# Dealing with Waste



## Fragum (Dec 13, 2007)

I have been roaming this site for a few weeks, and with Hoke's book on it's way (fyi Harold) and Steve's DVD's I should be ready to start recovering pm's here pretty soon.

I do have concerns about how to correctly deal with wastes. I am looking for some insight into how you guys deal with this issue.

No reason to reinvent the wheel here. Thanks in advance for your input.


----------



## aflacglobal (Dec 13, 2007)

Idea :idea: 

Could someone do a Tutorial on the different types of waste acids that maybe encountered and the different methods for their reclamation, naturalization, and disposal. Noxx or Steve can post and lock it in the Tutorials section.


----------



## Noxx (Dec 14, 2007)

I support this idea


----------



## 4metals (Apr 21, 2009)

Waste treatment for the small refiner.

Most of the practicing alchemists on this forum generate waste liquids which, if you have the time and desire, can be neutralized and made free of toxic metals rather simply. The required supplies are simply a pH meter, a few plastic tanks (15 gallon size is ideal), an aquarium air pump and some tubing, slab of copper, some scrap iron. The advantage you have in being a small producer is that you have the time to let the solutions sit and react before proceeding to the next step. Because of this you do not need expensive pH controllers or a filter press and the associated pumps.

The procedure that follows is for your acid waste only, it is not for cyanide or leaching type wastes, only the spent acids used to digest the metals you have refined. 

Select a plastic tank to use as a holding tank for your spent acid, if it is translucent it makes it easy to see how full it is. This tank should have a lid to keep out rainwater and it should be kept where it will not freeze. What we will do in this tank is a process called cementation, whereby you hang a slab of copper metal in the waste acid to displace any precious metals which may still be in solution. When the tank is approaching full, maybe a few inches from the top, the copper is suspended in the tank and the solution is agitated to expose the copper to as much solution as possible. An easy and inexpensive trick is to buy an aquarium pump and some tubing and weigh the end of the hose down so it is close to the bottom of the tank and let it bubble away. Overnight should suffice. The copper bar will have displaced any PM’s in the solution which will settle to the bottom. Don’t expect a lot of material to settle from each load, but in time the material on the bottom is collected and refined for values. Allow the solution to settle after removing the bubbler and the copper bar, a few hours should do it. Now siphon the acid into another tank, being careful not to suck out any of the settled material. Usually a few inches of solution left on the bottom will prevent you from sucking out the solids and it is just left in the tank as you start to accumulate more waste acid. 

A simple siphon device to prevent siphoning all the way to the bottom can be easily made as follows; cut a length of ½” CPVC pipe about 24” long, glue on a tee, followed by a 6” piece of pipe and a cap on the end. I prefer to use half inch “copper pipe sized” CPVC because it is nice and slim and easy to find tubing to slip over the end. Now you will need some flexible tubing to slip snugly over the end of the pipe opposite the capped end, about 4 or 5 feet will do. You will now have a hose and a short length of pipe which has an opening (because of the tee) 6” from the capped end. To start a siphon, place a finger over the hole in the tee and fill the entire hose and pipe with fresh water, then quickly submerge the capped end and place the end of the hose lower than the solution level in the tank. With this setup you don’t have to worry about sucking the solids off the bottom of the tank. One drawback is the tank you are siphoning from has to be higher than the tank you are siphoning to, so you’ll have to lift the full cementation tank on to a table to siphon it completely. 

This second step can boil over if you’re not careful so I would transfer the liquid from the 15 gallon cementation tank into a 30 gallon tank if you’re going to process this all at once. Add your air bubbler to the 30 gallon tank and start bubbling. Check your pH, it should be close to zero when you start. Slowly add soda ash to the bubbling liquid, it will foam and generate CO2 so be careful not to boil it over, since an aquarium pump doesn’t move the liquid aggressively, add the soda ash slowly and stir with a pvc pipe occasionally to make sure it all is dissolving. Slowly over the course of a day or two raise the pH to 2.5. 

Now you will add scrap iron to the tank, it can be done by placing the pieces of iron directly in the tank and fishing them out later, (needless to say with rubber gloves on) or you can get a plastic tank that fits into the 30 gallon tank, drill holes in it on the sides and bottom, and immerse the iron in all at once. The iron will displace copper and other metals from solution and slowly dissolve in the liquid. The iron will get coated up and a good shaking will remove the coating from the iron. After a few hours, the solution will have a green tea look to it which is ferric chloride. If you leave the iron in longer it will continue to dissolve so remove it and rinse it well. The copper and other metals will accumulate on the bottom of the 30 gallon tank where they are from time to time collected and dried. 

You now use the siphon device to siphon the liquid to a final tank. Your primary contaminant now is iron. You can raise the pH with sodium hydroxide and the iron will drop out of solution which is quite easy to recognize. Unfortunately this liquid is a bit gel like and doesn’t filter well. A better way is to raise the pH with Magnesium hydroxide, the resultant sludge settles better and dries nicely. You cannot measure the pH of the reaction while adding magnesium hydroxide because it is slow to change the pH and you will over add, just go slowly and when you get the color change you’ll know the iron has dropped out. Let the iron settle and you can siphon off the now clear liquid to discard.


----------



## glorycloud (Apr 22, 2009)

Great post 4metals!!!


----------



## leavemealone (Apr 22, 2009)

Yes nice post,especially for someone that just got here.You are gonna fit in nicely thats for sure.Can you give us just a little info on you,your hystory and experience?Also are you knowledgable of processing one specific type of material or all materials in general.
Johnny


----------



## 4metals (Apr 22, 2009)

I am a chemist and I've been around precious metals both analytically and for recovery since 1972. I built a small "refinery" for a manufacturer I was working for at my first job out of college, they were getting ripped off by their refiner and I proved to them how much I could save them by processing the higher yield materials in house. They allotted me a space roughly 15 by 20 with 2 hoods which entered the facility's scrubbed exhaust from the plating shop. I also had a drain for acid waste and one for cyanide. Both were treated before discharge. In that room I recovered the gold and made it into PGC (potassium gold cyanide) a salt used in gold electroplating. After my first year I had recovered over 400 ounces of gold from the higher yield materials, and shipped out the low grade materials, which I witnessed myself. The return we received from the low grade, equaled the previous history for returns when they shipped all of the material out and didn't send a rep. I left that company after 5 years and went to another large manufacturer who also had a plating facility, I basically did the same thing for them, only we sold the fine gold instead of making gold salts. After 3 years at the new place I heard that they fired the guy who replaced me at the first place because he wasn't getting the same results as me and they eventually caught him stealing. (Ironically they had hired him from a local refiner because of his work experience) They made me an offer to open my own refinery to process their materials, I approached my current boss at the time and he said if I took them up on their offer, he would send me all of their work as well. 

So now I had my own refinery, a 950 square foot facility with 2 good customers to cover my overhead. The first few years were difficult because I was adding equipment to refine faster and smarter but when I settled down on a stream of work, I did very well. I ran that place for 10 years, had 6 employees and sold it for a tidy sum. They had a fire about 6 years later, they had expanded and never took the time to set up a proper chemical storage area, after the fire department left it became a superfund cleanup site. 

I had moved on to consulting, basically setting up refineries either completely from scratch or adding process capabilities to suit the owners needs. I semi retired in 1990 just handling 1 client at a time and have done that since. I've handled alot of jewelry related materials, silver and PGM refining, setting up assay labs, electronic scrap processing and even had a placer operation going in Brazil for a few years, with its own refinery of course. Of late the biggest headache for refiners is the EPA and all of my clients are compliant and usually pass inspections.


----------



## leavemealone (Apr 22, 2009)

Thank you very much for sharing that information.Very impressive.Im sure I speak for everyone in saying thank you for being here.Everyone that still processes(like me)can always use more knowledge.
Thanks again,
Johnny


----------



## dick b (Apr 22, 2009)

4metals:

Thank you very much for your post on treating acid waste.

I have been looking for that information since I came to the forum. I cringe at the thought of dumping toxic and heavy metal laden waste down the drain and I knew that it could be dealt with responsibily. Just needed to know what to do in order to clean it up for safe disposal.

The best part of the whole process is that it doesn't cost an arm and an a leg to do it. 

If we want to refine as a hobby, we need to accept responsibility for the wastes that we generate. Otherwise sooner or later its going to cost us, one way or another and I sure dont want a bill from the EPA for cleaning up my back yard.

Thanks so much and I hope others will add more to this thread.


----------



## goldsilverpro (Apr 22, 2009)

4metals,

I also welcome you and am glad you are a part of the forum.

Can you outline your process for making PGC?

Chris


----------



## 4metals (Apr 22, 2009)

Eeeek, that was 30 years ago, I preferred the porous cup method but I'll have to look that up in some old notebooks, I'm on the road for a few days so I'll look it up when I'm back at home base. 

I'd appreciate your comments on neutralizing wastes as well, I'm sure you've been there done that as well and some of the members will benefit from the discussion. 

I also wrote some large posts in the section on selling your metal to try and explain to some members how to witness a refining lot at a large refiner and come away with a fair deal. I'm sure you've done that as well and it is another topic which members seem to need more information about. I'm sure you, Lou, and Harold could shed some valuable insight about waste treatment and witnessing refining. 

The posts about witnessing are under a thread called "I've been screwed by 2 different refineries" If you have time to comment maybe we all can learn from it.


----------



## Harold_V (Apr 22, 2009)

4metals said:


> I'm sure you, Lou, and Harold could shed some valuable insight about waste treatment and witnessing refining.


Sadly, that is not the case with me. I didn't have a clue about proper interaction with refiners when submitting a lot of material, although I feel I was treated fairly by GD Resources when I delivered some of my waste material that had been treated with cyanide previously. 

As for disposal issues, my routine was to cement the solutions with scrap steel, just as you suggested, but I discharged the iron bearing solution instead of attempting to remove the iron. Had you not posted the procedure, I would have had no clue how to accomplish that task. 

I had a unique setup, very unlike that of anyone else on the forum. When I refined, I was a resident of Utah. I lived in the Salt Lake Valley, where affluent from sewage processing plants ended up in the Great Salt Lake, a body of water that is mined for some elements, such as magnesium. It would be safe to say that discharging the iron wasn't much of an issue in that the lake is devoid of life forms aside from brine shrimp and a strange little black fly. 

Were I to refine today, I would benefit greatly from your contributions. It certainly is nice to have someone aboard that has your experience.

Harold


----------



## goldsilverpro (Apr 22, 2009)

The big companies I was associated with almost always had the material hauled by a legal hauler, such as Univar. Of course, they had huge quantities of waste. About 5 years ago, in Houston, they charged less than $1/gallon to pick up acid wastes and $1.25/gallon for cyanide wastes. For the owners, this was the cheapest way to go. 

In California, at one place I worked, an oil company picked up our acid wastes for nothing. They somehow used it to flush oil wells. I also heard about others doing that when I was in Texas.

When I treated my own wastes, I did it about the same way as Harold. Your method, 4metals, sounds better.

As far as PGC is concerned, for safety reasons, I also prefer a porous cup or, on a larger scale, a membrane tank. Other methods can easily produce fulminating gold.


----------



## qst42know (Apr 22, 2009)

Would garden variety lime work as well as magnesium hydroxide to drop the iron? 

It is recommended in a document I had read on Steve's site a while back. The last time I went looking for it I may have missed it or it had been removed. I think that's where I read it?

