Neutralizing AP

Hello Gentlemen.

I have been watching and learning as much as I can from you all, and I'm almost ready to start! I have one question that I can't seem to find an answer to. I want to be able to just dump my AP solution down the sewer when I'm finished. How do I neutralize it enough so that I will be able to? Thanks Gentlemen for this wonderful forum. I appreciate it.

-Cori

Cori,

4metals did a great post on responsibly handling waste acids:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1300&hilit=waste

You can reuse your AP solution over and over again. Some folks use an oxygen
bubbler like you use in an aquarium to rejuvenate the AP. I haven't had the need
to do that as I do a lot of agitation when processing fingers, etc. and my AP still
works fine. When I first started I didn't know you could reuse the AP so I used a lot
of Muriatic and hydrogen peroxide and I had a lot of waste acid. :shock:

I let the waste acid sit in a plastic container with aluminum heat sinks or steel
parts from PC's until the liquid gets clear. Then I carefully pour off the waste liquid,
neutralize it with baking soda to get the PH to 7 and then disposed of it properly.
I then leave the residual copperish sludge and the heat sinks left in the plastic container
out in the sun until they got all dried up and the solution totally evaporates. I have been
storing the dried powder in a plastic bin until I find a local recycler that will take them as copper.

Be responsible, read 4metals post, be careful always and enjoy your new hobby. 8)

Thanks Glorycloud. I saw the post, but thought that there could be another way to deal with it. Its always good to have more than one option, right?
I didn't know that you could reuse the AP solution, so i think we'll go that route instead of dumping it. I appreciate the reply.