Can CPU Gold Be Direct Smelted? Electronics Recycling & Urban Mining For Precious Metals!

Experimenting with direct smelting of CPU's for gold and precious metals recovery. Trying to find a fast, cheap, and easy way to recovery the gold and other precious metals from CPU's and electronics without using acids.
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[@catch22frubert]

Yeah, there's definitely silver in the CPU. If you want to separate just the gold, then crush everything to a powder, pour on some nitric acid to make silver nitrate, and the gold will be completely isolated at that point and you can smelt it out

[@chrism4008]

Its not really that simple, and there are some real safety considerations using that method

[@MyScreenNameIsTroubledOne]

@@chrism4008I mean, that’s the basic gist of it tho. Burn, crush, separate the gold with nitric. What else is there?

[@maximooze3196]

@@MyScreenNameIsTroubledOne😂

[@Mrbfgray]

@@MyScreenNameIsTroubledOne Just don't forget to hire the neighbor's child to carryout the hazardous duties, for your own safety.

[@ROSS4422]

It's not easy. There is tin in the solder, the tin forms a gel when dissolved in nitric acid. This makes it very difficult to isolate and filter the gold. Also the fumes are horrible and you need a fume hood. I've processed gold and silver using acids. It's fun, but it's not easy.

[@ctsax64]

As an IT professional and a Silver and Gold stacker, I really enjoyed this video. Please do more. Awesome!

[@drjones762]

Have you given thought to somehow extracting PM’s from old client gear? Doesn’t seem there’s enough in computers, servers, etc. for it to be worth it, unless you have thousands & thousands of machines. Thoughts?

[@David_Quinn_Photography]

@@drjones762 I only pull the pins/pads off dead CPUs/ram/mobo and get a small baggy full then I send the rest to a local ewaste guy who breaks it down even more then sends me a small bit of cash from whatever metal value he gets out of it. he's able to make a living off it somehow IDK what extra you can do other than soak it in chemicals.

[@seanfoltz7645]

Most people use chemicals to reclaim the gold - I think it would be interesting to have you hook up with, say Cody's Lab, and have you both start with the same amount and type of computer parts to see which method is more cost effective and efficient.

[@FlyingSeaMan256]

The answer to both of those questions would have to be chemicals in my mind, due to that being the main method for reclaiming precious metals all over the periodic table from many major reclamation facilities

[@dont.ripfuller6587]

It takes money to make money , since I want to make money , first , I hopeave to take money... Right?

[@mikeprice4079]

Uuuuuuu

[@fumertonb]

sreetips>Codylab

[@Hoosierdaddyjones812]

The chemicals to do the process in most cases like this cost more then the gold or silver is worth

[@richardarmstrong3rd53]

@mbmmllc The silver you got came from Silver solder, silver/lead, silver/tin or silver/gold is usually used in these types of components. I hope that this helps answer your question.

[@digger105337]

Gotta send it to sreetips, he l sort it out!

[@surebrec5113]

@@digger105337 sreetips is the man, he must have a ton of money tied up in gold/silver right now.

[@maga_q_anon8384]

Id say silver solder

[@racecar2933]

I know that the plate he thought was aluminum was/should have been a silver plated copper plate.

[@sarahlarick8720]

@@surebrec5113 have you seen what he charges for an ounce of that crystalized silver hes got the dow to do what EVER he waNTS lol i looked yesterday for a little over an ounce of double refined silver was 1250 U.S.$$

[@beebob1279]

Interesting. The cone technique is similar to purifying beeswax. the wax floats to the tip while the heavy stuff sinks below. I am learning a lot from your channel. Thank you for doing these.

[@Darkmattersfrank]

Thank you for sharing your journey of discovery with this metal smelting. Its very enjoyable to watch the process trial and error and success.

[@ronaldpalma8469]

I've worked in the semiconductor analysis industry and the largest source of silver in these CPUs is the silver glass die attach that is used to connect the CPU chip to the ceramic package.

[@beebob1279]

Is there any way to separate the silver from the gold and end up with both?

[@chrism4008]

​@@beebob1279yes, but its time consuming and you need dangerous acids and probably an electrolysis cell

[@alvinjastrzebski3270]

Nice video. Here's a tip that I use for my black sand magnet. I put a speaker magnet in a margarine tub and tape the lid tight. To use it, I put the bottom of the tub in the pan. Then I quickly lift it up so that the magnet hits the roof of the tub. This makes a temporary gap between the bottom of the tub and the magnet, which releases the black sand into a separate container. It's cheaper, bigger and faster than the small magnets with the plunger that you press to release the black sand.