Something from the Australian plating industry?


----------



## 4metals (Apr 22, 2009)

Regular garden variety lime is calcium oxide but it wouldn't surprise me if a little magnesium oxide was in there as well because they are both mined products and can be co-mingled. In any event it will raise the pH as required and if there is enough magnesium oxide in there the precipitate may be coarser than the iron dropped with caustic. I'd say try it, you may need a little heavier agitation than a aquarium bubbler will provide to mix it in. You could always use milk of magnesia, that is nothing more than a slurry of magnesium oxide in water. Magnesium oxide is very difficult to get in less than ton quantities so by all means try it and let us know how it settles. 

GSP

The first time I made PGC I used the gold fulminate method but when I realized just how much I'd have to make I switched over to the porous up. Fulminates are scary. I did find a very practical use for the gold fulminate at the first place I worked, the boss liked to quietly walk up behind you when you were busy and since I usually had chemicals in my hands I didn't like that. To cure him of the habit I dropped small drops of gold fulminate on the concrete floor just inside the door and allowed it to dry. When he tried to sneak in it popped off like caps under his feet. That cured him, he never came into the room after that.


----------



## qst42know (Apr 27, 2009)

About the copper sludge, better to leave it acidic? Or treat it with lye, soda ash, or lime before drying?

Anyway I checked the bag of lime I have, the analysis is 46.5% calcium oxide, and 32% magnesium oxide.


----------



## 4metals (Apr 27, 2009)

Very good to know that the mag ox content is that high in run of the mill garden lime. It may be a great alternative because it is readily available and inexpensive. With any luck it will filter out well.

The copper sludge is just rinsed with water and dried, when you have a few pounds it can be refined for values.


----------



## qst42know (Apr 27, 2009)

4metals said:


> The copper sludge is just rinsed with water and dried, when you have a few pounds it can be refined for values.



This I find surprising, if there is an easy way, or you know an outfit that does this, please do tell. Harold had mentioned he had 2 drums of copper he couldn't give away when he sold his refinery.

I have 2 gallons of acid neutralized with lime. I don't have a PH meter so after it quit fizzing I added about 2 cups more lime. I'll let you know how it turns out.

A small amount of PMs were dropped from this batch of waste. I'll test and process it as soon as I get a chance.


----------



## qst42know (Apr 27, 2009)

All of what I have read on this forum indicates recovering this copper is not practical because of flux and fuel costs. 

However I had a thought. Would a collector such as scrap zinc improve the cost of this recovery? As scrap brass? Reducing the melt temp and perhaps the flux requirements? 

I don't have a furnace or foundry to test this but thought I'd put it out there anyway. Any thoughts anyone?


----------



## 4metals (Apr 27, 2009)

I've posted this method as a means of waste treatment for the spent acids. The precipitate from the first drop, when you added the copper bar, theoretically will have any missed PM's in it, it is collected, and when you have enough, roasted and refined. The copper is dropped when you add the iron to the solution that has been raised to a pH of 2.5. The copper as a solid is much less of a waste hazard than it was digested in acid and that is why it is dropped out of solution. Melting the copper into a bar may or may not be cost effective, I don't know. That is not the primary reason for dropping it out. 

When I said the copper sludge, it would have been more clear if I'd said the sludge dropped from adding the copper bar. The copper is still in the acid when this sludge drops. Sorry for the confusion.


----------



## qst42know (Apr 28, 2009)

Fair enough. I had been going directly to iron for dropping my wastes. The traces of PMs I missed were simply lost. Thanks for the copper first trick. Though the amount of PMs is small I had thought I was careful with these 2 gallons of waste while some was recovered so that's pretty cool  . 

Still if you think of a way to profit from the copper leftovers dropped with iron I'd be glad to hear it.


----------



## ck (Apr 28, 2009)

deleted

4metals here; I was re-reading parts of this old thread and I noticed this former member had deleted all of his posts. I was curious why and read on to discover he suggested taking the copper that is reduced with iron and drying it out and filling scrap copper pipes with it and hammering the ends shut. He deleted all of his posts but some subsequent posts responding to his idea gave away his intent. 

It was a bad idea intent on getting paid for a lower grade copper at prices paid for tubing. The good news is, he is long gone.


----------



## Harold_V (Apr 28, 2009)

My competitor at the time I was refining was Cascade Refining. If memory serves, the scrap yard I did business with told me that they had been buying his copper that he had been recovering electrolytically. I had intended to do so myself, but I was so busy I didn't have time to mess with the process. I would suggest that you explore the possibility----for in the long run, you'll have copper to sell, and copper to use for silver recovery. I think it's worth the effort, assuming you have some idle time. I would certainly explore the possibility myself if I was still refining today. 

Harold


----------



## ck (Apr 28, 2009)

deleted


----------



## Platdigger (Apr 28, 2009)

In fact, the bulk of electronic scrap is concidered "breakage" (not counting higher grade circut boards) and is bought based on the copper value alone.
Randy


----------



## 4metals (Apr 28, 2009)

I'm sure the copper could be melted because the copper produced in mining operations is often reduced from solutions with iron, then cast into anodes and electrolytically refined. A strong reducing flux should do the trick, I've used cryolite for really difficult melts, tough on crucibles but tougher on oxides.


----------



## 4metals (Apr 28, 2009)

Q2Know,

You mentioned you don't have a pH meter, well some of these reactions are pH dependent and a meter would help. Since we all have computers, there is a unit out there called a pH Turtle which plugs into a computer and is a fantastic pH meter. Costs about $110. Just Google pH Turtle and it will come up.


----------



## Harold_V (Apr 28, 2009)

4metals said:


> I'm sure the copper could be melted because the copper produced in mining operations is often reduced from solutions with iron, then cast into anodes and electrolytically refined. A strong reducing flux should do the trick, I've used cryolite for really difficult melts, tough on crucibles but tougher on oxides.


I melted enough of the material to learn that it isn't profitable on a small scale. The time and expense it takes, coupled with the damage done to the crucible, render it a losing proposition. 

Kennecott Copper is one of the largest copper producers in the world. They have operated an open pit mine in what was once Bingham Canyon for over 100 years. The operation is huge, so large that the mountain that once made Bingham a canyon is now gone, a huge hole in the ground. This operation was my neighbor. They run a precipitation plant and recover copper with scrap steel. I've actually stood inside one of their furnaces, a huge reverberatory unit that had been shut down to be relined. They can process the material economically because of the sheer volume and balance of materials that are charged to the furnaces. I have serious doubts if that could be accomplished in a home refinery without sustaining losses far greater than the value of the recovered copper. 

When I closed the doors on my humble refinery, I ended up hauling two 55 gallon drums of copper, recovered with scrap steel, to the land fill. In spite of considerable effort, I couldn't find a buyer-----and was totally ignored by Kennecott when I offered to deliver it free of charge to their facility, where it could be put in the pipeline. 

It is for the above reasons that I suggest the home refiner attempt recovery electrolytically, where the copper has a chance of being deposited in a relatively pure state, perhaps even nodular in form. That would be acceptable in recycle centers, unlike the sponge that is typically recovered on scrap steel. 

Harold


----------



## ck (Apr 28, 2009)

deleted


----------



## Sodbuster (Apr 28, 2009)

Refine copper with electrolyisis, and next comes nickle. 
Heck I'll go for that too if I think I know how. 
Just a thought -- Ray

PS: sorry I can't splz


----------



## qst42know (Apr 28, 2009)

ck said:


> I collect scrap metal, so I think what I would do is flatten 1 end of a copper pipe, fill with copper powder, then flatten other end to seal it, then sell to scrap yard as #2 copper.
> 
> Just save up copper pipe till you have a hundred pounds or so.



I would bet most if not all established scrap yards are on to loaded pipes.


----------



## ck (Apr 28, 2009)

deleted


----------



## qst42know (Apr 28, 2009)

I'm almost certain I would be turned away if I showed up with a load of pipes with the ends neatly pinched shut. No mater what was inside. Fine chips or particles of any metal are always graded lower than solid pieces of the same metal. I don't believe it would work. I wasn't accusing you of anything.


----------



## ck (Apr 28, 2009)

deleted


----------



## metatp (Jun 26, 2009)

I have a question about dropping copper with iron after filtering the silver cement. While experimenting with small batches, I used iron nails to drop the copper. They seemed to work ok. Now that I have processed a number of batches of silver using copper to cement the silver, I have a bucket of copper nitrate. I am using an old lawn mower blade to drop the copper, but it is not working very well. Is there a specific iron that is best to use? Maybe the lawn mower blade is a steel alloy that doesn't work as well.

Thanks for your advise.
Tom


----------



## Oz (Jun 26, 2009)

Low carbon iron works best (think soft iron) as to avoid carbon residues and speed the process. Also stay away from any form of stainless.


----------



## rewalston (Jun 26, 2009)

4metals said:


> Waste treatment for the small refiner.
> 
> .......clear liquid to discard.




4metals, you stated in the post to syphon the clear liquid to discard. My question, for discarding, would this clear liquid now be safe enough to just pour down the drain or by whatever means...street, storm drains, etc.

Rusty


----------



## glorycloud (Jun 26, 2009)

I believe you still need to bring the PH level to 7 before you can put
your clear liquid with no heavy metals down the drain.


----------



## metatp (Jun 26, 2009)

Well the lawn mower blade is now starting to work. It took about a week to really start working. Maybe the surface was treated or something. I now also have an iron rod.


----------



## 4metals (Jun 27, 2009)

When the iron is finished displacing the base metals all that is left in solution is iron. The iron drops out at a pH of 3 to 3.5 leaving the solution barren of metals. The pH will have to be raised to around 7 before discharging it. I have used this procedure in more than 1 refinery and have tested the water before discharging for metals and never had an issue. Today most municipalities have standards for discharging water to ground or sewer, it is wise to know what the governing standards are and have a typical batch of waste tested by a lab using an Atomic Absorption Spec. just to be sure.


----------



## lazersteve (Jun 27, 2009)

HTPatch said:


> , I have a bucket of copper nitrate



Patch,

I save my copper nitrate to use an an electrolyte for sterling silver. Dilute/concentrate the copper nitrate solution to 6M (moles per liter) or less and use a graphite cathode and anode. Plate out the copper sponge until the solution is an very light blue color and then switch out the positive lead with a sterling silver one. Bag the anode to catch and PGMs or gold that may have made it into your sterling scrap (ie: gold or rhodium plating). The copper will plate out as a moss. Periodically you will need to dip out the moss so it does not fall off the cathode and end up in the solution. The silver will saturated the solution and remain in the bottom of the cell or in solution.

You can also dehydrate the copper nitrate solution and decompose it into NO2 and Copper oxide at relatively low temperatures (less than 150C). The NO2 can be bubbled into water to form nitric acid or into a basic solution to form sodium nitrate which can be used in poor man's AR or nitric.

Steve


----------



## metatp (Jun 27, 2009)

Thanks for the info Steve.

I am not ready to do many of the stuff you suggested yet, I am still very new and have not considered cells yet. My silver was all from silver epoxy and not sterling (yet). I do have a batch of about 1200g of silver being cemented with copper right now. if i want to save the copper nitrate for possible use later, what can I store it in? I do have an empty 2 liter clear glass bottle that the Nitric acid came in. Will that work?

