Jnanesh Shenoy | Kundapura's Golden Man

Jnanesh Shenoy

Intro:

Kundapur based businessman Jnanesh Shenoy for the past four years has been researching on gold and silver extraction from e waste including mobile phones and computer mother boards.

27 year old Jnanesh Shenoy, a businessman from Kundapur dedicates his weekends on research. Since 2009-10, he has been working on extracting gold from computers and mobile phones and silver from x-ray films. Through his website www.metalminemedia.com, he explains the process of extraction of precious metals from e waste.

A diploma holder in computer Science, and a businessman who runs an electrical and home appliances firm in Kundapur of Udupi district, Shenoy said,”I surfed a lot online about gold and silver. This was when I came across articles on extracting gold or silver from e-waste. I decided to carefully follow their instructions and try them out and have been successful. I reserve my weekends on this and have been doing it in a very small way since 2009. I began with recovering silver from x- ray films and within a year’s time, was able to recover gold.”
Electronic recycling industry is rapidly growing over the years, as the profit margin is expected to be huge. There are several buyers of e-waste online. Also there are several people who are interested to learn how to recover gold and silver from computer parts or other forms of e scrap, so that they can set up their own firm.

Recollecting how it all began, Shenoy said, “I wanted to do something different. The moment I learnt about the technique, especially aquaregia, the process of carefully mixing one part of nitric acid and three parts of hydrochloric acid, which are very corrosive and produce toxic fumes, I approached a local goldsmith for guidance. They practically showed me how to go about it and guided me how to go about it. The quantity of gold retrieved also depends on the technology used. The gold content in the products are reducing with advanced versions of computers. For instance, from about 200 Pentium 4 processors about six grams of pure gold can be extracted. Companies these days using nickel instead of gold, “he said.

Explaining about the procedure, Shenoy said, “I buy e waste from those who collect it, in case of a mother board socket, it takes about 2-3 days to pluck the pins. Once that is done, it is allowed to react with nitric acid for 24 -48 hours. The pins are made of copper with gold plating. Copper gets dissolved in nitric acid and the gold begins to float. The gold plating is separated with the help of a coffee filter or tissue paper. The gold collected is handed over to goldsmiths, who purify the gold. The gold is then sent to the refinery. The goldsmiths generally deduct Rs 20 from the actual cost of gold per gram, “he said.

In India, we only think of gold and silver and forget other precious metals like platinum and palladium. According to an estimate last year, 320 tons of gold and more than 7,500 tons of silver are now used annually to make PCs, cell phones, tablet computers and other new electronic and electrical products worldwide. The business has huge prospects. The government must help in setting up such units. For the time being Shenoy is looking for partnership and researching more on the field.