7/23/2019 Patnor101 s Guide to How to Process Black Surface Mount Chips and Flatpacks

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Patnor101`s guide to:

How to process black surfacemount chips and flatpacks.

(Step by step directions how did that!

"rom this:

#o this:

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While we all can recognize visible plating on various electronics components, pins

and printed circuit boards there is often well hidden treasure waiting to be found.

I decided to run small experiment on approximate content of precious metals hidden

inside surface mount chips and flatpacks. Just for clarification:

1. surface mount chips I mean an! black rectangular or s"uare chip mounted onprinted circuit board. #ll were cut out from boards.

$. flatpack % often called south and north bridge on motherboards or video cards,

ball grid arra! chips made from two parts. &reen % fiber one with s"uare black

top. I have used and processed in this experiment black top part onl!.

#ll chips were cut out from boards. 'here are few options how to process them, I

was looking for fastest method. (all mill can be used but instead of waiting for hoursto have all material crushed I decided to speed up crushing process b! using heat.

I have found coal fire as the best as it can produce high temperature and basical!

p!rol!ze material so no visible smoke if produced. )hips practical! disintegrate from

heat without burning with flame. I used *tainless steel pot but cheaper version is to

use +ust top cover part from dismantled flopp! drive. #n!thing made from iron or

steel will do, if !our container is flat material can be p!rol!zed faster comparing tobigger pots.

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lace chips to container and put it to fire. )hips will turn white when all combustile

material is burned. I usual! leave them in fire and take them out when container and

chips are red hot. *ome ma! not be completel! burned !ou will see that parts of them

ma! be still black % that is where chips were tightl! packed in container or +ust la!

one on another and the! will be put in fire again later.

-se ball mill or an! grinding device !ou want cheapest method will be +ust piece of

iron pipe with cap as mortar and iron rod as pestle. o not breathe fine powder when

grinding, do it outside.

-se sieve on resulted powder to catch all metallic parts from inside and bigger non

burned material from chips. o not throw awa! metallic parts from inside as man! of

them are plated with gold, silver palladium. 'he! will be processed later. ut them in

fine sieve and wash them with water over catch container to get all fine gold

connecting wires which still ma! be sticked or attached to them.

*ieved powder looks like this: /it still contain small metallic pins from inside chips0

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etallic parts and pins from inside chip:

2ote small pieces of gold in catch container from washing metallic parts.

uch more of that is in crushed and sieved powder. &old wire is so thin, barel!visible with naked e!e, onl! when more pieces are accumullated !ou start notice deep

!ellow color in catching pan. I have used black plastic pan used for gold panning.

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#ll bigger ceramic or plastic parts from sieve can be placed in fire again and then

crushed so at the end !ou will have all material crushed to bab! powder consistenc!.

'hen !ou can start wash all that material in water. o it slowl!. 3ou will find that

much of that powder will be floaring on top so use drop or two of washing up li"uid,

that will clear surface and all material will sink.

If material is properl! crushed most of it will turn in mud and gold due to its heav!

weight will sink to bottom. (urned and powdered plastic will dissolve in water and

will be carried awa!. 3ou +ust wash material till water stop changing colour and

become clear. 3ou will notice gold starting to accumulate at bottom of pan.

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'his gold is still mixed with some metallic pins. 3ou can use strong magnet from

inside of hard disk drive to take out an! magnetic metals. 2on magnetic metals willbe removed later.

4epeat burning, crushing and washing of material till !ou will have onl! concentrate

where most of it will be gold wires and particles. ont throw metallic parts awa!, put

them in some container to process them later. 4emember the! still contain some

amount of gold plating where gold wires were bonded and not onl! gold. 'here ma!

be considerable "uantit! of *ilver and some alladium too.

3ou can clean resulted concentrate with different methods. 'here will be some copper

pins and tin. I have decided to wash that first in 2itric acid. #fter wash in warm

diluted 5267 /7890, I incinerated concentrate /make material red hot but do not

melt in homogenous mass0. #fter that I washed that in 5!drochloric /also called

uriatic0 acid 7$9.

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)oncentrate before cleaning:

#nd after washing with acids:

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4esulted gold wires can be melted but to achieve high purit! it is desirable to refine

them to get rid of all unwanted metas. aterial can be processed fastest with #"ua

4egia where we dissolve ever!thing, properl! filter, reclaim gold in form of fine

powder which will then be washed again several times and melted.

#fter all this !ou will be left with something like I got :0

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Some more data and pictures.

I started this experiment with kilograms of various chips and flatpacks.

)hips were from motherboards and all peripheral cards from computers

like ;ideo, 2etwork, *ound, 4am sticks.....

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icture of testing for silver in 5267 used for washing concentrate:

icture of & test on washing solution, but I suspect an! d will be still

on metallic parts from inside:

>ast picture is of button surrounded with small pieces of 1?k +ewellr!, note

colour, 1?k gold looks pale compared to gold recovered from chips.

If !ou want to find more about recover!, rec!cling, refining and testing of

precious metals visit www.goldrefiningforum.comand feel free to contact

me there if !ou have "uestion about this experiment.