Regards,
Tom


----------



## lazersteve (Jun 27, 2009)

Tom,

You can slowly evaporate of the water at low heat (less than 100C) until the copper nitrate forms beautiful blue crystals. Once all the liquid is driven off you can store the crystals very easily in a stoppered bottle.

Steve


----------



## metatp (Jun 27, 2009)

Thanks. That seems easy enough.


----------



## butcher (Jul 12, 2009)

lets put a sticky on this.


----------



## Palladium (Dec 13, 2009)

Bump !


----------



## butcher (Dec 13, 2009)

do we have a date, as to when people wrote the post? I can't find it.


----------



## Palladium (Dec 13, 2009)

butcher said:


> do we have a date, as to when people wrote the post? I can't find it.



Look in the top right hand side of this post to find the date. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


----------



## butcher (Dec 14, 2009)

no date in posts on my computer, could it be something I need to do?


----------



## Palladium (Dec 14, 2009)

Can you see my avatar ?


----------



## patnor1011 (Dec 14, 2009)

yes


----------



## Palladium (Dec 14, 2009)

Can you see the dates patnor ?


----------



## Noxx (Dec 14, 2009)

I surely can...


----------



## metatp (Dec 14, 2009)

I can see the date on my home computer, but can't at work. I use IE and Windows XP at work - Firefox and Vista at home.


----------



## Palladium (Dec 14, 2009)

Hummm. 
I use XP and IE and i can see it.


----------



## jimdoc (Dec 14, 2009)

Maybe you can fix it by trying another board style in the user control panel. I like the sub silver 2.
Jim


----------



## metatp (Dec 14, 2009)

I can see the date with both IE and Firefox on my home computer. Not on my work computer.

Tom


----------



## butcher (Dec 15, 2009)

date on home computer, our work (filters) must block us from the date,


----------



## Anonymous (Nov 16, 2010)

Every effort should be made to minimise the amount of waste and to segregate the types of waste at the source of production. Waste should preferably be stored at the site of production and transported directly to the point of disposal whenever possible. 
Occasionally, waste itself may give rise to an emergency, such as the fire and flood at the Cleansing Service Group (CSG) hazardous waste facility, or as a result of a breakdown in the waste management service, such as the ‘winter of discontent’ strike leading to accumulated and uncollected municipal waste.


----------



## Anonymous (Dec 4, 2010)

It is really true that people can make best from waste. In Gold refining Business there is lots of waste metals and rubbish comes out.As per my point of view these all waste should be use or replace at proper way because it can be use for making another thing.and one more advantage for deal with waste is reduce the pollution level and decrease the effects of global warming.


----------



## Lobby (Feb 25, 2012)

lazersteve said:


> HTPatch said:
> 
> 
> > , I have a bucket of copper nitrate
> ...




Pardon for bumping an old thread, but I think I see what you're after.

What you're suggesting recovers both the copper (as sponge, prob on the anode), and converts the nitrate ion to nitric acid. Then when the anode is switched out (taking the copper with it), the nitric dissolves the silver, eventually making the silver nitrate solution needed for the silver cell.

Did I get that right?


----------



## lazersteve (Feb 26, 2012)

Here's what the reply above was based upon:

Copper Nitrate Recycling

Steve


----------



## burningsuntech (Feb 2, 2013)

Welcome 4metals. Im new here and have begun reading Hokes work. I don't know alot about chemistry but when in H.S. it was my favorite subject (or was it the teacher Miss Reed?)

Anyway Im glad you posted about waste treatment and am planning a system to deal with it once I clear out a space for my small operation. I have tested some of the info in Hokes work and am storing my wastes in safe containers till I can deal with it this summer and ramp up my small operation.

This is a lot of fun and I am looking forward to sharing what I have discovered, abeit perhaps what everyone already knows. But hey, good knowledge repeated only amplifies good knowledge learned.

Thanks to the forum moderators and Noxx for hosting and all you guys here, Im looking forward to a SAFE and Satisfying experience.


----------



## Digitaria (Mar 18, 2014)

On a similar note: I found this reference:
Chemical Experiments pg 27 of 265 / paragraph 120
A great portion of the scraps of tinned iron, broken cast-iron vessels are sold as useless in London, is carried and thrown into certain streams in Scotland and Wales, the waters of which are impregnated with copper. Here lying a considerable time they abstract the copper; at the same time the iron itself is dissolved. The metallic mass, which is afterward taken up, is therefore entirely copper.


----------



## pcecycle (May 19, 2014)

I am trying to process some old hcl that was used on a batch of cpus, roughly one gallon. I used copper to drop any leftover PMs then used iron to drop the copper. Now I am trying to neutralize the acid. I started out using baking soda, but the solution was stiil reacting strongly after using an entire 1 pound box. I bought a bottle of lye (label says 100% NaOH) but when added to the solution, there was no reaction at all. Added some more baking soda and still get a strong reaction. What is the best, least expensive chemical to use to neutralize HCL? I have another 2-3 gallons of HCL that need to be neutralized, and buying 10+ pounds of baking soda could get expensive!

Thanks

Mike


----------



## butcher (May 20, 2014)

NaOH is a stronger base, the baking soda ( a weaker base) produces a lot more of gas CO2.
All of that CO2 gas foaming your solution over can look more reactive, as we know looks can be deceiving.

HCl and NaOH, form salt water.
HCl + NaOH --> NaCl + H2O

Sodium bicarbonate NaHCO3 (baking soda) and HCl will form salt water in carbonic acid, then the carbonic acid breaks down to water and CO2 gas, in a two step reaction.

HCl + NaHCO3 --> NaCl + H2CO3 (aq)
Then 
H2CO3 --> H2O + CO2(g)
Basically leaving salt water.

You are dealing with an acidic solution but it will not be as acidic as the HCl acid itself would be.
for a gallon of HCl you could use about 5.5 pounds of sodium bicarbonate.

http://www.chagrinsehazmat.com/PDF%20Documents/RestrictedFiles/PDF%20Files/Neutralization%20chart.pdf


----------



## Lou (Jul 10, 2014)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/part-421/subpart-X


----------



## autumnwillow (May 20, 2016)

When using caustic soda to precipitate iron the sludge is just too hard to filter.
Magnesium Hydroxide is very expensive.
I haven't tried soda ash and lime. What do you guys use to treat ferric chloride solutions?


----------



## nickvc (May 20, 2016)

You could try wicking as described by Goldsilverpro.


----------



## autumnwillow (May 20, 2016)

The wick works but I do not think it is suitable for stock pot waste quantity. There's a thread here somewhere where a guy used sand in an inverted bottle. I can't find it anymore! :|

Edit to add:
Whats the effect of throwing the iron precipitates along with the treated water in the drain?

Edit to add again:
Maybe there's a flocculating agent for this? A simple chemical perhaps?


----------



## Barren Realms 007 (May 20, 2016)

autumnwillow said:


> The wick works but I do not think it is suitable for stock pot waste quantity. There's a thread here somewhere where a guy used sand in an inverted bottle. I can't find it anymore! :|
> 
> Edit to add:
> Whats the effect of throwing the iron precipitates along with the treated water in the drain?
> ...



Maybe there is patience involved in letting the material settle then siphon of the liquid then let the solids dry out so you can dispose of them. 8)


----------



## autumnwillow (May 20, 2016)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> Maybe there is patience involved in letting the material settle then siphon of the liquid then let the solids dry out so you can dispose of them. 8)



Two days. And they still are not settling.
I think I need a coagulant rather than a flocculant.


----------



## jason_recliner (May 20, 2016)

autumnwillow said:


> Whats the effect of throwing the iron precipitates along with the treated water in the drain?


Hmm... Check with your local EPA office. Don't forget to mention a chance of some tin, nickel, copper, lead or maybe some other toxic nasties sneaking in.

Ok, that's enough of facetious mode... Now switching to disapproving environmentalist mode...
Responsible disposal is part of refining. It costs you time and money, but it must be factored in.

I would not be at all surprised if dumping metal sludges down the drain leads to a future blockage of said drain. It will settle in the low points like you will not believe.

My own waste settles sometime over the couple of weeks before I even check on it. Luxury of a hobbyist. If you don't have that long, you may need to allocate more storage, or find ways to be more frugal about creating waste in the first place.


----------



## kurtak (May 21, 2016)

nickvc said:


> You could try wicking as described by Goldsilverpro.



Wick filtering is the way to go - I will "try" to post pics & info of my set up later (I am really busy right now)

However I have now reached a level of creating waste now that I simply adjust the PH to neutral (with NaOH) & send it out in 55 gallon drums - cost $150 per drum - well worth the cost in the time it saves - it goes to the same company I get my chems from (they are an industrial chem supplies & handle waste as well)

Kurt


----------



## autumnwillow (May 21, 2016)

kurtak said:


> nickvc said:
> 
> 
> > You could try wicking as described by Goldsilverpro.
> ...



I'll try to contact local waste management companies and see how much they charge. If the price is right I'll just send them away.

Edit to add:
Kurtak have you not considered buying a filter press? You are sending drum*s* at $150 per drum. I guess with enough savings you could buy a filter press or have I missed something?


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (May 21, 2016)

autumnwillow said:


> Barren Realms 007 said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe there is patience involved in letting the material settle then siphon of the liquid then let the solids dry out so you can dispose of them. 8)
> ...



Miss Hoke says that sometimes settling for several days is required (when dealing with powdered gold)

We all know gold is quite heavy. 

So, the lighter elements may take exponentially longer than that.

On my waste stream i try to let it settle for a couple of weeks, then i siphon off about 3/4ths of it with this (see pic).

I then use the wick system to get the rest of it from the solids.

The siphon in the picture was 10.99 from my local home-brew store, where i buy my SMB in bulk as well. It has lasted me 5 months so far, and hasnt even began to degrade yet.

The steing is to tie it up/off so it doesnt hit bottom when im using smaller 3 gallon buckets.


----------



## 4metals (May 21, 2016)

> Kurtak have you not considered buying a filter press? You are sending drums at $150 per drum. I guess with enough savings you could buy a filter press or have I missed something?



Just because you can pass your waste through a filter press does not mean it is clean enough to discharge legally. 

Every municipality has discharge limits that refiners must adhere to. This requires testing and reporting if you are doing this on a commercial scale. You can't just pump the contents of a 55 gallon drum through a filter press and run it down the drain. If and when the environmental inspectors show up you just can't say you dumped it, they want to see proof of testing and your treatment system. I have installed many of these systems and they do pay for themselves but there is a time when you are a smaller generator when it is less expensive to just drum it up and ship it off as a manifested waste. And then when the inspectors come, you have the paper trail they love to look at saying you did it according to the law.


----------



## kurtak (May 21, 2016)

4metals said:


> > Kurtak have you not considered buying a filter press? You are sending drums at $150 per drum. I guess with enough savings you could buy a filter press or have I missed something?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Correct :!: 

Kurt


----------



## Anonymous (May 21, 2016)

Dean's cell is extremely effective at removing metals from solutions. His thread explains in detail.

Edit: Here's a link to the thread. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=21526&hilit=deano


----------



## autumnwillow (May 22, 2016)

Judging from the time it takes to manage wastes, reagent costs and overhead costs I do think that its better to just drop everything with iron and have these ferric chloride wastes hauled.

With my current refining load and practice, I think I will probably just generate 50gallons in 3 months. I do not think they will even bother talking to me with this amount of waste. I'm trying to contact a few right now.

