Extracting gold from computer parts (Part 1)

Today we recover some gold from scrap computer parts. Also I already know I made a mistake and labelled it 3:1 instead of 2:1. oh well.

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[rafidaabrar]

*Reads title
*looks at old computer
Old computer: heavy sweating

[jojowinters]

I like how he can say “ I didn’t have any cyanide” and it’s normal

[esiosalazar]

1 - buy expensive chemicals
2 - extract a blank amount of gold
3 - realize you lost money
4 - make a youtube video to try to recover money with adsense

[dandatiles]

Wife: Honey have you seen any of my laptops?
Husband: Forget about your laptops. I got you a gold ring. Happy anniversary!

[cal]

shout out to the ant at 6:52 i hope you're living a good life

[silentbloodyslayer]

Actually Old CPUs can be more worth more than the extracted gold itself, the retro computer community does pay really well

[amonolithmember]

Your instructions were unclear, I ended up doing methamphetamine

[KingThrillgore]

"I didn't have any cyanide"

Boy, I can relate.

[henryjiang]

Try with antique computers. The gold plating is usually thicker tho. Like a lot

[nsshing]

Summary of gold recovering business:
1. Add acid
2. stir
3. filter
4. repeat and repeat
5. Realizing it's not making money.

[Alondro]

I usually put the aqua regia beaker into a warm water bath to speed up the reaction.

I use urea (which is very cheap) to bring up the pH, and then precipitate with warmed metabisulfite solution. Warming the neutralized gold chloride and metabisulfite, I found, caused almost instantaneous precipitation of all the gold into a sponge-form, which is then very easy to recover.

[h.fmusic]

can we all agree that Nigel’s voice is very soothing and makes you feel good

[snackentity]

these videos are very soothing and good before bed

[Tritailed-Shenanigans]

*FBI questions why you need cyanide, what is your response?:*


"I"m devolving gold from computer parts."

[tatendam]

0:58 we're not breaking even we're breaking bad

[Gohitov]

Funny thing, I actually worked at the factory that these exact PCBs. Those are actually test coupons. I can tell by the silkscreen code on the coupons.

[michaelglover]

1) The green color is copper, silver and small amounts of platinum metals 2) The Aqua Regia and acid amounts DO affect the resulting recovery efficiency. 3) Grinding or burning the boards means that step 1 takes a day or 2 instead of a week.

[swagifier]

i like how the disclaimer at the beginning says not to try this but he also gives us exact directions and amounts of everything as if we were going to do it

[Alondro]

You can also use dilute nitric acid for the initial cleaning of the boards. Weak nitric acid easily removes copper and nickel, but won't touch gold, platinum, palladium, or rhodium at all. It will dissolve silver, but so does HCl and peroxide.

[uspockdad]

A lot of times computer scrap will contain lead. I noticed you did not add sulfuric to drop out lead before adding SMB to your solution. Hopefully these PCB's were lead free, or your gold is going to be contaminated.
I have been watching sreetips channel. That guy has been doing this a long time, and seems to have perfected every method.
I also love watching Cody'sLab (who I see also commented here), but sreetips is the one i always tend to go back to when I have any questions.

But I love your's and Cody's channels because you guys are actually chemists, and describe the actual chemical processes that are happening. Keep up the awesome work. I love how you can actually learn things on YouTube and it is not all just stupidity, conspiracy theories, and bickering. You guys who are hear to teach the world, are what make YouTube great, in my opinion.