I'm curious how you might approach this differently now with the lessons learned from this batch? Would more initial mass make the time & material investment more worthwhile (4lbs? 5lbs?) Also, if you started with incineration, would you follow that with the aqua regia right away or still wash with nitric acid to dissolve the substrate metals first, then AR etc? I'm fascinated by the chemistry and I really enjoy watching your work. Thank you!
I have to give you props for hanging in there and getting what you could get out of it. I admit I would've given up the first time the gold precipitated back into solution. Good job.
That was a amateur mistake you cannot precipitate out of solution without denoxing any leftover active acids first. Urea should have been added slowly till it stoped reacting. Only then can you add percipetant to drop your metals out of solution.
You actually explained everything thoroughly. Other videos used text, or robot voices. This was a very entertaining, and educational experience, watching this, and I would like to say thank you. I was rooting for you, the whole 47:39 mins. Did not skip any of it. Again thanks alot.
In your case, I think Patreon wouldn't be charity. I think lots of your viewers would like to chip in a couple of bucks for these excellent lessons. I would, but I can't afford to buy gold and I don't want any jewelry. If you feel strongly about not taking any charity, you could do give-aways of gold buttons or whatever when the experiments have been thoroughly paid for. I supported a miner and he sent me a little rough gem as a thank you and it was so much fun.
I enjoy your knowledge sir. I take my sim cards and place them in a pan of ALL purpose sand and place the pan on a burner so I can control my heat. Put small amount of sim cards on top of the sand. Mix with sand it takes about 10 mins and it will steam the plastic off my cards. U have to watch because they will stick together. Not the gold but the plastic
I wonder if using something like a wiper motor from a car, you could create a agitator that would keep the product moving and perhaps friction might help to remove the foils more quickly
Coolnventions computer scrap has a lot better content than regular ore, I saw another video of a facility that processes scrap by the ton. Pretty cool.
Go for it then , launch yourself in sim cards recycling lol , looks to me like you ll waste a lot of money on products for a less than appreciable result . He doesn t even get 2 grams of gold from more than a kilo of simcards. So basically can't even pay for the cads he bought with that gold , not to mention all the transformation :) Go and melt some copper you ll earn more coins from this .............
christophe Dohet were talking about the company that buys computer scrap by the ton and processes it at their facility, not these small mom and pop recoveries.
I bet you get more yield on copper and tin on your waste bucket, than on gold out of these simcards. You'd need a shitload more and a more efficient process to make a profit. But hey, it's a learning process, very informational and great fun to watch! Keep doing this!
Awesome video thanks, could you please estimate how much materials cost you expended. I would love to know how much it cost you to produce the 1.7 gram of gold.
I can appreciate all the time you put in this video..chemistry like all science is trial n error over n over.as for myself ..the whole process just sends my committee into OVERLOAD.
I’m amazed that your yield was so low from the SIM cards. I wonder if it’s due to the foils on the SIM cards being so thin. Also, any idea why the acid bath was not successful to get the foils to release? Thanks for this great video!
wouldn't it be quicker & more cost effective to just burn up sim card casings under controlled temp. under melt point of gold, shift out foils from ashes and then process ???
My thoughts also, but great representation Sreetips! We used to burn huge piles of wire for copper extraction prior to chem bathing, cut our time consumed by like 70%.
@Elektra Delphi the phidelphia refiner would incinerat whole backplane and circuit boards then dump the ash and metals in a ball mill. And from there I don't know what he did. Sounds very messy when it comes time to separate the metals . I'm thinking there is more value in the solder than the precious metals
Great video, I was not surprised on the yield, it takes a lot of sim cards to produce a small yield. I have played around with them a little my self. One question though, was there a reason you did not denox the excess nitric with urea in lieu of saturating with SMB?
I just checked ebay prices for sulfamic vs SMB and just looking at the first listing, SMB $20/lb. with Sulfamic Acid @ $6/lb. And then not those SMB crystal ppt. to deal with. Again, your videos are outstanding, this one showed your problem solving abilities and experience.
Just watching this and have a question. Would pulverizing these cards or any PC scrap I guess, in a ball mill be more efficient than burning? Thanks for sharing your work.
Awesome video, I have been recovering silver from unused large Ag+/AgCl batteries. These are hard Ag+/AgCl and Magnesium plates that are easily separated. The best method of conversion is a work in progress. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the Video! Excellent Quality like always. As you showed in 2016 already, SIM Cards are not worth the effort, even if you get them for free. But ist a Gold refiners challenge :-) Your actual yield is lower than expected in respect to your 2016 Video. I calculated a 2g yield from the roughly 1200g of SIM Cards. I think incineration from the beginning would have been the optimal approach. But we wouldn't know for sure without this Video of yours. Thanks again.
Because I don't have any urea in my shop, I never use it. I had some sulfamic acid to neutralize the excess nitric, but I've got tons of SMB so I just kept adding that until the nitric was all gone.
