Getting gold from old computer parts

[Dan12345]

Found this video very interesting and who ever this guy is he didn't make it look to hard. Anyone on here tried this sort of thing

 

[mcsouza]

I look at these processes all the time, there's a forum called goldrefiningforum, there you will see all people who are into refining precious metals, gold and silver, the only problem is to get your hands on the chemicals involved such as Nitric Acid, sulfuric acid, in the UK it's crime to carry Nitric Acid for example, and you if you want it, you will need to submit a form to Home Office with lots of information, including your GP mentioning that you are not mad. Understand the processes involved to refine gold and silver, and the most important, the safety of dealing with deadly fumes, when mixing boiling acids with metals, it can kill you, your family and animals. You will need a fume hood to operate it and not to mention how to deal with the waste materials, you can't just dump these things in the drain. Also, the acid fumes are very corrosive. I see many crazy people on Youtube doing it at home, which can be very deadly. I wish one day I can have my space with all the safety gears to refine my own Gold and Silver  but, please, don't try it at home by yourself. I know it seems tempting, I confess I would like to try, but do your research first, also, this can't be done in a residential area.

On the video he is mixing hydrochloric acid with bleach which forms chlorine gas, you don't want to breathe it, this gas was used on WW1 to kill people.

Edited October 1, 2021 by mcsouza

[Coverte]

I don't know for sure, but rather suspect an air fed mask, as used in a car spray booth may suffice;

those keep out the fumes in the air for solvent based base colour paint (now usually water-based) and clear-coat, clear-coat is still pretty toxic, as it is 2 pack, so often still solvent based. 

[Dan12345]

I definitely won't be trying this any time soon, don't want to kill myself for one Oz of gold lol

[mcsouza]

19 minutes ago, Coverte said:

I don't know for sure, but rather suspect an air fed mask, as used in a car spray booth may suffice;

those keep out the fumes in the air for solvent based base colour paint (now usually water-based) and clear-coat, clear-coat is still pretty toxic, as it is 2 pack, so often still solvent based. 

No mask will protect you from the toxic gases, it is a very dangerous hobby.

[MetalMandible]

As mcsouza already mentioned, a fume hood is pretty much a must if you plan to try this.  Good luck.

[xthomasx]

I have seen several such videos. However, nobody has ever reliably explained to me how much gold is actually used in the manufacturing of a computer.

My take is that it is far less than suggested in the videos. I think they are fake. 

In university, in the past millennium, some of us tried to extract silver from photographic waste solutions, and not even that gave satisfactory results. 

[Skyfiller]

Watched this the other day that touches upon it but they were talking tons. Recycling factory starts at 8 mins in.

 

[MrStacker]

It is a very labour-intensive process.

The effort, time and materials you need to invest in to complete the process far outweighs the end result of the gold reward. Sure there are plenty of youtube tutorials that show you how to do it but a lot of things look "easy" to try and replicate yourself but it's not that straight forward. Some of the chemicals are very dangerous to handle and you have to constantly monitor several stages of the process. If you mess up one stage it has a knock on effect to next phase of refining.

In my opinion it only makes sense to carry out if you have access to the materials with ease, seperate and safe location to carry out the process and an exceptional quantity of old computer parts that would be worth to extract the gold from.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by MrStacker

[Bigmarc]

I subscribe to this guy's channel. No acid and he hasn't had success yet but he getting there. 

If you are interested in this kind of thing all his other videos great.