[@johnblair8146]

Silver bearing solder is used to join package components together. Don't forget the rest of the PC. Newer hard drives have PGMs and the other ICs have gold bonding wires and lead frames as well as the gold plated fingers and slot connectors.

[@victorjubinville5720]

As per 1 comment I would definitely try older CPUs memory chips & circuit boards. I like this method of reclaiming over hazardous chemicals.

[@cockpill]

Nice job! There’s a lot of silver inside of ceramics, which is why nitric acid is used to leech the silver first when doing it chemically. I’d say crush them finer, acid can get into the big pieces, but I don’t know if the molten metal will flow out as easy.

[@williammiller7362]

That was a cool experiment. I'd like to see you do more smelting of ewaste, for example BGA chips, ICU chips, RAM sticks. Good Job!

[@sailingsolar]

He just did CPU's but need way more than 4. That plating is about 20 atoms or less thick

[@redbaronrefining5322]

I’m processing almost 100 pounds of icy chips right now and I’m really wishing that instead of having to pan out all of the powder slowly, I could throw it all into a huge crucible with flux and get it down to a button. It would make life so much easier. I would love to send you guys a sample to run and see what you guys to come up with if you want to make another video!

[@Sir.RickParker949]

He is very good at smelting which is a artwork of it's own "an acquired skill" through trial and error he has developed his skill to Near perfection. I was Entriqued by my brother Tony retired U.S.S. furnaces area manager.Computers control every aspect of the chemistry, unlike the operators of the past.

[@TheManormen]

@@redbaronrefining5322 try a blue bowel

[@overlybroadcast3952]

@@redbaronrefining5322 would nitric acid not dissolve the silicon powder?

[@johnh8615]

Your like the Sreetips of elemental furnace. He does it chemistry style (real good and pure) . Please more of this with your assaying style. There’s not anyone out there doing this like you. More thanks.😍

[@genehunsinger3981]

great minds think alike

[@MegaZidzid]

Any way of recovery that excludes acids is great. 👍

[@hateonskillz318]

Look up SHOR international they have a seasalt extraction its not really seasalt but they say no prior knowledge of refining says its easy and recovers 99.97% but isn't cheap like 1000 plus the solution they use in the system is sold spereratly so I'd say at least 1200 so it's expensive but doest require acids says it's easy to use just follow instructions sounds a little to good to be true but at 1000+ I'd say you better get what they advertise

[@adventuresinmetals7636]

It's really cool to see all these different kind of recovery methods than most of the other ewaste channels.

[@jeffpelkey8528]

Jason thanks so much for providing the informative and step-by-step videos that you have shared with us as a community! I struggled to understand why I wasn’t capturing the amount of precious metals that were listed in the assays. Your “Smelting 101” series allowed me to understand how to deal with sulfides and recover the almost 100% of the PM’s. Your sharing of your knowledge has been a huge blessing! Thank You Jeff.

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you so much Jeff! I'm glad you are finding the info useful and applicable. More vids to come

[@davidlester6673]

That was probably the best way I have seen to at least get to the metal part of those cpu's and definitely the cleanest method I have seen without all the cpu dust.

[@ericrhetta8412]

I wanted to say that you have an amazing way of teaching that speaks to me. Disabled USMC Vet here that is looking into urban mining and your videos have helped so much in my planning. I hope to maybe get some equipment from you in the future. Greetings from Oly, WA!

[@VashStarwind]

Just wanna say that you could make more money off old pc parts by selling them on ebay than doing this! ha

[@ursamines7643]

Great video and I think you hit it on the head with your post-melt thoughts.

[@HedgehogOutdoors]

It is very weird seeing an XRF reader used outside my industry. We used it in paper manufacturing to test for concentration of silicone. Basically, when you have a sticker, the backing is siliconized. We had to have an appropriate amount of silicone, which was measured by our XRF. We also did linerless paper, which had silicone on the face, and adhesive on the back. It would stick to itself just enough to make rolls, but peel apart without requiring a backing

[@ContriteBiggs]

2:03 “like looking at the suns surface. Pretty cool footage!

