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Full line of cobalt,

copper,
Gold Recovery iron, nieckel,
Correctly
and titanium powders.
By Railes (/member/Railes/) in Circuits (/circuits/) > Electronics (/circuits/electronics/projects/) 1,118,257 598 327

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Gold Recovery Correctly by Railes (/member/Railes/) Follow Download Favorite w I Made It
I will detail a SAFE process of turning old electronic parts into little round lumps of pure gold.
There are many tutorials that claim to o er methods of gold recovery such as "Cupellation"*.
These processes are DANGEROUS and put the user at the risk of inhaling vaporized metals.
No over the counter breather will protect you from these dangers; Only lab grade isolated
breathing systems can protect against metal vapors. ********************************** SEE
HEALTH HAZARD ON STEP 6***************************************

**** a Side cautionary note, This process is not suitable to purify Panned Gold or KARAT (Gold
Alloyed with silver.) This Guide is best suited for gold plated or pure gold object.

THIS SHOULD ALSO NEVER BE ATTEMPTED INDOORS.

*Cupellation is a re ning process in metallurgy, where ores or alloyed metals are treated under
high temperatures and controlled operations to separate noble metals, like gold and silver, from
base metals like lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, antimony or bismuth, present in the ore. The process
is based on the principle that precious metals do not oxidise or react chemically, unlike the base
metals; so when they are heated at high temperatures, the precious metals remain apart and the
others react forming slags or other compounds

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Chlorinated Para n - Hydrochloric acid

OPEN
India's only 36% hydrochloric acid producer. All chlorinated para n types.
REACH regd. shiva-group.com
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Step 1: SAFETY FIRST, Always.

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In this instructable you will be working with basic house hold chemicals. By themselves these
chemicals can be fairly harmless. The combination of such chemical which will be presented in
this instructable can be EXTREMELY hazardous; By such there are a couple of safety items which
are not Optional. THE FOLLOW ITEMS ARE REQUIRED. FAILURE TO OBTAIN THESE ITEMS BEFORE
HAND CAN POSSIBLY COMPROMISE YOUR HEALTH.

Item # 1.

Breathing equipment. You will need a chemical mask rated AT LEAST as a P100. If you dont
know what a P100 rating means It is your responsibility to yourself to nd out.

Item # 2
Heavy duty Gloves. pvc or rubber is ne, do not use Latex or Nitrile gloves.

Item # 3

Safety Glasses. Any pair will work as long as It is safety rated and solvent rated.

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Step 2: Equipment Needed.

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Gold Recovery Correctly by Railes (/member/Railes/) Follow Download Favorite w I Made It

Helpfull items which can make doing these experiments easier.

1. Borosil glass labware. advertisement

2. 2 1/2 gallon bucket.

3. a 1 gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. - to be used as a strainer.
4. a 60 ounce pickle Jar
5. Co ee lters
6. Filter holder from a co ee machine.
7. Spray bottle.
8. Mini scale with the ability to measure Grams and Oz.
9. some pipettes and test tube.

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Step 3: Chemicals Required.

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I have used a number of chemicals these I have found to be the most widely available.

1 gallon of Clorox Bleach. or Sodium hypochlorate at 6%

2. Muriatic Acid 34% HCL ~ Baume.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide - 3% but no greater then 5%
4. Stumpout by Bonide. or Sodium bisulfate - 99.9% as speci ed in the Msds or Sodium Meta
Bisul te.
You cannot substitue with these chemicals trying to do so will no give the required reactions.

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Step 4: Selecting Materials to Be Recovered.

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Gold Recovery Correctly by Railes (/member/Railes/) Follow Download Favorite w I Made It

I was taught by the method of Crap in Crap out. You want your materials to be as clean as
possible with the least Amount of Garbage as possible.
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Gold ngers are typically found on PCI cards, ISA cards, or on Memory sims/dimms/etc. They
create the corrosion free connection between the computer and the expansion card.

This process can also be used to recover gold from CPU such as Pentium Pro, or Cyrix or older
486 and lower generation chips.

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Step 5: The First Chemical Bath.

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Objective of this rst chemical bath is to remove a large majority the base metals, Such as nickle,
zinc and copper.

