[geeks] gold recovery from certain motherboards?

[Jonathan Katz]

On Oct 17, 2008, at 12:12 AM, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>
> What about using aqua regia I wonder?  Anyone have any experience with
> that?  Could I just pour the aqua regia over the traces, then
> precipitate it out later?

I'm wondering if there is another chemical way to do it?

I'm no chemist, but we have copper doorknobs in our house. They were  
filled with 80 years of grime and dirt. Boiling a concoction of  
vinegar and something else (my brain fails me at this hour after the  
day I've had) we were able to make them look like new.

Before:
http://bit.ly/fAC3S

After:
http://bit.ly/2EnynN

Obviously this is different, cleaning metal.

My understanding is that the energy required to remove gold from  
circuit boards exceeded the value of the gold that would be recovered.  
However, given today's markets, I wonder if that has changed.