5 ms·

Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?

70 points by bunglebooz 16y ago

yread 16y ago
Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3! I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.
- larsalan 16y ago
  If you research it a bit you'll find there are a few processes to get back the gold. Some more hazardous yielding higher returns while some are more cautious. I looked at it a while back and one process seemed feasible for DIY gold recovery but, you'll need to collect thousands of pounds of boards. Where you could do that I have no idea.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    When I was just out of High School, I worked at a computer repair shop. We probably tossed out 50-60 pounds of fried motherboards and expansion cards a week until the owner worked a deal with somebody to haul away the stuff to get the gold out. After that we had a dedicated dumpster out back for throwing circuit board stuff into. We easily got to a couple thousand pounds that year. I think he got some percentage of the money out of the parts, it wasn't a ton of money, but better than just throwing the stuff away.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    If you know someone at an electronics recyling facility, or someone who repairs TVs, or computers. Basically you first have to have access to all those boards, then you can think of setting up your business.
dchs 16y ago
The challenge seems to be scaling this up... as ever!
rbanffy 16y ago
As a vintage computer collector and restorer, I find this rather alarming...
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  Nobody weeps for the pentium 60, my friend. You should consider if your hobby isn't some kind of OCD or hoarding disorder.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Not all discarded computers are PCs. There is a lot of history that could be permanently lost if it's not deliberately preserved. I keep a couple generations of Apple IIs, an 8-bit Atari, Amigas, RISC boxes and Macs (a couple months back you could see a perfectly functional Mac SE as part of my living-room decor) preserved. Lots of other important machines have been destroyed or recycled. I try to do my part preserving a small part of our heritage.
    - redrobot5050 16y ago
      Believe me, there are enough people hoarding old computers. I could find all of those in my dad's basement. There is an official computer museum, we have our bases covered.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        There is no "official" computer museum in my city. There are a couple private collectors with interesting artifacts and there is a group that is trying to establish a "real", curated, computer museum, but so far there is nothing definitive. You also know not everybody lives on or close to Mountain View ;-) You should also take into consideration all geographic differences in computing machinery. There were computers in Asia, Eastern Europe or South America that simply are not available elsewhere. A friend of mine has one of the few Macintosh clones (68K, Fat Mac-like) ever made and from that machine we can prove Apple's allegations to the DoJ against the Brazilian manufacturer were false - they removed the reverse-engineered ROM and put an original ROM inside the machine in order to show they were copies. Those little moments will end up lost if we don't take care. If we fail, one day our descendants will sing songs about the Whalers on the Moon and their heroic exploits.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I know a guy who has done this as a business for at least the last 20 years. Nice little business model.
- ff0066mote 16y ago
  That guy you know is doing the world a favor. This is an alternative: <http://www.google.com/images?q=guiyu%2C+china&#62 http://www.google.com/images?q=guiyu%2C+china>
  - Luc 16y ago
    Not necessarily... Umicore in Belgium recovers >100 tonnes of gold (and more of other precious and base metals) from electronics scrap in a clean way (there's residential houses 10m from the factory). I remember seeing a video in which it was claimed their electronics scrap was richer in gold (by weight I assume) than many gold mine ore.
    - ff0066mote 16y ago
      My apologies. I've corrected my sentence to use the article "an" instead of "the".
      - Luc 16y ago
        Of course, the pictures you link to are the norm, and clean recycling very much the exception...
    - prs 16y ago
      Production capacity for gold exceeds 100 tonnes per year according to http://www.preciousmetals.umicore.com/metals_products/precious_metals/ http://www.preciousmetals.umicore.com/metals_products/precio...
      - Luc 16y ago
        Right you are. According to p. 9 of this 2009 Umicore presentation production of gold at the Hoboken plant is 25 tonnes/year (still 1% of world mining production): http://impeltfs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/umicore-impel-tfs-conference-march-2009.pdf http://impeltfs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/umicore-impel-...
rdtsc 16y ago
I knew a lot of hardware hackers who did this as a side-business. They would find old electronic equipment and sell to someone else who, would sell it someone else and so on, until all that hardware ended with someone who had a large vat of acid just lying around. It was in Eastern Europe, where, as everyone knows, people just have large vats of H2SO4 lying around in their back yard ;-)
forinti 16y ago
The author forgot to give instructions on how to safely dispose of these nasty chemicals.
- slig 16y ago
  If you have access to that kind of stuff, you probably know what to do next.
  - gacba 16y ago
    Never assume the power of idiocy will be subsumed by the power of common sense.
ambiate 16y ago
There was a DEA agent giving a speech the other day. One of the stories he told was about a meth user who used his 3-4 days of being awake to harvest the gold from cpus/motherboards over the months. He stated the guy had a ball in between the size of a golf ball and baseball. He was just getting free equipment out of dumpsters in the city.
- k33n 16y ago
  Kind if makes me want to start smoking meth. Imagine how much code I could write.
- saulgoodman 16y ago
  Heisenberg?
sfall 16y ago
I have a friend who's father makes his living by buying old computer equipment and selling the precious metals.
blahblahblah 16y ago
The industrial process for refining gold ores uses cyanide in one of the processing steps. Good thing he didn't try that process for a DIY project. He's already insane enough for using concentrated sulfuric acid without a fume hood, emergency shower/eyewash station, and full face shield.

