Copper: Copper is used in CPU heat sinks, wiring cables, cell phones, printed circuit boards and computer chips. Aluminum: Aluminum is used in printed circuit boards, computer chips, hard drive, CPU heat sinks.
The amount of precious metals that are found in electronic devices can be substantial. The EPA estimates for every 1 millions cell phones recycled you can get these amounts of precious metals:. When looking at electronics you should be looking at recycling, the computer components with the highest precious metal content by weight:. Mayer Alloys Corporation is based in the Metro Detroit area and provides business to business electronic waste recycling.
We provide our customers with:. All electronic waste is recycled in an R2 Certified facility. All hard drives are destroyed and Certificates of Destruction in compliance with Department of Defense DoD security standards are provided. The former tends to be very expensive in fuel and apparatus, plus is pretty dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.
The latter is; however, relatively safer but more labor-intensive. For this method, the first stage is to make a collection of spare electronic gubbins.
Computer chips and boards, and other parts from other electronics like cellphones like the SIM card , are all likely candidates for finding a decent amount of gold. The next stage is to strip out any circuit boards, and other bits, you've managed to scrounge together.
You will need to do this by hand if you don't want to use potentially dangerous chemicals like hydrogen peroxide and aqua regia. You could just cut off the gold-rich parts, like contacts, CPUs, etc, and save the rest of the bits for later. They also have precious metals, like silver, that you can reclaim later.
For some parts, you can use a magnet to separate out all gold-plated steel parts. Next, collect all the gold flakes and bits and pieces together and melt them down. You'll need specialist equipment such as a clay bowl and blowtorch to do this, and sufficient protective gear like flame-resistant clothing, boots, and googles. For best results, you'll likely want to add some borax, as this enables the gold to melt at lower temperatures. If using this method, when the borax begins to soften, add the gold flakes.
Heat until the flakes melt into a bead. Let it cool, and chip the gold out of the re-solidified borax. Rinse and repeat for any old electronics you find. And that's a wrap. So, next time you are considering chucking out those old electronics, think twice. They might be little gold mines in disguise! By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time. By Christopher McFadden. A large gold nugget from Australia. Source: James St. The edges of most components on the board will have gold contacts and connectors where the wires slide in. You will often find thin layers of gold on the motherboard's surface. They tend to have hundreds of gold-plated pins around their edge and undersurface.
If you have a large cache of them, it could be worth a pretty penny. Random Access Memory Chips RAM - A part of the circuit board, these little gold mines are installed to increase the operational memory of your computer.
They often contain a small but a significant amount of gold-plated pins, and a thin layer of gold on their surfaces.
Internal modems, PCI boards, ethernet ports, GPU, and other peripherals like drives - Most computers contain at least one or more of these extra boards. They also often contain large relatively amounts of gold. Like other components, you'll find the gold on connection pins and surface layers. A cache of old computer processors. Note the large amount of gold contacts. Those recovered materials can then be used in plating, jewelry, electronics, cars and art.
To put some more numbers on it, the EPA states that for every 1 million cell phones recycled we can get these amounts of precious metals:. An old computer alone contains a host of metals waiting to be harvested.
The Refining Company, Inc. Gold a key part of most circuit boards, due to how great of an electricity conductor it is, its malleability and its resistance to tarnish.
The power supply has an iron core inside. Silver and palladium make up the solder and components of many circuit boards.
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