DCHAS-L Archives, Feb 02 2022 - Re: [DCHAS-L] Extracting Gold from Electronics

There are two related issues I have dealt with fairly recently:

1. E-waste is not yours to fool with. Once someone says "I'm discarding this" it is now e-waste and only people certified to dispose of it or salvage it can touch it. I was on a project in which a university run afoul of this by hiring a famous gamer who was busy teaching students in an ordinary classroom to create their own games from e-waste (and using lead solder without precautions or following the OSHA Lead Standard). So I have in my report the citation for the California e-waste rule if someone is interested. And I assume there are variations from state to state, but the basic prohibition against messing with e-waste is from EPA.

2. Since I plan renovations of buildings a lot, I know you need to check your school's or building's industrial waste permit. Yes, there is one on file somewhere. And the older the building, the more out of date that permit is likely to be. Often the permit was granted when the school was the educational equivalent of two-guys-in-a-garage and the volumes and types of waste allowed under your permit are grossly underestimated today.

Most state agencies just let this ride without updates and no one notices, but occasionally it hits the fan. And cyanide ion traced back to your wastewater can really do that. I know this from a jewelry operation in a university that was doing cyanide plating. (Also, when cyanide plating is done, I have a hell of a time planning the ventilation, safety equipment, required notification of a local hospital to have the treatment for cyanide on hand, etc. I'm also living in NYC, where every few years some ethnic jewelry worker is carried out of the diamond district feet first as a victim of their practice of "bombing" metal castings with a combination of sodium cyanide and 35% hydrogen peroxide.)

It also can happen when people work with large amounts of cyan (blue print type) pigments. I don't know if you are aware, but there is an MOU from EPA which essentially say that all of the hexacyanoferrates are regulated under the cyanide rules since they release cyanide in the environment. That MOU is usually appended to my reports when people plan these activities without proper disposal procedures.

I just assume every department in the university is violating some part of their wastewater permit and I usually am right.

Monona

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Lewin <jclewin**At_Symbol_Here**MTU.EDU>
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Sent: Tue, Feb 1, 2022 12:49 pm
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Extracting Gold from Electronics

"or result in a visit from the FBI"

Maybe not the FBI, but it could draw attention to his employer from the EPA or State Hazardous Waste regulatory agency, or other State and Federal Agencies .

Jeff

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022 at 5:47 AM Melissa Anderson <mwanderson08**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

Just got the question below from a student and wanted to get some additional opinions on the best way to respond. My initial take is

1) This is unlikely to be profitable and would be difficult to execute on a larger scale. They're probably better off recycling the materials.

2) I'm not a big fan of generating hazardous waste just for the novelty of seeing if you can perform a cool reaction. I'm inclined to recommend against even suggesting they do this (supervised) at a small scale for the "educational" benefit. (For reference, this is an introductory chem student, not an upper-division student.)

Here's the question text:

"I work for a small business that sells precision measurement equipment. We recently purchased a portion of another company, and as part of that buyout we received literally tens of thousands of old obsolete computer parts and microchips and the like. They're not really worth anything now (except for being really cool, old electronics), so we're not really having much luck trying to resell them. Here's where the potentially fun part comes in.

A good portion of these parts are coated in gold. I've done a bit of research online, and it looks like there's a process to chemically separate the gold from the rest of the components. The internet is, as usual, a bit contradictory on what process is the best way to go about it. Different sites profess their way is best, and I'm obviously green when it comes to chemistry, so I was wondering what your thoughts were?

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/extract-gold-from-electronics

Here's an article I found after a brief google search kind of outlining a process. I was hoping to give this a shot on a small scale and then maybe attempt something larger if I'm successful. But I need to know... Will following this article get me killed or result in a visit from the FBI??? I think it would be a fun, cool way to do a bit of chemistry and make the business I work for a bit of extra money off of some items that would otherwise just be thrown away, but I obviously want to do it in a safe, proper way

Any advice or insight you have would be greatly appreciated"

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Jeff Lewin

Director of Chemical Laboratory Operations

Research Integrity Office

Laboratory Operations

205 Lakeshore Center

Michigan Technological University

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