I do not live in the US where EPA exists, we have EMB instead here, but knowing our very corrupt and non-sense laws, red tape is just usual everywhere. I know a refiner who processes about 20kg of gold a week and just dump his wastes on the sewer. Our city rivers are all dead, most are clogged with landfill wastes. I do not want to add anything more to these malpractices that most of the people here are doing.

I do think that dealing with wastes should be talked more often here in the forum as probably some new members are just throwing their wastes down the sink. Steps in neutralizing the acids, dropping the heavy metals, adjusting pH, filtering then finally throwing it away or perhaps recycling some of the wastes. I do think that there could be other ways in dealing with wastes but it is just not much talked about.


----------



## nickvc (May 22, 2016)

I'm sure you are probably right about some people just dumping their waste into the drains but with it will come back on them at some point, we do have conversations about correct disposal of our wastes on various threads and all the senior members stress that it is very important to treat them properly, it takes time and effort but is cheaper than been caught dumping toxic waste and getting caught not to mention the morality of it, if you spend a few minutes every day or week processing the wastes it helps them to flow more easily especially if your processing values regularly.


----------



## kurtak (May 22, 2016)

autumnwillow said:


> I do not live in the US where EPA exists, we have EMB instead here, but knowing our very corrupt and non-sense laws, red tape is just usual everywhere. I know a refiner who processes about 20kg of gold a week and just dump his wastes on the sewer. Our city rivers are all dead, most are clogged with landfill wastes. I do not want to add anything more to these malpractices that most of the people here are doing.



Per the above underlined - I am very glad to hear your attitude on this autumnwillow - it shows good moral principle & practice on your part 8) :!: 

Kurt


----------



## autumnwillow (May 22, 2016)

spaceships said:


> Dean's cell is extremely effective at removing metals from solutions. His thread explains in detail.
> 
> Edit: Here's a link to the thread. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=21526&hilit=deano



I've been reading that thread, its a very nice idea. I think this could be a substitute for a stock pot. Though the end product is still ferric chloride, it would be minimized because you do not need to introduce any more metals for the recovery. Very interesting. Would you video it and show us how it works?


----------



## Anonymous (May 22, 2016)

A note that is important.

If you use this cell for recovery of metals from AR waste or any solution containing HCl you WILL generate Chlorine gas. Therefore your extraction system needs to be of the correct specification to handle this. It's no deal breaker, you just need to be equipped correctly.

Jon


----------



## nickvc (May 22, 2016)

spaceships said:


> A note that is important.
> 
> If you use this cell for recovery of metals from AR waste or any solution containing HCl you WILL generate Chlorine gas. Therefore your extraction system needs to be of the correct specification to handle this. It's no deal breaker, you just need to be equipped correctly.
> 
> Jon




I'm impressed Jon, well done 8)


----------



## Tndavid (Sep 18, 2016)

4metals said:


> I am a chemist and I've been around precious metals both analytically and for recovery since 1972. I built a small "refinery" for a manufacturer I was working for at my first job out of college, they were getting ripped off by their refiner and I proved to them how much I could save them by processing the higher yield materials in house. They allotted me a space roughly 15 by 20 with 2 hoods which entered the facility's scrubbed exhaust from the plating shop. I also had a drain for acid waste and one for cyanide. Both were treated before discharge. In that room I recovered the gold and made it into PGC (potassium gold cyanide) a salt used in gold electroplating. After my first year I had recovered over 400 ounces of gold from the higher yield materials, and shipped out the low grade materials, which I witnessed myself. The return we received from the low grade, equaled the previous history for returns when they shipped all of the material out and didn't send a rep. I left that company after 5 years and went to another large manufacturer who also had a plating facility, I basically did the same thing for them, only we sold the fine gold instead of making gold salts. After 3 years at the new place I heard that they fired the guy who replaced me at the first place because he wasn't getting the same results as me and they eventually caught him stealing. (Ironically they had hired him from a local refiner because of his work experience) They made me an offer to open my own refinery to process their materials, I approached my current boss at the time and he said if I took them up on their offer, he would send me all of their work as well.
> 
> So now I had my own refinery, a 950 square foot facility with 2 good customers to cover my overhead. The first few years were difficult because I was adding equipment to refine faster and smarter but when I settled down on a stream of work, I did very well. I ran that place for 10 years, had 6 employees and sold it for a tidy sum. They had a fire about 6 years later, they had expanded and never took the time to set up a proper chemical storage area, after the fire department left it became a superfund cleanup site.
> 
> I had moved on to consulting, basically setting up refineries either completely from scratch or adding process capabilities to suit the owners needs. I semi retired in 1990 just handling 1 client at a time and have done that since. I've handled alot of jewelry related materials, silver and PGM refining, setting up assay labs, electronic scrap processing and even had a placer operation going in Brazil for a few years, with its own refinery of course. Of late the biggest headache for refiners is the EPA and all of my clients are compliant and usually pass inspections.


Very nice. Thanks for sharing...


----------



## IdahoMole (Oct 3, 2016)

I am ready (I think) to dispose of some of my waste and I want to get this right. I have three glass cookie jars that I am using, one with copper(#1), one with iron (#2), and the third for settling (#3). 
Over the last 10 days I have raised the ph of jar #2 to 3 and the ph of jar #3 to 11 using lye. Jar #3 has settled nicely. Here is a picture. 


Is the clear liquid in the jar ready to be siphoned into a bucket, the ph adjusted to 7, and discarded down the drain? Can I filter the remaining liquid from the solids, dry the solids, and throw them away? Am I missing anything?


----------



## Grelko (Oct 4, 2016)

IdahoMole said:


> Over the last 10 days I have raised the ph of jar #2 to 3 and the ph of jar #3 to 11 using lye.



Edit - There are a few more threads that say to bring the solution to 9 or 9.5, then back to 7. I was looking for the one named (what should I do with leftover ap) or something, but I couldn't seem to find it.

You can always double check, just incase something re-dissolved, since you brought it up to PH 11.

Took me over an hour to remember where this link was hiding at, but the information in there is worth finding.  

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1946&p=243417#p243417




kurtak said:


> It should be noted that precipitating metals from solutions as hydroxides is not an "exact" science - the numbers provided by Steve are the "optimum" numbers for each metal but in reality hydroxides of each metal will "start to form (drop out) at lower Ph numbers then there listed "optimum" number - meaning hydroxide precipitation occurs within a "range" both above & below that of the listed "optimum" number - *also some metals will re-dissolve when the go beyond the high end of the "range" with in which they will precipitate*
> 
> Kurt


----------



## IdahoMole (Oct 4, 2016)

Thank you grelko. I'll bring the ph to 9.5-10 and leave it for a day before proceeding.
The ph obviously started quite low and I have been adding 100 grams of NaOH (lye) daily. The ph was slow to change but when it hit ph5 the 100g of NaOH took it all the way to 11. I knew that the closer to neutral I got the faster it is to change. I am keeping notes and it will get easier with experience.


----------



## Grelko (Oct 4, 2016)

You should at least be able to filter out the solids and dry them, but I'm not completely sure if there would be anything still dissolved in the clear liquid. I've had solutions with a higher PH that were clear and still contained metals.

Other members would be able to help you a lot better and let you know if you are able to throw away the solids yet. You may need to heat it to a red glow, to turn certain metals into oxides etc. 

I evaporate most of my solutions, so I haven't completely gone through the waste disposal yet.


----------



## MrCrusher (Dec 4, 2016)

Well I thought even though this is an old thread my question belonged here.
If there is a better place to ask this any moderator can feel free to move it.

I am working with Silver ATM and I prefer to convert my dissolved silver back to metal using.

Salt then rinse then use the Lye and Sugar.
I know I can drop using copper I just prefer this method.

My question is can I use the sugar lye waste water in treating my other waste when it is time to drop the iron? Basically I want to get as much from my lye as I can or will the sugar cause issues? I know this will add to the volume but it may be better then just neutralizing and disposal.

Any insight is always appreciated.

Thanx
Mr_Crusher


----------



## butcher (Dec 4, 2016)

AgNO3 + NaCl --> AgCl(s) + NaNO3 
The byproduct NaNO3 can be reused.

2AgCl + 3NaOH + C6H12O6 
--> 
2Ag + 2NaCl + C6H11O7Na +H2O


saltwater and sodium gluconate I treat this waste separately. I like to keep it inorganic and organic (carbon-based waste separate where possible.

Then again I find Many uses for what others call waste, much of it I consider byproducts that can be reused. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_gluconate


----------



## Rougemillenial (Jan 30, 2017)

i usually use aluminium as the reducing agent. The reaction is cooled with a water bath laced with soda ash in case of a boil over. I use the acid process to recover metals and because i don't use nitric, the amount of waste is greater due to AP not being that efficient. the aluminum is rather good at reducing stuff as the exotherm pushes the reaction forward. then the sludge remaining is allowed to settle and I decant the aluminium salts into another container. then because i live in an area with good disposal services, I simply fill up water bottles and milk jugs with the solution and put it in the garbage. Even though I'm sure there's a better way, it works fine for me. As of right now, I've been trying to get everything done in two or three weeks because of bigger fish needing some frying. I'm in the northeast US where it's quite populated so I have to keep good terms with neighbors which can be rather tricky when something inevitably goes wrong. though that's beside the point. I do have a large scale operation. 2 metric ton scale to be exact. I've been able to get it down to 600lbs over three years of incineration and AP. As for cyanide, your best bet is to use bleach to precipitate the gold and kill the cyanide solution. Also wastes that can't be reduced with aluminium should be neutralized with soda ash since you can save nitrate ions as sodium nitrate while dropping the transition metals as the corresponding carbonate or hydroxide. aluminum does not react with nitric acid or nitrates unless gallium or mercury is present as a catalyst.


----------



## butcher (Apr 12, 2017)

What works for you is putting others in Danger.
Rougemillenial, You should spend your time studying waste disposal, and the forum, much of your posts to me seem to be coming from someone who has done a lot of research (study) but really has very little understanding.

It is not what you think you know. when you think or believe you know it (when you really do not understand). Thinking you know something can be dangerous. 

it is when you know, and you understand that you really do not know or understand, that you can truly learn and come to a true understanding and knowledge because when we realize we do not know we can continue to study and gain knowledge.Then you can truly share knowledgeable information of what you actually do know.

From what I read from your posts, is you believe you know (What I see in your writing is you have done some study, but you do not know or understand as much as you think you do, and you do not understand and at this point spouting a lot of misinformation in your poorly misguided state of mind, your filling your posts unknowingly with wrong ideas methods and just plain misinformation on the forum, which for those members trying to learn to do this correctly, if they read your post they will then become even more misguided than you are, as you spouting off of pure nonsense from your misguded thoughts will not only make things more difficult but also put them in danger. 



I suggest you take what you know, and use it to learn more, and to gain that understanding you seem to lack now.

Some of your posts are full of misconceptions, your post above is not only misinformation but just plain dangerous.
Stop trying to show us what you know it is only proving what you do not understand. 
and spend your time gaining that knowledge (you falsely think you have already).

I am found much of your posting as misguided and spouting misinformation annoying, now I am seeing it as just plain dangerous.


----------



## Rougemillenial (Apr 14, 2017)

butcher said:


> What works for you is putting others in Danger.
> Rougemillenial, You should spend your time studying waste disposal, and the forum, much of your posts to me seem to be coming from someone who has done a lot of research (study) but really has very little understanding.
> 
> It is not what you think you know. when you think or believe you know it (when you really do not understand). Thinking you know something can be dangerous.
> ...


