Gold Recovery from ICs Without Incineration - Part 3 - The full process!

I know the video is long ! Hopefully those people who are actually intending to try this will appreciate the detail!!
In this video I show the full process of recovering gold from integrated circuits without any incineration of the chips.
Also very happy to take requests for videos if there is something you guys would like to see.
If you have some interesting material you would like me to run, please feel free to get in contact via the comments.
If you enjoy this series and end up making a few $$ out of the information, please feel free to throw a dollar my way, bitcoin address: 1EpGuPa2VtUVWjGmgWRmFicNKMFZSGhfLr

[@QQTrick1QQ]

As a baker myself when hydrating cocoa powder that is also as fine as talc, I add a little water to the cocoa stir and it absorbs much easier first turning to a mud then loosen up when adding more liquid.

[@shaneyork300]

That was the best spent hour and half on KZbin in years and I spend 4 to 5 hours a day watching!! Great stuff, saving to watch again!!! Have a GREAT Day!!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment Shane :)

[@Alex-kp3hr]

Magnetic separation modification: I like your concept of the separator but I did not like the idea of standing there and spooning in powder for long periods of time so I came up with a slight modification. I got a large plastic funnel about 13 cm at the wide mouth and just let it sit in the top pipe. I made a filter out of plastic fly screen and put it into the plastic funnel. I got an electric back vibrator/massage unit and strapped it to the top of the plastic tube. I emptied my whole sandwich container of powder into the funnel and turned on the vibrator and walked away. The vibrator breaks up the powder and the fly screen mesh lets the powder drop loosely like snowflakes. Works great and a time saver. Cheers.

[@successfulengineer]

Nice idea, love it.

[@MisterJim-uj3gd]

I couldn't figure out what the bowl mole was that he was talking about until I saw him put the stuff into a ball mill. I'm usually pretty quick at decoding ridiculous accents, but this was definitely to a new level for me.

[@jackmclane1826]

I just made one of those bowls. After running several test batches it seems like you can feed it material quite quickly. As long as it still behaves like water and does not slurry up the feed speed does not really do much for the result. So it seems from my limited tests so far.

[@BOMBOVA]

a gold recovery fan, here " ralph thomas gerwing " in Vancouver Canada, " come and visit " and i enjoyed this from start to finish, to that end, i got in an online poker game, for small coin, and am in the money now, i am finding more and more chips, by watching these videos and looking for what is considered more valuable in chip recovery, big thing for me, is the time, and set up. i would like to do between 1 killo to ten kilo grams a process. on average grade material " not mil spec " i am getting just under 1/2 of one percent by weight, recoverable gold, which i think is at 85 percent of recovery. thanks for the strong effort, on doing things right and logical.

[@BOMBOVA]

great video, one of the best, i thank you. cheers, come and visit vancouver

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment Thomas, what kind of material do you do mostly ? plated items or ICs ? I hover somewhere between 0.1% and 1% of raw weight depending on my starting material.

[@BOMBOVA]

this is my better material, , pre 79 heavy current device, the greater the current on mil spec ic's the thicker the gold bond wire inside. this running towards your 1 percent or just a little better, scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/12000860_952250604835824_3663510515755880883_o.jpg?oh=c5e747500de3268455dc60e4aab772e8&oe=59A0FD91

[@MegaPoxie]

When hydrating powders I have always found adding a little water to the powder and stirring works so much better than adding powder to water. I've never tried powdered chips though but worth a try! Very informative video, thanks.

[@successfulengineer]

Great little tip there, thanks. Will certainly try it that way round next time!

[@israelrobbins2743]

It's so fine ,like flour. Pretend your making pancakes,minus the cooking an eating. 😂

[@huonghuong1438]

Bao tiền cái máy ngiền đó hơơ bạn

[@iainohalloran42]

This comment is not directed at anyone I just watched the video and I couldn’t believe all of your hard work and for so little return wow I was expecting a lot more than what you got oh my giddy aunt. I’ve been saving all the boards from satellite dishes and other odd and sods now watching this I am seriously wondering if it’s worth doing or not what do you all think I should do I’ve got 24kg of LMBs boards as well as a lot of e waist approx 6kg should I keep going or stop and send it to a recycling plant. Great video very informative and educational keep going bud.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Iain, yes, from memory the ICs I was processing there yield around 1g per kg of ICs, that is actually incredibly Gold dense if you consider that often in mining they only get 1g of Gold out of every 1000kg of rock! But, as you noted, that is a hell of a lot of work for not much money. Generally I try to target material that yields more than 1g/kg, black-tops from gold corner BGA chips are closer to 10g/kg, high yield, thin square flat pack ICs are around 3g/kg. Good quality fully plated old pins are around 4g/kg. This is definitely a hobby, would be near impossible to make a living out of Ewaste Gold recycling in a first world country, even more so once you start taking into account how much time is spent dealing with the waste too! If you are keen to learn and pursue it as a hobby, then it can be a great hobby, if you are just after the cash, you would probably be way better off just on-selling the material. Thanks for the comment and good luck :)

[@therugburnz]

I think at some point all the Neodymium in the magnets will be a profitable except that the magnets are getting g smaller compared to 15 years ago. I still have some I use as a tool magnetizer.

[@JacobE-23]

Same thing I use mine for. Damn things stay magnetized for a long time. And I have one philips head that refuses to demagnetized now lol.

