Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?

[seraphimcaduto]

As a chemist, I can say this could be dangerous, just remember to ventilate the area. The goggles are the most important thing to have....as well as a cover for that electrolytic cell. You could build yourself a home fume hood just by building a glass box with a large dryer tube and a case fan venting the box to the outside.

 

[mrmotion]

I wonder if you would have used a cyanide process if you might have increased your yield slightly? Im sure cyanide isn't exactly easy to get though. Not to mention the fact that you might have someone complaining about the "bitter almond" smell...

 

[Yannick_G_THFR]

[citation][nom]MU_Engineer[/nom]I have worked in a lab with dangerous chemicals, and this reaction certainly uses dangerous chemicals. You would need the following equipment to work safely with these chemicals:1. Fume hood (which the author obviously didn't use)2. Chemical gloves (which he did have)3. Chemical-resistant apron (which he didn't use)4. Full face shield (we didn't see his face)5. Closed-toe shoes or boots (we didn't see his feet)6. Emergency eye wash and emergency shower (we didn't see these).So basically, it's a "don't try this at anything less than a university lab" type of procedure.[/citation]

Indeed : dont do this at home, some steps are really dangerous !

[citation][nom]mortesv[/nom]Cool article! Can I buy the gold BB?[/citation]

Sorry, I keep it 😀

[citation][nom]Reynod[/nom]MU made some good points about safety there but I will assume the THG team had all of the PPE. [...] Great article Yannick.[/citation]

Thanks a lot

 

[mattmock]

[citation][nom]MU_Engineer[/nom]I have worked in a lab with dangerous chemicals, and this reaction certainly uses dangerous chemicals. You would need the following equipment to work safely with these chemicals:1. Fume hood (which the author obviously didn't use)2. Chemical gloves (which he did have)3. Chemical-resistant apron (which he didn't use)4. Full face shield (we didn't see his face)5. Closed-toe shoes or boots (we didn't see his feet)6. Emergency eye wash and emergency shower (we didn't see these).So basically, it's a "don't try this at anything less than a university lab" type of procedure.[/citation]

Well I also worked in a lab with dangerous chemicals, but we usually didn't bother with the apron or thick gloves (just nirtile gloves). Its a good thing we had a eye wash though.

 

[Guest]

They probably used over $50 in chemicals to do this, not a lucrative experiment, but probably fun and scary.

 

[nforce4max]

Most of the cpus that were manufactured such as the Pentium Pro and the Cyrix M2 no longer exist in quantities due to this.

 

[halls]

Nice! I bet that little BB was still satisfying to see.

 

[mattclary]

[citation][nom]rohitbaran[/nom]That is some dangerous looking practical chemistry with a pretty lucrative result![/citation]

Were you being sarcastic about the "practical" part? The chemicals will cost much more than the gold is worth. My TIME is worth more than the gold recovered.

 

[back_by_demand]

If the anode was made from Gold instead of Copper, would it have attracted the gold directly?

You could simply dip dozens of whole motherboards in a bath of the stuff and when the anode gets huge just swap out the anode and sell it.

 

[mattclary]

[citation][nom]mattclary[/nom]Were you being sarcastic about the "practical" part? The chemicals will cost much more than the gold is worth. My TIME is worth more than the gold recovered.[/citation]

Sorry, meant to ask if you were serious about "lucrative"...

 

[burnley14]

Yannick, you may be the biggest badass ever.

 

[roberotto]

For peoples that skiped first page: NEVER TRY THIS AT HOME! cl2 is dangerous, H2SO4 at 95% is true dangerous. Add water in acid is mortal...

 

[dark_lord69]

Enjoy this but really would like to see how much gold you get from like 10 CPUs.

 

[Guest]

victomofreality 08/04/2010 9:16 AM Hide -8+ .
Quote :
Homemade process? where does someone find 95% concentrated sulfuric acid for home use? I've read cockroaches can swim in sulfuric acid and have always wanted to test that

In auto parts shop to fill new lead battery.

 

[tickedoff]

Just out of curiosity, how many MOBO's did you use?

 

[Computer_Lots]

So you use $100 worth of chemicals and gear to get $3 worth of gold. Sounds like a government plan or something.

 

[Guest]

Great article lol. I wonder if one can go to a trash dump and make money from old circuit boards.

 

[oboelcke]

Kudos Tom's. Looked like a fun experiment.

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]mattclary[/nom]Were you being sarcastic about the "practical" part? The chemicals will cost much more than the gold is worth. My TIME is worth more than the gold recovered.[/citation]
By practical I meant applying chemistry, with emphasis on application, not on its economical viability as such.

 

[jgutz2006]

Maybe i should go find those customers with piles and piles of old computers laying around and offer my assistance....

 

[wolfram23]

Pretty cool! I didn't know gold would react with chlorine... so much for all those chem classes I took

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Aww, I'll buy one of those motherboards off of you if you still have them...
Seems like a waste when I could stick a $0.99 AMD K6-2 in one of them and see what it will do... 😀

 

[dstln]

Very interesting article. Good work.

 

[hang-the-9]

Great article! You also basically taught us how to produce toxic chemicals, yay!

 

[requiemsallure]

[citation][nom]Computer_Lots[/nom]So you use $100 worth of chemicals and gear to get $3 worth of gold. Sounds like a government plan or something.[/citation]
yes but you can reuse the chemicals again for the most part and then you start to see a process in the long run, but that is of course if you are doing this on a larger scale.