Ok


----------



## butcher (Apr 22, 2017)

C.M. Hoke's Book, Refining precious metal wastes--written by a chemist ( a really pretty chemist), extremely ahead of her time in life, as well as chemistry, her knowledge of chemistry I strongly suspect would easily overwhelm most chemist our schools put out with honor roll grades or even years in a field of work. She wrote her book for chemist and nonchemist alike.

She understood more about metallurgy than most chemist today, but she could also teach it to a jeweler.
Now that is something special, smart enough to speak in a Layman's terminology and get the knowledge across to those who can grasp what she is teaching of complex chemistry in simple terms and concepts (that you may have to read the book several times to grasp), but one you do you can put most of the equations, and other chemical equations together with other sources of study.
something simple like how she gives a formula for how much acids are needed to dissolve gold, when you study it, and use chemical formulas and equations you begin to see how much she could teach and spell out the chemical formulas (in layman's terminology) with very little words or deep complex explanations, but when you begin to see the complexity it makes you also appreciate the simple down to earth knowledge contained within.

If you do not see the magic then you haven't read enough of her book.


----------



## Slochteren (May 6, 2017)

The weather here is getting a bit better/warmer so i can clean up my waste i collected over winter. I have a few buckets with rinse water from cleaning silver. The ph is between 4 and 6, what is the best way to lower the ph to 2,5 to cement out the copper on iron?

Thx Paul


----------



## butcher (May 7, 2017)

You can add an acid to lower the pH. Then to replace the copper ions (reducing copper ions in solution to metal atoms of copper) with iron metal where the iron metal gives up electrons (oxidized) to the copper ions, where iron replaces the copper, and metals below copper in the reactivity series of metals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_series


If you do not have any metals worth recovery, and you are just treating waste, you can precipitate metals as hydroxides following the instructions of dealing with waste.

Note not all metals precipitate as hydroxides at the same pH, this has been accounted for in the instructions of dealing with waste.


----------



## upcyclist (May 8, 2017)

butcher said:


> You can add an acid to lower the pH.


Note that you can either add 'virgin' acid (sticking to the cheap stuff like HCl), or since it's warmer and you're processing more, add it to your fresher waste acid until your pH is close to 2.5. In other words, add as much as you can to your new stream without raising the pH too high.

I also like butcher's point about worrying about metals worth recovery--since your pH may be pretty high (5 or 6?) by now, it could be simpler to just skip the copper cementation on iron and head to the next step of raising it above 7. If you were cleaning silver converted from AgCl, there's not a lot of copper in there. If you were cleaning cement silver, there is a lot of copper


----------



## Yggdrasil (Jul 17, 2017)

Hi!
Just to follow up with a few question about this, since I now have reached a level, 
where I have soon to finalize my waste for disposal.

It seem any hydroxide will do the job and *4Metals* recommend MgOH due to easier "settling".
My regular supplier don't have that ready, but will KOH be better than NaOH in that respect?
All the my small batches that has been treated with NaOH seems to "never" settle completely.
Or just ask if my supplier can acquire it from their supplier, might end up as the best solution. :wink:


----------



## upcyclist (Jul 17, 2017)

I tend to use hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide), because it's readily available from hardware/farm stores and cheap. I suspect it creates a higher volume of sludge, though, than some of the other hydroxides.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 17, 2017)

upcyclist said:


> I tend to use hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide), because it's readily available from hardware/farm stores and cheap. I suspect it creates a higher volume of sludge, though, than some of the other hydroxides.



I just started using slaked lime/hydrated lime too
The garden store stuff is cheap, i paid 11 dollars for 10lbs, and I like it a lot more than NaOH. The sludges settle faster, and, it also does more neutralizing work than the lye since it is Ca(OH)2. 
Overall, I like it.
The slaked lime, plus the wick filter system, makes waste treatment a breeze.

I think I read somewhere on here that it had its drawbacks, but I cant find that post, and I have no negatives of my own to post on it.
So, overall it's good stuff!


----------



## Yggdrasil (Jul 17, 2017)

Nice  
Higher volume aren't that important for me.
I'm planning to dry it to powder and hand it over dry.
What counts, is if it settles properly so I can get sufficient liquid out of it to let it air dry in decent time.
When using NaOH it seems like it settles in two fractions.
One relatively fast course and a fluffy gel like fraction that almost does not settle at all.
I have to admit I haven't used much Ph control on it yet.
BR Per-Ove


----------



## 4metals (Jul 17, 2017)

> the wick filter system, makes waste treatment a breeze.



The next time you have a wick filter going on please take a few pictures and post them.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> > the wick filter system, makes waste treatment a breeze.
> 
> 
> 
> The next time you have a wick filter going on please take a few pictures and post them.




I kept it as simple and cheap as possible.

Instead of cloth, I use a rope. I have tried a couple different types. But, i like this one the best.


I tie a knot on one end, big enough so it wont slip through a 2inch diameter piece of pvc (about 6 inches long). The pvc acts as my "anchor" so the rope stays on the bottom of the bucket.
[Sorry, didn't get a pic of it, it was already submerged]

As far as the rest goes. The waste bucket is a 5gal thats 2/3rds full. Sitting angled in an empty bucket, with the rope hanging over into an empty bucket.


(The overhead pic was as I transfered the rope and pvc from anotger bucket, the water drips clear, thats sludge from the transfer that dropped in)
Takes a couple days to get to the bottom of the sludge, but, its about the best way to do it (short of a filter press)

The sludge is scooped into a smaller 3.5 gallon bucket and left to bake in the 105 degree sun to dry out completely.

As far as the initial waste treating steps. The blacks cemented onto copper are saved in a jar until its full.

The copper is cleaned, dried, and saved. So i can either use it to cement more metals with, or eventually melt some anodes out of it, to be ran through a copper cell.

Edit to add


----------



## 4metals (Jul 22, 2017)

To understand this technique a little better, the nasty looking thick green black liquid sludge is acid waste after cementation with copper, that has been raised to a higher pH to drop all of the metals as hydroxides. Did you use sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) and what pH did you stop at? 

The liquid that travels through the rope comes out clear (picture please) and the sludge is dried out in the sun. 

And a 5 gallon pail filled 2/3 (or 3.3 gallons) passes through the rope in about 2 days if left undisturbed. 

Do you feel you could get it to filter faster if you hung more strands of rope into the same PVC pipe anchor? 

For a hobby refiner, that's a darn sight cheaper than buying a filter press!


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> To understand this technique a little better, the nasty looking thick green black liquid sludge is acid waste after cementation with copper, that has been raised to a higher pH to drop all of the metals as hydroxides. Did you use sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) and what pH did you stop at?
> On that bucket, I cemented with copper, siphoned to a new bucket, placed in iron. After that, siphoned to a new bucket,
> used NaOH til pH 9, added HCl to 7 then threw in the rope (the slime is from the bucket I moved it from, see pic below)
> 
> ...


It has served me well thus far. I thought about just making it all ferric chloride and having a waste company pick it up...
But, they are very proud of their services (expensive!!$$!!) 

Edit to fix spelling.


----------



## 4metals (Jul 22, 2017)

Loewen's book was written a while ago and he did mention there was no discharge limit for iron in wastewater at the time he published the book in the state he was refining. (Which I believe was Texas)

I always preferred to raise the pH a bit before the iron was added as it made the metals come out a bit more granular than if it was raw acid. And the metal in the sludge is directly dependant on what was dissolved in there to begin with. With karat gold refiners (which Loewen was) that made a liquid with mostly copper in it so it cemented a metal high in overall copper content. But that also left zinc behind. Raising to a pH of around 10 maximized the zinc that comes out as a hydroxide. That liquid, filtered free of solids was neutralized and tested for discharge. 

Filtering hydroxides is always slow and messy. A filter press makes short work of it but will also drain your wallet when you go to buy one. 

With your rope method, adding a few strands of rope and fraying the clean dripping end you can likely get up towards 5 gallons a day of filtered hydroxides. For a hobby refiner 35 gallons of waste a week is a lot. 

It would be helpful for you to post photo's of the dried high copper content powder you produce from adding iron and a photo of the dried metal hydroxide sludge after the wick filtration and drying as well.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> With your rope method, adding a few strands of rope and fraying the clean dripping end you can likely get up towards 5 gallons a day of filtered hydroxides. For a hobby refiner 35 gallons of waste a week is a lot.
> I have been slacking lately, and have about 25 gallons of waste to treat, most is already in the iron stage. But,
> its all getting treated before we move. No sense in moving trash with us.
> It would be helpful for you to post photo's of the dried high copper content powder you produce from adding iron and a photo of the dried metal hydroxide sludge after the wick filtration and drying as well.


As you wish sir, I will have a better picture of my sludge tomorrow, and the copper as well. Finishing up some gold tonight or tomorrow morning and then its all waste treatment until next mondays move. Yay!


----------



## rewalston (Jul 23, 2017)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > With your rope method, adding a few strands of rope and fraying the clean dripping end you can likely get up towards 5 gallons a day of filtered hydroxides. For a hobby refiner 35 gallons of waste a week is a lot.
> ...



Topher what kind of rope is that, if you don't mind my asking.


----------



## bigpagoda (Jul 23, 2017)

I use a similar 11mm cord made of polyester that I bought in the sewing section at walmart 90 ft for 6$.


----------



## anachronism (Jul 24, 2017)

Wow Polyester works? 

Darn you learn something new everyday. Thanks bigpagoda.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 24, 2017)

Yep, thats what it is.

Although, I am starting to like it less and less.
After starting another bucket with the same rope/pvc setup, it began to drip some particulate in with the clean water. Could be that it got over because I transfered it poorly, but I cannot say for sure.

I will have to try to be more careful on the next one


----------



## snoman701 (Sep 14, 2017)

Get yourself a piece of grey PVC from the electrical part of the store. Probably 1" diameter. Heat it with your heat gun. Bend it in to a candy cane. Run your rope through it. Contains the rope, and the mess.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Sep 14, 2017)

When I'm heating and bending PVC, I like to fill it with fine sand packed in tightly and capped. It keeps the tubing from collapsing when you bend it. Fumes can be nasty so use good ventilation.

Dave


----------



## upcyclist (Sep 15, 2017)

snoman701 said:


> Get yourself a piece of grey PVC from the electrical part of the store. Probably 1" diameter. Heat it with your heat gun. Bend it in to a candy cane. Run your rope through it. Contains the rope, and the mess.


Very slick!

Heck, I know some stores are already hawking Christmas stuff (I'm looking at you, Hobby Lobby). There might be some candy-filled canes (I remember the old M&Ms candy canes) you can ::ahem:: empty and reuse. As long as everyone hasn't gotten so cheap they're using paper-thin plastic.


----------



## tinman1472 (Mar 2, 2019)

Not to beat a dead horse or anything. But I am a new member and I have been reading through this post and many others regarding waste treatment and disposal. There seems to be some conflicting information about the disposal of the final waste products in this thread, neutral ph liquid and iron hydroxide. I have read from some people that the iron hydroxide is considered hazardous by the epa, but I couldn’t find anything from the epa that said that.

