Cash your gold!

[Terbinator]

Here

Seen this posted up on the Aria forum, thought I'd share it here as its quite a good read, even for Tom's.

[Blackmage]

Um, that was interesting!

[Saracen]

It was indeed interesting. A superb read.

But Terbinator .... you'll never know how close that was. I saw the thread title and was already reaching for the "ban spammer" button before the poster's name percolated into my grey matter.

[scaryjim]

It was a fascinating article - but what I want to know is how they got into my study to take that picture of the big pile of motherboards on the first page

I already knew that a lot of gold was produced commercially by recovery from computer equipment, but it's interesting to see that a "homebrew" methodology can produce a quantifiable amount of gold - and if that much came from a relatively small number of old motherboards, I don't think you'd have to multiply up the process too much to make it at least break even...

[matty-hodgson]

Anyone want to send me 5000 motherboards and I'll let you know if it works or not

[scaryjim]

There used to be an ebay seller who was flogging old motherboards by the ton specifically for gold recovery. Doesn't seem to be listed now - presumably they either gave up or sold them all...

[Sputnik]

I remember reading an article about commercially recovering precious metals from old electronics where they crunched the PCB's into little 'biscuits' then processed them somehow for the metals from everything on the board. It was surprising how much precious metals they got from a ton of old mobile phones.

[Pob255]

but it's interesting to see that a "homebrew" methodology can produce a quantifiable amount of gold - and if that much came from a relatively small number of old motherboards, I don't think you'd have to multiply up the process too much to make it at least break even...

Ummm think about that again.
This

+
A lot of chemicals
=


The return on that much gold would not cover the cost of the chemicals alone.
The companies that do this sort of recovery & recycling, also hack up other bits, like the cap's, to recover materials from them, lead commonly is recovered off older electronics.

To really make something like this profitable you need to do it on an industrial scale and recover multiple materials.

[Attila the Bun]

"hydrochloric acid and chlorine bleach is what will dissolve the gold"

I have a smile on my face as I picture the first guy to discover that you can dissolve gold

[Sputnik]

There is actually gold everywhere but, In such small quantities that extracting it would not be economical.

Did anyone see blood, sweat and luxuries where they went mining for gold in Ghana? They processed tons of sand/earth to gain a tiny bit of gold.

[scaryjim]

Ummm think about that again.

Ahhh, I wasn't being entirely serious. But that pile must be about - what - 20 motherboards? That's not a huge number. And I suspect that they massively over-estimated the amount of the various chemicals they used - you can probably recover several times more gold with the same amount of chemicals if you have the motherboards...

The trick to it would be to turn all the recovered materials into gift items - like those clipboards and coasters made from old PCBs. They can be sold for far greater than their raw material value...

[jimbouk]

My brother's ex-girlfriend's parent's neighbour used to do this in his back yard, I don't think he ever got much money from it but he kept himself amused. Great article though, love the science

[Terbinator]

Who cares how much gold you get from X amount of components - that guy is rockin' a gold BB - the hardest part is deciding who to fire it at

[Pob255]

that guy is rockin' a gold BB - the hardest part is deciding who to fire it at

Easy, the nearest rapper you can find.

[Funkstar]

Ahhh, I wasn't being entirely serious. But that pile must be about - what - 20 motherboards? That's not a huge number. And I suspect that they massively over-estimated the amount of the various chemicals they used - you can probably recover several times more gold with the same amount of chemicals if you have the motherboards...

The trick to it would be to turn all the recovered materials into gift items - like those clipboards and coasters made from old PCBs. They can be sold for far greater than their raw material value...

That's what I was thinking Jim.

Although I think the main money earner from recycling PCBs would be the amount of copper you could extract and possibly the lead as well. Not very glamerous metals, but could well end up being more valuable simply because of the quantities involved.

[scaryjim]

That's what I was thinking Mike.

Who's mike?