recovery and Refining Of precious Metals"
by C.W. Ammen

on AbeBooks

or eBay or

Amazon

(affil links)

A. I agree completely that there isn't enough gold in computer scrap to make money at refining without a very large source of scrap. I tried recovering gold out of scrap TV components and only recovered a few specks. But I couldn't believe the amount of silver in it. Nearly every bit of solder on a circuit board is apparently silver solder. The number one goal for an electronic scrapper would have to be efficiency. But if you collect all the metals, you can make money. The copper, silver, even the steel have a value that you can cash in on. If you wish to try it then I highly recommend the book "Recovery and Refining of Precious Metals" by C.W. Ammen. ⇨
It gives a lot of details about processes used from recovery ore, jewelry scrap, and electronic scrap. It tells about the acid process and the electrolytic process.

It even gives directions on how to build a chlorine drum to recover gold from electronics and ore.

Hi, Vikki. Sorry for your troubles. You are certainly correct that things can go sour: topic 4120 here addresses "Jailed for blackening metals with cyanide". And read the news: more than one person has been indicted for murder when their spouse died of natural causes because there was cyanide in the house.

Regards,

A. Hi Wanda. Rather than believing them that it's true, or believing me that it's not, why not just take an integrated circuit or a corner of a circuit board or a loose connector, or all three, and drop them into a teacup full of bleach ⇦ bleach/sodium hypochlorite in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and tell us what if anything happens :-)

Luck & Regards,