Do both the liquid waste and the iron hydroxide get sent to a non hazardous waste facility for treatment? Or is something different done with the iron hydroxide? Of course after a test to make sure they are under epa regulated concentration of metals.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 19, 2019)

Gents, I have a question about the waste treatment of the sulfuric cell. I am familiar with raising the ph of the wash water with soda ash or NaOH to cement on iron after cementing in the stock pot on copper. 
I usually separate the hydroxides in two steps (>Ph 6 and >Ph 11) and save them to experiment later on in an electro-winning process, getting the waste to a minimum. 

I usually siphon off the clean sulfuric and reuse that in a new cell, but now i have poured the whole (300ml) of 96% sulfuric containing the gold in two 2 liter beakers and further rinsing of the powder brought it up to 6 Liter. Added to this solution are some leftovers from Nitric digestions & cementing on copper. It's about 10L in total now.
Before adding the copper nitrate waste to the waste pot i got a bit AgCL out of that batch by adding HCL 30% in small steps of 2 ml at a time. Stopped when no chlorides formed anymore by adding HCL. There wasn't much free nitric left after cementing, only a little silver re-dissolved while cementing.

Now i guess this solution contains so much sulfuric that it has reached the saturation point of soda ash, since added soda ash won't dissolve anymore and the Ph is still 1  I have added a bit of NaOH to see if that will dissolve, and it does. PH remains 1, so still a long way to go?

So there is 300ml of sulfuric to which i have added about 2 kilo's of soda ash. i can't find the saturation point of soda ash in acidic water. I can imagine it's depending of whats in the mix. 
How much soda ash does it take to neutralize say 100ml of sulfuric? the total amount of water makes less of a difference, i can imagine. It would still have to neutralize a certain amount of acid. 

Can i continue to add NaOH to neutralize the acid or do i need to dilute the solution so i can continue with soda ash? 
Hope someone can help me out with this.


----------



## butcher (Nov 19, 2019)

Why neutralize an acid that can be re-used to dissolve more unwanted base metals...
I try to re-use most of my waste as much as possible before treating it, many times I find other uses for my waste, or I can make something else useful out of it.

I dry all of my solid waste (iron hydroxides) and roast it to oxides before disposal, the saltwater is evaporated and the salt dried before disposal,


View attachment Neutralization-chart.pdf


----------



## Martijn (Nov 19, 2019)

Butcher, thanks for the option of reuse and the neutralization chart. It's another gem to add to my collection. 

To explain: I wanted to finish my sulfuric stripping cell because the plated items are done and i wanted to get all of the gold. The acid in the cell had turned completely black and I thought it might hold gold suspended in solution, not only on the bottom. i didn't think about reusing the wash water, just "dealing with waste" responsibly.
I guess boiling the wash water down to more pure acid would have been the way to go? If i had not treated it with soda first... 

And thinking about it, i could have reused it for electro-winning, dissolving the hydroxides to make the electrolyte. Can it still do that now there are metal nitrates, metal chlorides and the dissolved soda in solution? It will also hold some free nitric and HCL that would be boiled off, if i'm correct. I don't want to complicate things even more. I have enough fresh sulfuric for that. 

Are there any other uses for spent sulfuric from the gold stripping cell other than digesting base metals? And is sulfuric often used for that? it would still be quite full of base metals, so only "dirty"digestions would be an option? 

Another thing puzzling me; calculating the amount needed to get the Ph of the sulfuric in solution (+\-300ml in +\-10L) to at least rise from 1 would be about 0.6 kilogram of soda ash, (300 ml with a specific gravity of 1.8g/ml gives .54 kilo of acid, with the pound per pound ratio of 1.06, gives 0.57 kilo of soda) it should have done that long ago. I've added 2 kilo, and there's a couple ounces left undissolved. I decanted the solution from this soda sediment. 
Any reasons why it is taking so long? Is it the mix with nitrates and chlorides? The copper nitrate should be mostly gone after cementing, does that leave any free nitric in solution or is all nitric set free by cementing reused forming iron nitrate in the cementing process?

What would you recommend how to proceed? Evaporating the waste water and store it for experimenting and other uses? It will continuously precipitate more soda while evaporating, because the saturation level is reached, right?
If reuse is not an option anymore in my case, i think calling it a loss and treating it as waste would then be the next best option. if that's the case, can I use NaOH to raise the Ph or does the level of soda in solution prohibit that? Diluting it with water would only increase the amount of wastewater. And hoping it will not take another 2 kilo of soda or more. I don't want a lot of buckets sitting in my shed. 

So many questions, i know, but i can't find the answers to my specific problem. 

Martijn.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Nov 19, 2019)

Martijn said:


> Are there any other uses for spent sulfuric from the gold stripping cell other than digesting base metals? And is sulfuric often used for that? it would still be quite full of base metals, so only "dirty"digestions would be an option?



butcher is the king at killing several birds with one stone, but one use would be to cement the other metals out of solution with iron, filter the solution, then evaporate it for ferrous sulfate.

Dave


----------



## Shark (Nov 19, 2019)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Martijn said:
> 
> 
> > Are there any other uses for spent sulfuric from the gold stripping cell other than digesting base metals? And is sulfuric often used for that? it would still be quite full of base metals, so only "dirty"digestions would be an option?
> ...



Light bulb just went off, Thanks Dave...


----------



## butcher (Nov 19, 2019)

Dave, 
See? I have learned from you how to be frugal, along with the many other things I learn here.

Sulfuric can also be used to make and distill nitric acid, distilling leaves behind the byproducts, that themselves may be useful in some other process or reaction...


----------



## Martijn (Nov 19, 2019)

Dave, will the ferrous sulphate be good enough to drop gold considering the mainly zinc and other more reactive metals that might be in there from stripping plated items? Because its above iron in the reactivity series and would not have cemented out on iron? A lot of pins were brass so zinc should be expected right? 

I don't expect to have more sulfuric waste like this anytime soon and maybe will re-acidify some of the hydroxide with sulfuric from evaporating or with fresh sulfiric to make some FeSO4 crystals. The >Ph6 hydroxide precipitate will contain mostly iron hydroxide, looking at the Ph precipitation chart given earlier in this thread. Zinc should start to fall out at a higher Ph level. 

I will try some small tests heating and evapoating the solution to see if any soda drops out and what is left over, and another test diluting the solution down to a 1:1 ratio with tap water and adding more soda ash to one and lye to another diluted batch. 
I am thinking of trying calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide for beter setling hydroxides. 
I get a lot of hydroxide volume using soda ash and storage space is getting scarse. 
Will post my results (assumptions  ) here for futher comments, corrections and guidance in new and unexpected directions. 

Thanks for the advice so far.


----------



## kernels (Nov 19, 2019)

I use Magnesium Oxide to precipitate Iron Hydroxide from waste, seems to settle fairly well. I think it was recommended by 4Metals in the original waste processing thread.


----------



## anachronism (Nov 20, 2019)

Martijn said:


> Dave, will the ferrous sulphate be good enough to drop gold considering the mainly zinc and other more reactive metals that might be in there from stripping plated items? Because its above iron in the reactivity series and would not have cemented out on iron? A lot of pins were brass so zinc should be expected right?
> 
> Thanks for the advice so far.



Hi Martijn

Make sure that you don't confuse two situations here. You may have metal salts and compounds in your solution from the dissolving phase however their effect is not the same as dropping a bar of say, Zinc into the solution. Treat your solution as a murky mess of different compounds however you don't automatically drop your gold with those compounds in your solution until you add something new and cause another chemical reaction whether that be a replacement reaction or straight reduction. The short version is that you can forget the zinc from the brass, or iron from pins that is in solution for the purposes of getting your gold.

Therefore adding Ferrous Sulphate to your pregnant solution will still work all things being equal. 

Jon


----------



## butcher (Nov 20, 2019)

Let us take for example the concentrated sulfuric waste from the sulfuric cell.
Adding it the acid carefully to water (safety) to dilute the acid, the gold will cement from solution.

Now, this dilute solution will hold all of the metals that are still soluble as sulfates.
Say for some reason we have a little HNO3 and HCl mixed in with this mainly sulfuric acid waste.

Adding iron will cement most all of the metals less reactive than iron, like cadmium, cobalt, nickel, tin, lead, bismuth copper... 

After decanting will leaving us with an iron sulfate solution with the other metals more reactive than iron in solution, such as chromium zinc, manganese aluminum, magnesium, sodium, barium, potassium, and lithium.

Evaporating the solution down to a green salt will concentrate the iron sulfate as crystals, which when forming will push the impurities and other metal out of the crystal matrix bond, leaving most of the metals more reactive than iron in solution.

During the evaporation process, the other more volatile acids will decompose and volatilize, water being first then nitric and then HCl, sulfuric will not volatilize as it has such a high boiling point than water or the other acids.

When making the copperas, we can remove the iron sulfate from the more reactive metals in the solution like zinc, by using crystallization, evaporating the copperas to salt, after removing crystals, rinsing, and then rewetting the with dilute H2SO4, and we can then recrystallize the copperas salts to get an almost pure copperas from the solution.

Now from what was waste we now will have a product we can use to test for gold dissolved in solution, a reagent-grade product we can use to precipitate gold with.


----------



## rickzeien (Nov 20, 2019)

"Evaporating the solution down to a green salt will concentrate the iron sulfate as crystals, which when forming will push the impurities and other metal out of the crystal matrix bond, leaving most of the metals more reactive than iron in solution."

How is the disposal of this portion handled?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## butcher (Nov 20, 2019)

Just as we were doing before we are dealing with waste, we are just making a byproduct in the meantime.

Just as we would have previously, we are still dealing with waste, at this point, we have already removed many of the metals less reactive than iron, like cadmium, cobalt, nickel, tin, lead, bismuth copper...
When we previously used the iron metal to cement these metals from the solution.
After removing the copperas crystals leaveing us the more reactive metals in a concentrated sulfate solution.

Now we can carefully add a caustic or alkali to neutralize the acid, precipitate out metal oxides and hydroxides, such as chromium zinc, manganese aluminum, magnesium, sodium, barium, potassium, and lithium.
(note the caustic could also be an alkali caustic waste left over from some other process)...

Bringing the pH up to around 9 to 10, decanting hydroxides, and then adding a touch of acid (or other acidic waste) to lo lower pH to around 7 to remove the remaining metal hydroxides. leaving you with the concentrated saltwater to evaporate, I dry and roast the metal powders to drive off any remaining acids, and to form safer metal oxides to dispose of.


----------



## rickzeien (Nov 20, 2019)

Thanks butcher. Very simply and understandable.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## snoman701 (Nov 20, 2019)

rickzeien said:


> Thanks butcher. Very simply and understandable.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk



You should realistically hire a consultant (you already know who) to help you work through your waste treatment/disposal. Since you can't legally discharge the saltwater without analysis & permitting, letting someone else treat it is often the best solution....I'm basing this opinion on the size equipment you are posting.


----------



## rickzeien (Nov 20, 2019)

snoman701 said:


> rickzeien said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks butcher. Very simply and understandable.
> ...


Sound advise. I use a American Waste Haulers. Not just for compliance and safety but also for liability reasons.

I do however like to pre process as much as possible as to keep my waste disposal and handling cost to a minimum. 

