If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #222
Joined: Mon Feb 20 2006, 05:49PM
Location:
Posts: 96
Has anyone attempted to recover precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum group metals from e-waste and other trash?
Apparently, electronic connectors are often gold plated, and with all the old computers and cell phones thrown away, the amount of gold for recovery is significant.
Catalytic converters contain platinum, palladium, and rhodium with rhodium valued at over 4000 USD per troy ounce. Hard drive disks also contain platinum.
My first and only current attempt at metal recovery was a little experiment where I crushed some gold plated finger stock from a cell phone and dissolved the base metal with ferric chloride. At two days, this process is still incomplete as I should have ground up the metal more. Still, I can see a bunch of gold flakes in the solution.
There are several methods of recovery, virtually none of them safe. Gold can be dissolved with aqua regia and precipitated, dissolved with cyanide, or dissolved with some sort of thiosulfate which there is little information on.
For catalytic converters, the platinum group metals could be dissolved with aqua regia, but there isn't much specific information on the process.
Even though all of this probably won't even yield a nugget the size of a grain of rice, it still seems fun.
Registered Member #106
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 09:39PM
Location: Portland, OR and Istanbul, Turkey
Posts: 47
I asked the same question to the group on the old 4hv board. It really seems that for the precious metals, aqua regia is the way to go. Here is the thread. I'll cross my fingers in hopes that the link works.
Registered Member #222
Joined: Mon Feb 20 2006, 05:49PM
Location:
Posts: 96
That's very interesting... Did you ever attempt to recover the platinum from those plastic things? One thing to note is that platinum only dissolves in aqua regia at near boiling temperatures.
I think they still do use platinum in hard disk platters.
Registered Member #106
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 09:39PM
Location: Portland, OR and Istanbul, Turkey
Posts: 47
No. I haven't done anything with them yet. I have freinds collecting them for me and every month I get a handful. I'm a natural packrat and when I get enough and/or Wife complains about having this useless junk laying around, I hope to get to it. :)
Registered Member #222
Joined: Mon Feb 20 2006, 05:49PM
Location:
Posts: 96
Doing a bit of reading, it seams that refining platinum into a solid ingot is very difficult due to its high melting point. Gold has a much much lower melting point.
Some statistics:
Gold is worth a little more than $20 per gram.
Twenty 486 cpu's weigh about a pound and can yield a total of 3-3.5 grams of gold. Pentium cpu's contain half that amount.
An average gold plated pin clipped off a pcb weighs about .05 grams and can contain about .25-2% gold.
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
[moved] Precious metal recovery