After cleanly removing your plated sections of computer parts. remove any visible capacitors
transistors, or other components. be sure to also remove any steel or iron parts attached. These
metals can foul the reaction causing poor results.

Tools

100 ML beaker, 1 gallon bucket, 2 1/2 gallon bucket.

Chemicals

Muratic acid, and hydrogen peroxide.

Materials you are looking to recover.

First step, place your 1 gallon stainer bucket, into your 2 1/2 gallon wash bucket. But rst place
your parts to be recovered inside your 1 gallon strainer bucket. as pictured.
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 Add enough
Gold Recovery Correctly muratic
by Railes acid to cover
(/member/Railes/) Followyour ngers about 1 cm above your materials. keep
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how many MLs are added. you want to keep your waste Acids to a minimum. second. To
activate the solution you want to add your Hydrogen peroxide 3 - 5% solution in a 2 to 1 ratio.
two parts muratic acid to one part hydrogen peroxide.

after the Peroxide has been added to your muratic acid the mixture should start to bubble, and
the base metals should begin to dissolve. At this point you should be wearing your safety gear
because a few unfriendly fumes are being released.

This process can take up to 24 - 48 hours. this works best at the temperatures of 80 - 90 F.

When this has been completed you will see a batch of gold foils oating in your now dark green
acid.

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Step 6: Filtering the Gold Foils.

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Items required
co ee lters /
 lter by
Gold Recovery Correctly holder
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60oz pickle jar. or glass container large enough to contain waste acids.

Simply Poor the contents of the two gallon bucket into the pickle jar using the co ee lters to
catch any foils that are oating on the surface of the acid. Once you have pored o all the acid
you will be left with a pile similar to what is in the picture. scoop these from the bucket into
another container for future processing.

Congratulation you are about 50% nished. **********

************************************* HEALTH WARNING

***************************************

Melting at this stage may lead to the following health hazards.

ZINC
Inhalation of zinc oxide fumes can occur when welding or cutting on zinc-coated metals.
Exposure to these fumes is known to cause metal fume fever. Symptoms of metal fume fever are
very similar to those of common in uenza. They include fever (rarely exceeding 102o F), chills,
nausea, dryness of the throat, cough, fatigue,advertisement
and general weakness and aching of the head and
body. The victim may sweat profusely for a few hours, after which the body temperature begins
to return to normal. The symptoms of metal fume fever have rarely, if ever, lasted beyond 24
hours. The subject can then appear to be more susceptible to the onset of this condition on
Mondays or on weekdays following a holiday than they are on other days.

BERYLLIUM

Beryllium is sometimes used as a alloying element with copper and other base metals. Acute
exposure to high concentrations of beryllium can result in chemical pneumonia. Long-term
exposure can result in shortness of breath, chronic cough, and signi cant weight loss,
accompanied by fatigue and general weakness.

MERCURY

Mercury compounds are used to coat metals to prevent rust or inhibit foliage growth (marine
paints). Under the intense heat of the arc or gas ame, mercury vapors will be produced.
Exposure to these vapors may produce stomach pain, diarrhea, kidney damage, or respiratory
failure. Long-term exposure may produce tremors, emotional instability, and hearing damage.

LEAD

Inhalation and ingestion of lead oxide fumes and other lead compounds will cause lead
poisoning. Symptoms include metallic taste in the mouth, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal
cramps, and insomnia. In time, anemia and general weakness, chie y in the muscles of the
wrists, develop. Lead adversely a ects the brain, central nervous system, circulatory system,
reproductive system, kidneys, and muscles.

CADMIUM
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Cadmium is used frequently as a rust-preventive coating on steel and also as an alloying
element. Acute exposures to high concentrations or cadmium fumes can produce severe lung
irritation, pulmonary edema, and in some cases, death. Long-term exposure to low levels of
cadmium in air can result in emphysema (a disease a ecting the ability of the lung to absorb
oxygen) and can damage the kidneys. Cadmium is classi ed by OSHA, NIOSH, and EPA as a
potential human carcinogen

Disposing of your waste acids.

