Gold & Precious Metals Recovery Cupellation Experiments On MBMM Motherboard Grindings

Here I continue to experiment with processing some ground up computer motherboard material that came from Jason at MBMM. I finally get the lead cupelled down that I used to wash precious metals off the MBMM motherboard material, with no more major bloopers. This material belongs to my friend Ken in BC Canada. He sent a bunch of motherboards to Jason at MBMM to be ground up in his hammer mills and separated on his shaker table. This is basically all the metals that were contained in the motherboards, including gold, silver an other precious metals. My task is to try to find a way to recover those valuable metals. Links below to Jason at MBMM processing similar material. Please visit mdpub.com/UrbanGoldMining/inde... for more information.
Here are some videos of Jason at MBMM grinding similar material:
• Pure Metal Recovered F...
• Pulverizing Electronic...
Materials and equipment used in these videos:
Lot of 6 - # 10 Mabor Cupel 2-3/8" amzn.to/3Wy6FTb
Kaowool Ceramic Fiber Insulation, 1" Thick amzn.to/3QyCbwB
High Density Graphite Conical Assay Mold amzn.to/3KMx9vc
Lynn Manufacturing Insulating Fire Brick amzn.to/3B96vYS
26" MegaCast™ Crucible Flask Tongs amzn.to/3qbBC0U
80000 BTU Propane Gas Forge Furnace Burner amzn.to/3AQnxLk
Digital Scale, Lan Sheng 200g x 0.01g Gram Scale amzn.to/3cURRMJ
Leather Forge/Welding Gloves Heat/Fire Resistant amzn.to/3cMUccL
Full Face Shield Heavy Duty Clear Face Shield amzn.to/3RuuuZc
#3 4KG MegaCast™, Foundry Clay Graphite Crucibles amzn.to/3DzNLEn
2lb Sulfur Powder Fine Reagent Grade amzn.to/3hv2bgx
5 Lbs 80 Oz Anhydrous Borax amzn.to/3hwbWeo
Duda Energy 5 lb. Sodium Nitrate 99+% Pure amzn.to/3N6vC4d

[@rockman531]

Good Morning Mike, Thinking out loud: If you cupel it and get a nice bead - you're still going to separate the metals in the bead to figure out how much of each you got. Put it in acid & get the gold. Save the time, a little cupel, & propane for another project! Glad to see the old crucible worked as a cupel! I've had good luck using portland cement - just never did a button as big as yours. Have a great day, Jim

[@royalrefining6182]

Hi. Its way too hot for starters, shouldn't be bubbling like how it was at the start. To oxidise the lead it needs oxygen. A small blower adding air over the top will solve that problem. Or don't put it into the furnace have it in open air and use or fix the torch to a stand and let it do its thing. To start have the flame hitting the lead directly, once molten fix the torch so it's blowing over the metal but hot enough to keep it molten. This is when it starts "driving" and you'll see the lead oxide start rolling off the molten bead and into the cement powder The slag forming on top isn't lead its most likely copper and tin and most likely others through the jaw crushing and what not. This slag must be scraped off (and kept in case) whilst the reaction is happening

[@djcbanks]

Whenever I cupel things in my furnace, I get it hot, open the lid, then turn of the burner and let it sit/let fresh air into the kiln and repeat. I find if you leave it running, it uses up all the oxygen and cupellation will take forever. But if you get it molten then turn off the flame and keep the lid open, it goes much faster. For me, it’s ideal to keep it molten and keep the lid off. I also like to use the blower side of my shop vac to blow air over the top of the furnace and that helps tremendously as well.

[@matthewf1979]

I just remembered all the failures from the last video! I was feeling bad for you.

[@TheDurdane]

Thanks again for this very nice experiment, Mike. I think there is a problem with the shape of your oven. The gas comes in, in an angle and creates a vortex and rapidly moves and disappears upwards. The extra oxygen you mix with the gas, therefor, isn't efficient i.m.o. Electric ovens, with a door on the front, will let circle the heat in the oven, i.e. convection. Adding air using the outside port from a vacuum cleaner could help indeed, but still the lid on top will not help. I think the suggestion of doing the process out of the oven with a broad torch in a stand (as someone else in this thread suggested) could give a positive outcome, since the oxygen that is taken from the surroundings are directly applied to the material in cupel. You have to watch out for the temperature of course, but that can be measured (which I recommend anyhow in any kind of setting you use). The temperature can be controlled then by applying and removing the torch; which also has the advantage that when the flame is not on the cupel, oxygen isn't blown away.

