There are several ways of extracting gold from printed circuit boards, (popularly known as PCBs), and some of them were discussed in the Part I of this series of tutorials for extracting gold from printed circuit boards. Now, let us see the cheapest way of extracting gold from PCBs.
The easiest and cheapest way of extracting gold from Printed Circuit Boards would be to mechanically cut off the tops of the microchips and carry out forging to melt all the metal that is present inside the chip. Gold has a higher molecular weight which makes it denser and heavier than other metals. Hence, any of the traditional methods of separation such as skimming, draining lighter metals or settling tank for heavier metals can be used.
There’s another method for extracting gold from printed circuit boards in which, the Printed circuit board scrap is treated with one part concentrated nitric acid and two parts water at 70-80°C for 1 hour, which dissolves the base metals. As a result, it liberates the chips from the PCB.
After solid and liquid components are separated, the chips along with some metallic residue and Ti02 precipitate are mechanically crushed. This liberates the base and gold metal present within the protective plastic or ceramic chip.
The base metals in this pulverized product are further dissolved by leaching with the same composition of nitric acid and water. The remaining solid residues, crushed chips and resin and solid particles of gold are treated with aqua regia by leaching process at varying and suitable times and temperatures. Gold is then precipitated from the leaching product with ferrous sulphate.
In most of the methodologies devised for extracting gold from printed circuit boards, computers, and other electronic devices, there’s a good deal of work involved. More so, you may have to refine the extracted gold, which may add up to overall extraction costs.
Therefore, despite the fact that precious metals like gold and platinum cost $10,000 per ounce, it may not be too profitable to extract gold from such items, unless you’re sure that the cost of extracted gold would be considerably lower than the overall expenses involved in the process of extracting gold from Printed Circuit Boards.
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