Place your acid in a separate container, I choose used 2 liter or 3 liter bottles, Label these bottles
as CLCu2 with a black sharpie marker. under that write may also contain trace amounts of
NICKLE and ZINC, BERYLLIUM, CADMIUM and LEAD. You can take these items to your local
hazard roundup or recycle your acids with a method I plan on detailing in another instructable.

DO NOT dump your acids down the drain or on the ground. it is IMPORTANT to be responsible
with wastes.

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Step 7: Creating Stannous Cloride.

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These foils are about 80% gold, and copper 20%

In order to reach a higher level of purity a second bath is required. For that we will need to
create a test Chemical called Stannous cloride or Sn CL2

This metal is essential for Identify how much gold is left in our 2nd chemical bath.

For this you will need 1 beaker, and about 30 ML or muratic acid. 1 gram of tin metal powder or
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 shot. Weigh
Gold Recovery Correctly it out
by Railes using your Scale.
(/member/Railes/) Follow Download Favorite w I Made It

it takes appox 4 hours to completely dissolve the tin metal shot. or instantly for the powder.

The resulting solution should be bright yellow.

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Step 8: The Second Chemical Bath Refining Your Gold Foils.

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THIS STEP SHOULD NEVER BE ATTEMPTED without your CHEMICAL MASK.

For this chemical bath I will be reproducing the process on small scale. this is by far the most
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hazardous step and with the most reactive wastes.

For this step I am going to use a 100 ml beaker a portion of recovered foils, about 3 grams.

I will be using Muratic acid, and clorox.

I will be adding only enough Muratic acid to cover my 3 grams of foils, Using a Pipette I will
slowly add Clorox until all of my foils have dissolved. you can use a glass rod to help felicitate
the process.

After your foils have dissolved the resulting solution will be a deep golden yellow maybe a little
orange in color.

it may be desirable to lter your solution with the co ee lters 1 more time, depending on if
little bits of green plastic from the board found their way into this step.

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Step 9: Filtering Particles.

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After Dissolving ALL the foils you might notice a small amount of inductors, caps and transistors
that wormed their way into the nal process. This is normal.

Simply Filter again using a long neck funnel and a tall ask. The resulting solution should be a
Deep and bright golden yellow..

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Step 10: Testing Your Solution for Gold.

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Ok, this is the exciting part and one where you get to see some real chemistry at work..

you will need:

Stannous cloride created earlier, 1 co ee lter paper, 2 pipettes or glass droppers.

Simply place 1 dot of recovered solution on a piece of ler paper, Next place one drop of your
stannous cloride on the other. The resulting reaction should turn purple.

If your did CONGRADS you have created AURIC Cloride Or Aucl3 a gold bearing solution. If your
test drop didnt turn purple, add a little more tin to your stannous cloride and heat gently with a
alcohol burner and BOROsiicate test tube. Repeat Test.

depending on how much gold is in your solution it may appear black.

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Step 11: Recovering Your Gold.

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Recovering your gold in solution is one of the Coolest steps.

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Whats needed, a plastic spoon, and the sodium Bisulfate or Stumpout.

Simply add very small amounts of stumpout, Your Mixture should start to look like the pictures
I have provided. This is caused by the SO2 Gas which acts to chemically displace the gold in
solution.

When the reaction has nished you will have driven out a majority of the chlorine, and replaced
it with Sulfur. Any gold which was trapped in the solution has now be come a brown precipitate
at the bottom of your beaker.

Retest with Stannous chloride, if your reaction still turns purple you need to add more
stumpout.

It will take appox 10 hours for the gold to competely settle, the solution should be clear at this
point.

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Step 12: Melting

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OK this is the last stop, At this point you have drained o the last ot the solution with your
pipette the bottom of your beaker should be coated with what looks like dried cinnamon.
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THATS PURE GOLD. Put that powder onto a re brick that has been treated with a ux material
like borax. Melt the borax till it becomes glassy. Apply your powder,

Heat with a MAPP torch or something more aggressive, careful not to blow your powder o the
rebrick.

TADA Pure 24Karat gold.

TO date I have used this process to recover approx 1 pound of gold from computer chips and
the like.

Enjoy....

Railes.

