Gold Recovery from BGA chips - Full Process

This video shows the recovery of gold from BGA chips harvested from RAM modules.
There are two parts left out of this video -
The chips were soaked in warm concentrated HCl for a few hours after removal from the boards. This dissolves the tin used in the solder. This is an important step and should not be omitted!
The melting of the gold button was not shown, but I have another video showing the melt process.
The video is long because the process is long.
Please pay special attention to safety procedures and equipment used in every step. Failure to wear adequate safety equipment is almost certain to end with you burned (heat and acid) as well as being blind and likely have permanent lung damage!!!!

[@rambosambo518]

Some people who comment that this process is to long for the returns, just don’t get the passion for the chemistry and mechanical process’s involved. Keep the video’s coming!

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Sam, thanks for the comment, yeah, you get it!

[@jerrykingsley6703]

absolutely. since it involves gold, it draws people wanting money for nothing. They waste money and fizzle out. The people who love learning...stick with it, at least until they move onto bigger things - but gold recovery & refining is always in the skill set

[@WowplayerMe]

Never leave out the gold melting part....for me, that's the best part of demonstration videos like this.

[@successfulengineer]

One of my very first videos was a demonstration of how to melt Gold powder, so I never really bothered showing it after that. I'm already getting enough complaints that the videos are too long! haha. Thanks for the comment.

[@WowplayerMe]

@@successfulengineer Thanks for your response & for what it's worth, I still say that seeing a nice shiny gold bead or bar at the end of the video is well worth the extra few minutes spent watching it.

[@moosescrapper5928]

Hi, I have had your videos playing in the background all day while at work today and I am really enjoying your videos and style of teaching. Great job!

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Moose, thank you very much, appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment.

[@shaneyork300]

I watched this video earlier this year and I had to watch it again!! Have a GREAT Day!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, when I look back at this video now I cringe a bit about my beginner technique, but cant' complain about the result.

[@shaneyork300]

@@successfulengineer The results is GREAT!! I've seen your newer vids and you have improved, but still alot to learn in this older one. I hope to be able to watch every one of your ewaste videos by the end of this year!! I'm planning on doing my own recovery and refining in the fall of 2021, after 4 years of learning about it!!

[@shaneyork300]

That was a very detailed video of gold recovery and refining!! The first person I started to watch on KZbin doing this was Sreetips, he's quite detailed as well, but he's also more of a karat scrap refiner!! Thank you for a different process of refining bga chips! Good Job!! Have a GREAT Day!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the message Shane, that was one of my first attempts, so pretty rough when I look at it now, but no arguing with the results.

[@karlbe8414]

I have watched so very many Au processing videos and even this one a few years back. I have to say that yours is the most precise and thorough procedure that I have seen. I took a page of detailed notes. I've gone back and forth over whether to process myself or pay a toll refiner, but I just gotta do it once. Not sure what material I should start with, as I have DDR RAM chips, BGA ram chips and BGA caps, other chips and gold pins. Thanks again, and realize how good it is to live in NZ!

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, sorry, haven't been keeping on top of the comments for a while. I would highly recommend starting with Gold plated fingers from Ram and cards as a first intro to chemical refining. Other than that, yes, it is a good idea to do it once at least if you can, as long as you take reasonable precautions, you will learn a lot and probably enjoy the process a lot. I still have the first little tiny button of Gold I first made.

[@MichSignMan]

One of the most helpful things you told me was to use "a 3mm disposable pipette." I often find out I have no idea what something is called, and if I know that little bit, it still don't give me a clue of how large or what type I something I may need. Thank You! :) Headed to E bay to find me some pipettes... lol

[@successfulengineer]

LOL! That's great, yeah, I started out with re-usable glass pipettes, but the disposable ones are wayyyyy better.

[@thereptileguyz7265]

If you know there's platinum in it you want to cement it out on aluminum copper works great for silver but aluminum works a lot better for platinum really enjoy your videos it's nice to see the way other people process

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment, I think the reason Copper is usually recommended is because it will happily cement out Silver, Gold and Platinum. By contrast Aluminium will also cement out Zinc, Iron and Lead. Having said that, it is only theoretical knowledge based on the reactivity series, haven't really done any deliberate Platinum recovery, so there could very well be some trick related to using Aluminium.

[@paulyagoda142]

Yes sir that's exactly the pins I was talking about. I was wondering why the magnetic and non magnetic needed to be separated. Thank you for the info!

[@goldbunny1973]

Long video but well done, not nearly as dull as some people's efforts where they leave you watching electrolysis in real time for 30mins LOL! Always nice to hear "Oops" : )

[@successfulengineer]

LOL, thanks for the comment mate!

[@mikehill5301]

Smells good I love the nitric acid boiling off early in the morning.

[@bohemianmystik8602]

Great video Love the wash part I gold pan sometimes... so I am coming up with a system to lose as less gold as possible. You may be losing some gold with your first wash although it is probably very micro I would suggest using some jet dry to keep the gold from floating Micro gold and fine gold will float due to surface tension. I would also keep the water you pour off first to let it settle in a sludge bucket Just to be sure you are getting most out. Later I will try to do some videos on the process I use gold panning. Same principle here just different type of ore. :)

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, thanks for the comment. The process in this video was quite basic, and as you point out, probably a little bit of losses in that initial wash. This video here -> kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIKpf3qVe72akMk is closer to the process I follow now. Much more controlled washing!

[@bohemianmystik8602]

Successful Engineer cool I will be sure to check it out as soon as I can. 😊

[@successfulengineer]

Awesome, would be great to hear your impression / feedback on my 'better' wash process.

[@kennethansen3814]

o think i have seen this exact video around 20 times now, i find it equally good everytime, i think all of your vidz are very informative to an point where everyone can follow! I subscribed a LONG time ago, keep up the good work! Be safe

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the great comment, appreciate it.

