Recovering Gold from E-Waste without Chemicals

I'm starting a new project of recovering gold from some types of e-waste to avoid using chemicals.

Probably the simplest thing to get gold from are gold fingers from RAM and slot cards.

So here's the start of my first attempt using gold fingers from ram sticks.

The idea is to simply remove fingers and melt them down to form an ingot, so long as I can get 8kt minimum I can then sell it at value.

Many people seem to think they need to have 999 gold in order to sell, well that's not the case obviously and I get a bit concerned with so many kids wanting to refine these days.

I get asked questions everyday on youtube about refining and the simple fact is, chemicals required to turn e-waste gold plating to 999 gold are very toxic, so i'm trying to come up with easy ways so these people understand that gold does not need to be 999 to sell it and there's no real difference in value because an 8kt ingot sells for just as much as if you were to turn that into a much smaller 24kt ingot, except you don't need to buy chemicals.

anyway, here's the start to this project if anyone's interested..

 

Unless you refine I very much doubt you will get 8k

It will be interesting though to see what you get, The reason I doubt you will get 8k is becuase 8k is like 34% gold.

Unless I'm wrong gold fingers are plating right, so it's only micron think.

 

Any easy way to test purity before going to huge lengths and ending up with a much less pure blob than expected?

Surely others have tried and the information would be available.

 

Yeah will be interesting to see the results, the fingers are all gold and copper, the gold isn't much thinner then the copper so by weight they should balance out ok.

as apposed to gold pins where the weight is in the pins which are tin, then copper, then gold so the gold there is much lower by weight then fingers.

 

Maybe if you put mercury on them, it would form an amalgam, that could be scrapped off?

 

No not really, that's why i'm doing it, the common info' out there is all based on refiners trying to get 24kt gold, this method is to avoid that and sell as it is.
a gold buyer can easily test it for me over the counter, and as a fellow refiner told me today, if it isn't quite 8kt we can simply re-melt it and add some higher purity gold to it to bring it all to 8kt.
but we'll come to that after the initial step.

This is mostly to help the thousands of kids in the world who are attempting to use nitric acid and end up hurting themselves, trying to get them to understand that gold doesn't need to be 24kt for it to be worth money, the final video will demonstrate this.

 

No i'm trying not to use anything toxic to humans or the environment, mercury isn't something a kid would want to be dealing with and that's who look into gold recovery most, so I don't want to be promoting anything like that, there's probably much safer chemicals but this is a chemical free experiment.

 

With the RAM cards, have you tried selling them or seeing if you could get money for some of the better ones?

 

yep I sell 2gb+ and some 1gb ram, the rest I stack as gold recovery ram.

 

You may find the results to be disappointing...

Standard 1oz copper pcb thickness is about 35 microns. Edge connectors then have a layer of nickel 36 microns thick over that, and finally the gold of about 0.25-1.3 microns.
Of course there will be many variations according to purpose and cost sensitivity, but no way known will the gold ever be anywhere near as thick as the copper & nickel.

Also, there are chemical removal methods that don't use nitric acid, which are considerably safer, and less labor-intensive than scraping the fingers off.
Such as bleach/peroxide, and cupric chloride, which I've used over the last year to dissolve about 15kg of copper, for about 5ozs of gold. (from edge connector contacts, not the fingers).

 

There was another YouTube vid that did 100 ram fingers, and after traditional acid refining got 0.8g pure au

In you latest vid of 500 fingers = 100g of foils with the above ratio, netting you 4gm of au which in turn means 1ct gold content

 

Que Sera, Sera

 

Interesting to watch though.

I will wait until there is a machine where you can drop it in at the top and collect the separated metals at the bottom. The computers have been in the shed for 15 years now, they can wait a little longer for technology to catch up.

 

Yes, Hard gold plating used for PCB finger contacts is usually about 1-2um of hard gold mixed with cobalt.
PCB copper is usually 1oz copper which is 35um or so thick with maybe 5um of nickel plate first before the gold plating.

Here is a calculator although I have not verified it:
http://www.omnicircuitboards.com/blog/bid/337154/Understanding-PCB-Manufacturing-Hard-Gold-Plating

Works out to a rough order of about $1 worth on gold for a 240pin DIMM module
It's not even worth your time to cover that unless it's a mass scale.

 

One thing for sure there is gold, but I cant see a profit for a business, in low volume unless my simple (youtube) calculations are wrong.

This is something I would try as a home hobbyist, if I can source couple hundred ram chips, which is unlikely unless I buy from ebay lol.

As hobbyist even if it cost me more in material I can account my wages to $0. Hobby is a hobby and profit is secondary. So if that is your intention for the watchers, it is very informative and I learned something new.

But as a business, I would want to be processing an ounce minimum to pay for wages and material in single batch.

If this holds true that 500 gold finger = 100 grams of plated foil = 4 grams of gold

To get an troy ounce you would need 4000 fingers = 800 grams = 32 grams

I think the a better way forward is to cut the fingers (I presume you can sell the chips as low grade ewaste to maximise profit without the gold fingers) and incinerating to to ash with home built incinerator.

Than pan the ash to separate the gold/copper metals. Than refine it with acid but might as well add the gold pins at that time.

 

Just re watched your vid, killing time at work, one thing that I heard you say which i dont agree with is adding 24k gold that is recognisable to increase the gold content in the foils to 8K.

That to me seems like chasing bad money with good money

 

It makes no difference if you melt 24k gold in with lower purity gold, you still got the gold and it's worth the same whether 24kt or 3x the weight with 8kt, why isn't 8kt gold recognisable? can sell it as easily as any gold.

 

I am not arguing with you, AND I agree gold is gold.... and in AGW, the spot is the same but surely you have to agree with me that not everything is equal.

For example..

If you were selling branded recognisable gold, like any member here, I would pay more than spot, I think you know what I mean.

If you were selling 999 hand poured gold bars, depending how it looked, it could sell way way over spot like I have seen some sold here by other members.

But 8k gold, not assayed, surely everyone will factor in refining cost (unless you were selling to input GST credit dodgers) or a hobbyist who just wanted a small amount for home refining?

Potentially 8k jewellery, you could add a premium but we are talking about a simple bar.

I am sure someone might pay spot but it wont be snapped up and I personally just dont think adding 24k gold that I paid a premiun to buy, just to sell a 8k alloy as scrap gold bar is something I would do even as a hobbyist.?

 

at the moment there's gold in the for sale section for spot and it's a beautiful coin, 10.21g of 24kt
so if you would pay more then spot for a branded and recognised piece of gold, why is that coin still for sale?

i'll just walk into w.davis and sell over the counter just like it is

 

Because that coin is not as tradeable as a Perth mint bar.

It's actually perfectly illustrates my case and that even 24k is not all equal. Just like a panda silver one ounce get sold for higher than a 2016 Abc bullion round.

Also I've being buying pre decimals over the past weeks and depending on visual quality I was paying $30 an ounce to $25 an ounce in bulk. If I was buying beaten up ones today in bulk with spot at $24.90 I'd likely haggle to $23 depending how much I was buying.

Anyway we are just arguing semantics, I look forward to seeing your updates.