Smelting anything is a serious deal. If you are going to get your return on investment, then great. However, at what cost? Are you environmentally keeping the air clean, are you disposing of any excess materials properly, are you exposing yourself and family to any toxic fumes? Those are my concerns. As long as you're safe, your surroundings and environment are respected, smelt away. I wouldn't do it.

QUOTE=alloy2;243584]Kovar is an alloy found in IC chips, CRT monitors among a thousand other uses.

This alloy contains the following metals 29% Nickel, 17% Cobalt with the remainder Iron. If you smelt Kovar scrap with plenty of silica sand the iron will report to slag leaving you a nice high grade Nickel / Coblat to sell.

Now after smelting you have an alloy high in Nickel, you could cast this scrap into anodes to further refine the Nickel electrically in a cell, your Cobalt would report as cell slimes. To satisfy everyone's curiosity, no I am not going to smelt any kovar or set up a nickel parting cell.

You may find a buyer willing to pay for both metals, scrap yards traditionally pay on an alloy on the metal with the highest content. Which is not half bad with Nickel's current value at $5.70 U,S,D per pound.



A gas fired furnace would be best suited to the task.[/QUOTE]