Experienced Scrapper
hello everyone.
dunno if anyone here has already asked or if its been posted, but is anyone into cold recovery from electronics?
i know alot of people say you need bulk for it to be worth while but i have managed to get a bit of a collection together
and am keen to see what comes out of, if its worth doing again... being in aus its hard to get the aqua regis method happening
due to restrictions on obtaining the acids.... anybody attepted this or have any tips, pointers, what to look for ect??
There is a whole forum with all kinds of discussions about gold refining. A couple members here have shared whole texts about how to do it right. If you're in it for the $ my very strong recommendation is to sell the boards as is and use that time you woulda spent refining to find more scrap to sell.
Experienced Scrapper
i had considered that but theirs no one near me that buys boards as is, the guys that pay for light gauge throw it in under that and at $70 ton its not worth it.
but i can source reasonable amounts for recovery so thought id try that path
What area are you in?
Experienced Scrapper
south west/west australia
You could ship pallets of material and make better money than small scale refining for most ewaste even if all the best paying buyers are all the way over in the east and s/e
Experienced Scrapper
hey thanks heaps, ive heard of hokes but never found a place to d/l...got a copy and wll have a thorough read, your a legend mate
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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There will be somebody who buys escrap in WA.
One way that they recover the precious metals is by dumping the boards into molten Copper & processing the Copper, which has absorbed the precious metals. That processing has to be done to mined Copper anyway.
Since theres lots of Copper mines in Papua New Guinea & south Asia then there should be buyers near you, or a scrapyard who is connected to a buyer.
I just had a google & found this scrapmetal website in Perth.
On this page a escrap buyers advertising their prices & its pretty recent & they are good prices.
Buying E-Waste Melbourne - Buying Circuit Boards - Scrap Metal Forum
I had a try years ago extracting the Gold out of parts from computers. Its costly here for the chemicals.
But i did have 12 litres of HCL acid already.
In the end.... I never got Gold. I got some Silver from electrical contacts ( dont melt them as they contain Cadnium ) & lots of source parts, but no Gold. I do have several gallons of dark green HCL that i will have to extract the Copper from.
It took me days, and two very close near accidents that could have went badly. And now anything metal in the area i worked in starts rusting in days, or corroding, even Stainless steel rusts...
Eack specific part or item needs its own process to extract Gold from, depending on what its made from,
At that point, you need a lot of each source items to make it worth while. What looks like Gold, is not much Gold.
So, thats several near identical processes, start to finish. You need lots of chemicals, a good safe area to do it in, and a good knowledge of Chemistry. The different stages of processing are completely different too.
I wouldnt advise doing it at all.
Theres only one process i would attempt & thats 'Patnors process' on GRF.
Its putting IC chips into a metal container & roasting it on a fire untill the resin has turned into Carbon dust.
Then sieving the Copper legs & Silicon dies from the Carbon dust & Gold connecting wires.
Then Gold panning out the wires from the Carbon dust.
No chemicals & since you live in WA, then Gold panning will be familiar to you.
Id recommend getting in touch with that escrap buyer. Then start getting escrap. Advertising for it as "A free pickup of anything electrical". Data destruction service etc.
Im not sure where to start but once you get some good contacts in the industry you will be busy.
You can break down everything from the start & get 'plastic coated Copper wire' & 'Aluminium extrusion' & 'Ali domestic' & 'Brass' & 'Copper domestic' & 'Copper #2' from your scrap & sell that to a scrapyard.
Save it up in sacks & once ones full you can sell it. $30+ for a sack full of Ali domestic.
$350 for a sack of Copper #2 (55Kgs of varnish coated Copper wire.)
Try & sell stuff for 'Better than scrap dollars'. Flatscreens can be fixed, find info @ Badcaps.net.
.https://www.badcaps.net/index.php
Computer parts can be sold.
Last edited by eesakiwi; 11-07-2019 at 05:52 AM.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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I would recommend shipping them to a buyer as well.Everything that i've seen so far points to the idea that the circuit boards are best processed by the ton in an industrial setting. It's the economy of scale that makes it profitable to extract minute quantities of PM's ?
Just my opinion: I think i would forget about refining by fire or by chemical if you really want to do this.
This youtube video makes much more sense to me.
Last edited by hills; 11-07-2019 at 08:55 AM.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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You might check this out. It's the Australian version of SMF. The guy running it seems a decent sort.
Scrap Forum - Scrap Metal Forum
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Yes: it’s best to leave the dangerous stuff to the experts.Originally Posted by huntersarrow
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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I found this one on youtube. It really gives you an appreciation of the experts and the level of knowledge that it takes to do the refining job.