No sense in earning money only to pay it out in fines, excess insurance cost or lawsuits. 


https://www.americanwastehaulers.com/hazardous-waste-disposal-columbia

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


----------



## Martijn (Nov 23, 2019)

To let you all know how it went with the first test with the soda-saturated sulfuric cell+ waste; letting it cool over night pushed out a kilo of soda. Filtered that and I evaporated the Ferrous sulfate solution down to a point where even more soda ash dropped out. I let it cool and ran it through a coffee filter. Rinsed the filter with tap water. 

Evaporated solution with, i assume, soda pushed out?



Filtered solids. 



Filtered solution left to cool overnight. Lead nitrate crystals i think. Further testing needed. 



I will use the dirty soda on future wastes to form hydroxides after raising Ph with magnesium oxide to +\Ph2

The green solution will be filtered and cooled first in the freezer before a second attempt to make some copperas.

More byproducts to store and find a purpose for. Great idea Butcher.  

Will keep you updated on the copperas. i.m thinking of freezing the green solution before a second attempt to make copperas. 
Unfortunately this copperas wasn't ready yet to drop my sulfuric cell gold last night, but SMB did the trick just fine. here's a pic. of it dried. after following the recommended rinses and washes. 



I want to share a picture of my first button too, is there a thread for that? 
Thanks so much so far for all the great help you all!

Martijn.


----------



## butcher (Nov 23, 2019)

I cannot wait to see you show that gold off in the gallery section, it is looking very good.


----------



## kernels (Nov 25, 2019)

For what it's worth, I raise the ph to 2 using Soda Ash, then later on precipitate the Iron Hydroxide with Magnesium oxide. From reading above, it sounds like you are doing the opposite. I'm pretty sure my way is what was recommended by 4Metals years ago. My Iron Hydroxide settles very well this way.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 26, 2019)

No, i tried just that. Raising with soda ash to Ph2, but it did not go up. Adding more did not do anything. Hence my first post. :wink: https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1300&start=90#p300206

I think there's to much acid from emptying the whole cell of sulfuric in it combined with the low outside temp. thats keeping the saturaton point of soda low? (Assumption)
It just didn't dissolve or react with the acid. And sat on the bottom. 

So now i'm trying to boil a small part of the solution down to make some copperas as Butcher suggested. The soda ash dropped out, followed by some, (i think) long neelde like lead crystals. More testing and experimenting needed. They're drying now. Beautiful and also probably very toxic... must read MSDS next. :shock: 

I read your post about using magnesium oxide and bought some... it took the remaining solution to Ph5 very easy by adding half a cup, slowly and stirring to avoid 'boiling over' Left some hard chuky grains and a layer of light brown mud which settled fast. 
Great idea Kernels, thanks

Will dry the residue and see if there's any use for the mud. Further raising to Ph11 to push out hydroxides can be done with NaOH, right?
I will test small amounts with different alkali like lye and soda to see what happens. 

Martijn.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 26, 2019)

Butcher, i was reading your reply about the white layer on stockpot copper:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=26029&p=276363&hilit=White+layer+on+copper+in+stockpot#p276323
Because i have that too.  

In it you say lead chloride will form long crystals, do you think mine in the picture are that? Some one else his post said the same about lead nitrate, i can't find that one anymore. Could not find pics of it here on the forum. And google didn not yield much info. 
Martijn.


----------



## butcher (Nov 26, 2019)

Martijn,
I am not sure which picture you are referring to.

Where did you introduce a chloride or nitrate?

You very likely had lead sulfates, and now some lead carbonates. 

It is hard for me to follow what you are doing without going back and reading again through what all you have already posted and what we have already discussed. my memory is not good.

Many metal different metal salts make crystals some grow in certain shapes, minerals in rocks will also form crystals, these shapes can be used as clues to what a mineral or metal salt maybe, although a helpful tool but only when used with other tools, tests, or clues to identify the mineral or salt.


----------



## kernels (Nov 26, 2019)

That is some odd behaviour, I find it usually very easy to raise the pH to 2 by Soda Ash, ambient temperature around 20 degrees C. Magnesium Oxide is very slow to show a pH change in my experience, so I look at the solution colour when precipitating Iron Hydroxide, rather than measure the pH.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 27, 2019)

butcher said:


> Martijn,
> I am not sure which picture you are referring to.
> 
> Where did you introduce a chloride or nitrate?



Butcher, i'm referring to the third picture from top on this page, looking at the flask from the bottom. the green is the liquid Ferrous sulfate, after filtering out soda and settling over night (temp. was -1Celcius) 

The chlorides and nitrates came from adding spent nitric, HCL washes and AR solution to the stock pot which held the sulfuric waste already, did not separate different waste streams. And i precipitated some AgCl traces from the spent nitric with HCL too. May even added some acquaintance test tube contents to it, not sure anymore. The nitric is likely to hold some lead/tin, same for the AR after SMB precipitaion. 

I will post a better picture of the crystals after drying. 
And i will do some Acquaint. tests with lead on HCL, Nitric and Sulfuric, allthough lead will not go in solution in sulfuric I think. No need for a fast answer, i will perform some tests first. 

Martijn.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 27, 2019)

Here is a pic of the dried crystals. 50gram. its from the boiled down and filtered liquid shown in the glass tray and the crystals precipitated in the flask a couple posts above. 
The ferrous chloride is still in solution. 


And I made some lead chloride to cool overnight to compare. 
Will post those results when crystals have formed.


----------



## g_axelsson (Nov 27, 2019)

50 grams of crystals seems a bit much, lead chloride isn't that soluble after all. Old solder was 60/40 tin / lead so it would mean you dissolved 100 grams of solder.

The density should be quite telling, 5.85 g/cm3 means 50g would only take up 10 ml of volume. Another check, solubility, 10 g/liter at 20 C so a gram should be hard to dissolve in a dl. Then if you add some sulfuric acid it would turn white immediately by the lead sulfate precipitating, just as silver nitrate reacts on chloride.

To me it looks like something else, the picture on wikipedia is quite good. It's crystals in a test tube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_chloride

Göran


----------



## butcher (Nov 27, 2019)

Soda ash (sodium carbonate) Na2CO3 and sulfuric acid produce a salt of sodium sulfate Na2SO4
Na2CO3 + H2SO4 --> Na2SO4 + CO2 + H2O


----------



## NobleMetalsRecovery (Jan 16, 2020)

I just now read, "Waste treatment for the small refiner" posted by 4metals.

At the end you end up with clear water. What about the solids that remain? I figure there must be some lead compounds? How is this left over material properly disposed of?


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jun 16, 2020)

I've been evaporating the waste solution from my silver cement bucket and have started seeing some things I have not seen before. The starting materials being silver nitrate solutions from batches of gold filled and inquartation processes. It's just a 5 gallon bucket loaded with copper and an aquarium bubbler to keep things flowing. Yesterday was the 5th day evaporating being down to the last four liters of solution left. I have about 2.5 liters left now and have been testing the solution periodically with stannous which will give a false positive of agcl I believe because when I add HCL to a small amount of the solution no white cloud of agcl can be seen. Just an emerald green with a dark spot on the bottom of my plastic testing spoon. And when I add a drop of stannous to the spoon I added HCL to I get a dark purple cloud looking like a concentrated positive for gold. The inside of the beaker has started to get a tan brown deposit on it and I've also had to add sulfamic crystals to it a few times to kill the live nitric that's been concentrated from the prolonged evaporation. I can feel something that's been pushed out of solution on the bottom of the beaker with my glass stir stick. I am currently awaiting an order of dimethylglyoxime to further test for Pd and it should arrive in the next couple of days. The stannous has shown positives for both gold and Pd and the solution has a ph of around 12. If I continue to evaporate I expect some metals will drop out, but with the solution being so concentrated now would I be better served to just dilute it with distilled water, let it settle, and see what I'm left with? I know the copper will have to go somewhere. Also, the solution immediately starts to crystallize upon reducing heat, the copper it appears to be, will verify tomorrow, and I'll be doing a few more tests tomorrow to try to further identify what all is in my waste solution. I'm partial to the copper cementation method as it conserves what little space I have. If its possible I'd like to separate the PMs from the waste concentrate. Before starting the evaporation the waste solution tested negative for agcl with HCL, but with stannous there would be a slight white crystal formation.


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jun 16, 2020)

Here are some more pics of the stannous tests I've been seeing. Hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy! Thanks for looking.
Edit: HCL cleans up my small test batches and have been toying with the idea of just using HCL to clear up the copper in my solution then trying to separate the PMs.


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jun 16, 2020)

Upon further testing the vitamin C had no effect on the small test solution. Before going to bed last night I pulled another small test batch and added HCL in equal parts and woke up to see that pink precipitate at the bottom when I just checked a little bit ago. I will most likely pull a larger test batch, add enough HCL to deal with the copper in solution and let it settle again. My solution isnt acidic anymore, maybe my test paper are just crap, but I'll get it back to acidic and that seems to drop the pink precipitate from solution which is testing positive for gold. Gonna spend another day researching.


----------



## butcher (Jun 16, 2020)

I am having trouble trying to figure out what it is your doing so it is hard to comment.
I think I will just wait and see if I can figure out what is going on after you continue on with this.

So you evaporate the nitrates such as copper nitrate and the other nitrates to basic salts of the metals.
I do not understand the evaporation at this stage before you removal of the bulk of the metals from the solution...

and then form a highly alkaline or caustic solution, and test with an acidic tin solution or HCl...
I do not understand what is going on?

Then adding a slightly acidic solution in a test to these basic or neutral metal salts you would expect the oxidation state of some of the metal salts to change states and thus change colors in general.

Adding any acid or substance to change the pH may also produce a color change as base metals are oxidized, an acid such as HCl will also oxidize some of the base metals like copper and any other metal.

You may just be seeing copper or some other base metals changing states in your test.

Your stannous testing for gold should be done from an acidic solution, not a neutral pot of base metal salts...


The stannous testing for silver from your solution would be more indicative of the metal, but any chloride or even HCl would produce a similar milky precipitate.

I am lost for now, at least until I read more or can understand what it is I am reading.


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jun 16, 2020)

butcher said:


> I am having trouble trying to figure out what it is your doing so it is hard to comment.
> I think I will just wait and see if I can figure out what is going on after you continue on with this.
> 
> So you evaporate the nitrates such as copper nitrate and the other nitrates to basic salts of the metals.
> ...



Hey Butcher, and thanks for replying. The evaporating solution is the waste solution from my silver cement bucket after cementing out of all the silver using copper. Sorry for the long, mixed up post last night, my fault on that. Was trying to give as much detail as possible before going to bed. From what I've seen this far is that just adding HCL will drop a pink precipitate that tests positive for gold in AR. The resulting emerald green solution after HCL is added tests positive for Pt and Pd using stannous. I have DMG being delivered today, looking forward to that! I have no experience with PGMs, and have been scouring Hoke's book and the GRF on how to best, and simply deal with such. Unfortunately I have VA appointments today and all the rest of this week so I'll be intermittent on what all I can do till the evenings or this weekend.
Edit: so far I've identified gold, Pt, Pd, and Cu in what's left of my evaporated waste concentrate.
Edit again: I'm more or less trying to figure if I should attempt separating all the PMs or if I should just add the concentrate back to my silver cement bucket. This is new territory for me and so far I've avoided PGMs like the plague.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Jun 16, 2020)

Dylan, I'm as confused as Butcher was, and I'm still confused. This solution comes from your "silver cement bucket after cementing out of all the silver using copper".

First, I don't understand how you would have gold in your nitric acid solutions.

