Is there gold inside scanner sensor?

I have this old HP scanner and before I throw it away I decide to take a closer look on the inside parts.

Here is this small PCB with some electronic components and this light sensor (scanner sensor) which shows some golden color inside.

I have broken this protective glass and decide to keep these gold plated connectors for later use.

Here you can see some pictures of what I mean.

Exactly what is gold bullion?

Well, gold bullion, or silver bullion is actually a valuable kind of precious metal, which is mostly made from either silver or gold.

Such gold bullions actually come in two main forms like coins, bars and others. People use these for determining amount of precious metal. The value of these bullions mainly comes from the precious metals in which they are made of. Value can be determined by bullion weight and its purity.

Unlike numismatic coins or jewelry, Gold Bullion does not have any sort of artistic component or value.

There are bullions available in different sizes and weight.

Learn how to melt gold powder and get button

This is article about melting gold powder to get gold bullion, or in most cases gold button. In this example we will show you how to make gold button, and gold bullion you can make the same way, just need mold and efficient amount of gold to melt into that mold.

Gold melts when it reaches a bit less than 1100 degrees Celsius. Because of that you need a dish which will not melt with gold.

To reach high temperature you can use acetylene torch. Point torch flame around gold powder and wait until it becomes to melt. For better results add a bit of boric acid powder on the beginning, and a bit after gold has started to melt.

This is a bit dangerous work so be careful and make sure to wear protective goggles.

When you have melt gold powder it is time to make gold button. How to do that? Gold button is simple to make.

Just pour your molten gold into cold water and wait it to harden.

Here are some videos on youtube.com which shows how to make your first gold button.

Can I found any gold inside these Intel CPU 755 socket chips?

I have this Intel CPU with 755 socket technology and I want to know how to get out gold from them. Is there any gold inside them? Well let’s see…

This is what I have got. Three CPU chips with 755 socket housing. That means that this CPU doesn't have pins under. Instead of pins, we can see thin contacts which are gold plated.

After this closer look I decide to demolish one CPU, to see what is hidden inside.

Inside you can see some more gold plated surface.

Conclusion: While recycling this kind of CPU’s, it is very important to break them apart, for better gold extraction. Otherwise a significant amount of gold can stay trapped inside.

Things you should know while selling gold

To sell broken jewelry or some other gold piece like button or gold bullion is not a complicated at all.

You can always find buyer who is ready to buy gold from you. Just make sure that you know what you selling, in other words, it is important for both parties to know purity of gold and its market price.

Other thing you should know that you can’t sell stolen gold pieces or false gold. Many people today are engaged in illegal gold trade, and they should be processed. If you don’t have gold to offer, then don’t even bother to cheat someone.

In other hand, if you have genuine 'real' gold, then make sure to determine its purity. In most cases, each piece of gold jewelry should have a fineness mark. If you can’t read mark or there is no mark at all we suggest you do the test for gold purity.

Gold trader must determine the percentage of pure gold because it is information that directly affects the price of item. Purity of gold is determined by using the 'jewelers' acid rock to test the purity of gold. More on the topic: how to determine the purity of gold can be found at the link.

Calculating actual gold value

While calculating gold value it is very important to know gold purity. Gold purity is known as Karat.

Karat represents the gold ratio inside the alloy in which it is located. Weight ratio of gold alloy and value of the carats gives you value or the amount of pure gold inside that specific alloy.

If the gold piece of jewelry or other piece has no mark for the karats then you can do test with the proper equipment, which can tell you gold purity.

Learn how to test gold to determine karats

If you don’t have the equipment to determine gold purity, then we suggest that you buy it. If you don’t want to spend money in that way, then just go to the jewelry and ask them to test your gold.

Anyway, if you want to do it yourself and you have equipment this is how it’s done. Reading gold purity with this method brings you reading something like these - 10, 14, 18 and 22 carats. This is quite accurate for such a use.

Now, if you suspect that you have 14 carat piece of jewelry do this. Rub a piece of jewelry by stone and put a single drop of acid from a bottle that reads 14 karat gold. If it is indeed the 14 karat gold then the acid will not show any reaction. If, for example, you don’t know the purity of gold at all, then you are doing the test that we wrote in a way to repeat the action with acids from the lowest to the highest value. The first time you see that the acid reacted know that you have previously lower carat value of gold jewelry.

How to determine the weight of gold?

Once you determine the purity of gold, the next step is to weigh gold. It is necessary to weigh the gold each group separately. So, if you have two pieces of jewelry with 18K gold and one piece of 10K and 22K gold do this. Do separate weigh measurement for 10K gold. Do separate weight measurement for two 18K gold pieces. And once again, do separate weight measurement for 22K gold piece.

While you do weight measures it is very important to use precision scale. If you own goldsmith's scale, which measures weight in ounces of gold then simply Calculate Ounces to Grams. 1 ounce contains 28.3495231 Grams.

On the end you need to determine the price of gold

The price of gold per ounce is changing every moment. However, to know the current value of gold on the world market is enough to look on the internet and read the chart.

Gold price is expressed per troy ounce, which is 31.1 grams of pure gold.

Divide the current value of gold per ounce from 01/31 to get one value per gram. The value you get now to be multiplied with the purity of gold you own. For each group of gold that you weigh divide it with 24 and then multiply the result with the current value of gold per gram.

