My grandfather who was an electrician in the navy would be rolling in his grave if he heard me asking such naive questions, but since I do not have the answers I humbly ask for the knowledge of these forums users.

I would like to experiment with a few dozen pounds of e-scrap and have some perhaps foolish notions that I may be better off without.

Components such as the small round cylinders and black chips- I do not know what these are called and have tried to find out to no avail. I am wondering if these have recoverable metal in them, if they should be separated from the mother and PCI boards, and if they can be processed separately when extracting metals.

I have heard the word 'miller' and mill stone used. I am wondering if this is a sort of mortar and pistil that can be used to crush these components to a point where their metals can be refined.

Also- if you are crushing things to dust, could you possibly grind circuit boards away to make the dissolving of gold that much easier?



Oh shoot. While we are at it; Is there gold sandwiched between the layers of circuitry- or is gold only plated onto the various pins and fingers?

Any reply is appreciated.