This is something interesting I came across today. But first a small introduction
A couple years agoI went on a "journey" collecting all kinds of free junk electronics I could get my hands on. Over the course of a few months I collected a shit ton of old mobile phones, motherboards, circuits etc etc. My end goal was to extract the gold out of them. Of course I didn't expect to become rich, more of a weird hobby to kill some my time. Anyways, once I had gathered enough of them I chickened out of the next stage which was to put them in an aqua regia, essentially a bath of strong acids
aqua regia, mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids, usually one part of the former to three parts of the latter by volume. This mixture was given its name (literally, “royal water”) by the alchemists because of its ability to dissolve gold. It is a red or yellowish liquid. It is extremely corrosive and can cause skin burns. source
Yeah, my well being is too precious to risk it for a couple grams of gold. Even the fumes of that thing can fuck you up 🤣
So I put everything I collected in some plastic bags and totally forgot about them.
Well, looks like there is another, safe method to take that precious gold out, it just requires more time, a month or so. All you need is some strong concentrated vinegar and salt:
Can't wait to try this out!
I'll buy some some strong vinegar tomorrow and give it a try...hopefullu this weekend with a couple cellphone boards I have laying around as a first test and see how it goes.
If any of you have tried this method let me know of your results, or have any other tips to share, please leave a comment!