[@fabiandennis1247]

i total respect your approach.. hopefully i can break into this industry soon with your equipment

[@Mikkelltheimmortal]

That little mill of yours is pretty cool. It is, by all intents and purposes, a flower mill. It works literally the same way

[@pappawheely]

yup

[@Alacritous]

I used to work for an electronics recycling company. We kept our eyes out for particular brands and classes of chips that we then melted down and smelted the gold from. It was worth our time, but we went through tons and tons of material over the course of a year. And this was in '99-2001. a lot of the older chips were very large dies and the circuit designs and manufacturing weren't as optimized as they are these days and so had more material in them than chips from more recent generations.

[@ProspectorTripp]

CPU’s have silver and gold from my experience. Usually I lightly burn, crush, dilute nitric to remove silver and base, Aqua Regia the remaining material, drop gold with SMB. Cement out silver with copper. I’ve been experimenting with the cupel process to reduce my acid cost and waste. There’s no super shortcuts as best as I can determine so far. A few times I have used this process up to removing the base with dilute nitric, then picked out as much as possible the ceramic material and junk silicone chips then directly cupeled. It works fairly well but the cost seems to be a wash and sometimes I will get crud on top while cupeling which will have some gold caught up in it. I Still get a bead or two of gold, but will Crush the crud and put in a pan and gently blow off the very light powders and cupel the remaining material again. Thanks Jason having fun with the process. ✌️PT

[@groovynelson1575]

I have no suggestions except thanks for posting this video. Pretty darn cool what we can find in our own back yard...Have a good one.

[@ChrisStPierre]

It really is fascinating to see the process. Ty.

[@lisakaye3935]

I have so many harvested parts and I’m not sure who to trust enough to send it off to melt down. Ultimately, I would love to do this. So thanks for sharing!

[@ProjectHazy]

This has been the easiest way I have ever seen I am very appreciative of this new knowledge.

[@drinventions9742]

The big shiny plate was aluminum,, it’s a heat sink, there was a smaller plate that was gold plated steel, all the gold plated pin on the CPU are magnetic so there’s another source of iron, the silicon chip does contain trace amounts of gold, the ceramic body will have either gold or silver bonded wires, on most CPU’s , they have monolithic ceramic capacitors attached to them, this is where you got your trace amount of palladium plus small amounts of silver

[@goranaxelsson1409]

Finally, someone knowing what they are talking about!

[@damianbutterworth2434]

My first job was at Marconi in the 80`s. They looked like the same type of chips we made. We made all sorts from telephone dialling chips to space SOS chips. The cheap ones use epoxy to attach the dies and ali wires bonds and the more expensive ones used gold to attach the die and gold wire bonds. Never heard of any silver being used back then.

[@williampinson1125]

Silver is probably from intermediate platings of contacts, the steel covers, and from internal solder joints. Gold wires are essentially pressure-welded to the contact points on the wafer inside the IC, but are likely soldered to the lead frame (not lead as in Pb but lead as in terminal), which is the frame of the IC body that has the external connections. Since the IC has to be able to be soldered at normal PCBA soldering heat profiles, any internal solder connections has to be done with much higher temp solder, which would likely contain silver.

[@danyalam2465]

hey man thank you for your wonderful video ♥

[@cheesynuts4291]

It’s funny but I saw a bunch of guys on the Refining forums saying that you can’t reliably smelt gold pens. Looks like you did great to me.

[@russtill403]

keep up the good work m8,great vids.

[@palandasghodeswar6169]

Thanks for sharing valuable information about Gold Smelting .

[@donpalmer4155]

Great video! Learned a lot from it as well as the comments below. Thank You All!

[@kouroshjavanbakht3790]

Hi Silver comes from solders that connect the pins to the CPU. Gold amount is what those 4 CPUs should have. Cool video.

[@bloomingtonian7529]

I'm really enjoying these smelting videos. Keep them coming.

[@mrgreenswelding2853]

Yes they are silicone dies. A great demonstration Jason! Keep up the fantastic work.

