dropping copper from solution

[Geo]

zinc (or die cast) is the fastest way to drop copper from solution but difficult to find in large enough quantity. some automotive carburetors are made of zinc. both aluminum and zinc will react the same way very vigorously and create alot of fumes and heat,so if you use either of these add your reagent in small increments and wait till the whole piece has been dissolved before adding another. as far as contaminating both aluminum and zinc will burn away before your copper is fully smelted.

 

[Harold_V]

zinc (or die cast) is the fastest way to drop copper from solution but difficult to find in large enough quantity. some automotive carburetors are made of zinc. both aluminum and zinc will react the same way very vigorously and create alot of fumes and heat,so if you use either of these add your reagent in small increments and wait till the whole piece has been dissolved before adding another. as far as contaminating both aluminum and zinc will burn away before your copper is fully smelted.

I'm curious why you'd use a metal that has reasonable value when scrap steel will accomplish the task, and it's cheap and plentiful.

Harold

 

[Geo]

zinc (or die cast) is the fastest way to drop copper from solution but difficult to find in large enough quantity. some automotive carburetors are made of zinc. both aluminum and zinc will react the same way very vigorously and create alot of fumes and heat,so if you use either of these add your reagent in small increments and wait till the whole piece has been dissolved before adding another. as far as contaminating both aluminum and zinc will burn away before your copper is fully smelted.

I'm curious why you'd use a metal that has reasonable value when scrap steel will accomplish the task, and it's cheap and plentiful.

Harold

actually for some reason die cast is worth less than steel here (where i live).carbs bring 10 cents per pound and steel brings 12 cents per pound while aluminum on the other hand brings 58 cents per pound for old sheet. zinc is the most efficient metal for me to use to cement copper from solution.while beverage cans are essentially free scrap here because there is no deposit on the can as there are other states, i recomend beverage cans for a person that has time to collect them as it would be more cost effective than buying metal to do the process with.

 

[butcher]

electrical conduit fittings are die cast zink.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

electrical conduit fittings are die cast zink.

You can also have aluminum and steel fittings so make sure you test what you are going to use.

 

[jr81452]

If you know a tire store you can get a ton of Zn as used wheel weights. If you know a Pb caster (sinkers or boolits), they usually discard any Zn or Fe weights they come across. Only downside is they are usually painted and the clips are all Fe; but I melt the Zn in 50lb batches in a pot over a turkey fryer burner and cast my own electrodes. For about $5 bucks in propane it's the cheapest source of Zn I've found. YMMV

 

[jimdoc]

If you know a tire store you can get a ton of Zn as used wheel weights. If you know a Pb caster (sinkers or boolits), they usually discard any Zn or Fe weights they come across. Only downside is they are usually painted and the clips are all Fe; but I melt the Zn in 50lb batches in a pot over a turkey fryer burner and cast my own electrodes. For about $5 bucks in propane it's the cheapest source of Zn I've found. YMMV

How do you tell if they are pure zinc, and not an alloy of some sort?

Jim

 

[jr81452]

ASTM B6 - 09 states that a typical alloy may contain less then 2% of copper, aluminum, and magnesium; I don't see why wheel weights would be any different. But, unless you are shelling out the big bucks for Zn SHG you are going to have some impurity. Even SHG has percentages of impurities such as (Max) Pb 0.003, Cd 0.003, Fe 0.002, Sn 0.001, Cu 0.001, Al 0.001. The exact alloy of Zn weights would be costly to determine. Since the impurities have little if any effect for our purposes, I don't worry about it. YMMV.

 

[Smack]

actually for some reason die cast is worth less than steel here (where i live).carbs bring 10 cents per pound and steel brings 12 cents per pound while aluminum on the other hand brings 58 cents per pound for old sheet. zinc is the most efficient metal for me to use to cement copper from solution.while beverage cans are essentially free scrap here because there is no deposit on the can as there are other states, i recomend beverage cans for a person that has time to collect them as it would be more cost effective than buying metal to do the process with.[/quote]

Don't let them have it for that Geo, you should be getting close to .40 per lb for clean zinc.