[@Enjoymentboy]

I think the bubbling you had in the crucible cupel was due to moisture and not trapped air. I'd heat up the loose cement to around 450-500°F and hold it there for an hour at a minimum to make sure you drive off as much moisture as possible Just like when I do casting with plaster molds you HAVE to get all the water out of it first before you even consider letting molten metal touch it. And while I have not done it myself I have seen where people have a second air tube inlet in their furnace to allow them to add more oxygen without affecting the flame itself. That might help speed up the oxidation. But seeing the amount you started with and that you're under a half gram and STILL haven't cleaned it up I'm really beginning to think there have been a lot of losses along the way. Not to say you've done anything wrong though. this stuff happens with trial and error. That's why I like to go back to tried and true methods when dealing with an unknown. Figure out what's there first and then find alternate ways to get it out. I know it's not what most people would do (or want to hear) but I still think you're best bet is to do an HCl soak first to get rid of any tin, zinc or aluminium and then work on what is left. When you have such a hodgepodge of metals all mixed together like this it's never going to be a simple 123 process. But I do commend you on this. You really are giving it the old college try and not backing down.

[@TrevorsBench]

I watched the MBMM video where Jason ground up whole boards before it went on the shaker table. The amounts of PMs in those boards was small considering the volume of base metals. Jason's process will work great for copper recovery but any PMs will get diluted by the large amount of base metals and separating the two after is proving near impossible, as you're experiencing The only way to capture PMs with any certainty is to cherry pick the boards first to eliminate the large volume of base metals.

[@omegageek64]

It is certainly looking that way. Even just recovering the copper is no walk in the park.

[@kylestrokelitus360]

how frustrating that the base metals dont just disappear....im being serious cause this is frustrating. lol

[@frankzahn7773]

Yes, redo them with a little more lead. Love your vids.

[@keithyinger3326]

At 16:42 when your talking about wondering if there's enough oxygen in the furnace, it sounds like your burner is pulse jetting. So part of the extra oxygen that you are thinking you might be sucking in is getting burned inside the burner tube before it even gets into the furnace. I have a gas burner and furnace like that myself as well and I know how finicky they can be to get to burn at a low temperature, but if you can get it to quit pulse jetting, you might be able to get more oxygen into the furnace itself before it gets burned up on the way there. I can hear the burner earlier in the video and it's a nice steady Flame with no pulse jetting. Like I said though, I have a setup like that and I know that might be impossible to do at a low enough temperature.

[@Pyrannasaurus]

Cupel them more together. Dont know about oxide absorbtion in cupels, but maybe there was zinc and tin oxides that use up more than lead oxides?

[@ManMountainMetals]

Lead oxide is being blocked from the cement by the graphite crucible.

[@PaulAllee]

You can but one now you got that new job

[@kylestrokelitus360]

proceed by doing what you stated....add the results to about 30g additional pure lead and cupel with lid cracked at a constant temp no greater than 1750 F I believe is what I was told. I use an electric muffle furnace and have yet to get a cupellation process that works even remotely close to what I learn from here on youtube. My guess is impurities just as you suggested, so try and refine them again? Looking forward to seeing the next video.

[@KD0CAC]

Still learning here , but this is what I think I know ;) I am questioning cuppelling in fueled [ propane adds moisture & ??? ] so the need for induction / electric heat ? I Do not remember if you were familiar TIG & MIG welding ? Need to have specific gases depending on what your welding , in this case you need o2 for oxidizing . Not that I know it will not work , my guess, not as it should with fueled heat - giving multiple gases besides the water [ this comes from knowledge - in an emergency used " unvented propane heater " in RV in the winter , let alone been hearing about it many yrs. ] Next thing that occurs to me is - thermostatically controlled heat - either fuel or electric - to control phase transition / from liquid to gas , the specific metals - much lower for lead [ 621.5 F ] etc. And not using "gas welding / cutting torches with gold , temps for cutting & welding 3200 F " . Gold - 1943 F Silver - 1763 F Platinum group above gas cutting / welding . Again to get to work better - you already got some real cuppels ;)

[@KD0CAC]

Dang , got caught by metric issue , ox acetylene fahrenheit F is 5800 - 6300 ;)

[@clairleasure434]

I was wondering if the oven you got in your last pickup video would go high enough to use for this process. I know lead melts a little over 600 degrees but not sure how hot it would need to be for this. Maybe shoot Jason at mbmm an email to see if he would be kind enough to give you some pointers. Love the experiments keep up the great content.