[@CKILBY-zu7fq]

From my experience dealing with these type of materials. I watched all types of electronics change in their composition, from 18k solid metals to cost saving manufacturing techniques, which used the metal silver as a base metal for pins and so on, which the gold plated. With a heavy gold plate. Not a flash gold look that rubs of with one use like most manufactures today, So, I have handled millions of computer chips. I still have some that are rare and heavily cited in gold. As well as some very heavy duty diods. These computer chips generate electricity for every leg of the chip when exposed to light. But anyway, what you probably recieved was a later model of chip from the 90s to today. It could be older. But the metal content you recieved shows the percentage of metals used to make these chips. But, whats important here is the cost per how many chips to process. And what can you yield. What you are showing is very cool. I wish I was there actually participating in this type of study. I actually helped in the reclaiming of silver from one dirt into 5 gal glass bottles. Throught the vacume filter process. I think its all a very interesting process. After watching several of your videos. I think you might be the kind of person that could do and be interested in making somthing that I keep secret. For good reason. However. The main reason I keep it secret is, because I can't prove it unless I do it first. Thats where I noticed that you have the place and skills to do an awsome job on this type of project. It could be an eye opener. And fun, It could even bring revenue of sorts. But also it could make a great KZbin Learning video . And it will answer a great ancient question concerning alchemy still not realized by man today. Ok brother. Keep up the cool work. Let me know if you want to ?

[@joerenaud8292]

I found this comment by you interesting.'These computer chips generate electricity for every leg of the chip when exposed to light.' Are you saying that these chips without being powered electrically can still generate electricity by themselves? Is there evidence of this that can be confirmed?And what in your opinion causes this phenomena?

[@CKILBY-zu7fq]

@@joerenaud8292 Yes brother, they might have one leg that is ground. But , each leg give off power when exposed to light. Different voltages I don't know exactly how its done, but what i do know, is that there is a clear window on top , and when you look into it. You can see a small ,, I would say another chip with tiny gold wires spideeing out form it. So its like a solar chip ? Light sensitivity device. I have 4 storage units full of stuff. But these are in there. I don't know exactly where they are or id take fotos of them and their part numbers and send them to you. Ok. Peace, have a great day.

[@OwlTech333]

Loved the video! Well done mate!

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks Owl

[@jamesstevens2362]

Thank you, this was really good info! People have been asking about using smelting for gold recovery on a particular gold reclamation forum, and members have insisted it can’t be done. You’ve proven them wrong! It can be done!!

[@rondonahue5509]

Great video, many people push there rifined gold to high purity? Not nessary, the silver is the main conductor and gold stop corrosion. Great process and not harsh chemicals. I'm going to use your techniques for sure. Thanks 👍

[@shaneyork300]

I'm not a refiner, but my understanding of Ewaste or the CPU's is that it's plated with 8 to 10k Gold. If it's karat gold sometimes they put silver in that. I know they usually use copper, and white gold has silver, platinum and or paladium. Have a GREAT Day!!!

[@music-jn3wn]

not correct. the plating is almost pure gold. .995.

[@shutupsitdownandhangon]

@@music-jn3wn They don't use pure gold because it's too soft. If it were pure gold, you could just scrap it off because it would be soft enough to do that.

[@goranaxelsson1409]

The plating is between 98 and 99.5% pure, some cobalt is added to increase the hardness in places where you need higher hardness.

[@shaneyork300]

@@music-jn3wn Many test on many different computer parts have been done. The highest purity was from the 80's and 90's computers and the most was 12k or 50%!! After the gold is recovered it's 8k, 10k or sometimes 12k then you'll see people refine it to 98% to 99% on rare occasions you can get 99.9% pure on the first refining, most of the time it takes a second refining to get it to three 9's fine or 99.9% pure gold!!

[@shaneyork300]

@@goranaxelsson1409 Many test on many different computer parts have been done the highest purity was from the 80's and 90's computers and the most was 12k or 50%! After the gold is recovered, it's 8k, 10k, or sometimes 12k, then you'll see people refine it to 98% - 99%. On rare occasions, you can get 99.9% pure on the first refining. Most of the time it takes a second refining to get it to three 9's fine, or 99.9% pure gold!

[@martkbanjoboy8853]

This is so educational. Love your chan!

[@RunningGrass-we7tm]

I really liked this video, my dad did this for 20 years, us kids had to cut the little gold spikes, and he used acid and the gold turned into gold flakes

[@whereasthepeople27]

Nice job bro. Really help full

[@eWasteBen]

I like your channel mate, keep at it

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks Ben! Glad to have you on board

[@zacholson4230]

You both rock! 🤟🏻

[@NandiCollector]

I'm addicted to booth of your channels. :)

[@randypinchbeck6916]

Awesome lesson. I have a boxful of chips and cpu s but none of the skills. Just a couple days ago I said outloud I wish I could find out how to smelt vs the ugly dirty chemical processes I've seen. Thanks for this. subscribed. I'm just north of the Canuck border in BC. Grew up prospecting with my dad. Just retired and heading back to that way of life.

