Video summary

Huge Gold Recovery From Purple Ceramic Chips #gold #goldrecovery #scrap #ewaste #electronics #cpu

Main summary

Key takeaways

Product Review

Product reviewed (process/material)

The video isn’t reviewing a consumer product. It’s reviewing an e-waste gold recovery method applied to gold-plated purple ceramic IC chips—ceramic chips with Kovar lids and gold plating, sometimes with gold bond wires.

Key steps / main features of the method

Input handling & prep

  • The chips are cracked with a hammer so chemicals can penetrate both sides and attack Kovar lids.
  • Batch size: the author targets about ~1.2 kg per run (the box is 2,181 g total; roughly “half-ish”).

Base-metal removal (“poor man’s nitric”)

  • Uses:
    • distilled water
    • concentrated sulfuric acid
    • sodium nitrate
  • Rationale: this generates “poor man’s nitric acid” as a cheaper and more accessible alternative to real concentrated nitric acid.
  • Purpose:
    • Dissolve base metals
    • Remove gold bond wires that aren’t actually gold (i.e., not true gold-value material)
    • Leave gold behind (as foil/solid)
  • Reaction behavior:
    • Initially very vigorous
    • Later slows as base metals are consumed
  • Upsizes container from a:
    • 3 L beaker → 5 L beaker to reduce crowding.

Verification & silver checking

  • Tests for silver in drained liquid/rinse water.
  • Result: no detectable silver.

Gold dissolution (“aqua regia”)

  • Before using aqua regia, the author adds hydrochloric acid first as a diagnostic:
    • If the liquid turns “putrid green”, they boil rather than proceeding immediately.
    • This indicates lingering base-metal impurities.
  • Aqua regia is then used to dissolve remaining gold.
  • Known complication:
    • With purple ceramic chips, yellow precipitate forms (composition unknown).
  • Mitigation:
    • Filter to remove it
    • Perform a second aqua regia extraction to maximize gold recovery

Gold cleanup & precipitation

  • De-no(x) step uses sodium metabisulfite to produce SO₂ gas and precipitate gold from solution.
  • Filtration and “cleanup boils” are used.

Outcome / yield

  • Gold mud stays non-colloidal and settles well.
  • Reported yield:
    • 16.8 g gold from 1,199 g starting material (~1.2 kg target)
  • Calculated yield: ~1.4% by weight

Pros (what the video emphasizes)

  • High yield for this chip type
    • The author didn’t expect much because many chips lack gold bond wires.
    • Still achieved 16.8 g from 1.199 kg → 1.4% yield
  • Works even when some chips contain gold bond wires
    • The author finds an I80186 chip with gold bond wires
    • They avoid iodine leaching due to uncertainty about dissolving gold bond wires.
    • The method is described as “tried and true” for bond-wire dissolution.
  • Process control through observation
    • Color/reaction cues guide the process:
      • dark/green base-metal solution
      • “putrid green” as an impurity warning
      • yellow precipitate behavior
  • Gold drop appears clean
    • Gold mud appears clean, together, and not colloidal, simplifying cleanup.

Cons / limitations (problems encountered)

  • Time and labor
    • Multiple stages and re-treatments over multiple days (including overnight cooking and multiple extraction rounds).
  • Container crowding
    • Stirring becomes difficult, requiring 3 L → 5 L container scaling.
  • Unknown “yellow precipitate”
    • Yellow solids form during aqua regia.
    • The author can’t identify what they are (possibly ceramic-derived).
    • Requires filtering and may affect processing.
  • Liquid coloration / impurity management
    • Aqua regia solution turns greenish (normal in this process).
    • De-no(x) shows dramatic color changes (e.g., green → orange during transfer), plus cloudiness and a permanent color shift—requiring additional re-filtration.

Comparisons made

Chosen method vs iodine leech

The author says they didn’t use iodine gold leech here because:

  • It hadn’t been tested on bulk gold yet
  • They were unsure whether it dissolves gold bond wires, which may be thicker than plating

They mention possibly experimenting with iodine leech in the future.

Two-stage aqua regia vs “one pass”

  • The author states they always do a second aqua regia extraction for purple ceramic chips to avoid missing gold trapped in nooks.

User experience (as described)

  • Requires a fume hood during acid steps.
  • Early measurements are non-scientific (“eyeball it”).
  • Chemical behavior drives decisions:
    • vigorous bubbling during “poor man’s nitric”
    • reaction slowing as base metals are removed
    • “putrid green” as a warning before aqua regia
  • Filtration is a major part of the workflow.
  • Yellow solids can make filtering heavy/slow.

Unique points mentioned (complete list)

  1. Starting material: Johnny’s gold-plated purple ceramic IC chips; total 2,181 g box.
  2. Batch target: about half-ish (~1.2 kg) per run.
  3. Chips must be cracked to allow chemicals to dissolve Kovar lids.
  4. Uses steel anvil / ore-crusher-style crushing.
  5. “Poor man’s nitric acid” approach: H₂SO₄ + sodium nitrate.
  6. Why “poor man’s nitric”: cheaper and easier to obtain than real nitric (sulfuric acid constraints acknowledged).
  7. Uses distilled water initially to cover chips.
  8. Container change: 3 L → 5 L beaker to reduce crowding.
  9. Repeatedly checks for gold bond wires; finds at least one I80186 chip with gold bond wires.
  10. Observes base-metal digestion via color changes (e.g., dark green/black-ish solutions); Kovar dissolves leaving gold foil.
  11. Runs multiple base-metal extraction cycles, stopping when reaction slows/clears.
  12. Tests for silver via dilute muriatic acid: no detectable silver found.
  13. Aqua regia is preceded by an HCl test; putrid green triggers a boil/purge.
  14. Aqua regia produces yellow precipitate (composition unknown); filters it out.
  15. Performs two aqua regia extractions to ensure complete gold dissolution.
  16. De-no(x) uses sodium metabisulfite (SO₂ gas) to cause gold to drop.
  17. Gold drop results in a gold mirror / settled gold mud; minimal colloidal issues are claimed.
  18. Yield: 16.8 g gold from 1,199 g chips = ~1.4% by weight.
  19. The author expects few/no bond wires most of the time but still reports strong yield.

Different speakers’ views

  • Only one speaker (Mike) is present in the provided subtitles.
  • No alternate speaker viewpoints are present.

Overall verdict / recommendation (based on the video)

If you’re trying to recover gold from purple ceramic gold-plated IC chips, the video recommends this workflow:

  • “poor man’s nitric” base-metal removal
  • double aqua regia extraction
  • de-no(x)
  • SO₂ drop

Based on reported results, it can achieve about ~1.4% gold yield on roughly ~1.2 kg batches and appears to handle chips that contain gold bond wires.

Original video