[@iamanempoweredone6064]

Make sure the hammer mill is fully enclosed for ceramic chips. Inhaling the dust will cause mesothelioma

[@successfulengineer]

For sure, it is good practice to avoid breathing pretty much everything other than clean air. I eventually started running my various crushers and mills wet to keep the dust down.

[@peterwilliams5631]

Hi Again. I have found that if you wet you material into a slurry, ( I use a paint mixer on an electric drill in a ten gallon bucket with rinse aid and water added, as I have 30Kg of crushed ram chips to put trough the blue bowl ), you can slowly pour the material in to the bowl a little bit at a time and wait for the bowl to do it's thing , then repeat. I use a small cup for this purpose. But you need to stir the materiel in the cup just to keep in a slurry form and stop it settling in the bottom of the beaker then it pours in ok. It's a lot faster than using a spoon with thick material. I hope this helps.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Peter, have you seen my video where I built the auto-feeding hopper for chip slurry ? I think I was feeding it into a sluice, but same basic idea. Yeah, I gave up pretty quickly sitting around for hours doing it by hand! Wow, 30kg is bloody nice! Hope you get a good payday!

[@jackdecker8100]

Teeny tiny teeny weeny truck loads! That's really cool that you can recover gold from that stuff but having been through the whole process myself I found that I actually got a lot more gold by shoveling black sand from the river bank and instead of spending my weekend racking my brain and measuring chemicals I spent my weekend drinking a beer catching a fish hanging out with the girlfriend and leaving with more money than I started with can't wait to get one of those blue bowls and head out to river next weekend.

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, fantastic if you live somewhere like that. Unfortunately no easy Gold in the ground anywhere near where I live!

[@barryfields2964]

You ever though about putting a screen on your ball mill? Then when the powder get to a certain size it would go through the screen into a collection container. Then it would be a continuous running operation. Chips in the top, and powder out the bottom.

[@successfulengineer]

For me it was more a case of controlling the dust, if you incorporate an outlet, you probably want to also seal the whole thing inside some secondary container. I guess if you really wanted to go next-level, you could mill it wet and have the outlet run directly into a sluice.

[@urbanprospector3007]

So glad I just rewatched this. I was thinking of getting one of those grain mills and now I can save my $$$.

[@successfulengineer]

Hey Jon, yeah, I actually still have that old one sitting around here after a few years and still have never really used it. At some point I might do a proper clean of it and sell it to someone who actually wants to mill some grains, but I honestly didn't find it super useful for Gold recovery.

[@cheesynuts4291]

If you are still using your blue bow try to line the bottom with silicone. 100% silicone for whatever reason is very tacky for gold. Something to do with the hydrophobic nature of the two. I am a gold prospector In an area with very very fine gold. It works better than you might suspect.

[@adventuresunknown1013]

Hello I'm new to your channel. But I think that it's safe to say that you can call your wetted particals a "slurry". I really enjoyed watching this new non furnace method.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, appreciate it.

[@timvivoda5208]

I've just come across this video I bought a blue bowl i week ago and have done exactly what you have done too the t .your videos are by far the best on the net .i commend you for the precise content and the easy description on how to recover gold bloody fantastic fantastic fantastic video kind regards Tim from AUSTRALIA victoria

[@successfulengineer]

Always appreciate your comments and feedback Tim! Yep, the blue bowl is amazing, the key to awesome results is patience and also classification. It works best when all the particles you feed into it are roughly the same shape and size. I have a few different sieves that I run the material through before the blue bowl, that way I run all the 100-mesh stuff together, then all the 60-mesh etc.

[@timvivoda5208]

Successful Engineer just been out in the work shop and I have used 2 systems the blue bowl also a miniture slue it 2 foot long with small corragations on a rubber mat type system its runs on a 25cm fall with a crystal clear flat surface of water most of the gold is stoped by help way and it works very well also .i have about 100kgs of gold plated and gold filled jewellery im reverse plating and I'm thinking it's a good way to do pins as well .love to be friends on face book regards Tim .

[@koosduplessis1749]

love the ingco bench grinder in the back

[@coinkiller5495]

Hi one thing I done the VERY first step I put all my chips in AP for a few weeks in the sun and it eats of all the legs and deep inside of the chips giving you lots and lots of less metal to deal with and keep AP and use again and again the better it gets

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, Ive seen that done a few times, I always tried to avoid too much AP due to the huge amount of waste it creates, costs a lot of time and money to treat it for disposal. You also have to keep feeding it extra HCl as the solution get saturated with Cu2Cl

[@coinkiller5495]

@@successfulengineer yeah but not much top up better than making new batch for new product

[@oceanhouse8080]

Gold floats on clean water despite the fact its 19 times more dense, adding jet dry or soap prevents it from riding on the surface tension and going into the tailings

[@successfulengineer]

Absolutely, bond wires love floating away!

[@ismael342]

Excellent that same system called hydrocycle is used in agriculture to remove sand from drip irrigation systems the answer is that it works the other way Thanks for sharing your work

[@successfulengineer]

ismael342 Thanks for the comment, I will go google that, always looking for new ideas !

[@brandonknight7240]

Use JB weld and shorten the exit path on that grinding machine where those chips fall out so the chips get recycled through the machine more

[@Smokey420Greenleaf]

gotta love how youtube links you to the 3rd video in a series without giving any links whatsoever to the first 2 videos.

[@c.j.thadon8763]

😆

[@davidlee1719]

I have a few gold feet ICs and quite a few regular ICs, can't wait to try something like this. Going to save them up until I get enough to worry about. I love that you show all of your details. That calculation could NOT have been any closer!! Great job sir...