[@joegen280]

I used KCN to strip Au off of Kovar based dust covers. Involved process using many chemicals. Wish I remembered. Was back in 1990. Fun job as a chemist out of college.

[@FollowMe2aMillion]

The silver comes from the solder. The pins themselves are gold plated kovar which is a magnetic iron alloy. All in all I think it was a success. Definitely want to remove aluminium top. Thanks for the video.

[@socaltravelball]

Good work. You got me wanting to learn how to do this.

[@michaellitchford9285]

Very interesting always wondered the steps and procedures to smelting

[@johnhayes8557]

Given enough chips, ot could scale up into recovery pf Pd and other PGMs. Rh and Pd/Pt will tend to move with the silver but also can alloy well with gold. Would love to see that video!

[@joemamans8365]

Finally a person that does it logicly w/household materials, the lead is a great idea for the collection metal, I GOTTA GIVE TO YA let it be known thanks to u we're gona be financialy stable! Thanks. Maybe u can show us how to xtract platinum from catalic converters. Keep it on.

[@music-jn3wn]

silver is in the solder for the pins. Always a nice bonus when processing chips.

[@MysteryScienceTheater-uq9ht]

Yeah, I was thinking Kovar pins, silver solder. But where is the Palladium used?

[@music-jn3wn]

@@MysteryScienceTheater-uq9ht ceramic capacitors

[@jasong8377]

Awesome video maybe grind the chips to powder first then pull out magnetic stuff then melt

[@sharkscrapper]

I really enjoy your channel. A very interesting video. thank you

[@idontknowmyfirstname69]

Just found your channel. Enjoyed the video. Just wanted to point out, most of that iron came from the cpu pins. They are steel clad in gold usually on the ceramic cpus

[@johnhayes8557]

The pins on some CPUs are copper alloy. If they're CuBe, be careful!

[@alvinjastrzebski3270]

Hi again. I was wondering if you used nitrogen to freeze the cpus first and then crushed them, would it pulverize easier? Also, would the brittle copper separate easier from the softer gold plate? You've already done the crushing and shaker table test so you already have half the experiment done already. Thanks again for the interesting videos.

[@philipandrew1626]

The Silver comes from the bond wires that connect the terminals on the Silicon chip die to the CPU package internal terminals. The CPU package external terminals (pins) are gold coated.

[@gyrgrls]

Working in a Quonset Hut! I love it!

[@featheredskeptic1301]

The only place I can think of that may have silver in a CPU would be the solder used for the decoupling capacitors of the chip. They typically are on the bottom, under that metal plate surrounded by the gold plated pins. This would also explain the palladium in the final sample as these capacitors do contain a very small amount of palladium. EDIT: The pins are also soldered to the chip. That is an additional source of silver.

[@svenp6504]

I agree, the powdered ceramic (alumina) should dissolve in your flux. On it's own it has a super high melting point. I think iron and maybe nickel is used some cpu pins. All I know is they're often magnetic. Is there anything you can add to the flux that will oxidize iron/nickel so that it doesn't end up in the lead? Seems like this method got a very nice recovery... great video.

[@kylestrokelitus360]

when i did a direct smelt from 1960s electronics (heavy gold plating) I was shocked after I direct smelted my lead button --> because this is exactly what happened to my surprise. The iron nickel eded up in the lead button. When I cupelled out my large lead button, my cuppellation process was a disaster due to all of this teal in color steel.... JASON whats is the best way to oxidise out the iron / nickel in the smelting process..... I used chapmans flux 190g, plated pins 64g, and 110g borax, I left the smelt boil for about 30 minutes at 2200 and figured all the steel would be in my slag, and this was definitely not what happened!!! HELP!!!

[@kylestrokelitus360]

JASON HELPPP!!!!

[@richardoconnor7162]

All the solder is silver solder, Pd came from tiny chips (can not think of name at 4am). Use heat to drop the pins and plates off then crush the chips. Some of the heat spreader plates have gold plating under the solder layer also.

[@thomas30dk]

This is really interesting. I would like to compare notes with anyone to improve tactics on these cou as well as I am holding a few hundred telecom tower motherboards that hold a lot, a LOT of gold 🪙 but just running CPU's now to refine and adjust game plan. Thanks for the upload. Thomas, Denmark

[@brianherhold675]

Very interesting, keep it up!