70 points by bunglebooz 16y ago

yread 16y ago

Awesome! Recovering gold from the contacts with several steps involving electrolysis in 95% sulphuric acid and a reaction 2 Au + 3 Cl2 -> 2 AuCl3! I wish there would be more chemical hacking articles like this. It's a pity they didn't write more about how did they come up with the process and how does it work.

larsalan 16y ago
If you research it a bit you'll find there are a few processes to get back the gold. Some more hazardous yielding higher returns while some are more cautious. I looked at it a while back and one process seemed feasible for DIY gold recovery but, you'll need to collect thousands of pounds of boards. Where you could do that I have no idea.
- elblanco 16y ago
  When I was just out of High School, I worked at a computer repair shop. We probably tossed out 50-60 pounds of fried motherboards and expansion cards a week until the owner worked a deal with somebody to haul away the stuff to get the gold out. After that we had a dedicated dumpster out back for throwing circuit board stuff into. We easily got to a couple thousand pounds that year. I think he got some percentage of the money out of the parts, it wasn't a ton of money, but better than just throwing the stuff away.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  If you know someone at an electronics recyling facility, or someone who repairs TVs, or computers. Basically you first have to have access to all those boards, then you can think of setting up your business.

dchs 16y ago

The challenge seems to be scaling this up... as ever!

rbanffy 16y ago

As a vintage computer collector and restorer, I find this rather alarming...

redrobot5050 16y ago
Nobody weeps for the pentium 60, my friend. You should consider if your hobby isn't some kind of OCD or hoarding disorder.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Not all discarded computers are PCs. There is a lot of history that could be permanently lost if it's not deliberately preserved. I keep a couple generations of Apple IIs, an 8-bit Atari, Amigas, RISC boxes and Macs (a couple months back you could see a perfectly functional Mac SE as part of my living-room decor) preserved. Lots of other important machines have been destroyed or recycled. I try to do my part preserving a small part of our heritage.
  - redrobot5050 16y ago
    Believe me, there are enough people hoarding old computers. I could find all of those in my dad's basement. There is an official computer museum, we have our bases covered.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      There is no "official" computer museum in my city. There are a couple private collectors with interesting artifacts and there is a group that is trying to establish a "real", curated, computer museum, but so far there is nothing definitive. You also know not everybody lives on or close to Mountain View ;-) You should also take into consideration all geographic differences in computing machinery. There were computers in Asia, Eastern Europe or South America that simply are not available elsewhere. A friend of mine has one of the few Macintosh clones (68K, Fat Mac-like) ever made and from that machine we can prove Apple's allegations to the DoJ against the Brazilian manufacturer were false - they removed the reverse-engineered ROM and put an original ROM inside the machine in order to show they were copies. Those little moments will end up lost if we don't take care. If we fail, one day our descendants will sing songs about the Whalers on the Moon and their heroic exploits.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I know a guy who has done this as a business for at least the last 20 years. Nice little business model.

ff0066mote 16y ago
That guy you know is doing the world a favor. This is an alternative: <http://www.google.com/images?q=guiyu%2C+china&#62 http://www.google.com/images?q=guiyu%2C+china>
- Luc 16y ago
  Not necessarily... Umicore in Belgium recovers >100 tonnes of gold (and more of other precious and base metals) from electronics scrap in a clean way (there's residential houses 10m from the factory). I remember seeing a video in which it was claimed their electronics scrap was richer in gold (by weight I assume) than many gold mine ore.
  - ff0066mote 16y ago
    My apologies. I've corrected my sentence to use the article "an" instead of "the".
    - Luc 16y ago
      Of course, the pictures you link to are the norm, and clean recycling very much the exception...
  - prs 16y ago
    Production capacity for gold exceeds 100 tonnes per year according to http://www.preciousmetals.umicore.com/metals_products/precious_metals/ http://www.preciousmetals.umicore.com/metals_products/precio...
    - Luc 16y ago
      Right you are. According to p. 9 of this 2009 Umicore presentation production of gold at the Hoboken plant is 25 tonnes/year (still 1% of world mining production): http://impeltfs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/umicore-impel-tfs-conference-march-2009.pdf http://impeltfs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/umicore-impel-...

rdtsc 16y ago

I knew a lot of hardware hackers who did this as a side-business. They would find old electronic equipment and sell to someone else who, would sell it someone else and so on, until all that hardware ended with someone who had a large vat of acid just lying around. It was in Eastern Europe, where, as everyone knows, people just have large vats of H2SO4 lying around in their back yard ;-)

forinti 16y ago

The author forgot to give instructions on how to safely dispose of these nasty chemicals.

slig 16y ago
If you have access to that kind of stuff, you probably know what to do next.
- gacba 16y ago
  Never assume the power of idiocy will be subsumed by the power of common sense.

ambiate 16y ago

There was a DEA agent giving a speech the other day. One of the stories he told was about a meth user who used his 3-4 days of being awake to harvest the gold from cpus/motherboards over the months. He stated the guy had a ball in between the size of a golf ball and baseball. He was just getting free equipment out of dumpsters in the city.

k33n 16y ago
Kind if makes me want to start smoking meth. Imagine how much code I could write.
saulgoodman 16y ago
Heisenberg?

sfall 16y ago

I have a friend who's father makes his living by buying old computer equipment and selling the precious metals.

blahblahblah 16y ago

The industrial process for refining gold ores uses cyanide in one of the processing steps. Good thing he didn't try that process for a DIY project. He's already insane enough for using concentrated sulfuric acid without a fume hood, emergency shower/eyewash station, and full face shield.