People are just amazed when they hear that there is gold on mobile phones too. Until some time ago, the common notion was that in electronic waste, computer scrap was the only source of gold. And people just did not value their cell phone scrap; they would simply throw it away or sell it at a very cheap price to any plastic scrap buyer. Ever since the demand for mobile scrap grew, more and more people started thinking, What is there in it that so many people are looking for mobile phone scrap? And their curiosity took them to the fact that there is lots of gold in cell phone scrap. The fact is that you get more gold from mobile phone waste in comparison to computer waste. And a broken or defective mobile set that you simply throw away is worth no less than Rs 200 (USD 4.44). The scraps of cell phones are so costly because their motherboards are gold-plated, and all the connectors used in mobile phones are also gold-plated. And the chips mounted on their motherboards also contain a good amount of gold, palladium, and silver. And the ceramic capacitors used in cell phones have palladium and silver in them, as well as sometimes gold. As a result, precious metal recovery from cell phone waste is a profitable business. This is the reason why many people on the net search for the answer to how to recover gold from cell phones.
You have to employ three different methods to extract precious metals from mobile phone waste. Cyanide recovery can remove gold from motherboards and connectors. I mentioned in my other articles that the cyanide recovery process is quite economical, and we get complete recovery of gold through this. But cyanide, being a very harmful chemical, should be handled with care and neutralised after use. To remove gold through the cyanide gold recovery process, you have to first take plain water in a steel pot and boil it on a gas stove, or you can take a Teflon plastic vessel and boil the water with a heating rod. Take the quantity of water in which you can easily immerse cell phone motherboards. The amount of cyanide that you dissolve in water depends on the weight of the scrap and the quantity of water that you use. Use commercial-grade sodium cyanide instead of potassium cyanide. Suppose you have 10 kilogrammes of motherboards and 15 litres of water. You may first add 50 grammes of sodium cyanide to the water. Try to dissolve the cyanide in the water with the help of a wooden stick, and later on, you may add more cyanide to the water if need be. The strong presence of oxygen should be maintained in the cyanide solution, for which different types of pumps are available on the market. The more oxygen in the solution, the better the dissolution of gold in the cyanide solution. Once the gold has completely been removed from the motherboards, the boards should be taken out of the solution, and the solution should be filtered with the help of filter paper. You can easily separate the gold from the cyanide solution by adding zinc dust to it.
I know the question of how to recover gold from cell phones is still echoing in your mind because your question has not been fully answered. You still have to know about the gold and palladium recovery from the chips and ceramic capacitors, respectively. Well, as for the recovery of gold from chips, you have to first burn them in an environmentally friendly way, then grind them into a fine powder and melt all the metals present in the powder in a crucible by mixing borax and lead with it. After melting, you will get a solid mass of the mixed metals, such as gold, copper, nickel, etc. You can easily separate gold from it through an electrolytic process.
As for the recovery of palladium from ceramic capacitors, the capacitors first have to be crushed to a fine powder, and then the palladium present in the powder is melted in a crucible, as mentioned above, with some lead and borax. After the metal melts in the crucible and settles to its bottom, pour it into a mould to get a solid mass of mixed metals such as palladium, lead, etc. You can reclaim palladium either chemically or electrolytically.
You are always welcome to consult us on any methods of precious metal recovery. We are always at your service and will extend our warm support to you.
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