Does anyone know anything about reclaiming silver/gold off of computer components ect

Maybe a little bit to far off the coin roll hunting topic but I'm curious if anyone does this or knows how?

 

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This page is a good start.

http://www.ishor.com/goldrecovery.php

 

I know it is a huge pain in the butt. I tried it a bit, failed, lesson learned.

 

I can tell you this,the reverse electroplating process is fairly simple and can ne done with little expense using things you might already have around the house. As far as circut boards that are embedded in plastic however,you need harsh chemicals,and in my opinion its just not worth it. If you need further advice,or instruction,feel free to pm me,and I will gladly help you out. --Dennis

 

For the time and efforts involved, as well as chemical hazards at recovering gold, you might look into local mineral and gold clubs who participate in mining. Since I saw you were in Michigan, here is one of several googled about gold mining there. GL.

Jim
http://www.dayooper.com/MichiganGold.htm

 

Indeed. With modern electronics I'd say it isn't worth trying without access to some fairly sophisticated and high volume processes. It would be much easier with stuff from the 80s & 90s.

If you believe the TV, it would be much easier to haul a hooptie pontoon boat to Nome, add some left over engine parts and other stuff from the junk yard, and boom, you can suck a couple of ounces of gold off the beach there in just a couple of hours. Not only that, your friendly neighborhood gold buyer will come to you and pay spot for it as well.

 

Anyone watch Gold Rush on the Discovery channel? Before they go to a commercial they have these little trivia facts. A few weeks ago they said there is more gold in a ton of cell phones than in a ton of pay dirt. What they don't tell you is how hard it is to get the gold out.

 

I would imagine the easiest way would be first to use a furnace to burn off the organics. Then pound the ash into dust. Boil the dust in nitric acid for awhile. Drain the acid off and set aside for later precipitation of the base metals and silver. Boil the residue in aqua regia to dissolve the gold and platinum group metals. Filter the residue. The residue is your inorganics and then you recover and refine the gold and platinum metals from the aqua regia.

 

Gee Conder, you left out Cyanides and Fuming mercury I saw a video at my gem and mineral club, where the guy was boiling off mercury to leave the gold, and as a safety measure, he held it at arm's length, and turned his head to speak. I wonder if he was crazy before he started doing this or as a result of doing this. I gave a long improntu explanation why this was not good, but all they saw was the resulting gold, and where could they get mercury?

 

Yeah, I was hoping you could desolder or scrap the metal off. I have no interest in all these toxic chemical processes. Thanks for the link to the gold mining. that sounds kind of fun to try (for a day). In MI you are only allowed to gather 1/2 ounce of gold a year, and I suspect even that would not be an easy task! as far as gathering actual metal I think I will have to stick to roll searching for now!