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the positive comment David, yeah, didn't look like I was going to get there, but I figured I would show the result, good or bad. Looking at the powder can sometimes be a bit deceptive, it always seems to weigh more than it looks to me.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

Your command of English is spectacular. Well done. Nice recovery process.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment Kalle

[@coldshot5555]

tape a brown paper bag on the outside of the ball mall and wad up another for a cap in the hole! that will greatly reduce the bell effect!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Haha, yeah, that banging got old eventually for sure!

[@Robbob9933]

Better way. After you think the tin is in solution, filter the mixture. After the acid solution had drained from the filter, rinse the solids off really good. Add baking soda to neutralize the liquid. This will eliminate the waste you will have stannous chloride and salt water solution. Put the solids in a clean beaker for the nitric acid.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks, that is actually a pretty good plan, certainly much faster and simpler than washing the acid out, and much more likely to get all the acid. Will give this a try next time.

[@barryellis6663]

I finally got the chance to watch this video and loved every minute of it. Very interesting and informative. Good job...

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment Barry, much appreciated.

[@mredd2nd]

Thank you for taking the time and effort for detail i have lost a bit in the last sections in my previous attempts and hopefully get it right now.

[@successfulengineer]

No worries, thanks for the comment. There is also a video I made a while ago for another member that shows a better washing process than this video, might also be worth a look. 99% of the losses tend to be in the washing steps. - kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIKpf3qVe72akMk

[@dannylarsen87]

Dude i just started your video and i gotta say get a mini jaw crusher and if you can weld make a chain mill. The first machine you dont like is similar to chain mill just your is a hammer mill that sucks....and your ball mill is annoying and takes days the fine powder protects they thick chunks your trying to break up the chain mill will turn them to dust quick as hell.....jaw crusher will crush big pieces to a nice even fragments for the chain mill to powderize. That way you dont have three days of thumping in your garage. Just becareful of dust from chain mill just make a tube that drops into a bucket with lid on it to contain the dust. And for your multi metals you can use acids or cornstarch to extract the gold through percipitation.

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, you will see one one my videos a bit later on I welded up a chain mill that worked pretty well, as you say, dust was a bit pain. If I'm doing the chain mill again I would run it wet for sure. The ball mill (really a crushing mill) actually worked effortlessly for a very very long time, it is not the fastest, but I could just leave it running in the workshop and eventually it would turn basically anything into super fine powder. I've always wanted to build a proper ball mill, might get onto that at some point.

[@tonjaallen4369]

thank you for your detailed and helpful content bro!!!!you could eliminate glare on water by rigging some soft white light under the blue bowl and toggle shop lights off/on !

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the tip! Appreciate the comment.

[@spitznagels]

I'm curious if using a magnet to remove ferromagnetic materials from the bulk may actually reduce yield. Not because any material containing gold can be trapped by ferromagnetic material, but rather because nickel is frequently used as an underplate for gold. If you capture some of this nickel you may end up catching some gold that is plated on it as well.

[@successfulengineer]

The Gold we are catching here is in the form of bond wires, so no no Ni underplating, but yes, that would certainly be a consideration for any plated Gold parts. You do actually lose a small amount of Gold with the magnetic separation because the bond wire usually breaks off the component leg, leaving a small Gold ball on the leg. I reckon the lost Gold is worth it for the huge reduction in acid usage and waste creation though!

[@ssofmas8473]

Hi so great video how did you dry gold powder all time my powder stick to Baker I wish you add this to your video

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, as long as the powder is very well washed with water and HCl, you shouldn't have any problem with it sticking. I also used a small paintbrush to loosen any sticking powder that remained.

[@gallopingg1]

hi there, just an idea, on the blue bowl put a small length of hose fixed on in side of bowl with the bottom of the piece of hose just in front of the water inlet with a funnel fixed in the top of the piece of hose, this may help the gold dust to start/stay at the bottom of the bowl from the start of pouring the dust in. mick from uk, BRILLIANT VID

[@successfulengineer]

Hey Mick, thanks for the comment, yes, certainly sounds like it would help, you would also be able to feed the system without having to stop the water flow! Well worth a try!

[@dkkempion8744]

"I might do that fucking again..." Glorious!

[@RICARDOLOPEZ-jj2kf]

Good morning im peruvian metalurgist engineer , It is very interesting , but ...can you do with crusher jaw and after moly ball for comminution the particles in ic chips? Thank

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Ricardo, you can definitely try that, use a microscope to check the test material and confirm that Gold bond wires are fully released from the Epoxy material

[@Bogie3855]

A HEPA filter will keep the dust out of the motor and protect the vacuum.

[@eligriggs9221]

Put a thick black marker line on the vertical, on the far inside of the bowl, turn on your water and drop a cork or fishing bob into the water. wait until the circulation of the water and bob are steady, then time the number of turns the bob makes in a minute. Now you know your RPM and can adjust up or down and forget about constant monitoring the flow. You can try using ethyl alcohol (cheap gin) to first wet your power first, then add water, this is something that works well with some very fine painters pigments, including dyed stuff, or you can try some artist's ox gall fluid, or even adding some urine to the water to break down the water tension and allow each particle to be wetted completely, and shed those pesky air bubbles. If you try these, let us know how it worked.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Eli, nice suggestions! Will certainly keep them in mind for next time!