SONNY, that's kind of what I was thinking. To show that the gold will come down and stay down if you add enough SMB. Plus I don't use urea. I use sulfamic acid instead.
sreetips I was also curious about the bucket inside a bucket with holes ....I use a party pail ice cream bucket it has plastic handles....works great...who's video did you happen to watch using this method??
If you could figure a way to put a big massive magnetic stir bar in there to keep those sim cards heavily stirring that would likely speed the stripping process up significantly.
You should try dissolving simcards in acetone or paint thinner. Paint Thinner is better because it dissolves slower than acetone, and after about 30 minutes you can take out chips and plastics, and reuse the thinner, While 30 minutes in acetone and it is quite polluted with liquid plastics (but maybe its cheaper way, I must test it more).
The pot transistors that are raised above the circuit board base . They look like steel buckets about a quarter inch square . They typically have gold plating bottom plates . Gold plated on both sides. You have to pry off the steel buckets to reveal the gold plating or detach from the circuit board and look on the bottom side where the naked wires come out
Hey mate. You made the Ammonium Thiocyanate test at 36:50 and saw that there was iron in the solution. You left it in the solution and melted it later with the gold right? Is there a way to get rid of the iron?
What happened with the water used to rinse the sim cards? normally there were some flakes in it? I also had a doubt about incineration because some gold was maybe gone with the smoke. Thanks for your videos.
Awesome video, i love the content and learn heaps. I have used ammonium perchloride for removing gold foils. Now i nedd the nitric acid to purify them.
It is. However that gold is likely .002 / Two tenthousands thick. If it was dry, just walking close to it, could blow it away. Pop corn fart and it's gone
I have watched most of your videos. Very informative! You know your craft well. I have some metallurgical background but not in this style. I am genuinely curious if anything is actually profitable from buying bulk and refining from a small perspective. I do have a question, have you tried to refine the computer part "gold" bars from eBay? Would it be something to look into? Most look like brass to me.
Drop melt bars various computer parts melted together. I’ve got a video on it. They are a total ripoff. You pay $29 for $2 worth of brass and get just a trace of gold - almost nothing.,My experience. Please see my video titled “how to make a profit refining precious metals.”
Not on this video , but related . I searched you channel and found a couple videos dealing with you stock pot - getting more out of them . Also looked with waste , but didn't find if there was one , on dealing with options of eliminating chemical waste . I have not seen much , but many seem to ignore lesser metals , at least copper and maybe lead & tin , should be a lot percentage wise . Still trying get enough volume doing electronics repair , scrapping has become a side line . With gold silver etc. being a hobby ;)
I think you lost much of your gold on the burn. That ash is very lightweight and can be carried away easily with tiny flecks of gold on the ash. But overall I think you did as best of a job as possible. My question is; Would it be possible to dissolve and separate via gravity (the plastic that dissolves floats on the top of the acetone and metal sinks) the plastic components away from the metallic components using something like acetone before using aqua regia to dissolve the metals?
Great job with the video. Putting the filter on the camera. You are a handful of only a few who go above and beyond for your viewers 👍👍. I've tried BGTs and ICs but have found the manufacturers are VERY skimpy on their precious metals. I'm in the process of extracting silver and palladium or platinum (I hope) from old radio crystals. I'm dealing with a LOT of quartz debris that is being a bit stubborn. We'll see how "skimpy" the manufacturers were back in the mid 90s😁. Keep recording, we'll keep commenting 😁👍❤️🙏
Thanks Sreetips. It was a tricky one but a good lesson all the same. Any thoughts on getting a small kiln in the future so you might do as our metallurgical forefathers did, and reduce such things into a button and then use a bone ash cupel and Pb to remove the base metals? I wonder if there would be losses that way also. The obvious gains would be the ability to complete the entire process in a matter of hours, as opposed to many days.
I don't think SMB will precipitate copper. But if copper is in solution with the gold then some of the copper solution may get trapped in the precipitated gold and contaminate it. Thorough rinsing will rid the gold of the copper. It's always best to do a second refining if you have a bunch of copper in your gold refining waste solution.
I love watching your stuff but cant get over the loss you absorb in your experiments! Spent close to $225 on the chips for about $70 in gold, thats rough!
Xtreme Performance very true! I avoid buying any sort of scrap from ebay. Even the gold filled stuff that one used to get good prices on has skyrocketed in the last few years. People paying well over spot for the stuff.
@sreetips So after the first filter of foils, is the gold contaminated with other metals also or did the acid dissolve those metals? How much gold do you loose after you liquefied and then precipitate back into solid? Does the acid (any acid) eat away any amount of gold that cannot be recovered? Is this the best method for unpopulated NEW circit boards? I have so many i need to either sell or continue this process. Thanks for your videos. This is a great way to keep people from hurting themselves due to lack of knowledge. Again thanks for sharing knowledge.
Not quite sure of their composition, but the foils are not pure gold. It would be best to incinerate all these cards to an ash and then recover the gold from that ash with hot aqua regia. But there is so little gold here that is hardly worth the effort.