[@prospectorpete]

the green solution indicates you have silver in solution. the easiest way to know for sure now that u have seperated the gold powder is to put hcl in there. if theres silver it will drop out imidiately as u add hcl

[@successfulengineer]

Green solution here was almost certainly left over Copper, I have too much HCl everywhere to have Silver in solution. Haven't really found small BGAs to have any significant amount of Silver in them.

[@BOMBOVA]

Hello from Vancouver Canada, I enjoy your videos, i get small ideas of improvement, that i can use, in doing the same as this video, as a hobby, i work in collecting fine chloride gold recovery, when one gets a big return, you are hooked. you have a good voice for this, and pace yourself, like we are in the room with you, thanks much

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the feedback Thomas, appreciate your comment!

[@edwardcoleman9291]

Shut up Dumbass

[@edwardcoleman9291]

This ain't no Dating site

[@kouroshjavanbakht3790]

Excellent video. Two things, first you may check the nitric washes for silver by adding a pinch of salt and for pallauim for older telecom ICs using stannous chloride test or DMG. Second, you can remove the excessive nitric in your pregnant solution by simply bring it to near boil and add small amount of sulfamic acid which is powder form.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, great comment, thanks. I did switch over to Sulfamic denoxxing eventually, has made removing excess Nitric so simple compared to those early days of evaporating for days! My Nitric washes these days go into a separate beaker with some copper sheet for cementing out any pgms or silver which just goes into a big (retirement) jar. Thanks for the comment, appreciate your input.

[@albertthedogeinstein7983]

I just wanted to say thank you for b The amount of detail you put into your videos...

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment mate. Appreciate it.

[@albertthedogeinstein7983]

@@successfulengineer it is my pleasure...

[@paulyagoda142]

Excellent! Start to finish! Very good video!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the positive comment, I did miss out an important first step in the video as mentioned above in the description, soak your BGA chips in warm HCl for half a day or so to remove the solder from the bottom before incineration. Good luck with your recovery and be safe :)

[@rapidsdude]

I love watching your videos, very detailed and informative.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks Aaron, appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Feel free to ask if there is ever anything not quite clear enough in the videos.

[@TheTorkerman]

Lovely button, however I a not sure I would have the patience. I am glad that YOU do have it👍🏼👍🏼

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, that was an abnormally high yield, most of the chips were from the same type of server RAM, so I have been disappointed with BGA ram ever since ! Hahaha. This video is pretty old and my techniques were pretty crass, some of the later videos show better and faster ways of doing all the individual parts!

[@brandonknight7240]

Wish I had you here to help me with stock pile e-waste, i just havent put it all together in my head on how to best extract the gold from everything I have

[@silver_salvage_savage]

That's a damn good yield compared to most other videos on the subject. 👍

[@successfulengineer]

It was a one-time wonder for me, it was all the same type of server ram and must have been especially good. In the years since around 2g/kg has been my average.

[@JhourladEstrella]

Best one so far. Thank you for sharing.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment!

[@lopsumtathro]

old style vacuum cleaner filter bags are better filters , if you can get ones with no dye or ink on them . I forget the specs but they trap all but a few microns particle size. cut to size

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, was a bit crude in this old video, I have significantly improved the overall process since then. Fine dust is a killer, definitely something you want to keep under control! Thanks for the comment.

[@patnor1011]

11:03 These are not gold bonding wires. What you see is gold plated copper wire. Bonding wires are so small you will have hard time to see them with naked eye. They can be found in thin strip in the middle of IC exactly where long oval hole in fabric is. You can see that in 11:16 piece of fabric in the middle of bottom part where substrate with gold wire is located.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks patnor1011, great information. That also explains why there seemed to still be copper in the mix after the nitric wash.

[@russellpindar7717]

A cracking video. Well put together and pretty comprehensive. Keep up the good work.

[@successfulengineer]

Thank you very much for the positive comment, there will certainly be a few more videos coming

[@stonewallray8262]

One of the best ones I've watched.how can one acquire that many chips without paying too much.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment, I guess it depends very much on the country you are in, where I live, there are not many e-waste buyers, so people are generally pretty happy for you to take away their "junk". I found locating good scrap sources was pretty slow at first, but once you have built up a few contacts you can easily end up with far more scrap than you really want to process!

[@randywilson3882]

they sound metalic

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, they definitely do once pyrolized!

[@pitem6732]

Your video is very informativ. Maybe you talk a little bit to much, but it's okay. It's a good making processing video.. So go on...... 👍

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment mate, appreciate it.

[@OdinsWolves_Video]

Fear not, gold settling quickly is a good sign, it indicates higher purity, as the purity decreases the gold will settle more slowly

[@successfulengineer]

For sure, I was always a happy camper when I could look at a solution 15 minutes after precipitation and it's already cleared up! also makes washing the Gold that much easier when it is nice and clean!

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

so after nitric dissolved base metals I rinsed a few times and added hcl only to create AR AFTER COOKING A FEW HOURS ON HEAT I TESTED WITH STANNOS POSITIVE ADDED GOLD BUTTON FOR EXCESS NITRIC NONE THERE ADDED SMB WITH BOTH AIR TUBE GAS AND SOLUTION WITH WATEF AND CANNOT GET GOLD TO PRECIPITATE KINDA STUCK advice to proceed

[@successfulengineer]

Sonny Zuniga I would be very surprised if you dont have excess Nitric, does solution still test positive after you added SMB ? have you got some Sulfamic acid to denoxx ?

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

Successful Engineer no but I added a gold piece gonna let it denoxx overnight it's 222 am here gonna try again when the sun up

[@successfulengineer]

Did you have any more luck Sonny ?