[@CrewOf1]

Very common sense smart. It's an honer watching you work.

[@successfulengineer]

Appreciate the comment Scott

[@jdrains16]

What if you put a hole in the ball mill container, right behind the "fingers" where it wouldn't come into contact with the ball, and put fine screen material over it, so when something reaches the appropriate size, it automatically falls out into a collection container placed under it?

[@successfulengineer]

Probably quite a good idea, having too much powder in there could slow down milling of the larger parts, will look into that a bit.

[@spotlobac7694]

a marathon video for 1/2 gram, i love it , it is time consuming , not sure can dig the evap action ? what did we gain ? nitric kill , i may of said something b4 abuot denox.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, yeah, this was pretty much demonstrating the process on some pretty low-grade material, the exact same steps work for ICs that yield 10x, 5g looks a lot better for the amount of work! Yeah, this was a very early video, I gave up on evaporation for denoxing rather quick and started using Sulfamic acid . . . fast, easy and reliable.

[@spotlobac7694]

@@successfulengineer sure wish i had that blue bowl, i loose a bit here & there with a big jar panning. i just did 3 purple ceramics pentium pro doubles ended up with about 8 $ worth of gold each. not good, paid 25 $ ea. on ebay, Ha ! im a clever devil though.

[@successfulengineer]

@@spotlobac7694 LOL, yeah, when I started reading I was going to say you should see those online rather than process them LOL Yeah, once you have the blue-bowl dialed in it works very well, a bit slow, but if you run it carefully you don't lose much!

[@spotlobac7694]

@@successfulengineer im gonna buy one then i came across about 150 slid out mini servers loaded with chips bga & gold corner black tops , enough to last all summer if i dont become a covidian.

[@spotlobac7694]

its about 7 aclock in zeeland ay ? its 11 here in washington state US. 4 hrs. out of time , im not subject to time here.

[@robboyko3712]

A couple of items. First he could have created some Aqua Regia (3 parts HCl and 1 part HNO3 (nitric) acid). The reason is that the HCl will dissolve the Au and Pt (not the AG), and the HNO3 will dissolve any Ag but not the Au. Afterwards the Au can be dropped out of solution, followed by the Pt, and then the Ag. The brown to black powder would be the AuCl (gold Chloride) which then can be mixed with some borax after it is filtered and dried and then fired leaving close to pure gold at around 0.998 if done correctly.

[@successfulengineer]

There are a few things wrong there, firstly, it is almost never a good idea to pre-mix aqua regia, much better to have a large excess of HCl and add the HNO3 as required. HCl will not dissolve Gold, both HCl and HNO3 are required to dissolve Gold. Silver also does not dissolve in Aqua Regia, it forms a Silver Chloride layer that greatly slows down the reaction. It sounds like you have some chemistry background with no experience in the real world application ?

[@MusicWizard79]

I am not sure it's ash. I could almost say it's graphite or chisel in them ICs and processors. They usually use such materials then ash due to the non-conductive elements and it can take a fairly amount of heat too without crack or dry out. But I am not entirely sure about it, them stuff can be ash-based too.

[@successfulengineer]

The body of plastic ICs is Epoxy, similar to plastic.

[@macartancaughey9993]

Would love to see a breakdown of all the chemicals you used and the cost of said chemicals plus the cost of gas burnt not taking the containers into account as off today the price of gold has greatly falling due to the COVID 19 Virus so would not recommend you selling any to this virus has passed. Sure would love to $$ your way but i only have Pay-Pal they don't do Bitcoin sorry mostly deal in American $ or British £ . Breakdown the more you have done this the overall cost comes down. It was a good Science and Technology experience did enjoy it very much

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, yeah, this video often gets commented on regarding the low value of Gold recovered relative to the effort, to which I usually reply that this video only demonstrates a process, the exact same process can be applied to material that yields 10x the amount of Gold and then it looks pretty good. Gold price still looks to be over US$1700 and at an all-time-high in my local currency, but I generally don't sell my Gold, don't really need the money and prefer to keep it for a really rainy day :) There are a few videos floating around that talks about the chemicals used in refining, but it would be hard to give a cost breakdown since it varies so much depending on which country you are in. Overall I spent a few years pulling Gold out of E-waste and have done pretty well out of it, at the end of the day, the chemical cost was so low that I don't even really consider it.

[@douglasstewart2957]

This is fascinating to see your very unique solutions to the many complex problems we face. Is it possible for you to edit this and somehow mute those segments with the shopvac

[@successfulengineer]

Appreciate the comment Douglas, make sure to check out some of the newer vids to see how the process has evolved, this was done fairly early in my experimentation with Gold recovery.

[@sabrierdas3644]

❤

[@JohnLock1977]

You can eliminate the use of nitric acid by using hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide to leach out the copper and other base metals as suggested by another viewer. You can also eliminate the nitric acid when dissolving the gold by using calcium hypochlorite in place of the nitric acid. (It is a pool chemical and found in bleach.). The perception step is the same as done in you video. Great job, by the way!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks John, I have not tried using peroxide, I assume it would be much slower than using Nitric ? also, I believe you can also put gold into solution with peroxide and HCl. Would definitely have to stannous test the solution before sending it to waste processing.

[@JohnLock1977]

I am not sure of the chemistry but I have never found a trace of gold after a HCl H2O2 leach. Still, my copper leach solution gets dropped out with zinc or aluminum, and electro refined in a cu H2SO4 cell. The slimes are put aside for my retirement fund. Much more information can be found at the Gold Refining Forum. Your information would be a great addition to the group. Thank you for what you have shown us here. Be safe!