@@sreetips I have blank green boards unpopulated, with nicely plated gold contacts to solder. These are new boards, some are 3in x 3in, some 6in x 4in. Approximately 50 of the small boards and roughly 20 of the larger. Can i send pics to see if you would be interested in another project, maybe another video?
Good video as usual. I wonder if you got all the gold from the acid peroxide step. I have a bunch of sim cards but i'm not going to rush to process them for the gold. I'd get more money on ebay (thats where I got them) but it feels like I'm scaming someone if I do that.
If I did this again I would skip the acid peroxide and just burn the SIM cards to ash. Then grind the ash up with a mortar and pestle, then hit the fine powder with aqua regia. I might order some more and redo the experiment using that process.
Why are you not utilizing both ports from the air pump? I have that same pump and I know that it doesn't pump a crazy amount of are so you may as well be using both of them to your advantage
I would hav stuck with the concentrated hydrogen peroxide in 100ml incremental doses every 24 hours. You would have had a much higher stripped amount to start with. Your result of 9 days and I could clearly see several cards untouched when you rinsed them is far too long with little result. this should have only taken 72hrs +\- 24hrs with only 400-500ml of the hair salon h2o2 (dosed at 100ml per 18-24hrs ) if you do this again try what I suggested and I guarantee you do it this way every time. After continuing on watch if you would ha dissolved the “S and B” in warm water stirring until it won’t take anymore Sodium and Bi.... let it settle then use the concentrated solution to precipitate the gold to avoid contamination of excess powder.
So you have to buy all the raw materials to extract the gold, then there's all your chemicals that cost money then all your working time so do you turn any profit at all? or is it pretty much a break even deal?
The 40% peroxide is probably way less than 40% because it degrades into water at room temperature. We keep high strength peroxide in the refrigerator to prevent degradation. We also start with freshly manufactured product. If you consider that product from a beauty salon will probably sit in a warehouse somewhere unairconditioned for who knows how long, then it goes to the salon where its stored at room temperature for who knows how long. Its easy to see that the purity will be greatly affected.
@@sreetips it could be even less. You would have to titrate it with KMnO4 to know for sure. We get 50% and after a month in the refrigerator it's already about half strength.
@@sreetips I know it can't be done indoors without proper ventilation, was talking about outdoors. Anyways, I find your videos very educational. Thanks for keeping my interest in science.
Would it be a little easier if you would of used sulfuric acid to eat away at the plastic? Or would incineration of the sim cards is a much better way?
I'm thinking about doing the vinegar and salt mix to recover some gold and then probably put the filter paper from those recoveries in jar, till I'm ready to refine and melt! With green fiber do you think that would be a good first try at gold recovery?? Or do you have any other words of wisdom for me? Have a GREAT Day!!!
trav v the molten borax prevents the gold from sticking to the inside of the dish. It also causes the metal to flow (flux means flow) into a central mass in the bottom of the melt dish.
@@sreetips Ahh yes that makes a lot of sense. I noticed you poured off the molten borax without concern for any gold leaking out, so I assume they don't "alloy" together when you melt (at least at the temperatures you are using), and I noticed how you simply picked up the gold ingot with tweezers while there was some other material left behind (or this could have simply been the melt bowl glowing red from the heat). I guess the different melting temperatures play a role in this? Sorry I don't fully grasp what is going on right now but I find what you are doing highly fascinating since I love precious metals and I find chemical reactions of this type to be very interesting.
Is it possible to lose gold by burning in open air? I know that burning insulated copper wire produces a green flame. That's some of the copper going up with the smoke isn't it?
To get them to strip completely, it takes a couple of days in A/P. I don't process anywhere near that amount, but I use a 1 litre beaker with A/P at about 70-80c, with a bubbler, for about 3 days. All are as clean as a whistle.
At 39:04 you said "boy this is going to be fun" , and i thought i was going to fall out of my chair from laughing so hard !!! Up until then i was thinking this poor man has spent hours working on this and i already would have given up if it was me , but in the name of science you stayed in the trenches , good man !!!!
You Produced $90.99 worth of Gold. (Price per gram $50.55 * 1.7g). Total EBay Cost $126 A week of work and chemicals. I admire what you did, but won't be doing it myself.
That's the reason I created the video. So people have a place to look BEFORE they go out and spend their hard-earned money on this kind of over-priced scrap.
I came across this video today and I was wondering why it didn't work out. I am thinking that if you had burn it first and then did the process, might have been a different outcome. Not sure if you tried this again, if you did can you supply the link so I can watch that version. Thanks for giving us a great video and some great information. Stay safe and see you on the next video
That is a possibility. After doing this experiment I think that grinding them up and then burning everything to an ash then hitting the pulverized ash with aqua regia would make a good experiment. This wet process was a mess.
I see the problem is that the air pump only moves the sim cards in one place. Seems t o me you need to have about 3 pumps going or stand there for hours trying to stir the cards.
