Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
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Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#2Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3!
I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#3Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3! I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.
If you research it a bit you'll find there are a few processes to get back the gold. Some more hazardous yielding higher returns while some are more cautious.
I looked at it a while back and one process seemed feasible for DIY gold recovery but, you'll need to collect thousands of pounds of boards. Where you could do that I have no idea.
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#4The challenge seems to be scaling this up... as ever!
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#5As a vintage computer collector and restorer, I find this rather alarming...
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#6I know a guy who has done this as a business for at least the last 20 years. Nice little business model.
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#7I know a guy who has done this as a business for at least the last 20 years. Nice little business model.
That guy you know is doing the world a favor.
This is an alternative: http://www.google.com/images?q=guiyu%2C+china>
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#8Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3! I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.
If you research it a bit you'll find there are a few processes to get back the gold. Some more hazardous yielding higher returns while some are more cautious. I looked at it a while back and one process seemed feasible for DIY gold recovery but, you'll need to collect thousands of pounds of boards. Where you could do that I have no idea.
When I was just out of High School, I worked at a computer repair shop. We probably tossed out 50-60 pounds of fried motherboards and expansion cards a week until the owner worked a deal with somebody to haul away the stuff to get the gold out. After that we had a dedicated dumpster out back for throwing circuit board stuff into. We easily got to a couple thousand pounds that year.
I think he got some percentage of the money out of the parts, it wasn't a ton of money, but better than just throwing the stuff away.
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#9I knew a lot of hardware hackers who did this as a side-business. They would find old electronic equipment and sell to someone else who, would sell it someone else and so on, until all that hardware ended with someone who had a large vat of acid just lying around.
It was in Eastern Europe, where, as everyone knows, people just have large vats of H2SO4 lying around in their back yard ;-)
Re: Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
#10Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3! I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.
If you research it a bit you'll find there are a few processes to get back the gold. Some more hazardous yielding higher returns while some are more cautious. I looked at it a while back and one process seemed feasible for DIY gold recovery but, you'll need to collect thousands of pounds of boards. Where you could do that I have no idea.
If you know someone at an electronics recyling facility, or someone who repairs TVs, or computers. Basically you first have to have access to all those boards, then you can think of setting up your business.