[@seymourpro6097]

Get some nesting sandwich boxes, fuse some suitable metal mesh over an opening cut into the bottom of each, then you have a stacking set of sieves and the ability to take out a chosen mesh size range for further processing.

[@loveisalliam]

Put a neodymium magnet under the plastic box and separate powder from iron . Simple.

[@urbanprospector3007]

Could you add "sive window" that allows the fine powder to escape this giving the ball a better chance to break up the remaining IC's. The exit wouldn't need to be very big and would then allow you to add more IC's as its working. Would a blender help you mix the powder as well? just a thought..

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Jon, could definitely add a screen that will allow the super fine material to escape the mill, with how I built this though, the screen would have to be very robust if the balls could impact it.

[@urbanprospector3007]

@@successfulengineer Was thinking maybe 3-4 screen equal distance apart no bigger then an inch wide or drill holes around the area and mount screen on outside. Just a thought, as I'm sure you know best how it might work. Or maybe plasma cut very small slots around the cylinder much like a hammer mill screen that mbmmllc does for their hammer mills.

[@aaronsmith6714]

Hi great enjoy watching But being a tight person And not tec minded Can you recover the copper from the first solution And can you separate the other premium metal as well just ending up with gold and say platinum etc in each section

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Aaron, you can almost always recover Copper, and that is actually where big refineries make most of their money. For hobby refiners like me, recovering the Copper is actually just part of the waste treatment process. But other than ending up with a bucket of very fine Copper powder, I never really did anything with it.

[@kyresearcher]

I am just wondering why you used the blue bowl at all? seems like you could have ran the sludge through a filter and simply added water to the filter to dilute the sludge through.. Not being mean here..... Just trying to understand

[@successfulengineer]

So, I have tried a few times directly leaching the material without going through the very slow blue-bowl process and it has always turned into a nightmare that actually took longer to fix than just cleaning the material beforehand. Using a sluice to clean the material is a bit quicker, but you also tend to lose more Gold than the blue bowl. I really haven't found the perfect system for separating the bond wires from the other material yet.

[@xenaguy01]

11:30 WOW! Quite a lot of un-crushed material. Who'd have thought?

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, that stuff is mostly heat spreaders from inside ICs (usually big Copper chunks) so nothing is really going to break them up, but as long as they are separated it is not really a problem.

[@alancouch9387]

Very timely process for the amount of extraction but good video very detailed

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, yes, absolutely, it is very much source material dependent, the same basic process and time yield 10x the amount of Gold with better starting material easily. In this case I just worked with what I had and knew what yield I was expecting as a test.

[@donatellodonati4525]

Hi I like your video very much and you have explained the process very well, could I make you a question on how to process and recover gold from a heavily gold plated brass tape Thankyou from Donatello Italy

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, research the Sulfuric Acid Deplating Cell (my video recovering gold from plated spoons shows this) It is pretty much the least waste method of recovering Gold from Brass without having to dissolve all the Brass

[@timvivoda5208]

One word . brilliant. Tim from Australia

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks Tim, as always. Great to hear you are having good luck with the ICs and bond wires over there. Persistence pays off!

[@timvivoda5208]

@@successfulengineer I sent you a email in regards to a gold cube and fine gold recovery.

[@professortrog7742]

I wonder how much of the end product came off of the buttons you used to use up the last nitric acid.

[@successfulengineer]

Dissolving Gold buttons is an incredibly slow process, so when you just use buttons to quickly check for the presence of Nitric acid, practically no Gold measurable amount is added to the solution.

[@ltdees2362]

Very interesting...I've always known there were trace amounts of gold in electronics...just imagine what is being dumped in land-fills...Is there an industrial scale-up of this process? Seems like it could be quite profitable on a large scale?

[@successfulengineer]

Hey Tom, yeah, there are a few big players around that recover precious metals from E-waste. On industrial scales, they tend to actually be Copper refineries, making most of their money out of the base-metals, the precious metals being the cream on top. Some of the older stuff I have worked with can yield around 10g of Gold per kg of material, the stuff demonstrated in this video was some of the lowest yield material that I worked with.

[@nickchristie9816]

You should show the process of MLCC's on one of your future videos.

[@successfulengineer]

Hey Nick, I have always been interested in Gold, so never really got into capacitors, they can have good amounts of PGMs and Silver, but usually also a ton of Tin!

[@deaultusername]

For the powder and water mixing, the old rule is always add your liquid to the powder. If its soup or cement its always the same, make a paste to get it wet and then add more water later. Eliminates lumps and makes life easier.

[@poosmate]

Excellent work, well done! I'm sure if I tried to buy the chemicals to do this here in England I'd soon have a SWAT Squad breaking through my windows lol

[@successfulengineer]

LOL yes, I think Nitric acid is quite difficult to buy in the EU. If I couldn't get hold of the acids, I would probably next look into either smelting or Melting + Copper Electrolysis if I wanted to pursue this hobby.

[@troymoore7537]

Try dumping the whole tub in at once. Mightvget a finer grind that way.

[@henryrambeau2460]

what about using cheese cloth to help filter you could put it in a hand held strainer

[@MartyConlanTassieFlyBike]

Love your work. Have built my own ball mill and magnetic separator and blue bowl using your 3d plans. Question on this video you don't appear to have pyrolised the chips? do you still use that step in the process?