And finally, just multiply the value of gold per gram with the weight of gold that you have weighed in grams.

Use scrap for recycling gold

Gold is an essential element in the production process of contemporary electronic devices. This sentence applies for devices manufactured eighties and thereafter also. What's more, the greater quantity of gold content can be found in older devices. This is because production technology today is much more precise an accurate which means that gold consumption is effectively reduced.

Accuracy in making electronics has led to the fact that gold can be used in the best possible (cost-effective) ratio and with less scrap. This is the main reason why the older devices contain larger amounts of gold or other precious and valuable metals.

Difference in-between older CPU’s and these new ones show us how gold is reduced in production level. In fact, old processors that are used in personal computers in the late eighties and early nineties contain a significantly greater amount of gold from these newer generations’ processors. So we have one processor 486 marks in itself can hide from 0.1 to as much as 0.5 grams of gold per unit, and its multi-core processors are barely worth recycling.

Text above can apply for almost every electronic device.

Recycling is good for the preservation of planet earth. Recycling process is a lot cheaper than gold mining.

To produce new electronic devices and sell them, we need to replace some old but used ones. In this circle, recycling is essential.

Recycling old electronic waste is not easy, but if it is understood as a going up business it is not so risky and it should last a while. Raw materials for recycling are all kind of electronic devices. Gold is hidden inside them and just wait to be extracted.

Before recycling process collected material should be examined first. Separation must be taken and when separation is done, we can start to prepare recycling cycle.

When all the materials are grouped we can start by recycling parts of gold, or gold-plated parts. Gold is, in most cases, applied as a thin layer on base metal, and only in rare cases as pure gold.

Recycling process is dangerous, and so, in this step you have to be careful. While recycling, it is necessary to use an acid, and therefore you must be familiar with some basic rules. The space in which you work with should be properly ventilated, and airy. You must use a suit which protects against possible contact with the acid, goggles and rubber gloves. The entire process of extracting gold should be done with tools specially prepared for use in laboratories. Container in which the gold is melted and set aside should be made of glass.

Gold recycling part which you want to recycle should be worked out in a mixture of two acids called aqua regia. Name (aqua regia) comes from fact that it melts gold.

Aqua regia is media for extracting gold from other metals and keeping that gold trapped inside. After you have dissolve that gold it is time to collect it and take it out.

To make the gold back from the current media solution you need a little trick. Trick is called sodium metabisulfite. It is a white powdery substance that interacts with aqua regia and the gold atoms have led out of the liquid. Reaction inside aqua regia has a gold powder for result.

How to get pure gold? We will explain later.

Recycling gold from electronic waste

Gold can be found in almost every part of electronics. Gold is hidden inside electronic components, and with a little knowledge and willpower we can recycle that gold.

Electronic components that contain gold inside are motherboards from computers, boards from cell phones, electronics from audio and video equipment and similar group of products.

Cell phones and computers are the most popular source for getting gold in the world today. Recycling gold from electronic scrap is the second most valuable way to get gold. First are still gold mines all over the world.

During the production of electronic components factories consume a considerable amount of gold, and therefore it is important at the end of the working cycle of the equipment to recycle the elements necessary for the production of new contemporary devices. The recycling process is far cheaper than digging gold from the mines and recycling has become a large and lucrative business around the world.

How to get gold out of PC?

Many computer components contains some gold inside. To get gold out of these components more efficient you should know some basics about whole procedure.

Motherboard is the main component of every computer and it contains significant amount of gold. Like there is gold, motherboard contains other precious and precious metals, and plastics. There we can mention copper and aluminum, and precious metals like silver and platinum.

Hard drive housing is made from aluminum, and there you can find small board with gold plated connectors.

Memory stick contains gold plated pins on the end of each stick.

Computer processing unit is real small gold mine. Computer processing unit hide gold inside. It is very easy to recycle CPU. If you look CPU for gold recycling then we suggest collecting old ceramic CPU’s.

Old ceramic CPU’s contains more gold inside than these new ones. For collecting all gold from CPU it is essential to break CPU apart.

Scrapping gold from computer boards

The best known sources for gold recycling are motherboards from home computers. Other sources are mobile devices, tablets, printers and all other devices with some electronic circuits inside.

Contact points inside these circuits contain certain percentage of gold. Not gold in full size, but gold plated metal contacts. For better performance and for less malfunction on its surface coating layers, these contacts are electroplated with thin gold layer.

Parts which contains a certain amount of gold are: IDE connectors, PCI slots, PCIEx slots, AGP, ISA and parts like these. In addition to these we have stated gold contain memory slots, CPU sockets and other connectors like these.

In fact, gold can be found in almost every important junction of an electronic circuit. To make components work smoothly each contact is coated with a layer of gold.

Thing you should know is that percentage of gold inside these circuits is small. The reason for that is because of gold price. Before recycling processes all parts containing gold should be removed from the other elements, such as plastics, sheet metal and similar materials from which the components are assembled.

Separation of components is essential because the gold is recycled using acids. It is very important to minimize the possibility of acid contamination.

If you want to extract gold from motherboard it is important to take that motherboard apart and to separate parts for recycling. We already mentioned which parts contain gold and which not. Plastic can be removed, and all connectors placed together for recycling.

Because there is just small amount of gold inside one motherboard, we suggest for you to collect  few motherboards and then try to recycle gold from them. In that way you can see how gold can be restored and exchanged for money.