The age of invisible goldfields

[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

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..

No it doesn't. It disolve copper under the gold plating leaving gold plating floating in the acid like gold confetti. I had done this few years ago. I had about forty memory modules , some video cards, network cards, few Pentium and 386 SX CPU 's. After the gold was floating free in the acid, I strain it in coffee filter , rinsing it with water. I let it dry and it looked like I had quite bit of gold confetti in bottom of filter. When I tip it on the scale, I had disappointing 0.04 grams of gold.
Acid solution will stop working for this application because it gets saturated with disolved copper.
Karl

 

[AtomRat]

Hydrochloric acid can't dissolve copper. Hydrochloric acid removes the adhesive that holds the copper to the fibreglass or paper board and lifts it free as hydrogen bubbles to the surface.

Diluted nitric acid can dissolve copper, but only when diluted, otherwise we just give our copper a nice protective coating.

That's why aqua regia ( nitric and hydrochloric acid combined ) is used.

You will have impure rose gold if you don't refine it.

From wiki:

Au + 3 HNO3 + 4 HCl is in a favored equilibrium with [AuCl4] + 3 [NO2] + [H3O]+ + 2 H2O
or
Au + HNO3 + 4 HCl is in a favored equilibrium with [AuCl4] + [NO] + [H3O]+ + H2O

 

[SteelPat]

When I said it wasnt worth it for me, it comes down to time spent breaking boards down vs return. My workshop charges labour out at roughly $100/hr. If I am not getting that return for my labour during business hrs, then its not a viable option for me.

Now perhaps when I retire... That may be a whole different story.

 

[AtomRat]

On this prospecting website where about 5% of us actually make a profit off our finds and make money I think its an odd subject.

seems many refuse to want to see the invivisble goldfield, im not too sure why, but how is it any different to sluicing or detecting?? it has a constant flow, its fast to rip circuit boards if you have a business, you could use a shredder instead?

I think inexperience ends the topic. Theres soo many ways of extracting the gold and other elemts more rare than gold..

No different to me then using a floatation process where you collecting specks still and melting to a button.

like I said, I wouldnt be doing it if it wasnt worth the extra buck. If my hand wasn't so sticky I'd get a good hand full to show you.. Heres 1.5g on my hand there from no more than one 40mins work and 20 hours acid. I wouldn't even say this is circuit boards, this is just the fingers from RAM boards one.

If i had my head down constantly doing it there would be at least 5g a day. I have bags and boxes full to the top of all sorts of gold plated glory to be extracted still but I'm in no rush.

 

[Brian]

I remember seeing a show where even kids living on garbage tips in India couldn't make a living doing this ^

For me, I can do ~ $10 per hour or less finding money, or do some paid work for more than I care to mention.

Not everything is purely about the money you make from it...

 

[AtomRat]

All I do if for is something in the background lingering. Just like my gold, copper, alloy, silver and rare metals I trade them in when I need to and when the price is right.

I even sell my bags of blank circuit boards on ebay as I don't crush them to extract inner layers of copper tracks and get $10 for a few kilo. Its just knowing how to do it correctly to make sure there is something worthwhile in the end and its not meant to be an easy process, like most things in the world.

I can't work due to heart health. My hobbies are my money and I have to do it to live happily and make sure my children and partner get to live life fully as well. I was detecting to pay for my food at one point not far ago. Prospecting is one of my 100's of hobbies and income when at need.

Let's say I've had a bad start to life and the past 6 years to the future is the beginning of my new life

I'm no Indian child but I go through trash if I have to.. :lol:

 

[silver]

Golden hand shake that one.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Invisible Gold Fields, Struth the Ones that are there are hard enough to Find without someone putting Vanishing Cream On Them

Oh dear ??