Where the
world gathers for metal finishing
Q&As since 1989


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How to remove Gold on CDs

2005

I wanted to know if there was a way to remove gold from cds?

I understand the layer is thin, but I have thousands of old cds and most have gold plating on them (green color on the bottom). The others have silver (blue color on the bottom).

Also, are there any refiners in the USA whom do not charge a fee?

Hope you can help,

Anthony Young
Precious Metal Recovery - Virginia, USA

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2005

Are you willing to spend a good deal of time and effort, not to mention a fair amount of expense, to reclaim a relatively small amount of gold/silver?

Any process you use to reclaim the metals would necessarily have to start with crushing the disks to a reasonably fine particle size. It would probably be best to sort the disks, separating what you believe are gold from silver.

This is because silver should be dissolved in nitric acid and gold in aqua regia. This part of the process may produce precipitated metal compounds (sponge) which will still need to be refined.

Does any business provide their services for free and stay in business very long?

Jim Peterson
- Mpls, MN, USA