Martijn
Well-known member
Gents, I need your input to write my final paper to become a certified safety advisor, and with it, contribute to the safety section of this great site.
My goal is make an assessment of the risks involved with the Sulfuric cell processs. It will be put in the safety section after completion.
I tried to put all the steps in order, with the help of the post on this site, mainly steve's great tutorials and comments, thanks again steve!
to get a complete picture, I would like you to fire away about anything relevant you can come up with. All info is welcome; from small insignificant things to the biggest hazards and epic fails encountered by our members.
I will check all risks we come up with against Dutch law and regulations, where I will be presenting the paper. I will incorporate the relevant items in the TRA for this forum.
Below my description of the process steps:
Gather materials like acid, glass oven dish, copper mesh and wire, lead for the cathode, power supply, capable of delivering sufficient voltage and amperage. (dependent on size of set-up.)
And some cleaned gilded material to strip. Plastic strainer and rinse water bucket, stripped material dump bucket.
Basic safety related items and measures:
Safe work place with fume hood, goggles or full face screen, acid resistant gloves and apron, spill container under process, MSDS of all chemicals used.
Preparation: make a copper basket, cast or make lead cathode, install fume hood, clean solder from gilded parts before stripping.
Set-up process:
place dish in spill container, put lead cathode in, connect leads and clamps, fill basket, pour in acid, lower basket in dish and turn on the power. set voltage limit to ....V and current limit to max.
During process:
Shake or stir the content of the basket when current drops to expose covered parts to acid.
monitor: foam build- up, black layer build-up on the bottom and electrical short-curcuits in acid.
Temperature should not go over ... degrees C?
When done:
turn off power supply, lift basket out acid and let drip out for some time.
empty contents of basket in strainer to spray-rinse, catch rinse water in bucket, and dupm the rinsed parts in a bucket.
Refill the basket, do not let the copper basket come in contact with water to prevent dilution of the acid or worse like exothermal reaction upon contact with water.
Repeat until you run out of stripped material, or the sludge makes the electrodes short-out.
Siphon off the clear acid for re-use, empty metal sludge with acid in container with water to dilute the acid to filter it with paper filter.
Dispose of waste and chemicals.
Store materials and chemicals.
After the risks are inventoried, they will be evaluated and categorized according a risk assessment matrix based on likelihood of occurrence and impact of an accident.
So the effect and likelihood of an accident is info I would also like some info about.
Control measures to prevent or reduce the risk to an acceptable level will be put in the TRA.
Please try to describe the accident or risk and what could be done to prevent it.
Also the effect of (near)accidents are very helpful.
I really don't expect to predict all the risks, so I need your input here. everything is open for debate, but the emphasis should be on the risks and control measures you can think of.
If someone should ever read the TRA, it would immediately highlite the risks and force one to think twice about rushing head first into something that can go irreversibly wrong.
Hope you will al jump on it!! Be safe, Martijn.
My goal is make an assessment of the risks involved with the Sulfuric cell processs. It will be put in the safety section after completion.
I tried to put all the steps in order, with the help of the post on this site, mainly steve's great tutorials and comments, thanks again steve!
to get a complete picture, I would like you to fire away about anything relevant you can come up with. All info is welcome; from small insignificant things to the biggest hazards and epic fails encountered by our members.
I will check all risks we come up with against Dutch law and regulations, where I will be presenting the paper. I will incorporate the relevant items in the TRA for this forum.
Below my description of the process steps:
Gather materials like acid, glass oven dish, copper mesh and wire, lead for the cathode, power supply, capable of delivering sufficient voltage and amperage. (dependent on size of set-up.)
And some cleaned gilded material to strip. Plastic strainer and rinse water bucket, stripped material dump bucket.
Basic safety related items and measures:
Safe work place with fume hood, goggles or full face screen, acid resistant gloves and apron, spill container under process, MSDS of all chemicals used.
Preparation: make a copper basket, cast or make lead cathode, install fume hood, clean solder from gilded parts before stripping.
Set-up process:
place dish in spill container, put lead cathode in, connect leads and clamps, fill basket, pour in acid, lower basket in dish and turn on the power. set voltage limit to ....V and current limit to max.
During process:
Shake or stir the content of the basket when current drops to expose covered parts to acid.
monitor: foam build- up, black layer build-up on the bottom and electrical short-curcuits in acid.
Temperature should not go over ... degrees C?
When done:
turn off power supply, lift basket out acid and let drip out for some time.
empty contents of basket in strainer to spray-rinse, catch rinse water in bucket, and dupm the rinsed parts in a bucket.
Refill the basket, do not let the copper basket come in contact with water to prevent dilution of the acid or worse like exothermal reaction upon contact with water.
Repeat until you run out of stripped material, or the sludge makes the electrodes short-out.
Siphon off the clear acid for re-use, empty metal sludge with acid in container with water to dilute the acid to filter it with paper filter.
Dispose of waste and chemicals.
Store materials and chemicals.
After the risks are inventoried, they will be evaluated and categorized according a risk assessment matrix based on likelihood of occurrence and impact of an accident.
So the effect and likelihood of an accident is info I would also like some info about.
Control measures to prevent or reduce the risk to an acceptable level will be put in the TRA.
Please try to describe the accident or risk and what could be done to prevent it.
Also the effect of (near)accidents are very helpful.
I really don't expect to predict all the risks, so I need your input here. everything is open for debate, but the emphasis should be on the risks and control measures you can think of.
If someone should ever read the TRA, it would immediately highlite the risks and force one to think twice about rushing head first into something that can go irreversibly wrong.
Hope you will al jump on it!! Be safe, Martijn.