mother boards in ashes?

**EcoSafe** · 10-05-2011, 06:55 PM

Gus you still around ? today I picked up some comp waste and among it was several cases that the guy threw in his burn pile. I threw them in the truck. when unloading I noticed all the mother boards were still inside the cases but in a thin sheet of ash. is there a way to process these now that they have already been incinerated to ash ? ive got a five gallon bucket half full, thought this might be an opportunity to do a little experimenting.

**parrothead** · 10-05-2011, 07:51 PM

Wow, interesting question. I can't wait to see the response from a pro on this one.

**easyrecycle** · 10-05-2011, 09:13 PM

sadly..no...there will be to many byproducts in the "ash" from the fire that it will be very hard to recover anything from.

Now...I am not saying it cant be recovered...but its NOT worth recovering

**gustavus** · 10-05-2011, 09:34 PM

Originally Posted by olddude

Gus you still around ? today I picked up some comp waste and among it was several cases that the guy threw in his burn pile. I threw them in the truck. when unloading I noticed all the mother boards were still inside the cases but in a thin sheet of ash. is there a way to process these now that they have already been incinerated to ash ? ive got a five gallon bucket half full, thought this might be an opportunity to do a little experimenting.

The fire was a good thing, if it was hot enough some of the lesser metals would have volatilize and gone up in smoke while others would have oxidized. Grind it up, remove anything a magnet will grab then melt the remainder into a copper anode the refine it using a copper cell.

The electrolyte consists of distiled water, copper sulfate and sulfuric acid, battery charge running at 6 volts will do the trick copper will migrate to cathode precious metal will drop as mud.

Basically the same thing I'm doing with those AC silver soldered joints, the difference here is that you will have in addition to silver gold and platinum along with some other precious metals in your cell mud.

Grab a copy of Ammen book he has a good chapter on electro refining.

**EcoSafe** · 10-05-2011, 09:56 PM

thx gus thats what I was hoping for. I have tried to use gold refining forum but it has gotten so fragmented and tech language it is unusable to me. what is the name of the book and is it available on amazon ? chips diodes and all is gone all thqt is left is ash held together by flakey brittle copper.