The age of invisible goldfields

[AtomRat]

Im just going off a PM I sent to Sniffy and started to think and need some oppinions.

As we all know, many of our man mades have gold ( and other rare mineral ) coated components. Its in our mobile phone, our cars, our teeth, jewellery, a jet and in our decorations. Its everywhere.

Now how much gold do you think a house with a family of four in today holds with all the new devices, gadjets and machines?

An industrial building, a Telstra exchange, a skyscraper must hold a few of ounces here and there wouldnt you think?

Its why it is always important to recycle and dispose of items correctly to keep the gold in circulation to prevent it being stomped into a tip. I feel that one day, tips will even need to be recycled somehow to extract gold.

 

[SCROUNGER]

Well my wife took her gold bangles off her arm yesterday Atom and they weighed over 75 grams :lol: :lol: :lol: Doubt they'll end up in the tip though.

 

[SCROUNGER]

i suppose eventually, all (or most) of those materials to some degree will end up back in the ground. It seems only the extremely poor countries recycle, us rich countries for the most part at least, only do so if we can be bothered or it doesn't cost too much.

 

[AtomRat]

 

[TheSilentBugler]

Heh, got a pile of electronics in bins around the shed, not worth processing at the moment, but in spare time I break a few more down and separate.

Her indoors thinks I'm a hoarder, but I only need to point out the few hundred sheep's worth of wool she's accumulated to defuse any arguments

 

[SteelPat]

I have hundreds of circuit boards here but the amount of gold in them is not worth all the effort to extract it.

 

[Tathradj]

That is why we send it all over sea's so that poorer countries can process it and put up with the pollution it causes.
Yes, There is a trade going on for scrapped precious metals that are to hard for our local recyclers to process.

 

[AtomRat]

Getting out the boards is the first step to minimize the mass and piles of stuff so you only have boards. ( feel free to ask questions

My biggest issue at the moment is the lack of nitric acid and dont want to use what chems I have left to make more. Will have to wait until I go down the line.

Theres a few rare metal recyclers here in Melbourne. Dont believe the hype and myths of its dangers, its no different to any other chemical process and more a scare away technique to stop "those who dont know" attempting it.

I recycle copper, silver and gold here at home with no excess pollutions, dangers or whatever, and well, would I really be putting in that time and effort and talking about it soo often if it wasnt worth it?

The chemicals get re-used over and over again and need to dispose of them takes a long time. Disposal then means neautralising any chems. It is not a long hard process but its obviously not recommended for all.

The hydrocloric acid in your stomach is enough to clean a brick wall.

 

[grubstake]

The hydrocloric acid in your stomach is enough to clean a brick wall.

I'm all for recycling, but wouldn't it be easier to just get some at Bunnings? :lol:

 

[TheSilentBugler]

LOL

 

[AtomRat]

Bwahahaha I think I just spat some of my drink just now reading that, gold grubstake!

..just stating the fact though that chemical hazards are everywhere just like any other hazard, danger or concern.

 

[SteelPat]

AtomRat, how do you use the hydrochloric? I have about 80 litres at home lol. Maybe I will find a job for the apprentice to do.

 

[AtomRat]

AtomRat, how do you use the hydrochloric? I have about 80 litres at home lol. Maybe I will find a job for the apprentice to do.

..for cleaning bricks or circuit boards?

 

[TheSilentBugler]

Good for cleaning nugs too

 

[SteelPat]

How do you use the hydro to remove the gold from boards? I have seen other methods but not using hydrochloric.

 

[KarlS]

You mix it with peroxide and it will lift gold plating off from the PCB. You have to cut out gold plated bits. Cost of chemical will be more the worth of gold you recover.
Karl

 

[AtomRat]

What's written above is just the first step to remove some plated PCB tracks.

Hydrochloric acid is mixed with a percentage of nitric acid to produce aqua regia, a solution which dissolves gold and removes some others. The gold salt is then precipitated out of the mix with a chemical like urea or sodium metabisulfate.

The gold powder is then cleaned with further chemicals and water, then goes to a crucible to smelt to a button.

Other elements like copper and silver can be brought out of the left over by product chemicals for further recovery. And further more even tantalum, cadmium and platinum.

Its worth it. $12 for Hydrochloric acid, $20 - $40 for nitric, $10 for metabisulfate or $2 for urea from an instant cold pack.

That's under $50 for chemicals that can be reused over to recover ounces of gold before needing more as long as the supply of boards are there. If you know how to make the chemicals, its basically free.

I'm still trying to figure out the loss?

 

[KarlS]

With above method you can just filter out gold foil that was lifted from the boards and smelt it mixed with borax. But hydrochloric acid and peroxide looses strength fast and you you have to use new batch often.
Karl

 

[Danielkrupski]

My thoughts exactly atom rat, I tried to do this without success. Not too much info or willing to share because of dangers of contamination and so on. Everything valuable is recycled to an extent. It always made me think why coles and woolworths have drop in bins for mobile phones??? Hint hint

 

[AtomRat]

With above method you can just filter out gold foil that was lifted from the boards and smelt it mixed with borax. But hydrochloric acid and peroxide looses strength fast and you you have to use new batch often.
Karl

The gold doesnt simply just lift off with HCl, it lifts the gold plated copper from the boards. It would smelt into an impure mess quite frankly not a gold button. It would also contain copper and other impurities, which would of course, give you much less price for your work and money.

Thats why its called recycling and refining. You refine it by breaking it back into pure au.

Ive had a mixture of HCl and peroxide in the open air for over 3 years and it still dissolves alloy no problem and remove tracks from boards.

Besides, theres a hell of a lot more gold in electronics than just circuit boards, im talking components and everything. Pure 24carat gold wire is used in IC's, wifi connections are big with lots of plating just like telstra boards, massive audio connections for vehicle and high power stereo has a large amount as well.

It would be like recycling glass bottles without chemically cleaning anything. That would be gross.

I feel like im going in circles whenever I mention the subject..