[@gordonthompson8634]

good question no answer though any chance of one plz ill subscribe lol

[@1kreature]

Awesome video, but that is not a ball mill. That is a very slow mortar/pestle type deal. More balls and speed it up! There should not be any need for the step inside there, the rotation and momentum should make the balls arch over and fall back down into the material when at right speed. Still, enjoyed it a lot!

[@plenosmelania855]

Please can you give me the step by step guidelines including the chemicals and the retio ?

[@mochukaservis6178]

why first you give the solution gold using HCL not nitrit acid? because i know nitrit acid catch another material unless gold.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi there, I use HCl first usually to remove Tin (Sn), Sn + HNO3 = BAD.

[@peterwilliams5631]

Hi. How does the blue bowl manage if there is crushed silicon die material in with the mix ? I sieve most of the silicon die stuff out of my material from ram chips, but there is always very fine silicon in my mix even after sieving down to 100 mesh. I just wondered if it restricts the cleaning flow of the water.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Peter, crushed silicon is absolutely no problem, the key thing about the blue bowl is classification. It is great at sorting things by density as long as the particle sizes are similar. So as long as all the stuff you run go through the same mesh, it will be fine. I usually ball-milled all my ICs, so had tons of cushed silicon in there and never had any issues.

[@peterwilliams5631]

@@successfulengineer Hi, Thank you for your reply. I use the same mill you first use. I have engineered two metal grinding discs attached two the original discs. It works well taking the material down to 40 mesh, then I put the material through a liquidizer (dry) and that comes out at -100 mesh. I just thought I would share that with you, it saves all the ball milling Etc. Big thanks again for your reply and for sharing your knowledge .

[@successfulengineer]

Sounds fantastic peter, thanks for letting me know. Feel free to ask if there is ever anything you get stuck with, but sounds like you are a can-do kind of guy.

[@shadowzedge5793]

Thank you for posting this! I've really learned quite a bit and got a few ideas on how to automate/streamline a few areas (except for the chemical ones).

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, sorry for the late reply !

[@markandash2009]

If you started with 250g of whole chips, how did you end up with 355g of processed dust (21:10)? After all the copper and other metals have been removed?

[@successfulengineer]

I think in the beginning I mention 250g of flat packs, but the process was completed with 500g total of ICs (mentioned around 1:30:00) I haven't watched it all the way through again to see if I mention what the other 250g of ICs were, but based on the low yield, they were probably just regular ICs with pins, like from old style RAM.

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, actually around 19:30 I mention that the powder was from 2 runs of chips, so closer to 500g

[@markandash2009]

Successful Engineer ahh I will be watching again more than likely as you have some really good information, thanks buddy 👍

[@hillbilly4998]

Thanks for The great video I was wondering as to where you vent your fume hood and if some type filter would be needed?

[@successfulengineer]

Hey mate, thanks for the comment, my fume hood only vents externally, reasonably high up. This is pretty common for very small scale chemistry. If you wanted to add a wet scrubber, that would be great, but unfortunately I can't help much there. The real key is to always minimize the amount of vapors coming off wherever possible!

[@danielmergruen1897]

1:09 you must be used 1mg of sulfuric acid for remove the remanents of copper and lead

[@jamisontaylor878]

Excellent video thank you for sharing all your tips and advice much appreciated

[@brucewhite9657]

I am really digging your ball mill set up. I had been thinking about using a propane tank, but wasn't sure how I was going to spin/turn it. But seeing your set up is awesome!! And if you was to use 2 or 3 balls half the size as you had, would it work better/faster??

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Bruce, this type of crushing mill really relies on picking the ball up and dropping it on the material, so a bit different from a normal ball mill. I tried it with some smaller balls, but ended up settling on the one large ball. Once you have the tank spinning, you can try the smaller ones, and even try lots of small balls more like a regular ball mill.

[@Justfun-ty4we]

Why don't you use 2 - 3 crusher balls it will produce a better grind of your materials.

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, at the time I only had the one, kept going with that one for a long time, a bit slow, but always did the business.

[@markgomez3688]

If you are going to use the vacuum cleaner, you should vacuum out the dust it's much easier and cleaner also saves electric with less processes...

[@successfulengineer]

Do you mean try to separate the Gold from the plastic using a vacuum cleaner ?

[@markgomez3688]

@@successfulengineer No, suck all the crushed chips out of the drum with the vacuum cleaner. Saves moving the drum, but that's what i would do... The set up you got is very nice, no byproduct needing disposal.. I used the chemical way, it's terrible liquids needing disposal. Restrictions on Nitric acid is an issue due to THEM making things that go bang, but the Vegan way is the best(Joke). I'll try your way looks fail safe and that's a good thing.... Upload more suff you're doing good....

[@phoenixrestorations315]

Could you also use HCL and peroxide to remove the copper? Nitric acid is a bit scary to work with and like you said it is expensive

[@successfulengineer]

Hey David, honestly, pretty much all acids are scary to work with and obviously require a level of safety equipment and care. A single drop of concentrated peroxide can blind you. But generally yes, you can always use a Copper(II)Chloride (also known as AP) leach to remove Copper. Obviously you have to be careful with the Peroxide to avoid dissolving Gold. Nitric acid is just a much faster way of achieving the same outcome, as long as you can get hold of it in your location.

[@Farida-A.R.]

Amazing information, thanks for sharing.

