How to extract and refine gold from old computer parts.

[Applause] hello everybody today I'm going to show you how to extract and refine gold from old computer parts mostly from video cards RAM and motherboard connections there is about five pounds worth in this Pam let's see how much gold we can extract now we are going to trim the parts down to about half the height as the container we're going to use then we will stack the pieces on end so that as the base metals are dissolved the gold foils will fall away once we have our container filled we will add an aquarium air pump with a hose to agitate the solution I was able to fit three pounds of scrap into this container we will start by adding 1,000 milliliters of hydrochloric acid this is also known as muriatic acid and can be purchased from most home-improvement stores it is usually sold as concrete edging acid or as a solution to lower the pH in your pool remember always work with hydrochloric acid in a well-ventilated area and if you can smell chlorine you need more ventilation as you can see there is a white vapor coming from the mouth of the bottle very dangerous gasps do not breathe pour your acid into the container slowly in order to avoid any splash back next we will be adding hydrogen peroxide I am using 34% I purchased my peroxide from my local garden and clothes store [Music] remember when working with high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide more slowly and deliberately to avoid any splashbacks the hydrogen peroxide will immediately start reacting with the base metals a lot of heat is generated during this process so be sure to use a proper container such as scientific glass or use a lower concentration of hydrogen peroxide to avoid such a vigorous reaction I am covering the container to help avoid any of the solution from splashing out and to condense any acid that may start boiling off if you are using a container that is larger or smaller than the container I am using just remember to mix your acid and hydrogen peroxide at a 10 to 1 ratio and be sure to cover your scraps I used 1,000 milliliters of hydrochloric acid also known as muriatic acid - 100 milliliters of hydrogen peroxide 34% as the solution heats up the hydrogen peroxide will start reacting more vigorously bubbling air through the solution will help subside the foaming and we'll keep the solution well next we are now 13 hours and 19 minutes into the extraction you will notice the solution has turned a very dark color that is because it is full of dissolved metals such as copper nickel tin and lead dosing the solution with 100 milliliters of hydrogen peroxide will not only dilute the solution and allow more room for dissolved metals but it will also rejuvenate the corrosive power of the acid be aware that after dosing with the hydrogen peroxide the container will be very warm to the touch we are 27 hours now we will dose the solution with 100 milliliters of hydrogen peroxide [Music] now I will restart the bubbler in order to agitate the solution that we are at 27 hours and 24 minutes into the extraction audits in the Airstream as you can see a higher concentration of gold foils are floating in the solution I will now remove and rinse the aquarium air hose we are now 72 hours into the extraction let's pour off some of the solution to make it easier to work with don't discard this solution we're going to filter it for fine gold particulate as you can see the scrap has been digested quite nicely by the acid peroxide solution most of the base metals have been dissolved by the solution only the gold is strong enough to resist it's quite enjoyable to remove the gold plate with a scrape this is very thick gold plate it's coming off in sheets very durable and thick as fun as this is and looks it's going to take forever let's scale this up a bit let's pour the remaining solution into this 2 gallon bucket Wow would you look at all the gold coils at the bottom of this beaker next we'll move the scrap over to the 2 gallon bucket by hand don't just dump them in as you may splash yourself next I will agitate the parts in the solution while wearing a new thick pair of gloves that have a excellent rating for resistance to hydrochloric acid I would not recommend performing this procedure within 10 hours of your last dose of hydrogen peroxide now that the parts have been completely stripped clean of metal we are going to filter the solution to catch any fine gold particles that are remaining there will be a bunch of gold foils left at the bottom of the beaker I use a very fine filter to remove all particulate be sure to pre-wet the filter so it won't move around when you pour your solution into the funnel filter the solution using a mild vacuum just a quick reminder as to the corrosive nature of this project as you can see the filter is full of what may be powdered gold once the solution has been filtered we will pour it into a separate container for treatment and disposal at a later date I like to keep the first wash separate from the second wash as it's easier to treat the waste carefully remove the filter from the funnel and place it to the side as the filter is full of gold powder I placed my filters in a beaker to dry and be processed at a later time as you can see the beaker has a bunch of gold foils and some other contaminants I will place this to the side and process the remaining scrap from that bucket so that we have a total amount of gold foils from the six pounds of scrap we will now combine the gold foils so we can remove any remaining contamination we will start with 200 milliliters of hydrochloric acid mine only appears yellow because I used the beaker that had the gold foils in it to measure the 200 milliliters we will now add a small amount of nitric acid I like to use the method of incremental dosing so that we won't have an excess of nitric acid gently warming the mixture leave the reaction as you can see the acid is starting to dissolve the gold notice the red nitrogen dioxide fumes avoid breathing at all costs I added another 200 milliliters of hydrochloric acid in a small amount of nitric acid there appears to be a lot of metal in this container we will now set up for a vacuum filtration to remove all remaining bits of fiberglass and plastic [Music] [Music] be sure to thoroughly rinse your beaker or container as this