[@chrisheal3831]

The silver probably comes from silver loaded epoxy die attach, which glues the silicon die to to the ceramic carrier, prior to wire bonding, the bond wires will be either gold or aluminium depending upon the finishes of the carrier and the die. some carriers will use silver within the plating as well. If its gold wire bonds they will be pretty pure gold. Also once the silicon die is attached to its carrier and the wire bonding has been completed, almost all finishing processes will use "Non-Conductive" materials the pins which are gold plated have only a few microns of gold, purity of the pin plating will largely depend upon the quality of the chip.

[@TechGorilla1987]

I am enjoying the frequent uploads! I would love to work on your small crushing equipment. It would be something else to change out a die with, at most, a small come-along. The largest die we ever flipped was a primary at a quarry that ran about 7 tons. I enjoyed it but I don't miss it. I'll bet there isn't ONE computer screen on your solid-ass equipment.

[@Hobypyrocom]

just found your channel, watched tons of your videos and subscribed... good stuff, keep up the good work man and best wishes... one question, is there any way to recover the lead from those used cupel's?

[@saintcrispan5068]

I actually looked it up, there are research papers written, but they're written by treehuggers who just want to neutralize the environmental threat from lead. Translation: yeah, but unless you're a tree hugger, it's more expensive than it's worth...

[@joekerr6874]

Old chips like those, looking to be mid 90's to early 2000's, well they mainly used silver leads and pins that were gold plated. Newer ones use aluminum alloys often instead of silver. You have to realize, through the 90's into early 2000's silver was at all-time lowest prices, some spot prices as low as ~$3 an oz. During that period, gold was relatively low, too, around ~$300 - $350 per oz. So it made more sense to use the cheap silver (which was cheaper often at the time than copper) as a base, & gold plate it. That era, you mainly saw solid gold pins/leads only in aeronautical, military, aerospace, and high-end industrial electronics applications.

[@andrewdavis6012]

In the 90s missiles had gold wiring and some computer's but after the price of gold got above $500 that all changed to silver has very good conductivity ,wiring mostly

[@CrucesNomad1]

Neat process. I need a few more things to do what you do. I would chemically treat it to get the fine gold.

[@NickMeisher]

Could you do a video where you compare recovery from same sample by use of smelting half of it with lead; and the other half you use the acid recovery?

[@bobwerner6512]

I think you did some good thinking on this good on ya

[@alexej01]

Older CPUs and some of the new ones use solder for heat transfer between the die and the integrated heat spreader (that metal plate). That's where the silver could've come from.

[@fredericktex]

I thought it was mostly indium in that solder?

[@nickyaero]

The recovery is done in two stages , first treated with nitric to remove base metals , then treated with aquea Regia after the left over ceramic dried and ball milled not hammer milled (1kgs minimum ) again treated with aquae regia , you can pan it see to see the powder has the precious metal and sure it has any way good job

[@Alondro77]

Nitric will also dissolve away the silver. I tend to use a low amount of weak hydrochloric first to eat up the base metals, let it sit for a while so the silver and copper reduce back as the base metals are mostly used up. THEN I add 1M nitric to take away the copper and silver. What's left is a mixture of insoluble oxides, silicates, and platinum group metals. After that, it's easy to hit it with hot aqua and dissolve the platinum group. Cool and neutralize with urea and let sit for a day, all the platinum, iridium, and rhodium will just fall out as a fine grey powder which is easily recovered and washed. Then warm metabisulfite solution with warmed auric chloride, and you swiftly get a spongy gold mass with over 99% recovery!

[@DeathValleyDazed]

@@Alondro77 - thanks for explaining your recipe!

[@blindluck3643]

@@Alondro77 do you have a video on your complete method, with equipment, chemicals and proper ratios?

[@3DPT]

Silver is used in solder for electronics, so the CPU had a lot of sliver. Their may be some gold plated wiring depending on the pins and thickness of the chip. You'd have to pull up the specs for each chip to find the Au / Ag content.

[@briandriver301]

Most solder is a eutectic tin/lead allow. Silver solder is only used sparingly and then, only in high- temp areas.

[@rydplrs71]

The chips were silicon, you need 1200c to enter the glass phase. There were also many areas of silicide (silicon/metal) with a variety of precious metal. Ti, Cu, Pt, W, Au, Ag, Co are almost guaranteed to be involved. Plus a handful of other random ones based on the manufacturer. There’s something awe inspiring about carrying a million dollars in gold, platinum or palladium, with a 500k core deposit. Volume and quality wise I’m wondering if you would have been better off just clipping the bonding wires.