One of the most interesting channel on RUclips! Keep it up!
I'm curious how you might approach this differently now with the lessons learned from this batch? Would more initial mass make the time & material investment more worthwhile (4lbs? 5lbs?) Also, if you started with incineration, would you follow that with the aqua regia right away or still wash with nitric acid to dissolve the substrate metals first, then AR etc? I'm fascinated by the chemistry and I really enjoy watching your work. Thank you!
I’d burn it first thing. No question
dude, your channel should have more subs cause the work you do is absolutely stunning!
Appreciate that, thank you.
I have to give you props for hanging in there and getting what you could get out of it. I admit I would've given up the first time the gold precipitated back into solution. Good job.
That was a amateur mistake you cannot precipitate out of solution without denoxing any leftover active acids first. Urea should have been added slowly till it stoped reacting. Only then can you add percipetant to drop your metals out of solution.
Can you do a video on the waste liquid processing? It would be nice to see the process and the cost to process waste.
just poor it down the drain in the street like everyone else ...
"Why are we all getting cancer?" Oh, that's why...
I believe he made one a couple of years ago...
He just ignore
add sugar and ice! great on a hot day
You actually explained everything thoroughly. Other videos used text, or robot voices. This was a very entertaining, and educational experience, watching this, and I would like to say thank you. I was rooting for you, the whole 47:39 mins. Did not skip any of it. Again thanks alot.
James, if I had to do it again I'd incinerate to a fine ash then hit the ash with aqua regia instead of using acid peroxide.
In your case, I think Patreon wouldn't be charity. I think lots of your viewers would like to chip in a couple of bucks for these excellent lessons. I would, but I can't afford to buy gold and I don't want any jewelry. If you feel strongly about not taking any charity, you could do give-aways of gold buttons or whatever when the experiments have been thoroughly paid for. I supported a miner and he sent me a little rough gem as a thank you and it was so much fun.
I enjoy your knowledge sir. I take my sim cards and place them in a pan of ALL purpose sand and place the pan on a burner so I can control my heat. Put small amount of sim cards on top of the sand. Mix with sand it takes about 10 mins and it will steam the plastic off my cards. U have to watch because they will stick together. Not the gold but the plastic
If u try it let me know if it works for u sir. I can send a video
Joshua, I haven’t done these is a long time. The amount of gold is small
45:00 That's about triple the return I was expecting to see.
Congratz!
looks like something they would find in a stream
I wonder if using something like a wiper motor from a car, you could create a agitator that would keep the product moving and perhaps friction might help to remove the foils more quickly
You can use vinegar peroxide and Morton sea salt to extract the gold foils from the SIM cards works really good it just has to set longer
thats 43 troy oz per tonne. most mines produce .5oz per ton
Coolnventions computer scrap has a lot better content than regular ore, I saw another video of a facility that processes scrap by the ton. Pretty cool.
Go for it then , launch yourself in sim cards recycling lol , looks to me like you ll waste a lot of money on products for a less than appreciable result . He doesn t even get 2 grams of gold from more than a kilo of simcards. So basically can't even pay for the cads he bought with that gold , not to mention all the transformation :) Go and melt some copper you ll earn more coins from this .............
christophe Dohet were talking about the company that buys computer scrap by the ton and processes it at their facility, not these small mom and pop recoveries.
I bet you get more yield on copper and tin on your waste bucket, than on gold out of these simcards. You'd need a shitload more and a more efficient process to make a profit.
But hey, it's a learning process, very informational and great fun to watch! Keep doing this!
wouldnt a vibration table or ultrasonic work better at keeping it agitated ?
Awesome video thanks, could you please estimate how much materials cost you expended. I would love to know how much it cost you to produce the 1.7 gram of gold.
I can appreciate all the time you put in this video..chemistry like all science is trial n error over n over.as for myself ..the whole process just sends my committee into OVERLOAD.
I’m amazed that your yield was so low from the SIM cards. I wonder if it’s due to the foils on the SIM cards being so thin. Also, any idea why the acid bath was not successful to get the foils to release? Thanks for this great video!
I’m not sure. I’ve only done SIM cards this one time.
This is SO cool. Have you thought about having summer camps for teens teaching them this? My kids are fascinated! Thank you!
Damn. I'm waiting for him to come out of his RV in the Arizona desert in a lab apron and underwear!
lol
SpaXpert that would be a New Mexican desert
@@bobbydigital7482 oh hell you're right! Good catch Bobby!
You watch too much tv.
@@Scapularbore *too
wouldn't it be quicker & more cost effective to just burn up sim card casings under controlled temp. under melt point of gold, shift out foils from ashes and then process ???
Yes, I concluded that after I seen all the gold foils left in the SIM cards.
Would this also work with CPU and RAM? That would make everything easier.
My thoughts also, but great representation Sreetips! We used to burn huge piles of wire for copper extraction prior to chem bathing, cut our time consumed by like 70%.