[@successfulengineer]

Appreciate the comment

[@timvivoda5208]

your videos are second to none .outstanding you have tought me so much i thank you god bless Tim from AUSTRALIA victoria

[@successfulengineer]

Thank you very much for the kind words Tim. All the best for 2018 and feel free to ask if there is ever anything not clear enough.

[@pravingosai8066]

I have learned much about matel but video of Aus give me more knowledge about. Different type of separation ok pdgosai

[@pravingosai8066]

Thank you that appreciate my effort to in video Media ok

[@yocvegas3412]

First off..Great work..thank you for the videos...maybe a slightly greater axis angle for the second half in the tumbler would speed up the process a bit..love the experience thanks again and keep it up!

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the positive comment, have a few more interesting videos in mind!

[@Robonza]

If you chopped the gas tank in half you could laser cut a nice flat lid, unload and inspect it much more easily. Will it still roll ok if you only had half a tank?

[@successfulengineer]

I think it would work OK, would definitely make cleaning it out a little easier.

[@BrotherRobb]

is this cost effective? once you deduct all the electricity, power, chemcals etc. is there much profit?

[@successfulengineer]

The big deal really is time, electricity and chemicals add up to probably less than $5. I ended up with about $25 of gold, which is a gross profit of $20, but it takes about 2 hours of work, so I definitely wasn't earning even minimum wage. But, these chips at 1g/kg are the lowest yield I bother with, there are also 6g/kg and 10g/kg chips that I have here. At that rate, you are earning up to $100/h. So, depending on your source material, it can be profitable, but at the end of the day, for me, it is just a hobby. I actually get a kick out of extracting the 0.5g, even though in the greater scheme it is not worth that much.

[@TimeSurfer206]

If you're having fun, and it's paying for itself... WIN. And you really need to ask mom to teach you how to add milk to a flour gravy base :)

[@danosdotnl]

What if you use two or more 'crushing balls'?

[@Odenix75]

👍👍Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences very appreciated it here 👊😎🇺🇸

[@toddmonka275]

Do your fingers tingle from working with these circuit boards? Mine did when I worked with it. I think the boards have a fire retardant on them that absorbs into the skin over time. I don't think that's healthy. Wear quality protective gloves.

[@successfulengineer]

For sure, almost aleays good advice. No, cant say that I ever noticed tingly fingers, but I was always pretty careful anyway, certainly when working with chemicals.

[@ewastesolutionssonny1889]

As a new but extensive hobby I really enjoyed your video I have used Ap solutions for ram fingers reverse electroplating on pins have processed a few grams but collecting more daily... Just wanted to thank you for explaing in detail the process steps etc for this method ...your friend SONNY FROM Denver....

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Sonny, thank you for the kind words. Sounds like you are doing very well, good luck and be safe.

[@kathy5939]

Your videos are so informative, and step by step.. I love it all. Many thanks for your time of doing these...

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment Timothy, feel free to ask if there is ever anything that is not clear enough in the videos.

[@kathy5939]

Is there a little chip inside these before they get pulverized? Would it not be easier (if possible) to break that down if so??

[@successfulengineer]

Which part of the video are you referring to Timothy ?

[@kathy5939]

Sorry, it may not have been one of your videos... I just saw an IC that had like a silver glass like center... ??

[@successfulengineer]

lol, no worries, had me a bit confused there. There are 2 types of ICs that may be what you are referring to, some have silver round bits that are built in heat-spreaders, others have little round glass windows. In all cases you pretty much have to break ICs apart to get to the Gold bond wires. Generally with plastic ICs, we machine them down to micron sized particles to ensure that chemicals have access to the bond wires.

[@johnhardin4187]

Similar 2 processing concentrate from paydirt nice

[@successfulengineer]

Appreciate the comment John, yep, definitely some similarities, makes sense to learn and adapt proven processes.

[@randypopperwell2183]

what size and how deep is your blue bowl and what size and how far down did you cut the funnel please

[@successfulengineer]

Was a very long time ago now, but I followed the dimensions of the original bowl on this link -> gpex.ca/smf/index.php?topic=415.20

[@chadjones4255]

I imagine the hydrophobic nature of gold would be responsible for it floating away in powder form. People often have this trouble when panning.

[@michaelmeyer9665]

a few drops of jet dry solves the float problem

[@nusrathulla2510]

[e-mail]

[@therugburnz]

How small of a particle size do you need for the hydrophobic nature to over power the density, with and without soap if they are different sizes? BTW what is particle?

[@therugburnz]

@@alienrocketscienceshared8454 I don't care , I just want to know the size that floats.

[@therugburnz]

@@alienrocketscienceshared8454 with soap

[@jerrydavis7130]

Could you please describe in detail your rust bucket you mentioned in this video. I would like to use it for magnetic pins, still containing bits of gold, after incineration of black chips. Thanks.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Jerry, pretty long time ago now, but basically most people just throw the iron based (kovar) pins in a bucket and let time do it's thing turning them to rust. Eventually you can sieve the rust and bond wires through a fine sieve to separate from the unrusted pins. At this point your would chemically separate the Gold from the rust, not 100% sure how to do this as I never got this far.

[@jamestatum222]

Where did you get your tiny grinder? I need one of those in my life

[@gabrial3377]

Just wondering if one can skip all the chemicals, and smelt the tin and cooper out with borax and salt?

[@successfulengineer]

My understanding is that it is quite difficult to smelt Cu out, you have to sparge with air to oxidize the Cu.