[@smittymcjob2582]

I was on a video watching some guy melting aluminum cans into bars and it suddenly occurred to me I could be high class watching someone melting gold, and so here I am among you fine high society folks.

[@russsherwood5978]

that was the first time i saw them done that way, the way i saw it done before was the cpu was incenerated, then crushed, then a magnet ran over the powder, it was soaked in a acid solution to get out the pms, this was a fun video had my fingers crossed that this would be a safer, faster way, and it looks like it was to me, just have to scale this up,. thank you for the info. be strong, be safe, and be blessed

[@nickyaero]

russ sherwood CPU you mentioned is ics different from ceramic cpu in this video mostly you will lose plating any kind of metal except platinum groups The assaying method recovery is mainly done for low grade stuff

[@JustJeff420]

Awesome video! Can gold be refined using strictly a crucible, flux and a torch. for example turn 14kt and 18kt into 22-24kt? Or does it come down to using chemicals?

[@mcshawnboy]

Have you ever tried the multiple days/weeks of chemical bath's with stirrer bars, vibration, heaters, ventilation and frequent solution changes, filtering & weighting? To see if one over the other is more effective, less work, less trouble?

[@yddraiggochaceman]

You got some Palladium too! Cool!

[@showandgo]

I wish I can send you all the CPUs so you can do your experiment. Cool video, thanks for explaining.

[@royalrefiningllc]

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in recovering the previous metals from your ceramic CPUs

[@johnnyb3126]

Awesome video 📸

[@runnikcatti5997]

Great video!

[@mikeybigfoot1354]

This this video was amazing thank you

[@patrickstehl6500]

First time coming across your channel. I am glad I did I will be subscribing. Couple quick questions.... Where did you come across your equipment and what did it run you? And is this your main source of income or is it a hobby? I live in northwestern Arizona, very near the world famous rt66 and the gold bearing town of Oatman. Trying to get into the line of prospecting and am just curious about things like this. Thanks for your time.

[@kube9189]

Have you compared how much gold you recovered to how much if chemicals were used?

[@judj2875]

All those cpus are only coated with micron of gold. You need a 50 percent nitric solution and some heat to seperate the gold

[@claytonmccormick622]

and one last thing a lot of the pins have a nickel coating under the gold usually remove the pins with a propane torch then a hard drive magnet can be used to separate the magnetic pins from nonmagnetic as they may need to be processed separately..

[@uniservo]

If they are in good condition (no bashed up pins, for example), you will generally get more money selling the chips to computer collectors.

[@Locutus]

It depends on the processor, but yes, some CPUs maybe worth more reselling than smelting!

[@leewhite1969]

If you take gold electronic fingers and stuff that has been removed with acid or vinegar and melted into a bead, could you cupel that to purify the gold and skip the smelting process?

[@damxgopak457]

That was surprising I thought CPUs were high karat plate.Jason do you sell your steel cone molds? If not you might try marketing them I can't find anything like them anywhere to buy one.i know they are fairly easy to make if you have equipment and skills but many of us don't.I would buy one new or used and pay shipping.thanks for all your great info and involved testing.

[@kyleryan5154]

Dude! You’re the best!

[@l.m.892]

The silver is in the connection wires between the die and the pins. There's also some between the die and the heatsink because silver is a good (the best) heat conductor.

[@grimfpv292]

I was gonna write this.

[@JP-xv3zq]

Great video - quite informative. I like that you are avoiding chemicals. Have you considered taking a number of cupelled buttons and remelting them in a small cone mold to see if the atomic weight will seperate the god and silver?

[@xenaguy01]

Gold and silver alloy together when smelted. They must be chemically or electrolytically separated.

[@sorornishicffbaddcde8567]

@@xenaguy01 The metal could be used to make jewellery. Romans called that alloy Electrum I believe.

[@pattheplanter]

@@sorornishicffbaddcde8567 Used in the first coins we know about, from 600 BC Lydia.

[@cranegantry868]

The silver is in the die attach materials for improved thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity. I was not aware there was so much of it.

[@handdancin]

have you ever though about making a cone mold that also works as the crucible? maybe its pointless, but it seems like it might be handy. or maybe there isnt a material you could use that would also withstand the banging to release the cone