 

[Geo]

for being a moderately sized city with 55K people, there are only two scrap yards so anyone who sells scrap here is at their mercy. i can get a better price if i take my metal to the next city to the west but unless i have a large load consisting of a ton or more the prices there are not much better. they make up for certain things by being lax on other things, for instance, i can sell contaminated aluminum that has at least 10% iron and still get clean old sheet. so i seldom have clean aluminum unless its a large quantity of extrusion. the only thing that has to be 100% is copper. even though i only sell a couple of hundred pounds a week, i still get dealers prices because i have dealt with these guys for about 30 years. the only zinc i get in any quantity is carburetors and lawn ornaments so i dont haggle much.

 

[lysdexic]

Zinc casting alloy "pot-metal" is very easy to come by. Many hard drive cases and Disc drive carriages(?) are zinc. Screen door handles, the locking slides and other attaching hardware on aluminium windows (some are aluminum), propane regulators... it's everywhere. I either sell it with the light iron or save it till I have a few 5g buckets and cast it into ingots. It can be melted with a gas burner in an iron pan or pot (don't do it inside, if it gets too hot the zinc will start to vaporize(?) ). My scrap yard doesn't care much for buying zinc either Geo, but they treat me well.

I was considering casting square (or rectangular) zinc ingots to make them easier to hold in a drill press vice and making shaving with say a 3/4" drill bit, the leftover could be re-cast and used over. My problem is that zinc would also drop any cadmium and lead (and everything else below zinc). 4metals mentioned elsewhere about selectively dropping the cadmium with... was it sodium bicarbonate??? I can't find the thread right now :/ I've been reading many threads about this here on the forums but haven't figured out yet how to clean the copper up enough to melt it. It's still all "theory" to me right now anyway. I have no plans to actually "do" anything until I can recall the processes without having to look anything up again AND have a game plan for dealing with any and all wastes, spills etc.

 

[meatheadmerlin]

I have removed the zinc coating from the inside of galvanized food cans with white vinegar. Foods that are particularly acidic, typically pineapple, have their cans plated inside.
I'm not exactly sure what to do with the solution after that to get the zinc back to a metallic form, perhaps a pH shift to the basic range could work? Electroplating may also work, I need to research it more, but from what I read so far, you can plate with zinc using vinegar and dry cell batteries.

 

[meatheadmerlin]

Don't use aluminum foil it will cause alot of contamination. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe this to be true.

I have read that aluminum foil and pie plates are made of an alloy that contains iron and silicon. I have learned to keep these separate from my other aluminum in scrap loads, since my yard will lower the price I get if I include them with other aluminum items.
This pdf looks interesting:
Aluminium: Physical Properties, Characteristics and Alloys
http://www.alueurope.eu/talat/lectures/1501.pdf

 

[Romix]

Weights on car weals made of Zinc.
I tried displacing copper nitrate (aq) with zinc (s).
Very slow reaction, took day to form few gramms.
I decided to heat it up. Over heated it and formed black copper oxide.
Dissolved it in Hcl, dropped zinc in the solution.
All copper recovered very quickly.

 

[Cerber]

From sour solutions I land copper usual iron from slightly warmed up solution.
At the same time the deposit of copper will contain nickel, cobalt, lead, tin and all other metals standing more to the right of iron among tension. Reaction is quite fast, and borrows as at most a day 2-3 in cold solution. In hot solution reaction very fast.
I wash out a half-scientific deposit hot mix of H2SO4+HCL acids before the termination of reactions. Then I wash out several times water for removal of the remains of acids and I direct to drying. The deposit is copper. Impurity of the accompanying heavy metals are dissolved in washing acids. Line of sedimentation of nickel, etc. I didn't consider metals yet, but I will surely work on it.

 

[Rougemillenial]

All,

I have finally produced a blue solution from leaching the copper ores with diluted acid. I use iron scraps to collect the copper, however it takes a long time to completely drop the copper using this methods. Since I am on small-scale yet, can I use zinc powder to drop the copper quickly? after adding soda ash to the solution to make it pH higher?

Thanks
Kev

looks like you’re on the right track to use soda ash. My major concern with metal salt reduction is that you’re going to need to dispose of whatever metal chloride you have left in solution with carbonate anyway. Especially with aluminum though, the reaction between aluminum and copper salts is extremely exothermic and I’ve had it explode on me because some sort of compound in the solution caused it to be prone to superheating which really does wonders to whatever surface you’re working on. In other words, unless on a small scale, do not use aluminum. Reaction is too violent even though I used aluminum ingots I made.