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

yes 3.5 gram drop from 2.77 pounds of ram and bga and other flat packs I couldn't incinerate as well as I wanted and there was loss in carbon tons of work

[@successfulengineer]

Great man, that is actually a very good result for a first try. Doesn't sound like you lost much to carbon. You can always re-incinerate the carbon and treat it with AR again to see if it collected any gold. Yes, it is tons of work!

[@EllenDScott]

Thank u so so so much. U explained it awesomely. I was getting crumbly gold powder time and again.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, this video is pretty old and crappy, but very happy if you managed to find some value in there! Thanks for the comment.

[@thelynchmob385]

Excellent vid.....I would have hit it with a couple mils of sulfuric acid prior to filtering then dropping the gold. May have saved ya that little "black dot". I could be wrong but I've definitely improved my purity with this extra step. Nonetheless, awesome yield!

[@successfulengineer]

Great comment, thank you! Yep, I started eventually using Sulfamic acid to convert the excess Nitric to Sulfuric, but you are 100% correct, a little squirt of sulfuric would almost certainly have precipitated a little bit of lead in that batch. Good luck and be safe!

[@amazin2point0]

The only

[@edwardcoleman5514]

Can this be done with salt and vinegar to get rid of the base metals?

[@successfulengineer]

Not really, I know there are a lot of "Gold recovery with household chemicals" type videos around, but the reality is that it might work in certain cases, but the more hazardous the chemicals are, the better they do the job for recovery unfortunately.

[@kenjett2434]

Great process but i am curious why you use a evap process versus neutralizing the acid with urea and precipitating the gold with sodium metabisulfate. The evap just seems like a unnecessary step when all acid can be negated by the urea.

[@successfulengineer]

Definitely, this was done many years ago, one of my first experiments. Have been using Sulfamic acid since then for denoxxing.

[@prospectorpete]

what do u do with the curcuit boards once you have removed the chips and cut the fingers off ? . isnt there still gold on the boards ?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Peter, technically, yes, there is still some ENIG Gold plating on some of the circuit boards, but it is incredibly thin and not worth recovering with the acid recovery method. All my harvested circuit boards basically go into a big drum which gets sold as low value board scrap to Ewaste buyers. I have a few videos showing the difference between ENIG and Hard Gold plating, would be worth a watch! Cheers

[@e.wasteed3341]

Hi Successful Engineer, I have a question about the pyrolysis method you showed in the video - would that process work the same for burning gold pins in plastic connectors? I have a lot of these which are really time consuming to remove and hope that with the pyrolysis method the plastic is broken down the same as you showed for processing the ic’s. Thanks & cheers for now.,

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, I have had very bad luck trying to pyrolise plastic connectors, they behave quite differently from epoxy in ICs. Now, having said that, I have seen (on youtube) videos where they show how to turn plastic into liquid fuel and what they are basically doing is heating the plastic inside a sealed container and distilling the gasses, so I'm sure if you do a bit of research you could find a way. The alternative that also works ok-ish is a hammer mill, like the one I made with spanning pieces of steel chain.

[@e.wasteed3341]

Thanks mate, as always good advice

[@dmzackk]

Love your videos! I just landed a hearty lot of ram and server ram in an auction. I'm still building my fume hood. It's going to be almost all plexiglass, so it will look sick! What do you yield from ram sticks, including the chips and fingers, as a function of gross weight?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi mate, apologies, this is going back many years now, can't remember all the yields off by heart anymore. The BGA type ram can vary wildly depending on what you get, I have had as high as 10g per kg, down to more normal 2g per kg. Ram ICs with legs are usually around 1g per kg. Trimmed fingers I can't remember, but they are one of the most commonly processed ewaste, so should be plenty of yield numbers around for them.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

when filtering the powder after nitric dissolved base metals I rinsed several times then ADDED just hcl to make AR knowing nitric would still be present my butchner filter cleans process is it normal to have a lot of black material carbon or ash etc to be present

[@successfulengineer]

Sonny Zuniga Yes, sounds like you are progresaing well ! yes, I would usually have a bit of undissolved material left, you dont want too much carbon since it can absorb gold from solution, but Ive never had much trouble with that. Let me know how you go !

[@FollowMe2aMillion]

What a wonderful detailed video. I am glad I found your channel. I have a bad camera so my videos are usually just tidbits of what I might be working on at that moment. Anyways, keep up the great work, I will be looking for more.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the positive comment Mike ! Ive got a few ideas for interesting videos to make, will get to them in the next few weeks :)

[@aga5897]

Nice button ! That 'inclusion' looks like a 'pipe', indicating very good purity. Beakers with non-flat bottoms are basically bad quality. Of the 30 or so i got from China, only 1 has a non-flat bottom. The green of your coffee-stock-pot looks like iron(II)chloride. Wet a small piece of paper with it and leave it out to dry. If it goes yellow/brown within 24 hrs it was FeCl2 and became FeCl3 due to atmospheric air. Alternatively you could test it with potassium hexacyanoferrate solution and see if it goes blue.

[@successfulengineer]

Great comment, thanks aga

[@nasiruibrahim5068]

once again nice thread and i will be trying this out after ive done the silver and gold

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment, good luck with your recovery and be safe!

[@mattbeckmann1928]

I would just like to know how much material did you start with to get that six gram button please forgive me if you have mentioned this in your video but your video is quite lengthy just get through just to see where you said that so if you will please respond so I would know thank you and thank you for your video it's always good to see someone else's process to help formulate new ideas

[@successfulengineer]

That came from 1kg of starting material, HOWEVER, this was from 1kg of mostly identical BGA ram from servers. I spent a lot of time being disappointed with the yields in following batches that had mixed BGA ram. The more usual yield from mixed BGA ram is around 2 to 3 g/kg.

[@successfulengineer]

Also, this was literally one of my first videos and later videos have much better processes.

[@khalidqadri7795]

Hey, just wanted to say great video . so good .