P.S. For more information about this process Visit this website.

http://goldre ningforum.com/ This is a community of some of the brightest people I have ever
had the pleasure of speaking with.

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/3 (/member/klamp54/) klamp54 (/member/klamp54/) 6 years ago on Introduction

Reply / Upvote
Will this work with gold on magnetic based parts ?
I have some old glass resistors from 70's, a few pounds anyway, I'd like to know before I mess it up.
2 replies F

(/member/Shananagains/) Shananagains (/member/Shananagains/) Question 20 hours ago

Answer / Upvote
What do u do when ur solution is contaminated

/1 (/member/DavidD644/) DavidD644 (/member/DavidD644/) 10 months ago

Reply / Upvote
This should be taken down. Nice educational write up, but anyone reading this and considering trying this at
home, please DON'T. This should not be attempted by anyone. You think you're going to get rich recovering
gold from computer parts, but I'm sorry to break it to you, you'll be lucky to get anything that anyone will ever
pay you money for, and you're more likely to kill yourself in the process. The risk to reward ratio here is WAY
out of whack. WAY more trouble, and WAY more of a risk than the tiny amount of gold present. The other
materials present, especially on circuit boards and computer parts pose such a risk to your health, and the
environment, nobody should be messing with them (except maybe in the case of major laboratory gold
recovery setups that specialize in gold plating). Leave this process to the professionals, and find some other
pipe dream. NOTE: I am a professional gold buyer. If you bring me some homemade glob of metal that
you've made yourself, it's going to be a hard pass, no thank you. After all that hard work and risk to your
health, nobody is going to buy it from you anyway. UNLESS you have over 10 ounces of material that can
be refined on its own [that is way more than you're going to be recovering, sorry]. I once sent a batch of
home recovered gold to a refiner, and because of the cadmium present, it created a biohazard, even to a
major refiner. The person who brought it to me was an idiot who is lucky to be alive.
4 replies F

(/member/mosabadani77/) mosabadani77 (/member/mosabadani77/) 4 months ago on Introduction

Reply / Upvote /
 I did like you indicated but the results were different one of which some of the gold flakes were released and
Gold Recovery Correctly by Railes (/member/Railes/) Follow Download Favorite w I Made It
some others didn't.

/2 (/member/FaizanK31/) FaizanK31 (/member/FaizanK31/) 4 months ago

Reply / Upvote
How to extract gold from gold plated base metals wires scrap without dissolving base by chemical
processes? ( here base metal referred to Copper wire)
Same for platinum plated too...

(/member/tbhanthony/) tbhanthony (/member/tbhanthony/) Question 7 months ago on Step 10

Answer / Upvote
Hey I’m going to try this process, it’s very professional. I was wondering about the filter test. Do I put both
drops on the same filter paper one after the other or do I put one drop on one paper and another drop on
another and then press them together?

(/member/Bwalker38/) Bwalker38 (/member/Bwalker38/) Question 8 months ago on Step 3

Answer / Upvote
Would 38% hydrocloric acid work for this? I'm having difficulties finding the recommended 34%
concentration, I'll attach the link below of where i found the 38% concentration, I'm no chemist so i want to
be sure before purchasing anything.
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https://www.chemical-supermarket.com/product.php?productid=157&cat=0&page=1 (https://www.chemical-
supermarket.com/product.php?productid=157&cat=0&page=1)

(/member/Smurf+69/) Smurf 69 (/member/Smurf+69/) Question 9 months ago on Step 6

Answer / Upvote
Can any of you good people tell me if it would be ok to put broken up pieces of a PCB into the solution to get
the gold?
Also are the chemicals mean readily available over the counter?

Cheers.

(/member/Ifeyeh8edme/) Ifeyeh8edme (/member/Ifeyeh8edme/) 1 year ago

Reply / Upvote
I have about a hundred 1/16th scale nascar cars that are gold plated will this method work to remove the
gold from them?
3 replies F

(/member/RoyL72/) RoyL72 (/member/RoyL72/) Question 11 months ago on Step 12

Answer / Upvote
Hi my name is Roy land and I have some computer gold is there anybody out there that can extract it for me
for a percentage
1 answer F

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