Recycling Old Cell Phones & Electronics

BrutalBeck

BrutalBeck

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Sep 14, 2012
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I started taking apart old cell phones a few months ago. Yes, there is precious metals in cell phones and electronics, especially gold. The motherboards are coated in gold. But, I know for myself that there isn't enough gold to make a fortune and you would need about a ton of just cell phones, just to make it worth the while. I talked to a guy on the east coast who runs a recycling company. He says they pay $1.62 per pound for old cell phones and electronics. Which tells me, obviously, that I have a very long way to go before I ever see any kind of profit from this. I have 11 cell phone boards, 1 old hose phone board, and 20 litium batteries so far.

What do you think and know about this subject?
 

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It's a waste of time. You have to work with tons (yes, actual TONS) of these things to make any money. processing them also involves some extremely hazardous chemicals.

Yes, modern electronics use gold, but it's gold plating only microns thick. There's more precious metal in a bottle of Goldschlager than in a hundred cell phones.
 

There is a fellow in CT who dips circuit boards into a cyanide leach which takes the gold into solution. That way, he does not have the labor-intensive problems of disassembling the boards. Doing this takes some knowledge of chemistry and environmental safeguards, but it can be done. This could also be done with a halogen (chlorine) leach but, again, requires knowledge and safeguards. Keep in mind there are other contaminants in the circuit boards which complicate the chemistry. Once the gold becomes part of a compound in solution there are various ways to convert it back to metallic gold and recover the values.
 

Here is a video from the tube. The guy uses hydrochloric acid and nitric acid. The problem with this process, is that the EPA will nail you to the wall if you do not dispose of the used solution in the proper way. :unhappysmiley: This is one of the most widely used methods I have seen so far.
 

I collect old cell phones and computer parts to harvest the gold from them. The average cell phone has like 2 to 5 dollars worth of gold , computer and even things like old calculators from the '70's have even more gold in them. But I will let you in on a secret ,...branch out a little and collect china and other glass and ceramic cups , glasses , plates and bowls , that have gold trim or designs on them and can be picked up really cheap at garage sales and thrift stores. I have even got them for 10 cents or even free. Many of these have more or atleast as much gold as a cell phone or computer memory stick. This will suppliment your gold from electronic scrap quite nicely and its easier to collect and process.
 

If you are collecting precious metals ordinarily destined for the landfill its not a waste of time , you may not come out ahead but then again if you do it right you can actually make a few bucks off it and have an interesting and rewarding hobby. You can actually use acid/peroxide and acid/clorox/stumpout to recover the gold pretty cheaply , but you need a lot of the gold bearing scrap built up before starting the procedure. Ive been out prospecting in the river many times where I found very little or nothing at all , after I paid for gas and spent the time , and had nothing to show for it you could say that it was a waste of time ( except for the fun I had ). But in almost every garage sale or trip to the thrift store I come home with atleast a couple things that have gold on them and usually spent less than a dollar and less than an hour of time. Thats not a waste of time in my book.
 

I have a a couple pounds of gold scrap pins etc. Just saving it up. I don't mess with this stuff until I have nothing to do and I'm bored. I've heard it takes about 5 pounds of pins and processors to get a gram. In no hurry, but definitely saving what I come across. Some day I will have someone process it for me.
 

I collect old electronics and recycle it but it's not worth processing yourself, unless you have tons of it and the equip. to do it. I sell the circuit boards for $3 a pound. The cpus can get you 50cents to $2 each, the older ones have more gold in them. I also collect "liquid gold" (waste vegetable oil) from the restaurants and filter it to use as fuel for my diesel truck. I have driven over 172K miles on the stuff. I also sell my extra oil and make way more on that than all my recycling and prospecting. But prospecting is like fishing, just to be out doing it is fun. When you can do both at the same time, and drive there for free, I'm in heaven...

Edson
 









For anybody interested heres a two part video of collecting the gold from escrap and other plated materials. Its not as difficult or expensive as you may think. The author of this video has some more good ones on his page.
 

The scrap metal forum has a bunch of info on scrapping ewaste including some charter members who have posted their purchase prices for phones, cards, batteries & every other ewaste commodity - there is also some info there on processing it yourself, but you'll quickly see that the cost, danger and effort isn't worth it

There isn't as much gold as you think there is in the phones - the value of a phone is usually $5 or less and the pro ewaste recyclers are the only ones who can pull out all of the value as it comes from the entire mix: copper, palladium, gold & other metals.

The mother boards aren't coated with gold by the way, only certain pieces
 

Yard sales are very good places for E-garbage. I always find very cheap, old electronics. A couple months ago, I bought an old Emerson phone, (.50) A container of copper tubing, ($1) and a many other electronics and metals that cost next to nothing. There are so many stories of people hitting it big at rummage sales.

Eureka!!
 

With the advent of the more evolved technologies that will connect and enable communication between different electronic items of daily use, staggering amounts of gadgets will turn into useless scrap.
 

The older the electronics.. the more gold they tend to have. Back when the 300 per Oz days most stuff was made solid (remember how much those clunky car phones cost and weighed?). As the price of gold went up companies starting electro plating pins and jumpers. In the telecom industry there were motherboards used for switching relays that were like 80% weight gold...Only seen one in my life and it looked like something outta cheap 60s space movie..

Anyhoo.. heres a list of CPUs and gold content... little outdated

OzCopper | CPU Gold Content

Good luck
 

I've gotten nice gold by soaking SIM cards in hydrochloric acid (brick cleaner/ pool acid). Helps if you cut them up first so the acid can get to e layer under the gold since that's what it eats.
 

The thing I ran into back when I was doing it, was disposing of the spent acid, containing heavy metals like cadmium, and other bad stuff. It will cost as much to properly dispose of the acid, as the gold, silver, and platinum group metals removed from the scrap.
 

I tried e-scrap a couple of years ago and did have some success. My advice is to call the schools around you area a ask if the have old computers they need to get rid of. I got about 150 or so old computers and edge servers for about 35 bucks. Took me about 8 hours to tear everything down and separated. I recycled the plastic, tin, wires and copper and got 120$. From the mother boards, CPUs and mem cards I got roughly 900$ or so. I also got about 400lbs or sat receivers some with dvr that I got about 300$ for all said and done. In the two months I did it I did make some money. But it takes a lot of time and space. I still have a pile of gold foils I need to either melt or process it to powder and then melt. If you can find a good deal do it, but people are starting to catch on about the gold in electronics.
 

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