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment!

[@johniesmith7672]

Absolutely not appropriate for roasting marshmallows 😀

[@successfulengineer]

haha for sure

[@paulyagoda142]

That's actually how I removed all my chips. soaked them in a bubbler until they released. I'm hoping all the metals except gold have been removed.

[@successfulengineer]

Perfect, that's a good way to go, I prefer the oven because dealing with the waste acid is such a pain the back, but did experiment once with running whole RAM modules in AP. The only other pain I had was trying to separate my foils from the small resistors and capacitors, but honestly, you can probably AR the whole lot and it will almost certainly work fine.

[@paulyagoda142]

How about pins from ceramic and fiberglass? Any suggestions? I've removed nearly all with a heat gun. But I'm not sure of the best way to process. I haven't found a video with anywhere near the detail on that process like yours on the chips

[@successfulengineer]

Do you mean CPU pins ? If so, I haven't bothered to run any CPU pins yet, I believe the yield to be quite low on most modern CPUs. But . . . there will be two types of pins, strongly magnetic (iron/kovar) and weakly magnetic (brass), for the kovar pins, you want to boil them in a stoppered flask in HCl to get rid of the base metal. For the brass pins, regular AP will work. Either process is quite slow because you essentially have a tube of gold filled with unwanted base metal, and you can only attack the base metal from one open end. At that point it may also be worth looking at leaches that will remove just the gold and leave the base metal (cyanide type stuff) or alternatively you could look at removing the gold through reverse plating (concentrated sulfuric cell).

[@dizzious]

Good yield!

[@successfulengineer]

Yes, unrealistic as I learned later, that was mostly one type of server ram, just happened to have a great yield. Overall I now expect about 2g/kg from general PC mixed ram bga.

[@matthewhannan5454]

I love this video! :-) Great job! And thank you for the information.. Made my night! I have so many of those chips, plus so much more different kinds of gold plated pieces I've been collecting.. Thanks again my friend. ✌

[@successfulengineer]

Thank you for taking the time leave a message. I've got a few other systems for gold recovery that I'm working on at the moment, will post some videos soonish. Cheers

[@matthewhannan5454]

+Successful Engineer I'll keep watching.. Cheers my friend.

[@loveisalliam]

Easy way is a bit longer but no fumes go to builders merchant and purchase brick cleaner,contains hydrocloric acid use with small aquarium air pump to get air into solution takes longer but does the job

[@successfulengineer]

It sounds like you are talking about a weak Copper(II)Chloride leach (Acid-peroxide process). But you haven't really specified which part of the process you want to replace with that. I can only assume you mean separating Copper from Gold ?

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

can the chips be incenirated I'm just a open steel pan with just a torch or is the pirolize the only way??

[@successfulengineer]

You can incinerate in a open pan, there will just be a lot of smoke (poisonous, do not breathe) You also need to do at least 1kg of flat packs to have enough gold to really work with, so pyrolization then incineration is pretty much the way to go.

[@johndeleonardo9133]

So how much gold fingers or chips where im here would you say total? And wasd out fingers and chips or what?

[@successfulengineer]

This was many years ago, but from memory it was around 1kg of very high yielding BGA ICs from server RAM.

[@davidbarron107]

great video again as always. what the correct name of the mesh you have on top of your hot plate.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment David, I honestly couldn't tell you the correct name, the supply place I got them just called them "heat spreaders".

[@AradiceSatur]

+Successful Engineer hello, do you know or anyone here knows, if after making the ingots you can sell them in USA/EUR, only with the number of grams/oz and karats without the other marks that some of them have? Cheers

[@successfulengineer]

Sorry, I've got no idea regarding the legalities of marking and selling the precious metals. I've only sold gold once in button form, it was to a precious metal buyer and they had a XRF machine to check the purity.

[@tousifst4490]

how refine gold from copper for example one piece copper with gold water and wait is 1kg how refine that copper seperate and gold seprate plz anybody plz ans me and how refine palladium platinum mlcc's and ram processor mother board etc

[@iamanempoweredone6064]

How would you do ceramic chips?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, I have a few different videos where I do different types of ceramic ICs, usually I just break them up (in my crushing mill), use a magnet to remove the legs. Then often just straight AR (Assuming there is no Tin present)

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

I incinerated a couple flat packs to look for the bond wires also a few from ram the wires didn't look like gold are they?? Or are just the tips gold or is it hit n miss meaning only some in fact contain gold?? please help

[@successfulengineer]

Did you use a good microscope to look for the bond wires ? They are pretty much invisible to the naked eye. If you incinerated a few flatpacks, it is almost 100% certain that there will be some gold there. Did you see my video on using a microscope to look for bond wires ? You can incinerate a few flatpacks, then remove all the metallic legs, then treat the remaining material with Aqua Regia, then use Stannous Chloride to test the solution for gold. Just incinerating and looking for bond wires with your eyes will not work.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

No didn't use microscope looked at only the bigger obvious wires

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, the bond wires are many many many times smaller than the chip legs. chip legs can be 0.8mm, bond wires are around 0.015mm. Have a look at my microscope video, you can see both chip legs and bond wires to get and idea of the scale.

[@Dan01554]

Hi, one question I would like to know how to extract the tin from the solution. Danny. Wales, UK.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Danny, a chemist may be able to tell you how to precipitate Tin that is dissolved in HCl, you can certainly cement it out of solution using Iron. You could also plate it out of the solution with electricity, searching for "growing Tin crystals" might give you some ideas.

[@Dan01554]

Many thank's. Danny.

[@zoelive145]

How many kilos of material do you use?

[@earlsworld70117]

What was the weight of the chips before you started to get 6 grams?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, that was starting with 1kg of chips from DDR2 server ram. That 6g was an exceptionally good yield because all the chips were from the same high yield ram. With mixed batches sometimes the yield can be as low as 2g per kg for these types of chips.

