Using Cooking Oil To Extract Silver From Electronic Waste
Finally, scientists have developed a safer way for extracting all that precious silver from used cell phones, keyboards, and even old mother boards. With silver prices above $42 per Troy ounce even small amounts of silver that can be extracted from old electronics becomes more tempting. Silver is looking like it's going much, much higher as well!
From Kitco.com, silver price over last five days
Extracting silver and gold from old electronics traditionally requires strong acids and chemicals that can be very hazardous if you don't what you're doing. Cyanide leaching is used on an industrial level which is even nastier stuff. The solution: using cooking oil to do the extraction in a much safer and environmentally friendly way.
When I first read an article about it I wanted to get started! But it turns out there is a catch (like always)... After reading the scientific paper from the study, the first step in the process involves extracting the fatty acids from the cooking oil. This is an involved process as they found their crude extracts didn't work well and had to use distillation to get them pure enough for the reaction to work. So unless you have an organic chemistry lab setup in your basement it would probably be easier just to buy purified fatty acid extracts. Industrial purified they aren't inexpensive.
From here it gets easy, simply cut up your silver containing waste into small squares and immerse it into the fatty acids and add a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. Heat to 60 degrees Celsius (140 F) an stir for 18 hours, an electronic stirrer might make you arms hurt a lot less... Then dump the fatty acid solution through a filter and add ethanol. A good use for that old ever clear bottle! Stir it in the right wavelengths of light for 96 hours and you will precipitate out pure silver!
So, there went my dreams of some easy way to extract silver. Turns out it's a little harder than advertised, but can be done relatively inexpensively. The best part is the fatty acids can be used over and over, so once you have them the rest really isn't that bad.
This process will likely lead to small operations extracting silver in a much more environmentally friendly manner. I wouldn't mind giving it a try, but it sounds like an investment in some expensive lab equipment to make it practical.
samaterials.com
But just imagine producing your own pure silver powder from old electronic waste. Don't forget, you can also extract the the gold using whey proteins as well. Extracting precious metals may become something everyone can do at home in the next couple of years!
That will wrap up my post for this Monday. I hope you found it interesting, and if you want to get deeper into the chemistry check out my references at the science direct web site. It takes you to the original scientific paper. Please feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions below, and thanks for taking the time to look over my post. Thank you for all of your support, it's greatly appreciated! Have a great week everyone!
References:
https://www.kitco.com/charts/silver
https://scitechdaily.com/eco-friendly-alchemy-turning-waste-into-silver-using-everyday-oils/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894725029559?via%3Dihub
Disclaimer
I am not a financial planner and this isn't financial advice. Please always do your own research before investing your money. You worked hard enough to earn it!
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That's very interesting!!👍😀
A bit involved, but definitely a lot safer than cyanide😬
Someday when I have nothing better to do and a few circuit boards laying around I may give that a try!!😇
Very involved, I think using the acid method is faster. But you have to be a lot more careful of the fumes. I think it will get more refined and easier as time moves on!
For the small amount I get in scrap circuit boards, I think I will just buy my silver at the local Coin shop for now Lol!😇
Of course, if the price keeps going up………
Silver hit another high today of $42.59 on Kitco!🤗
That may be safer, but way more time consuming and probably not cost effective for the average person. I’ve done plenty of gold and silver extraction in my days. Chemicals if using less toxic stuff is much faster and a much quicker process.
I agree with you, this process is long and involved!
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That's interesting... but ... I remember days when I started to vape ... in a few months my video studio became a chemical lab ... 😎
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That is hilarious! You must have really done a deep dive into producing new flavors and combinations!
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Interesting, @thebighigg!
But, I'll just my purchase gold and silver, !LOL!BBH
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I have to agree, much easier and cost effective to just buy it outright! I think it's more for a fun chemistry project than a money maker at this point!
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Very interesting… At Present, it’s much easier for me to pick up a Box of $1 U.S. Coins at the Bank…
Much easier, it's also easier to buy 1 gram silver bars!
Excellent, this information is worth gold, haha, good information.
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It may become a huge industry in Venezuela as people are looking to earn more. Living there has become difficult over the last twenty years. I remember Caracas in the mid 90's, such a pretty place and there was a lot of money!
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Heck yea! I collect junk tech boards haha I have a camper full of old circuit boards back in Arkansas that I need to sort and see about extracting some of the goodies. One of my favorite dumpster divers recommended boardsort.com but i haven't tried it yet. more into the DIY stuff like this but i may have to cash them all in when i am back that way.
For now using the chemical techniques is probably cheaper and faster for the average guy. You just have to be a lot more careful as caustic fumes aren't all that healthy! But precious metal extraction from e waste is going to become a huge industry and you could probably get a little more selling those old cards now as well!
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My garage chemistry set is now obsolete? What am I going to do with a huge bottle of Mirianic acid? I still have box old dusty old CPUs and ICs etc.
One day there will be more silver extraction labs than Meth labs.
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I still think for the average Joe it's cheaper to use the caustic chemicals. Eventually the new process may replace the current methods, and labs extracting silver and gold may completely outnumber those drug labs. If silver climbs to $100 it could become a booming industry!
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Very interesting! I better get to the store sooner rather than later to get my Christmas stuff picked up for this year!
It's coming fast this year yet again... Seems like it was just St. Patrick's Day... As extraction processes get easier we may see people fighting over burned out electronic cards, as prices continue to climb on the metals.
That is interesting. I have piles and piles of stuff that I usually send off for recycling. Typically ends up being about five or six pallets of equipment about two or three times a year.
With that much is might be worth your while to take up extracting the precious metals. Save up the piles of them and when you do retire you would have a hobby to keep you busy! lol
Haha, yeah maybe. We usually get a check from the recycling place. It isn't huge, but it is better than nothing and it beats having to auction off all the stuff!