Is it possible to Pyrolytic incinerrate the sim-Cards and desolve the Ashes? Edit: nevermind, just 30 secs later you dit it.
@Elektra Delphi the phidelphia refiner would incinerat whole backplane and circuit boards then dump the ash and metals in a ball mill. And from there I don't know what he did. Sounds very messy when it comes time to separate the metals . I'm thinking there is more value in the solder than the precious metals
Great video, I was not surprised on the yield, it takes a lot of sim cards to produce a small yield. I have played around with them a little my self. One question though, was there a reason you did not denox the excess nitric with urea in lieu of saturating with SMB?
My question as well... I was surprised to not see you deNox with Sulfamic acid ?? But very clear process, per your usual great videos.
Gary, I don't have any urea because I never use it. I did have sulfamic but I just kept adding SMB until all the excess nitric was gone
Karl, I had it, but I just kept adding SMB until all the nitric was gone and the gold came down completely (with the crystalized SMB)
I just checked ebay prices for sulfamic vs SMB and just looking at the first listing, SMB $20/lb. with Sulfamic Acid @ $6/lb. And then not those SMB crystal ppt. to deal with. Again, your videos are outstanding, this one showed your problem solving abilities and experience.
For future reference, brown bottle 3percent h2o2 is considered ten volume, so 40 volume h2o2 would be fo ur times as strong or 12 percent
I didn't know that, thank you.
Just watching this and have a question. Would pulverizing these cards or any PC scrap I guess, in a ball mill be more efficient than burning? Thanks for sharing your work.
For the best yield these should be incinerated to a fine ash. Then extract the gold with aqua regia.
Interesting *says the wireless worker that throws 50 SIM cards away a day.*
Can i buy them from you 🤔
Awesome video, I have been recovering silver from unused large Ag+/AgCl batteries. These are hard Ag+/AgCl and Magnesium plates that are easily separated. The best method of conversion is a work in progress. Any suggestions?
I thought those batteries were silver oxide. Silver oxide should melt directly into silver after removing it from the case
Thanks for the Video! Excellent Quality like always. As you showed in 2016 already, SIM Cards are not worth the effort, even if you get them for free. But ist a Gold refiners challenge :-) Your actual yield is lower than expected in respect to your 2016 Video. I calculated a 2g yield from the roughly 1200g of SIM Cards. I think incineration from the beginning would have been the optimal approach. But we wouldn't know for sure without this Video of yours. Thanks again.
great video but why didnt you neutralize the nitric with urea first
Because I don't have any urea in my shop, I never use it. I had some sulfamic acid to neutralize the excess nitric, but I've got tons of SMB so I just kept adding that until the nitric was all gone.
I was wondering the same thing ...thinking you did it on purpose so you could show a way to fix it..😉
SONNY, that's kind of what I was thinking. To show that the gold will come down and stay down if you add enough SMB. Plus I don't use urea. I use sulfamic acid instead.
sreetips yes I prefer sulfamic also.... I dropped some Pd the day you posted your video on it I didn't melt but ended up with 3.3 g of sponge ...😁
sreetips I was also curious about the bucket inside a bucket with holes ....I use a party pail ice cream bucket it has plastic handles....works great...who's video did you happen to watch using this method??
this guy is the most optimistic person on Earth
I think I smoked another half a pack of cig's on this one, had me on the edge of my chair again.. Great video ! Dru
great troll. IM clapping.
Sweet
stop smoking
@@__BERSERKER__ you ready no the aquaridgea is the best way I think brother nice ...
thats alot a cigs bro lol I am in the process of quitting down to just 1-2 a day! I know you were just kidding here a bit, have a great day.
If you could figure a way to put a big massive magnetic stir bar in there to keep those sim cards heavily stirring that would likely speed the stripping process up significantly.
You should try dissolving simcards in acetone or paint thinner. Paint Thinner is better because it dissolves slower than acetone, and after about 30 minutes you can take out chips and plastics, and reuse the thinner, While 30 minutes in acetone and it is quite polluted with liquid plastics (but maybe its cheaper way, I must test it more).
The pot transistors that are raised above the circuit board base . They look like steel buckets about a quarter inch square . They typically have gold plating bottom plates . Gold plated on both sides. You have to pry off the steel buckets to reveal the gold plating or detach from the circuit board and look on the bottom side where the naked wires come out
How clean was your fume hood those days.
It's more experienced and dirty right now in your new uploads.
Because I just replaced the motor last week, it’s as clean as my wife’s kitchen floor.
@@sreetips 😁
can't wait to see that clean hood 👍
Hey mate. You made the Ammonium Thiocyanate test at 36:50 and saw that there was iron in the solution. You left it in the solution and melted it later with the gold right? Is there a way to get rid of the iron?
Best to rinse the iron off before melting
@@sreetips Okay, thanks for the answer!
What happened with the water used to rinse the sim cards? normally there were some flakes in it?
