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.

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.

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.