[@simplifygardening]

Is that a bought or DIY fume hood?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, just a DIY one, I live in the countryside, so didn't have any need for a particularly complex setup. I eventually started also using Sulfamic Acid for denoxxing solutions, which was great because I ended up not having to evaporate off so much Hydrochloric Acid.

[@simplifygardening]

would u have a video on how its built or a set of plans? thanks

[@successfulengineer]

No plans or video for it, but very simple and constructed out of plywood. I started with aluminium composite material, but the surface was attacked within the first few months. Have a look at the DIY section on goldrefiningforum.com - your requirements may change depending on your location and the amount of refining you do.

[@Robbob9933]

That button is about $280 US at current prices if it is 24K.

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, sounds about right. That button was part of a bit of Gold I sold last year, XRF'd @ 99.8% pure. I'm aiming for 3 ounces this year, got about 2 ounces 10 grams at the moment. The 1 ounce buttons do look and feel very impressive.

[@anthonybailey2890]

Always enjoy your videios, very informative. But I have a question for you. On the green fiber intel C P Us on the top portion would you use this same method of incineration? Or the sulfuric acid way? For maximum gold recovery Yours, A. P. B.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, thanks for the comment. Unfortunately the green fiber (flip-chip) intel CPUs have no bond wires, the only Gold on them worth recovering is the plating on the pins or the plating on the pads on the bottom. I have two videos that show the yield from both, unfortunately not much there!

[@nickhouck4309]

Thanks for the video, very Impressive, I'm currently stockpiling but if I ever do try refining I might try a jigging or wash table technique because that is alot of work. I'm sure washing wont work with foils so maybe I'm better off just learning. I know about nitro but I'm gunna have to do some rechearch on hydrochloric.

[@rambosambo518]

Hi . Really enjoy your videos, from a Kiwi in Aus. My question is when you wash out hydrochloric and nitric etc before dropping gold. How do you do this? Is it add boiling water , stir and let settle then decant? Or how? I must have missed it in earlier videos.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Sam, I'm guessing you mean how to wash out the acid AFTER dropping Gold ? Obviously you cannot do this before dropping Gold since the Gold is dissolved in the Acid. Yeah, start by siphoning off as much barren (test it) waste acid as possible, then wash the Gold powder with boiling water three times, clean Gold will stay settled during this washing. Then wash with hot (not boiling) HCl a couple of times, then another three washes with boiling water to wash the HCl out. The purpose of the hot HCl washes is to remove any Copper or Silver Chloride that may be left over.

[@rambosambo518]

Successful Engineer Thankyou! Is it the same process to clean the solution of acids before AR? I may have been referring to a later video of yours where you use hydrochloric then nitric to remove base metals, but then you must wash these out before AR process. How do you do this acid removal wash? Sorry hope this makes sense.

[@successfulengineer]

Hey Sam, yeah, now I get what you meant! Yes, when you are washing out the acids used to remove base metals, the best method is to use pH test paper and keep washing until the water pH doesn't change. (Hoke actually suggested somewhere that you "taste" the water and keep washing until it is no longer acidic, but obviously don't do that! :) ) Now, in practice, having trace amounts of acids left over is not actually going to cause major losses. The only issue with having trace HCl left before Nitric treatment is actually if there is Silver present, you will get Silver Chloride. Thanks for your comments and feel free to ask if anything needs clearing up anywhere, happy to help.

[@andrewwatson5813]

Where did you get the BGA chips and gold fingers

[@successfulengineer]

The BGA chips processed in this video was depopulated from computer RAM cards.

[@thankgodsylvesteromoigui5921]

really like your video, but my question is, can AP solution be used to dissolve those base metals in the recovering stage and also can HCL + Clorox (bleach) be used to dissolve the gold in the refining stage instead of AR solution? thanks as I await your candid answer...

[@successfulengineer]

AP is basically the process that is used to etch copper from circuit boards, so should work fine to dissolve any copper or brass base metals. AP works much much better when moderately heated (I use an aquarium heater in mine) and also get lots of air pumped through it with an aquarium air pump. HCl and bleach can certainly be used to dissolve the gold, it will be a bit slower than AR, but no reason it wouldn't work. Good luck with your recovery and be safe.

[@thankgodsylvesteromoigui5921]

thanks for your concern and comment, really appreciate and will definitely give a try with AP solution

[@successfulengineer]

ThankGod Sylvester Omoigui No problem man, please let me know how the AP works out,would be very interested to hear!

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

Hey there buddy I'm going to process 5.5 pounds of green fiber cpu once I remove the pins with a heat gun I'm wondering it using AR would be a good choice I've seen others use Ap but I donot want to keep working to remove foils how would you proceed thanks...

[@successfulengineer]

I assume you are intending to process the pins and not the fiber CPUs themselves ? The pins on those are usually Kovar (magnetic), so AP would not really be the right way. The gold foils on those pins are very thin, so I have never bothered recovering gold from them. I have seen a video where the person boiled the pins in HCl to dissolve away the Kovar, but it takes quite a lot of HCl. It may be worth it if you have a lot of them to look at a Cyanide based leach instead of acid, so you can dissolve the gold without dissolving the base metal.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

Successful Engineer I have just 365 grams thinking of Ap and just let them run it's course thank you

[@successfulengineer]

AP is a copper etch method, the pins from those CPUs will be magnetic, so they will be iron based, not copper. You can probably just leave them in straight HCl if you are not in a hurry. No benefit to put them in AP.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

I'm sorry I meant I'm processing in AR hoping this will be ok got I'm a hurry

[@successfulengineer]

Yes, AR should work OK, for 365g you will use quite a lot of acid. You will need to keep on dissolving until all the metal is dissolved, otherwise the gold will cement out of solution on the iron as a fine black powder. Let me know how it worked when you finish.