I also had a doubt about incineration because some gold was maybe gone with the smoke.
Thanks for your videos.
Awesome video, i love the content and learn heaps. I have used ammonium perchloride for removing gold foils. Now i nedd the nitric acid to purify them.
I have a question at time 20:22 the filter looks like it is covered in gold, please explain?
It is. However that gold is likely .002 / Two tenthousands thick. If it was dry, just walking close to it, could blow it away. Pop corn fart and it's gone
@@joek511 Thanks joe K it just looked real strange
I have watched most of your videos. Very informative! You know your craft well. I have some metallurgical background but not in this style. I am genuinely curious if anything is actually profitable from buying bulk and refining from a small perspective. I do have a question, have you tried to refine the computer part "gold" bars from eBay? Would it be something to look into? Most look like brass to me.
Drop melt bars various computer parts melted together. I’ve got a video on it. They are a total ripoff. You pay $29 for $2 worth of brass and get just a trace of gold - almost nothing.,My experience. Please see my video titled “how to make a profit refining precious metals.”
Not on this video , but related .
I searched you channel and found a couple videos dealing with you stock pot - getting more out of them .
Also looked with waste , but didn't find if there was one , on dealing with options of eliminating chemical waste .
I have not seen much , but many seem to ignore lesser metals , at least copper and maybe lead & tin , should be a lot percentage wise .
Still trying get enough volume doing electronics repair , scrapping has become a side line .
With gold silver etc. being a hobby ;)
I think you lost much of your gold on the burn. That ash is very lightweight and can be carried away easily with tiny flecks of gold on the ash. But overall I think you did as best of a job as possible. My question is; Would it be possible to dissolve and separate via gravity (the plastic that dissolves floats on the top of the acetone and metal sinks) the plastic components away from the metallic components using something like acetone before using aqua regia to dissolve the metals?
I don't know. I don't have much experience with this kind of material. The yields are too low.
Great job with the video. Putting the filter on the camera. You are a handful of only a few who go above and beyond for your viewers 👍👍.
I've tried BGTs and ICs but have found the manufacturers are VERY skimpy on their precious metals.
I'm in the process of extracting silver and palladium or platinum (I hope) from old radio crystals. I'm dealing with a LOT of quartz debris that is being a bit stubborn. We'll see how "skimpy" the manufacturers were back in the mid 90s😁.
Keep recording, we'll keep commenting 😁👍❤️🙏
Doesn't too much smb make other metals precipitate out? If more is added when theres no presence of gold?
I love your videos you remind me of my geology and chemistry professor faud nobari and Mr Stan..
What's that hose on the side of the filter funnel beaker? Is it just for air movement so no solution squirts out?
I think that was a jacketed funnel for heating or cooling.
@@sreetips ah, I have a lot to learn apparently lol. Thanks.
Thanks Sreetips. It was a tricky one but a good lesson all the same. Any thoughts on getting a small kiln in the future so you might do as our metallurgical forefathers did, and reduce such things into a button and then use a bone ash cupel and Pb to remove the base metals? I wonder if there would be losses that way also. The obvious gains would be the ability to complete the entire process in a matter of hours, as opposed to many days.
I should have burned the SIM cards. Then hit the ash hard with aqua regia
For the sake of learning it’s a great video
But it seems like a whole lot of work for very very little gold
I guess it depends how many sim cards you have.
@@charliecash8661 and how cheaply you can get them.
H! mr.sreetips.. A have a question. In your first attempt adding the SMB in 18:18 is that possible you will precipitate other metals too (ex:copper)?
I don't think SMB will precipitate copper. But if copper is in solution with the gold then some of the copper solution may get trapped in the precipitated gold and contaminate it. Thorough rinsing will rid the gold of the copper. It's always best to do a second refining if you have a bunch of copper in your gold refining waste solution.
Thankyou :)
I love watching your stuff but cant get over the loss you absorb in your experiments! Spent close to $225 on the chips for about $70 in gold, thats rough!
Xtreme Performance very true! I avoid buying any sort of scrap from ebay. Even the gold filled stuff that one used to get good prices on has skyrocketed in the last few years. People paying well over spot for the stuff.
ADS! ADS!!!! REPEAT AFTER ME, ADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@weatherphobia no shit
What kind of fumes extractor for indoors you are using , ?
It’s a fume hood
@sreetips
So after the first filter of foils, is the gold contaminated with other metals also or did the acid dissolve those metals? How much gold do you loose after you liquefied and then precipitate back into solid? Does the acid (any acid) eat away any amount of gold that cannot be recovered?
Is this the best method for unpopulated NEW circit boards? I have so many i need to either sell or continue this process. Thanks for your videos. This is a great way to keep people from hurting themselves due to lack of knowledge.
Again thanks for sharing knowledge.
Not quite sure of their composition, but the foils are not pure gold. It would be best to incinerate all these cards to an ash and then recover the gold from that ash with hot aqua regia. But there is so little gold here that is hardly worth the effort.