[@gabrial3377]

I was all excited when you did the blue bowl as I Prospect for gold and have one. Wanted to mention a guy here in the states, discovered that gold loves to stick to silicon. If you create a silicone matt fir the blue bowl the gold stays put better and doesnt get pulled off the silicone as well as the hard plastic if the blue bowl. Question, is that a rock crusher?

[@tracysmirh5496]

thank you friend you es at I am so poor and ain't looking for much further but I know those that can't GodAnd may he continue to bless you and your consideration of others less fortunate I am well without TY GBEE

[@henniganjared]

You alright Tracy?

[@tomsculpture]

Why Don't You Use Aqua Regia right away.? (Hydrochloric acid and Nitric acid) Or won't the Resin and Silicon dissolve in it.?

[@successfulengineer]

Aqua Regia is Hydrochloric acid + Nitric acid. Aqua Regia will not dissolve epoxy. What you are probably referring to is probably a twist on piranha solution which is just ridiculously dangerous. Wet ashing is another reasonably dangerous procedure which you also may be referring to.

[@powblockchainmining]

Quick question how do you percipitate the tin from the hcl or discard it..also will appreciate if you do a video covering how you discard your wastes solution.. thanks in advance! 👍🏼

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Willy, when you go through the standard waste treatement, you raise the waste solution pH to about 2, then put a solid chunk of iron in the solution with an air line for agitation. The iron will displace all less reactive metals (including Tin and Copper). Once all the other metals have been displaced, raising the pH some more untill the Iron hydroxide is precipitated will usually leave a solution that is safe to disard. I have tried doing a video on waste treatment a couple of times, both times the video ended up boring even me, so never got posted. But yes, it is a very important subject. On the Gold Refining Forum, a user called 4Metals has a fantastic post on waste treatment for the home refininer.

[@powblockchainmining]

Successful Engineer Thanks for the quick response and for the info 👍🏼

[@mikematij2]

If you add hcl to get rid of the tin, and then evaporate it, all you're getting rid of is h20 and some Sn and H. If you add water to reduce it, all you're doing is concentrating the hcl and the Sn suspended in solution. I feel like your process to this point can be skipped and go to suspend the gold in solution then precipitation it out after

[@mikematij2]

You've created aqua reagis by concentrating HCl and adding in HNO3. Everything precipitated out is gold and the same exact process can be used, because you have unknowingly used the same steps.

[@jadekayak01]

your wrong about the blue bowl they are more like $300+ in NZ. I made my own and welded a funnel into the tub but didn't like the outflow so welded a second funnel inside the first(inverted) so you can rune a large hose or direct to catch tub. I use mine on micron gold obtained in a local river(close to Auckland) tried a miller table but didn't like it. gonna try a centrifical seoerator soon.

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, they are a bit pricey for an injection molded bowl, but I guess they don't really sell enough of them to be able to sell them cheaper. I see they sell on Trademe new for around the $200 mark. I'm busy looking at a few other methods of separation at the moment, but if I go back to my blue bowl, I may 3D print a nozzle and cone setup which will work better than the basic setup I have running now.

[@jadekayak01]

Successful Engineer i dont think a printed cone will be any better. you can get a vetter shape but the ripples from the printing will not help. i jyst foynd a good looking funnel and flush cut it on a flat table. the good thing about the bowl is you can go straight to smelting after its dry. ive only done 3 ounce and my crucible got lost.need a new one for the new year

[@williamdejesusgomez6242]

Buena noche, que proceso tan limpio deseo implementarlo en nuestra corporación en la transformación de residuos direccionado a la recuperación del oro de los componentes electrónicos que conforman los sistemas de computo.deseo que me lo envien redactado en español.

[@debrapolenz4962]

This is the second video I watched were they don't say how much what they extracted was worth, drives me nuts. I want to know what the gold you yielded for that process was worth basically. Is it worth the time.

[@successfulengineer]

So, you are missing a few things, which is why it is driving you nuts. Firstly, the price of Gold changes over time, so you have to look at the amount of Gold recovered and multiply it by today's price to get an idea of the value. Secondly, videos like this demonstrate a process, you can apply the same process to ICs that yield 1g per kg (roughly $40) or ICs that yield 10g per kg (roughly $400)

[@alvindickens3622]

Great video! Will this process work with incinerated chips that were ground to the same consistency as you show here? I left my incinerated chips in the ball mill too long, or so I think! Or, is there a different method that should be used for burnt chips ground to talc consistency?

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Alvin, I 100% believe there is no such thing as material milled too fine, so you have probably done exactly the right thing. My current process (which I will video at some point in the near future) also involves Incineration before ball-milling and I usually aim to have the vast majority of the material go through a 100 mesh sieve. Let me know how you go and feel free to ask advice if you get stuck anywhere.

[@alvindickens3622]

Successful Engineer Sincerest thank you! Your videos, as well as yourself have become my "go to" for help. You have the most informative videos I've watched, and I've watch many! Please keep up the great work! Thinking that I had screwed up this batch, I was just trying to assemble a vibrating platform made from a Homedics back massager in hopes of trying to get the gold to settle to the bottom! I'm not sure if it would work, however, I may still try that until I can assemble a blue bowl for myself! Again, thank you sincerely!

[@mousetrappingvideos]

Looking for a way to do this without Acid, I don't want to mess with acid.

[@successfulengineer]

You can look into smelting, but it will be hard to make any progress down this path without working with acids at some point.