Darwin meets PC gold-stripping alchemist, Darwin wins

Death isn't funny, but it's often absurd. A man in Tulsa accidentally poisoned himself while using mercury to "extract gold from computer parts." See, mercury can be used to dissolve gold from discarded PC boards. You then heat the runoff to evaporate the mercury. Guess what though, inhaling mercury is extremely toxic. So much so that the man is now dead and his residence must be gutted before its livable again. Look we know the value of the dollar ain't what it used to be, but you'll need a ton (literally) of old system boards to extract a single ounce of gold. Should you, however, stumble upon the Philosopher's Stone in your quest -- well, immortality solved.

[Via Switched]

[Bobs @ Apr 4th 2008 6:07AM]

Was he thinking? Most people know murcery is highly toxic.

[mkaake @ Apr 4th 2008 6:07AM]

Darmin?

Anyhew, it seems like you'd be a bit better off spending the same amount of time at a real job...

[Oinquer @ Apr 4th 2008 6:08AM]

me thinks...i could just live with thissss.....if i was rich already

[peshue @ Apr 4th 2008 6:12AM]

Condolences to his family. It must be tough explaining something as stupid as this to people.

[Funke, Tobias Dr. @ Apr 4th 2008 6:14AM]

The mercurial man!

[kaimera @ Apr 4th 2008 6:28AM]

The story is dated April 1...boo.

[Sharakar @ Apr 4th 2008 6:30AM]

I honestly don't think a human being would dissolve the gold of computer parts with mercury for cash. Maybe he was a WoW Chinese farmer and wanted to materialize his gold. Sarcasm aside, any1 who knows that u can use mercury to take the gold out of something should know just how dangerous it is =>It was either a freak accident or made to look like an accident. I rly wish I could get more info about this thing

[Qsat @ Apr 4th 2008 6:41AM]

Well, i'm working in a open pit gold mine in Canada, and if your gold ratio is real (1 once per ton), then it's a very good source. Here, we only have a 1 once per 18 tons of rock and it's still very profitable, and it need a lot of manipulation, from the blast to the shovels to the crusher to the processing plant and finally to the baths and stoves, maybe we should switch to PC recycling

[hypereric @ Apr 4th 2008 11:15AM]

Didn't I hear somewhere that a metric ton of seawater has an ounce of gold in it (quite dispersed, of course)? You seem like a man (or woman) that would know.

[fanman @ Apr 4th 2008 6:43AM]

As in evolution. He has been naturally selected out.

[fanman @ Apr 4th 2008 6:44AM]

That was meant to be a reply... :(

[y3k.nik @ Apr 4th 2008 6:51AM]

I think they mean a ton of boards and not a ton of rock.

I dont know how the gold ratio works, but considering that gold on boards are already extracted from rocks and such. Also, I think density of rock is more than the density of a board, which means you can get a lot more board in a ton, than you can get rocks.

That being said, I still think engadget was just trying their hand at a little humor out of the situation, but maybe that assumption of a ton is more accurate than what people might think it is.

[derek @ Apr 4th 2008 7:36AM]

Yea, a ton of boards is much heavier than a ton of rocks. Everyone knows that.

[John @ Apr 4th 2008 8:08AM]

A ton of board is larger in volume than a ton of rocks.

[601210 @ Apr 4th 2008 7:43AM]

Is it just me, or does the grammar here in engadget degrade by the day?

[TedB @ Apr 4th 2008 7:44AM]

Kind of odd...

Many people would not know how to extract metals from old circuit boards.. so he could not of been a complete idiot. Yet everyone knows how poisonous mercury can be, and he did not know... He is the smartest, idiot I have ever heard of.

[o29 @ Apr 4th 2008 11:27AM]

If he didn't know that Mercury was toxic, and I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling that he borrowed this idea from someone/somewhere and didn't come up with it himself. And if he read about it, he must have skipped the little footnote that mentioned the whole toxic part.

[loosely_coupled @ Apr 7th 2008 10:18PM]

He probably knew it was toxic .. and used his shirt sleeve to breath through :)

[Framit @ Apr 4th 2008 7:51AM]

..and mercury is even worse!

[John @ Apr 4th 2008 8:08AM]

A ton of board is larger in volume than a ton of rock.

[Sturmgeist @ Apr 4th 2008 8:12AM]

I'd just scraped the gold off that case instead of using poisonous stuff. Moron...

[superfresh @ Apr 4th 2008 8:18AM]

He should have just stuck to copper.

[System48 @ Apr 4th 2008 8:35AM]

The real gold mine in electronics recycling is in CPU's. Not sure what the average yield ratios are but I know I can sell them anywhere between $10-95 a pound depending on the type.

[Mike S. @ Apr 4th 2008 9:19AM]

Yeah, I've heard the ratio of per computer parts and per mine are equal, hence all the "Donate your computer here" garbage, it's literally a gold mine. Word, but he's an idiot regardless.

[mt @ Apr 4th 2008 9:25AM]

I'm surprised anybody has not caught the Full Metal Alchemist reference...

[Quentin @ Apr 4th 2008 9:45AM]

Dude got owned by the law of equivalent exchange.

[sinai @ Apr 4th 2008 9:50AM]

darwin? this was clearly the work of the devil!

[Todd Radel @ Apr 4th 2008 9:51AM]

Don't inhale the mercury fumes. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

[Matt @ Apr 4th 2008 9:58AM]

the ratio is ounces of gold to tons... so it doesn't really matter how many boards you get vs how many rocks, just that the ratio of ounces to tons is more for one or the other

[oshean @ Apr 4th 2008 10:09AM]

Mercury fumes will make you mad as a hatter.