@@sreetips
I have blank green boards unpopulated, with nicely plated gold contacts to solder. These are new boards, some are 3in x 3in, some 6in x 4in. Approximately 50 of the small boards and roughly 20 of the larger. Can i send pics to see if you would be interested in another project, maybe another video?
Sorry, I only refine my own material
This guy got more patience than 20 Saints
I was cracking up when you burned the sim cards. I bet that smelled soooo bad
That is a one of a kind smell. Once you smelled it.... I could smell it even when he was burning them. Lol
Vent hood. :)
are you washing that with water the remaining of the tank
One question; how do you dispose of used solutions
Charles Miller neighbours rose bush always works for me.
@@Spinfxxx really does a good job on the kudzu behind my house.
Good video as usual. I wonder if you got all the gold from the acid peroxide step. I have a bunch of sim cards but i'm not going to rush to process them for the gold. I'd get more money on ebay (thats where I got them) but it feels like I'm scaming someone if I do that.
If I did this again I would skip the acid peroxide and just burn the SIM cards to ash. Then grind the ash up with a mortar and pestle, then hit the fine powder with aqua regia. I might order some more and redo the experiment using that process.
I don't understand why you would bother, when the yield was a fraction of the cost of sims.
Why are you not utilizing both ports from the air pump? I have that same pump and I know that it doesn't pump a crazy amount of are so you may as well be using both of them to your advantage
If you melt the SIM cards in acetone first would make your life easier
Really it's very nice video. Waiting 4 your part 2 of catalytic converter
It's coming,mesh ould be much shorter than the recovery video part 1 of 2
I would hav stuck with the concentrated hydrogen peroxide in 100ml incremental doses every 24 hours. You would have had a much higher stripped amount to start with. Your result of 9 days and I could clearly see several cards untouched when you rinsed them is far too long with little result. this should have only taken 72hrs +\- 24hrs with only 400-500ml of the hair salon h2o2 (dosed at 100ml per 18-24hrs ) if you do this again try what I suggested and I guarantee you do it this way every time. After continuing on watch if you would ha dissolved the “S and B” in warm water stirring until it won’t take anymore Sodium and Bi.... let it settle then use the concentrated solution to precipitate the gold to avoid contamination of excess powder.
What would have happened if you had added a few ml of Nitric acid to the batch?
When u poured into beaker.. Why did u Not use a fine filter...to make it easy to filter from... ????
Because I don’t have much experience with this type of scrap. It should have been burned to an ash then processes with acids.
So you have to buy all the raw materials to extract the gold, then there's all your chemicals that cost money then all your working time so do you turn any profit at all? or is it pretty much a break even deal?
It's a loss. I don't refine escrap anymore because the yields are too low.
Why the nitric acid? What happens If we only use HCL?
The 40% peroxide is probably way less than 40% because it degrades into water at room temperature. We keep high strength peroxide in the refrigerator to prevent degradation. We also start with freshly manufactured product. If you consider that product from a beauty salon will probably sit in a warehouse somewhere unairconditioned for who knows how long, then it goes to the salon where its stored at room temperature for who knows how long. Its easy to see that the purity will be greatly affected.
It’s actually only about 12% peroxide
@@sreetips it could be even less. You would have to titrate it with KMnO4 to know for sure. We get 50% and after a month in the refrigerator it's already about half strength.
Wouldn’t removing the circuit board from the plastic by hand be more practical before starting the experiment?
All 5000 of them? I’d rather let the chemicals do all of that work for me.
Another fine video. You are a great inspiration. I was eager to see a good yield and was able to share in your disappointment..
Wow this was hell of the work. Thank you.
1.7 g for all that effort and liquids etc mustve not been a profit
not the point. gold recovery is a gamble. plus, if he saved that solution, i'd bet he could de nox it & drop a cpl more g's...
Did the iron come from the burn pan?
Possibly
April 2020 Value: $91.36
Damn, that little bead is worth more than my 5 bags of recycled bottles and cans!
Did you try acetone to remove the glue
No
doesn't your hydrochloric acid melt the plastic bucket? Can this be done out in a garage instead of indoors?
Deborah, the plastic is high density polyethylene. The acid does not affect it. This can't be done indoors with out a fume hood.
@@sreetips I know it can't be done indoors without proper ventilation, was talking about outdoors. Anyways, I find your videos very educational. Thanks for keeping my interest in science.
Deborah Elliott I got it. I just don’t want see anyone get hurt. I’m glad that you are safety minded.
wonder if you heat the cards at a higher temperature,
These are best processed by incinerating to a fine ash then extracting the gold with aqua regia.
sir i need help i try to settle the gold with urea and SMB and i get glop of mud is the gold have been down with the mud?,
Test with stannous BEFORE SMB. You'll find that you have almost no gold in solution. Common beginner mistake.
to much solution so little gold, what the best methode to deal with it?, beside evaporation
Came along way in production quality since this. No wonder you don’t do the SIM cards anymore. Your on to bigger and better things these days😂😂
Would it be a little easier if you would of used sulfuric acid to eat away at the plastic? Or would incineration of the sim cards is a much better way?