contains gold-bearing solution [Music] you can see all the undissolved specs of PCB board be sure to rinse them thoroughly with water until the solution runs clear [Music] next we will make a saturated solution of sodium metabisulfite I purchased mine as a stump remover from a local hardware store keep stirring until the solution will no longer absorb any more sodium metabisulfite now we will add our filtered gold solution to a large beaker be sure to rinse your flask as the solution contains gold now we will add the saturated sodium metabisulfite to the gold-bearing solution what's happening here is the sodium metabisulfite is reacting with the hydrochloric acid to produce sulfur dioxide gas the sulfur atoms attract the gold atoms like a magnet to iron and as the gold atoms crowd around the sulfur atoms they fuse together and drop out of solution as a metallic powder we will now perform a stannous chloride test to be sure that all the dissolved gold has dropped out of solution everything looks clear allow the heavy metallic gold particles to settle out at the bottom of the container after allowing the gold to settle for four hours you can see it is piled up at the bottom of the beaker but the remaining hydrochloric acid solution is still tinted brown we will pour this off and then rinse the gold with hot water a quick test with stannous chloride reveals there is no goal in this solution Lilla now rents the gold with hot water once again allow the gold powder to settle to the bottom of the beaker next we will pour the remaining wash solution into a container for second round waste I like to keep them separate from the first round because it's easier to process with less metal dissolved in the acid after one hour all the gold has settled to the bottom of the beaker we are left with a thick gold mud at the bottom of the beaker allow this to dry so we can process it further now that it has been allowed to dry you can see it is a rich gold color [Music] now we'll add 400 milliliters of hydrochloric acid we will then apply a medium heat and strong stirring as the hydrochloric acid boils it will react with any remaining contaminating metals that are in the gold powder you can see the solution has become considerably darker remove from heat and allow to cool there is definitely more metal dissolved in the solution most likely iron after allowing the solution to settle and cool we will pour it off but first we will perform a quick stannous chloride test and it looks like there's gold dissolved in solution simply add a small amount of our saturated sodium metabisulfite solution to precipitate the gold out it is important to add in small amounts and slowly as we don't want to knock any other metals out of the solution through dilution it took about five minutes to fully react once the solution is settled once again test the stannous chloride there is no goal dissolved in this solution it is safe to pour it off into the waste container you can see all the impurities that have been removed we will now rinse the gold powder with hot water after allowing the gold to settle we can pour off the wash water this watch water can immediately be disposed of after adding a small amount of baking soda and then checking the pH to make sure that it's above 7 but below 10 now it's very tempting to go melt down your gold powder right now but let's purify it one more time we'll start by adding four hundred milliliters of hydrochloric acid now we will add a medium heat and stirring next we will add some concentrated nitric acid we will add a very small amount just enough to dissolve the gold after one hour the gold is completely dissolved observe the beautiful orange color of high purity gold dissolved in aqua ratio turn the heating off and allow the mixture to cool after allowing the mixture to cool we will add some concentrated sulfuric acid I purchased mine from a local hardware store as drain cleaner what's happening here is the sulfuric acid is reacting with any dissolved lead and will precipitate it out as a fine lead powder now we will vacuum filter the gold solution the very pure solution flows quite freely through the fine filter paper be sure to rinse your beaker filter and funnel completely as this yellow solution all contains gold [Applause] you can see the lead that fell out of solution stuck in the filter now we will transfer the solution back to a large beaker be sure to rinse your flask completely we will now add a saturated solution of sodium metabisulfite in order to precipitate the gold out of solution as a fine metallic powder a quick stannous chloride test reveals there is no more gold dissolved in solution after allowing the goal to settle you can see that this rinse is very clear pour this off into second round waste for further treatment at a later time rinse the gold powder with hot water once the gold has settled or off and dispose of your rinse water once the goal is completely dried pour it into our belt dish and heat it with two torches to liquefy the goal with such a small flame this could take up to 20 minutes now that the gold has melted down and coalesced into a bead we will pour it into this preheated mold in order to make a perfect bar of gold after pouring your gold bar from the mold and quench in water there you have it a very pure gold bar I'm going to have to upgrade my furnace in order to pour a proper bar let's see how much gold we've received from a total of six pounds of scrap a lot more than I was expecting it just goes to show that the older computers and older strap contain much more gold than the newer ones let's test the gold for purity I have a jeweler's test kit we will start with the 22 karat solution I would say it looks pretty good at least two nines fine but we will further refine in a future video while processing this scrap I realized that not all scrap is created equal and some scrap contains more gold than others we will explore those possibilities in a future video [Music]

Channel: Philip Bender

Views: 2,058,862

Rating: 4.541522 out of 5

Keywords: science, chemistry, DIY, self-help, recycling, gold, scrap, computer, parts, how, to, instructional, educational, refining, aqua, regia, sodium, metabisulfite., Movie, Studio, Platinum

Id: o3cqZ5kqEB4

Length: 38min 36sec (2316 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 22 2018