[@carlgodfrey2974]

The temp for this process should be around 1800 degrees for best results. I watch a lot of MBMM videos that Jason posts.

[@shaneyork300]

I was and am so behind on watching your videos!

[@bocamint4937]

Does adding an air supply help?

[@djcbanks]

Yes it will help speed up the oxide production and subsequent absorption tremendously.

[@johannesdesloper8434]

I have no expierience with this, but I do watch Jason a lot. Jason says Copper is hard to cupel. motherboards have loads of copper ofcourse

[@johannesdesloper8434]

I've seen Indians cupel a lot. When they do a rough cupel they just use a stainless steel tub on a blacksmith fire and skim off the oxides with a steel rake. They usually also add some Silver to act as colector metal.

[@robertjeffery3237]

just part the beads with nitric acid.

[@SaraJean85]

Not all the way finished.. it WILL BE A BEAD IF ITS DONE

[@baja221]

I vote throw them in a new cupel with a couple grams of lead.

[@davidstevenson2113]

Dont buy a electric furnace as they continually break down, i have been doing precious metals recovery for alot of years and the best thing i ever did was buy a gas furnace !

[@frantiseklaluch6605]

Well, gas furnace is realy great, when cupeling a lot, no doubt. For hobby, small tabletop electric furnace does not cost kidney and does the job well. Mine was like 400 USD just 10x10x10 cm (4x4x4 inch), handles #12 cupel (I use #8 max).

[@kenjett2434]

In my opinion would be better to break it down with acid that way there is opportunity to test to see just what is there.

[@matthewf1979]

Oh, he’s tried that. This stuff is a tough nut to crack.

[@kenjett2434]

@@matthewf1979 true he tried it on material before it was smelted. I was referring to what he got in this video after smelting and cupeling. With all the junk removed what's left is a alloy of precious metal. Breaking it down with acid will allow testing to see just what metals make up the alloy.

[@josephgardner5891]

your melt was too hot. only heat to ta little over the melting temp of lead.. your making something else at the hi temp you used.

[@jamisontaylor878]

Temperature is key my friend

[@omegageek64]

What is the ideal temperature?

[@kylestrokelitus360]

@@omegageek64 i believe no greater than 1750 F, but im a newbe myself

[@djcbanks]

For your reference: Lead melts at 327 °C, lead oxide at 888 °C, and silver melts at 960 °C. To separate the silver, the alloy is melted again at the high temperature of 960 °C to 1000 °C in an oxidizing environment. The lead oxidises to lead monoxide, then known as litharge, which captures the oxygen from the other metals present. The liquid lead oxide is removed or absorbed by capillary action into the hearth linings. This chemical reaction may be viewed as Ag(s) + 2 Pb(s) + O2(g) → 2 PbO(absorbed) + Ag(l)

[@kylestrokelitus360]

@@djcbanks just trying to follow the equation what is the 2(g) or is that a typo for 2(S) since the sulfur atom gets released as the oxygen atom replaces it right?

[@keithyinger3326]

@@djcbanks I was wondering if the irregular shape of the buttons at the end might be because they had Platinum Group Metals in them. The temperature in that furnace might not be hot enough to melt them completely. So once it gets to a certain concentration of precious metals, it just solidifies and the reaction stops.

[@ManMountainMetals]

Leadpool jokes are a sure sign of heavy metal 💀 toxicity see your doctor immediately.

[@frantiseklaluch6605]

EDIT: I think, that the temperature was too high (above melting point of silver), also the capacity of cupel is at some temperature (980 celsius) and it is absobtion of litharge (PbO), othewise the oxides run through. Look at fireassay EU (not com), a lot of knowledge there. This looks like my first cupeling atempt. I made cupel out of magnesium oxide and clay flower pot. Disaster. Then I bought cupels from Spain (company Fireassay), they sent me all the know-how documentation as bonus, works like a charm...

[@ManMountainMetals]

Leadpool jokes are a sure sign of heavy metal 💀 toxicity see your doctor immediately.