[@alvindickens3622]

Hi, great videos! Do the green fiber CPUs have bond wires within! If so, how do you recover them? I cannot find any information on how to do that!

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, thanks for the compliment. Unfortunately the only gold in green fiber CPUs is the very thin plating on the pins, or the plating on the bottom in the case of pin-less CPUs. Green fiber CPUs are basically what is called flip-chip construction, so the die is soldered directly to the green fiber. You will see the same construction on newer north bridge chips, if they have the shiny silicon square on the top, they are pretty much worthless apart from a little bit of gold dissolved in the solder balls under them. I have a video where I look at various chips under the microscope that shows a lot this quite clearly.

[@alvindickens3622]

Thank you! I wasn't sure what to do with them! I will take a look at the video you made regarding that! Thank you very much and please keep up the great videos! I find yours more informative than others!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment / compliment Alvin. Appreciate your feedback!

[@snoozinghipo]

How many BGA chips did you use here, and what size chips?

[@successfulengineer]

This was quite a long time ago (my technique has improved dramatically since back then!), but I believe this was 1kg of small BGA chips from server DDR2 or DDR3 ram.

[@armrosdmg9410]

from 1 kg ddr unreal 6.5 g

[@successfulengineer]

@@armrosdmg9410 It was DDR2 or 3, not sure. And they were all identical modules recovered from tearing down servers. That was a particularly great result, I usually expect 2 to 3g per kg from random mixed DDR2 / 3.

[@bobferranti5222]

I like the screens you have on your hot plate, can you tell me where you got them or did you make them yourself? Thanks for such great video's.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, they are called ceramic plates, I got them from: www.labwarehouse.co.nz/Ceramic-plates_c_124.html which is a local company here in New Zealand. You should be able to buy them from any lab supply company local to you, they are usually very cheap. Appreciate your comment.

[@BackyardArt]

Great video, subscribed now and will be checking your other videos.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment !

[@andrewpetty1075]

perhaps you might avoid the iodine in the tap water, and retain all your carbon for later processing, have you processed carbon yet? to see what was left?

[@successfulengineer]

I've never tried processing carbon, but I am starting to experiment with cyanide based leaches and was planning to recover the gold from the leach with carbon, so I guess I will have to figure it out very soon!

[@quentinlombaard6106]

Goeie werk

[@successfulengineer]

Dankie man, groete.

[@drazenlakic50]

Great effort and nicely described! I am wondering what are the fingers results from those rams and also how much older ram's fingers yield? Keep up good work.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the positive comment, Ram / PCI fingers will usually yield about 0.5g per 100g of closely trimmed fingers. I haven't found any difference between the yields for fingers for older vs newer ram. Good luck and be safe !

[@davidlee1719]

Hey, just wanted to say great video series. I watch every time you put out a new video. My post-drop tests always turn that yellowish/tan color and I was told that I was testing too soon and the result I was getting was due to the SO2 still in solution. Seems to be the case as I left a sample out for a couple days in the sun and it did not give that result. Can you by any chance elaborate?

[@successfulengineer]

That is a great bit of information, I will certainly give that a try next time. I have always assumed that the post drop reaction that I get is from the Pd and Pt still in solution, but it makes sense that it could also have something to do with the SO2. Thanks for the comments, always appreciate the feedbaci.

[@davidlee1719]

You are very welcome. Thank YOU for your time and experience in the videos. Help a LOT of us NEW people.

[@MiguelSierra]

Excelente.

[@mohamedqassem4423]

I,m so glad to view this video may u please tell me how to recover gold from phone boards ?and what is the chemicals that i ll need ... thanks and go ahead

[@successfulengineer]

The gold 'plating' on phone boards is most likely to be a 'flash' plating, so not really that much gold there. Most of the values will be in the high pin-count ICs, but I would only expect somewhere between 2 and 8g per kg of ICs. Gold plated connectors also have a bit of value, but dangerous to recover. You need to study AP for the boards, a process like this video for the chips and reverse electroplating for connectors. Good luck and be safe.

[@mohamedqassem4423]

Thanks for replying me .may I know is normal vinegar 3% concentrated can be used instead of muratic acid if I put it on fire to get out water to get more concentrate ? Forgive me I'm still beginner .thanks again ,

[@successfulengineer]

Not really, Muriatic acid (HCl) is very easy and quite cheap to buy. Look in hardware and swimming pool supply stores. There is some research going into concentrated acetic acid recovery, but as a beginner you need to make things easy, not difficult.

[@1kreature]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJWuqZ6IbpeJjpY The grinder would work well if correctly adjusted. Also, you can just pan the results after grinding...

[@MegaStinkbug]

Subscribed, Thanks Please Make more long videos!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Brilliant, I don't think that's a comment that has EVER been made on KZbin before!

[@gillesg3929]

Where can i find a box like you...?

[@robinlowther1826]

Hello really good video's, i have really enjoyed them. I have a question about the ram bga gold amount, in one of the questions from a subscriber, you said "that this was the best drop you had got" Can you let me know if this was all ddr2/3 ram bga's and was it a KG of chips, also was the gold drop from the other same jobs close to this or big differences. Thank you and please keep making videos. :)

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Robin, sorry for the late reply, the vast majority of ICs going into this batch was from 1 type of server ram. (DDR2 / 3) A supplier of mine had broken down a truck load of identical servers and I think they just happened to have fantastically high yielding ram. It was actually a bad start for me, because I then spent wayyyyy too much on general DDR2 and 3 ram after that trying to recreate this. After many many batches, I would expect more like 3g/kg for DDR2/3 ram. Black-top Gold corner chips are more like 10g/kg.

[@robinlowther1826]

@@successfulengineer No worries and thank you for the reply, i have alot of ram to go through and up til the aqua regia process been quite successful. I think i didnt do so well on boiling off all the nitric and the smb process didnt seem to run smoothly. I think i have much to learn, thank you for all the videos.

