8/7/2019 Producing Gold From Motherboards

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Producing Gold From MotherboardsPosted by Admin on 12:21 AM in Gold, motherboards, pictures, producing, producing gold from motherboards, producing gols, producing motherboards | 3 comments

All text is translated from the Russian language, we apologize in advance for spelling

errors.

Today you'll learn how you can get gold out of old motherboards with your own hands. Please

note: chemicals that are used in the demonstration, very dangerous, especially when combinedconcentrations. Therefore, we do not recommend repeating this experiment at home.

Gold is present in many components of the motherboard: Connectors IDE, slots, PCI Express,

PCI, AGP, ISA and other ports, bridges, the CPU socket and slots DIMM (SIMM on older 

motherboards). All of these connectors are often covered with a thin gold layer thickness of 

several microns.

Tools

The first phase of our experiment is to remove all these contacts and connectors. We will needwire cutters, pliers and cutter, flat and Phillips screwdrivers, as well as some amount of time.

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For the experiments need a large number of contacts - they just gave our "donor"motherboards.

We also need chemicals and tools.

Electrolysis

To get a few micrographs of gold deposited on the contacts, we need the electrolytic cell. Inthe bath poured 95% concentrated sulfuric acid. The cathode is made of lead, the anode - from

copper. Contacts (raw materials) are connected to the anode, which we have done in the form

of baskets.

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When we skip through the cell electric current (we used a conventional battery charger)

copper anode (and contacts) is dissolved and deposited on the cathode of lead. Gold is no

longer associated with copper, forms a precipitate at the bottom of the cell. It should also be

noted that during this process the temperature of the bath significantly increased.

After gold was separated from the contacts, the bath should be given time to settle. Then

should be removed as much of sulfuric acid, and then you can begin to dissolve residue in the

bottom of the electrolytic cell.

Dilution

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Be careful and always empty the acid into the water, not vice versa! If you make a mistake,

then the first drops of water that come into contact with sulfuric acid, instantly evaporate, as

acid may then squirt.

We had a sulfuric acid solution of different metals (including gold) and waste that should be

filtered. Why not filter the acid directly, without diluting it? Simply due to the fact that paper 

filters will not stand in front of concentrated sulfuric acid.

Dissolution

The filter will be a mixture of different metals and waste. Now we are all soluble in a mixture

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of 35% hydrochloric acid and 5% chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) in a ratio of 2:1. 2

HCl + NaClO -> Cl2 + NaCl + H2O

Be careful! This reaction is exothermic, it leads to the release of chlorine gas is verydangerous. Chlorine is used as a chemical weapon in World War II.

In fact, chlorine, which is separated by mixing hydrochloric acid and chlorine bleach, we just

will be used to dissolve gold in a gold chloride III. 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3

Again, filtering

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Now we need to filter it again. Filter will delay all wastes, leaving only the solution of gold

chloride III.

Precipitation

To get the gold metal, we need to rein it in a solution. For this purpose, we use the powdered

sodium metabisulfite. In the presence of water gives the sodium metabisulfite. Na2S2O2 +

H2O -> 2 NaHSO3 sodium bisulfite It will allow us to precipitate the gold. 3 NaHSO3 + 2AuCl3 + 3 H2O -> 3 NaHSO4 + 6 HCl + 2 Au

We need to give a solution to settle, and then we get

gray powder on the bottom of the beaker. Do not lose any grains - is a metallic gold!

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Melting

Now we need to melt the powder in the crucible. The melting point of gold is 1064 ° C, so

that we will need an oxygen-butane burner.

In the end we got a nice golden pellet! Can we call our process economically viable?

Definitely not. It only makes sense on an industrial scale. A small pellet of gold, which we

received, it is worth only two or three dollars at current prices. And, frankly, a company toextract gold from old computers that use different technologies and chemicals, which are even

more dangerous. But you will agree, it is still interesting to know that you can get gold out of 

the motherboard in the home. You can also get gold from expansion cards, processors andchipsets.