Daniel, incineration to ash, grind ash to a powder, then straight to aqua regia is the way to go here.
sreetips ok thanks
You should have used acetone. Most sim cards are made of plastic that dissolves in acetone. Have done a couple times.
Acetone is some liver killing sh*t , wear full haz-mat with it.
good to know
@@rrfields65 WTF?! No it's not! That vodka you're drinking will do far more damage to your liver than acetone ever will.
I always wondered. You need any license for this kind of experiment? Or you don't need to.
I don’t think you need a license to dissolve metals in acid. But you’ll want to check your local regs to be sure.
I'm thinking about doing the vinegar and salt mix to recover some gold and then probably put the filter paper from those recoveries in jar, till I'm ready to refine and melt! With green fiber do you think that would be a good first try at gold recovery?? Or do you have any other words of wisdom for me?
Have a GREAT Day!!!
Shane, I’m not that familiar with salt and vinegar. I remember that the yield was low for that experiment.
I ADMIRE YOUR PATIENCE WELL DONE
Does borax not contaminate the final gold product with boron?
No
@@sreetips Thanks for the info. I've seen borax being used by a number of people who are melting gold and I always wondered about that.
trav v the molten borax prevents the gold from sticking to the inside of the dish. It also causes the metal to flow (flux means flow) into a central mass in the bottom of the melt dish.
@@sreetips Ahh yes that makes a lot of sense. I noticed you poured off the molten borax without concern for any gold leaking out, so I assume they don't "alloy" together when you melt (at least at the temperatures you are using), and I noticed how you simply picked up the gold ingot with tweezers while there was some other material left behind (or this could have simply been the melt bowl glowing red from the heat).
I guess the different melting temperatures play a role in this?
Sorry I don't fully grasp what is going on right now but I find what you are doing highly fascinating since I love precious metals and I find chemical reactions of this type to be very interesting.
@@sreetips 👍 good to know
Is it possible to lose gold by burning in open air? I know that burning insulated copper wire produces a green flame. That's some of the copper going up with the smoke isn't it?
Just wondering wouldn’t of been a crap load easier if you just heated the sims and pealed off the gold foil ? I have done that which is way easier
On 5000 of them? That’s too much work
sreetips not 5000 but 800
Even that would be quite a chore. I’d rather let the chemicals do all that work
Will there be any silver in saluting?
Probably no silver in solution
To get them to strip completely, it takes a couple of days in A/P. I don't process anywhere near that amount, but I use a 1 litre beaker with A/P at about 70-80c, with a bubbler, for about 3 days. All are as clean as a whistle.
If I had to do this again I’d incinerate to a fine ash then extract the gold with aqua regia
Have you considered trying to dissolve the plastic with chloroform instead of trying to remove the foils from the plastic?
I have not
Where did you get all these sim cards?
eBay
so did you test for gold on all the ashes that were left? I think you lost gold in a lot of steps and overall it wasnt efficient
I agree
So ultimately we can just simply incinerate simcards and they will leave the gold behind? or am I missing something.
The tiny amount of gold won’t even form a bead if the cards are incinerated to ash.
I think a lot of the gold was left in the ash from the cards
No; That's what the test was for.
At 39:04 you said "boy this is going to be fun" , and i thought i was going to fall out of my chair from laughing so hard !!! Up until then i was thinking this poor man has spent hours working on this and i already would have given up if it was me , but in the name of science you stayed in the trenches , good man !!!!
You Produced $90.99 worth of Gold. (Price per gram $50.55 * 1.7g).
Total EBay Cost $126
A week of work and chemicals.
I admire what you did, but won't be doing it myself.
That's the reason I created the video. So people have a place to look BEFORE they go out and spend their hard-earned money on this kind of over-priced scrap.
what do you do with your waste liquids?
Waste treatment
not economically feasible, true? im sure those chemicals are expensive for a gram of gold yield
Quite correct
I came across this video today and I was wondering why it didn't work out. I am thinking that if you had burn it first and then did the process, might have been a different outcome. Not sure if you tried this again, if you did can you supply the link so I can watch that version. Thanks for giving us a great video and some great information. Stay safe and see you on the next video
What does streetips mean?
Idk but the word or name bugs me for some reason
could u extract more from cards if they had been coarsely grounded before soaking?
That is a possibility. After doing this experiment I think that grinding them up and then burning everything to an ash then hitting the pulverized ash with aqua regia would make a good experiment. This wet process was a mess.
Are you using home made SnCL It looks clear like the stuff I use
I use 1 gram pure tin shot, 1 gram stannous chloride crystals, 25ml DH2O and 30 drops hcl
I see the problem is that the air pump only moves the sim cards in one place. Seems t o me you need to have about 3 pumps going or stand there for hours trying to stir the cards.