[@successfulengineer]

@@robinlowther1826 Hi again, the evaporation process for getting rid of excess Nitric acid is very slow and tedious, I would recommend you look into using Sulfamic acid for denoxxing, once I started with that, I never looked back. Feel free to ask if you are ever stuck, always happy to help where I can.

[@matthiascarroll1924]

@@successfulengineer have you used urea for denoxing? Seems more readily available. Thanks for the tutorial

[@robinlowther1826]

@@successfulengineer Thank you i do have some sulfamic acid but have not tried it for denoxxing. Im just going through another kg of chips trying not to wash away the gold, fun times. Do you have a video of that process, and thankyou again for the reply.

[@maidirebyte]

Hi! Can you write what you have done after you got the "yellow water"? Thanks

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, not sure which part you are referring to, could you post a time in the video ?

[@maidirebyte]

Hi! theoretically it would be great if you could write the whole procedure you described in the video (which is really well made), because those who are not native English speakers (like me) certainly has trouble understanding all the words. however, since I think I know the original proceeding, I can not understand what you explain after 33 minutes and 40 seconds. greetings and thanks

[@successfulengineer]

OK, I think I understand where we are. At that point in the video, the Aqua Regia has dissolved all the gold into solution, but usually there is still some 'unused' Nitric Acid (HNO3) in the solution. We cannot precipitate the gold out of the solution while there is still HNO3 in the solution, so we must remove it somehow. The way I remove it here is by evaporating the solution at around 80 deg C until there is only a little bit of solution in the bottom of the container and the solution becomes like syrup. Then I add a small amount of HCl and repeat the evaporation process two more times. After this, all the HNO3 should have evaporated off, and we can precipitate the gold from the solution. Hope this helps!

[@maidirebyte]

Maybe I understood. You manage to precipitate the gold without adding either potassium metabisulfite nor urea, then using the heat and the addition of water. Am I right? Thanks a lot

[@successfulengineer]

No, I precipitate the gold using Sodium Metabisulfite that is dissolved in water. It looks like clear water in the video, sorry, I didn't show where I dissolved 10g of SMB in the boiling water. I didn't use urea to neutralize the HNO3, I evaporated the solution 3 times with HCl addition to get rid of the extra HNO3.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

ready to process my chips found this video helpful I know there are in between steps that weren't shown from my studying of this process is there a possibility to contact you for any other tips...thanks sonny

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Sonny, I tend to answer all questions posted here, feel free to ask if you get stuck anywhere.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

thanks alot

[@cu-plating8172]

BGA Surface treatment = ENIG ENIG Gold thickness = 0.05micron under

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, I'm always telling people not to bother with ENIG on circuit boards, but I don't think they believe me until they try it for themselves.

[@cu-plating8172]

Successful Engineer Now i'm ready. Electro reduction recycle. thank you for your coment

[@TAWNYVLOG]

hey, very nice video. so, the 6,58 grams gold you got of 1 kilo of ONLY the RAM chips or also the fingers from the RAM board? I got about half a kilo RAM chips, collected them over the years and never processed them. I allways just removed the gold fingers from the RAMs and collected the chips. I did not expect the chips to contain that much of gold, 6,58 grams just from chips is really alot. I would have guessed about a gram or maybe 2 grams from a kilo of chips... cheers

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Tawny, yes, you are the only commenter so far to really grasp just how fantastic that result was. Those were all chips from newer DDR2 and DDR3 memory (only BGA chips). With the older style chips with legs, you are lucky to get 1g/kg. It's a little secret with ram that you actually can't see most of the gold. Good luck with your recovery, thanks for the comment :)

[@TAWNYVLOG]

yea thanks, the reason why I thought it would be less gold, was just because I had seen a documentation about gold and the fabrication of gold wire. They said there, its possible to make a 3 kliometer long wire out of a single gram of gold, so I didnt gave much attention to the chips,,,,, YET !!!! =)

[@maranti34b]

Where does the fume hood exhaust to?

[@successfulengineer]

Fume hood exhausts from the top left into a tower behind the shed. We live in a high-wind zone, so sufficient for refining a few grams a week.

[@nickstoyles75]

would this process work on ic chips collected from ram sticks?

[@successfulengineer]

Nick Stoyles All the chips in this video came from RAM sticks, I have used this process successfully on all different types of ICs

[@nickstoyles75]

Successful Engineer I asked the question before watching this video. I got confused by the title you see. I didn't know bga chips were the same as ic chips. I've got just over 4kg of ic chips to process and I've been looking for a video on how to process them. yours is definitely the best 1 I've seen onhere. I hope I get as much gold off mine as you did off yours.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the compliment Nick, yes, BGA = Ball Grid Array, which is the way the IC solders to the PCB. Many people assume that BGA is only the north bridge type chips, but really all BGA chips yield reasonably well. Good luck with your recovery, let me know how you get on. Cheers

[@nickstoyles75]

I finally got around to incinerating 500 grams of ic chips over the weekend. I thought I would start with a small amount in case I messed it up. I sieved the ash and removed the magnetic pins. I then ran the ash through a blue bowl. I actually recovered way more magnetic pins than non magnetic. I would estimate about 5 grams of non magnetic and around 200 grams of magnetic. Is that normal?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Nick, glad to hear you are progressing, it is very intelligent of you to start small, you wouldn't believe how many people start big only to end up with a big mess. I have never directly compared the amount of magnetic vs. non-magnetic pins, but I wouldn't be surprised. Kovar (iron based) is very common for IC legs because it expands at the same rate as the silicon die and is probably a bit cheaper than copper. Did you sieve the material down until almost all the legs were removed before using the blue-bowl ? I find it to be much more successful if the particle sizes are similar. Let me know how you progress!