[Matt @ Apr 4th 2008 10:11AM]

that was meant as a response to y3k.nik

[Matt @ Apr 4th 2008 10:11AM]

okay the reply system is def broken

[y3k.nik @ Apr 4th 2008 10:22AM]

@ Matt

That is exactly what i was trying to tell Qsat because he said that the ratio he gets from gold mines is less than the ratio engadget assumed, but it still makes the mines profitable.

Also, I think Tulsa is now famous officially famous for morons.

Did anyone hear about Ronnie Williamson who was sent to the death row (which he got out of) and 20 years in prison for a murder he never committed?

He was convicted in Ada which is 20 minutes from the place, i think.

[y3k.nik @ Apr 4th 2008 10:24AM]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/burden/profiles/williamson.html

My bad, I guess it was 12 years in prison not 20!

yay for broken comment system.

[Optimist @ Apr 4th 2008 10:35AM]

Where can I get a ton of used PC?

[Abuzar @ Apr 4th 2008 11:07AM]

Mercury dust, don't breathe this!

[Dave @ Apr 4th 2008 11:29AM]

"Mercury dust, don't breathe this!"

You couldn't even if you wanted to, the melting/freezing point of Mercury is -38.83 °C (-37.89 °F) anything entering your lungs at that temperature is going to cause more thermal problems than chemical ones.
You can solidify Mercury at higher temperatures but the pressure would turn you into an amorphous blob.

[Abuzar @ Apr 4th 2008 11:34AM]

I know, I was just making a reference to the Blend videos.

[o29 @ Apr 4th 2008 11:26AM]

If he didn't know that Mercury was toxic, and I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling that he borrowed this idea from someone/somewhere and didn't come up with it himself. And if he read about it, he must have skipped the little footnote that mentioned the whole toxic part.

[Travis @ Apr 4th 2008 11:38AM]

I live in Missouri (just above Oklahoma) and we have had a guy come in a few years ago looking for old computers to get the gold off of the boards - I wonder if it was the same guy? He went around to all the local business and collected their old PC's and boards. We did not have any for him where I work but my dad said they gave him a bunch of stuff where he works. People really do this - crazy people maybe but real people none the less.

[schmitty338 @ Apr 4th 2008 11:38AM]

Not even close to that much gold in a metric ton of sea water...a metric ton of sea water is only around 1000L, which is only 1 meter cubed (actually it'll be ~975L because sea water is more dense than fresh), if there were an ounce of gold in that little sea water, there would be a LOT more research going into getting it out. The real amount is around "1 gram of gold for every 100 million tonnes of sea water"...(Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol 98, p 208)

A quick calculation gives around 3.448 x 10^-10 or 0.0000000003448 Ounces of gold per tonne of sea water....that gives a gross worth of 31 millionths of a cent per tonne.....definitely not worth any extraction attempts....

[hypereric @ Apr 4th 2008 4:02PM]

Well, there goes my plan to get rich quick. Thanks for the info.

BTW, click on the time/date and your reply will be in the proper order.

[Life of Brian @ Apr 4th 2008 11:39AM]

He's not from Tulsa. He's from the Colbert area. How about going back a couple of links to find the original story and report it accurately, okay?

[schmitty338 @ Apr 4th 2008 11:41AM]

Not even close to that much gold in a metric ton of sea water...a metric ton of sea water is only around 1000L, which is only 1 meter cubed (actually it'll be ~975L because sea water is more dense than fresh), if there were an ounce of gold in that little sea water, there would be a LOT more research going into getting it out. The real amount is around "1 gram of gold for every 100 million tonnes of sea water"...(Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol 98, p 208)

A quick calculation gives around 3.448 x 10^-10 or 0.0000000003448 Ounces of gold per tonne of sea water....that gives a gross worth of 31 millionths of a cent per tonne.....definitely not worth any extraction attempts....

(sorry for reposting, but the reply button didn't work the first time :-()

[schmitty338 @ Apr 4th 2008 11:41AM]

AHHHHH!!!! The 'reply' button isn't working! ugh....forget it....

[dajimmers @ Apr 4th 2008 12:21PM]

I may be totally wrong, but it seems the cost of the mercury alone would counter any profits he may make from the gold. Especially considering he didn't re-use the evaporated mercury (well he did, but only for his lungs). Maybe profitable for a full-size recycling plant, but I think he should have just stuck to a Meth lab. Probably safer.

[PC Tech Support Atlanta @ Apr 4th 2008 12:26PM]

Anyone notice that the photograph of a computer which illustrates the article is incorrect?

Someone has flipped the image. The motherboard access panel is always on the left (as the user faces the computer).

Terry Thomas
President
PC Tech Support
Atlanta, Georgia USA

[Mark @ Apr 4th 2008 1:14PM]

Perhaps we should stop putting this toxic substance in both childhood and flu vaccines!!!

[Tim @ Apr 4th 2008 1:15PM]

@ schmitty338

will you be my accountant?

[TedH @ Apr 4th 2008 1:17PM]

The sad thing is that this is the norm, not the exception, in some of the other countries to which we ship our e-waste, such as China and India. Imagine entire villages dedicated to extracting valuable metals from piles of old computers, cell phones, and other electronics. Kitchens double as workrooms, waste products get dumped into water sources, and workers are pretty lucky if they have gloves, let alone a face mask. With the skyrocketing cost of precious metals and other commodities, I'd expect to see more of these stories in our own backyard in the future.