Whew .... way out of my wheelhouse !
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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There's nothing wrong with being the renaissance man if that's what you want to do ... but ... it's a bit out of synch with the real world we live in. It's not that functional.
Times have changed and we live in an age of specialization now.
We've all heard the term .... " Jack of all trades but master of none."
Others have said " A wise man knows that he knows and knows what he doesn't know. The fool doesn't."
Then there was that whole court bruhaha about The Chicago Tribune calling Henry Ford an ignoramus in print. You would have to go back into the transcripts of the trial for the details but it showed that even Ford knew his limitations. His specific talent was more in line with running a business and building a company. The trial showed that he didn't know very much about the specifics. He hired the best specialists he could find to head up the different departments within his company.
Edison's best talent was probably heading up a company as well. History would say that Edison screwwed Tesla out of some of his best ideas and patents.
Poor old Tesla was the brilliant idealist. He just wanted to make the world a better place. Easily one of the most intelligent men that ever lived whose specialty was electricity. That was his thing. That's what he was meant to do in life.
When it comes right down to it .... there are just too many things to know. You could spend an entire lifetime in study and barely even scratch the surface. You are way better off to focus on being excellent at just one to two things and farming the rest of the work out to a specialist.
Most especially so when working with hazardous materials.
That one little thing you don't know could end up killing you.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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I was thinking about that. I think there's a water vortex centrifuge of sorts before the shaker table ?
I've got time for study today. They have a series of videos out for promotional purposes. This one is the first of a three part series where their machine is put into practice in the real world. It seems like this would be a pretty good entry point if you wanted to get into refining.
** Important Consideration **
It looks like you want to refine for copper. The PM's are just frosting on the cake ?
Experienced Scrapper
i actually found this site firs, regesterd but cant contribute content for some reason, tried emailing the guy who runs it but no answer so kept looking then found this palce
Experienced Scrapper
just as a bit of a background, i've been employed at a commercial scrap yard for 5 yrs now and my parents are jewelers for 40+ yrs so have a bit of help,
not gonna cocky it and see what happens lol. just wanna have a test run and see, doubt it will continue but worth at least one shot.
big thanks to all who have replied, tryin to do it as safe and cautious as possible. will post results but wont be for a while yet as this is a back burner project, got bigger ones to knock out before the missus cracks it big time
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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It's out of context, so it's hard for me to comprehend what i'm looking at. I don't have any direct experience with refining. I do get the concept of the container being vibrated to settle the heavies. If you did something like that with a glass test tube ... you would be able to see the graduations from heavy to light going up the tube.
I suppose you could say that there's quite a bit to the refining process. It's not something that you could just jump into and start making money hand over fist. It's probably years of work with a fair amount of time and money invested to actually get a small processing plant into operation. Like anything else ... there's a learning curve and you're bound to make learning mistakes along the way.
Just an opinion, but i wonder if people get distracted by the flash. They say ohh wow .... there's an ounce of gold in every computer. Maybe it's a bit of gold fever ?
I wonder if it would make more sense to look at the whole picture of what's there. Perhaps consider the value of the base metals like copper and possibly nickel. The solder would have value.
Seems like a rational first step would be to separate all the metals from the plastics and fiberglass then ?
Get that mastered first and then take it from there ?
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Well the solder does have Silver & Tin in it....
And the solders easly dissolved 8n HCL acid ( & that makes a smell like what my schools laboratorys smelt like, to add a aura of authenticity to it )
So from there everything should just fall off the board.
But, nah, just sell the boards & go buy a Gold bar with it. You can do that in a afternoon.
The other advantage is that you have a known weight of 99.98% Gold. Its as good as Ca$h.
Some dubious looking Goldish pellets need to be assayed @ your expense before people will buy it.
The big smelters & PM refiners, they get 95% of everything out of it, Copper included.
I doubt a first timer would get 50% of the Gold. Its a real steep learning curve frought with dangers.
Take 8nto account costs, & it costs a lot to set up. Time, better utilised getting more escrap.
Dangers, of the unknown. Better traded for the lesser and known & easly avoided dangers.
I still get a laugh out of the guy who tried a test extraction in his garage & several days later noticed tiny pin prick spots of rust on his US$14,000 Saab.
Which he traded in the next day for $11,000 knowing that in a few months its going to be worth a lot less..
Also, refiner get all the different Previous Metals, not just the Gold, and their expenses are probably covered by the Copper & Solders metals recoverys, the rest is profit before taxes & extra expenses.
I think you have to make a certain amount of posts before you can post pictures. Post again & try adding a photo.
Last edited by eesakiwi; 11-08-2019 at 10:18 AM.
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