[@roggiou]

Hi !! I enjoy your videos. Very interesting.. how much grams of gold can dissolve, for example 40 ml of aqua regia (30 ml hcl + 10 ml nitric) ? thanks for all your nice job videos.

[@successfulengineer]

You should never pre-mix aqua regia, add enough HCl to cover your material, then add Nitric acid in small increments until all the gold has dissolved. Try not to use any 'extra' Nitric when you are dissolving gold. I can't remember what the exact real world Nitric usage works out to, but it's probably around 1 to 2 mL of Nitric for every gram of gold. If you start with some copper base metals in the mix, then obviously you will use more Nitric acid to dissolve those too.

[@RawPeanut99]

Nice washing machine top for a worktable :) Bosch/Siemens one?

[@successfulengineer]

Good eye ! Yes, can't remember the brand, but I think that they are tops from tumble dryers. They are solid and plastic coated, so great surface for working on with acids (and free)

[@eddieortiz5208]

Why do you repeat yourself 5 times. That made me upset because you put me to sleep twice and took me about 4 hours to get through this video

[@successfulengineer]

Usually the repetition is due to shooting a video over a number of days / weeks while showing it in an hour. The repetition also usually means that something is important. At the end of the day, no-one is forcing you to watch anything, if a video isn't working for you, then move on and watch something else.

[@feby87]

what an interesting video you made. i learn lot of things from this and the comments. but could you tell me, how many ram do you need to make this kilo of bga chip thx

[@successfulengineer]

It is difficult to give you an exact number because every module has a slightly different weight. The best answer I can give you is it takes quite a lot of modules to get 1kg of chips, maybe about a shoe box full.

[@feby87]

Successful Engineer ok thanks for that, another thing from me, how do you process the sruff that doesnt throug the sieve?

[@successfulengineer]

Good question, I am actually just processing some of it right now. Anything that cannot be broken up any further, I put in warm HCl for a while to remove the Tin, then I wash out the HCl+Tin, then form AR and leach the gold out.

[@adambuysyuckyhouses]

I like ur depopulating station but u could have just started with ap and ended with the chips

[@successfulengineer]

That method is pretty old now, I made a rotating trommel type automatic depopulator a year or two ago. Can do a a kg of ram in a few minutes from memory. Putting entire RAM modules in AP is a bit crazy, you would create an enormous amount of waste acid for the Gold yield. That's why we trim the fingers closely before using AP, less acid usage, less waste to deal with. I almost always prefer automated mechanical processes over chemical

[@adambuysyuckyhouses]

Successful Engineer i just reuse it...ad hcl

[@adambuysyuckyhouses]

Especially ram has gold all over the board anyway, along with other metals. It cleans the boards.

[@successfulengineer]

The Gold on the ram boards (apart from the fingers) is ENIG, it is an incredibly thin coating. The problem is that you are dissolving a lot of Copper, saturating your AP (which is when you have to add more HCl as you said). All this AP is incredibly toxic and goes through time consuming waste treatment. But at the end of the day you only end up with 0.1% more Gold for dissolving 500% more Copper. I try to keep my waste generation to the absolute minimum so I only have to treat the waste once every 6 months or so.

[@DEmma1972]

didnt video the best part, smelting the powder

[@successfulengineer]

My very first Gold video that I uploaded was about melting the Gold powder and ending up with a nice Gold BB. It is the one used for my avatar actually.

[@DEmma1972]

@@successfulengineer I appreciate that, but after watching the vid for an hour I was hoping to see the actual smelt lol

[@user-rg5wb2pv6x]

Hello my friend could you tell me the constitution and dosing lifetime

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, I think we have a problem with the translation, could you add a bit more detail ? Thanks. It could also help if you post in your native language.

[@user-rg5wb2pv6x]

I would like you to help me tell me what to do to get clean gold

[@successfulengineer]

Do you mean how to refine gold (dissolve it with Aqua Regia and precipitate pure gold) or how to clean the gold powder once it has been precipitated (by washing)

[@themyceliumnetwork]

those are not BGA chips, bga = ball grid array they are IC chips.

[@successfulengineer]

Don't know of a more polite way to say it, so . . . sorry, you are wrong. Yes they are BGA (Ball Grid Array) because they have the ball grid array on the bottom of the chips. They were sorted from the chips with legs on the sides.

[@nasiruibrahim5068]

I really enjoyed your thread on refining and recovering gold and silver how luck are we ? (Answer; very lucky).Thanks so much for a very concise and well thought out thread and presentation. i hope other member will understand that thread

[@qtmeto]

precipitate using zinc?

[@successfulengineer]

I assume you mean with zinc ? Yes, you can cement gold out of solution using Zing, I would probably use copper instead, but you will not get the same purity as precipitation with SMB.

[@amandagutierrez6693]

Successful Engineer gracias☺

[@user-it1re9mz4t]

double aqua regia with ice cubes )

[@mani.rramas2495]

I lost interest of recover gold from scraps after watched your video..

[@successfulengineer]

Good, it is a fun hobby, but bad way to try and make money

[@DmitryMaster]

Too many words... Did you know that carbon absorbs the gold? When dissolved in Aqua Regia for more than half the gold lost in the ashes. Try waste material to pour Aqua Regia over and all will become clear.

[@successfulengineer]

Yes, carbon can absorb some gold, but really, unless it is activated charcoal, it is not very much. The reason to completely incinerate the material (until white) is to avoid this. It takes many words to explain the processes in enough detail, otherwise every second comment would be someone complaining about some detail that was left out.

[@DmitryMaster]

Thanks for the answer! I mean, I understand that it makes no sense to be afraid of organics at full firing? Then why in the re-treatment of this mixture with aqua regia and deposition of sediment again turns gold?

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks Dmitry, I will try it next time.