Second, you cemented the silver out of solution with copper. This should have also cemented out any gold, platinum, and palladium. These metals should have been completely cemented assuming there was sufficient copper and sufficient agitation in your solution, and there was still a bit of free nitric in the solution.

If I had your solution, I would decant all the solution off of any precipitates, add a tiny bit of nitric, and put some more copper into the solution. If there is any gold, platinum, and/or palladium in the solution, it will cement out. Then you can deal with the cement without any of the additional metals that may be causing your problems.

Best of luck with your VA appointments.

Dave


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jun 16, 2020)

Thank you, Dave. Just got home a bit ago and left the heat off while I was gone. My solution hadn't completely solidified just yet. I believe I'm over complicating an otherwise simple process. I'm stuck between wanting to evaporate it all down to a crust then acidifying with HCL and moving from there. Theres no silver left in this solution and the copper bar I left in it has not been touched. I've been a bit confused myself because I use a pretty generous amount of copper in my cement bucket with prolonged agitation so I'm not sure why I'm getting the positive stannous tests I have been getting. Still reading up on the use of DMG. thanks again! And may the gold be with you.


----------



## butcher (Jun 17, 2020)

Dave, 
can I ask you to spend your valuable time and try and clear up this thread, possibly moving all of the later posts and irrelevance to the debate section, where it does not muddy up the thread of Dealing with waste ...

I have not learned how to move or separate the threads and if I tried no telling what mess I could make of it.
Remember when I tried something and next thing I knew I ended up banning every single member on the whole forum on accident and shut the forum down? I wouldnt want to do that again.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Jun 17, 2020)

Happy to help Butcher.

For readers who have been following the "debate" initiated by Jmk88, those posts have been moved to Dealing with Waste in the Debates and Discussions section of the forum.

Dave


----------



## galenrog (Jun 17, 2020)

Thank you, Dave. The playground tantrums were a distraction, and added nothing to the conversation.

Time for more coffee.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Jun 17, 2020)

It was done at Butcher's request. I am but the blunt tool.

Dave


----------



## galenrog (Jun 17, 2020)

I know that. I’ve also heard that Butcher can screw up moving things from one file to another almost as badly as I can, so I am glad you did it.

Note to Dylan. Perhaps it is the stroke talking, but I can not follow what you were doing. I do have a suggestion that works for me, however. Before beginning any procedure, list every step. Do not attempt to remember. I make flow charts for everything. I also label everything. I may forget what I did, but proper labeling, and notations in my flow chart helps me avoid problems.

I do the same thing with bread. The better my procedure is written, the better the bread. 

It helps me recover from mistakes easier, too.

Time for more coffee.


----------



## Yggdrasil (Jun 18, 2020)

I'm have a been growing a suspicion for some time here! 
I do suspect you like your coffee  
Have you hidden some golden grains in there :mrgreen: 

Sorry, could not help myself


----------



## galenrog (Jun 18, 2020)

I picked up the phrase “Time for more coffee” decades ago. An acquaintance of mine, retired a few times over when I knew him in the early ‘80s, used the phrase when he was tired of talking, or listening, or anything else. Usually he would say “Time for more coffee” and simply get up and walk out. He is long gone now, having been in his eighties when I was in my twenties. I began using the phrase on blogs and such to indicate that my comment at that moment was done. It has little to do with coffee, unless I actually want some right then.

In other words, just another tag line.

Time for more coffee.


----------



## Yggdrasil (Jun 18, 2020)

Excellent, keep on


----------



## g_axelsson (Jul 7, 2020)

DylanDownright84 said:


> I've been evaporating the waste solution from my silver cement bucket and have started seeing some things I have not seen before. The starting materials being silver nitrate solutions from batches of gold filled and inquartation processes. It's just a 5 gallon bucket loaded with copper and an aquarium bubbler to keep things flowing. Yesterday was the 5th day evaporating being down to the last four liters of solution left. I have about 2.5 liters left now and have been testing the solution periodically with stannous which will give a false positive of agcl I believe because when I add HCL to a small amount of the solution no white cloud of agcl can be seen.



Just a note about adding stannous chloride to a concentrated copper nitrate solution.

I think the reason you are seeing a white precipitate is that the Cu2+ is reduced to Cu+ by the stannous chloride and precipitates as CuCl which is only slightly soluble in a nitric solution. It could also be a reaction from tin nitrate which I believe (haven't looked it up yet) is unstable and forms metastannic as a precipitate.

Göran


----------



## DylanDownright84 (Jul 7, 2020)

Thank you, sir for clearing that up. I had read on the forum about something similar, but havent experienced it until recently. I realized I was chasing a very small amount of PGMs (maybe a gram or two that wouldn't cover the cost of added time and chems to catch them) when i got my solution evaporated down to the last few liters. 

I split the last remaining solution, about 4L into two separate vessels. One with copper bus, the other with -325 mesh copper powder, both on heat. The copper bus did cement a very small amount of "blacks" sticking to the copper pieces. the other vessel I stirred the copper powder into while hot and it turned black and took a week to even see anything settle. Both solutions were heated during this. I probably collected less than 2g of fine black powder at the end. So next time, my solutions are just gonna go to my iron bucket. 

I'll chock it up as a learning experience with evaporating large amounts of waste. Just seems that when I take even small test batches of either my AR bucket solution or Ag cement bucket solution, evaporate a few hundred ml down to about 50, add some hcl, I get positive stannous tests for PGMs and Au. Or just PGMs. I keep generous amounts of Cu in each with bubblers and I even stir them both once a week usually. And solutions have weeks, sometimes a month or two in the cement bucket. 

I've been told to raise ph with sodium hydroxide to ph4, that might help. Use copper powder with the bubblers a few days before you plan on processing the cement bucket waste, which are copper nitrate and have copper in them already. The powder offer more surface area. Maybe that's it. Use bleach, dry bleach-pellets for pool use. Bubbling chlorine gas into solutions, not really wanting to go there. 

I now know I'm really just worrying over a couple grams of PMs, but I'd like to solve the issue of incomplete cementation in my AR and Ag cement buckets. 

Thanks everyone! Hope everyone had a good 4th!


----------



## francisco rodriguez (May 3, 2021)

Hello everyone, a question, if due to lack of experience I take the pH to 14 instead of 11? Would the correct thing be to go down with water, acid or wait?

Thanks.



Paco.


----------



## butcher (May 3, 2021)

Paco,
Adding acid will create a large chemical reaction, so be careful to have plenty of room for expansion, it can create a lot of heat, be careful not to heat the glassware too much too fast, and do not forget to wear your personal safety equipment...


Slow careful additions of acid will lower the pH, stir well and allow time between small additions and before checking the pH level or making adjustments, the change of pH with acids and bases or alkalies can create heat with the chemical reaction which can affect the pH measurements, stir the solution and let the reaction settle give it time before checking it, you may notice color changes of the solution as the different metals dissolve into solution or precipitate out of solution at the different pH ranges.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (May 3, 2021)

Paco, I don't think there is any advantage to raising the pH to 14. Everything that's going to precipitate should do so by pH 11. Taking it higher just costs more in chemicals, both in raising it that high, and then adding acid to lower it to neutral.

Be sure to decant the liquid off at various stages when you're raising the pH. Some metals (e.g., aluminum, antimony, chromium, lead, tin, and zinc) will precipitate as the pH is increased, but then redissolve as it goes higher.

Once you've raised the pH to 11 and separated the liquid from the precipitates, lower it back to neutral with acid.

Dave


----------



## francisco rodriguez (May 3, 2021)

Thanks for the quick responses, raising it to 14 has been an accident, I did not expect it to change color with so little sodium hydroxide and when I measured it was already at 14. I will go down very slowly with additives drop by drop, after all, I do this to learn, and without any rush.

Thank you very much again.


Paco.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (May 3, 2021)

Ahhh... I understand better now.

So since you ended up at pH 14 by accident, I would separate the liquid from the precipitate, then slowly bring the pH back down with acid additions. Watch for any precipitates that may have redissolved when you went too high too fast, that may precipitate again. To be honest, I don't know whether they will or not. I've never been in this situation. But in case they do, be prepared to separate the liquids from the solids as you go.

Dave


----------



## francisco rodriguez (May 4, 2021)




----------



## francisco rodriguez (May 5, 2021)

All happily resolved, thank you very much again.

Paco.


----------



## rewalston (May 22, 2021)

I'm looking for alternatives to raise the PH of my waste solutions (after the copper and iron treatments). I know that Sodium Hydroxide is generally used but creates a filtering nightmare. I've also heard about using lime, but there is no immediate reaction so can't really use test strips to check PH and I don't know how well it filters. Are there any other chemicals that will work?


----------



## Martijn (May 22, 2021)

Soda ash


----------



## rewalston (May 22, 2021)

Martijn said:


> Soda ash



how well does it filter?


----------



## Martijn (May 31, 2021)

Filtering hydroxides simply takes some time. It's fluffy, it's slimy and clogs things up. 
Big coffee filter in a plastic strainer works fine. You can do other things while filtering or as some do; set up 10 or more buckets with filters to speed things up. 
My soda-made metal hydroxides usually take a couple of hours to filter.


----------



## goldenchild (Jun 5, 2021)

If you want a set it and forget it type of method you can use the towel wick method. I believe I got the idea from good ol' GSP (RIP). For the things that refuse to settle you can take your 5 gallon bucket and insert a towel that is long enough to touch the bottom and long enough to hang over the lip of the bucket. The towel should be rolled up to act as a wick. Tilt the 5 gallon bucket enough so that the towel can hang over another bucket. Through capillary action the liquid will eventually all drip into the receiving bucket. As the liquid level of the bucket with the towel in it lowers you can tilt the bucket more. That shouldn't be needed if your towel touches the bottom. It's slow as hell but at least you don't have to keep waiting and feeding/replacing filters as they fill with material. No clogging to worry about with this method either. It's a one pass solution that yields crystal clear waste solution.


----------



## rewalston (Jun 9, 2021)

goldenchild said:


> If you want a set it and forget it type of method you can use the towel wick method. I believe I got the idea from good ol' GSP (RIP). For the things that refuse to settle you can take your 5 gallon bucket and insert a towel that is long enough to touch the bottom and long enough to hang over the lip of the bucket. The towel should be rolled up to act as a wick. Tilt the 5 gallon bucket enough so that the towel can hang over another bucket. Through capillary action the liquid will eventually all drip into the receiving bucket. As the liquid level of the bucket with the towel in it lowers you can tilt the bucket more. That shouldn't be needed if your towel touches the bottom. It's slow as hell but at least you don't have to keep waiting and feeding/replacing filters as they fill with material. No clogging to worry about with this method either. It's a one pass solution that yields crystal clear waste solution.



I had completely forgotten about wicking, that would probably be the best option, just have to get me a few more buckets so I don't tie up the filtering ones.


----------



## kurtak (Jun 12, 2021)

goldenchild said:


> If you want a set it and forget it type of method you can use the towel wick method. I believe I got the idea from good ol' GSP (RIP). For the things that refuse to settle you can take your 5 gallon bucket and insert a towel that is long enough to touch the bottom and long enough to hang over the lip of the bucket. The towel should be rolled up to act as a wick. Tilt the 5 gallon bucket enough so that the towel can hang over another bucket. Through capillary action the liquid will eventually all drip into the receiving bucket. As the liquid level of the bucket with the towel in it lowers you can tilt the bucket more. That shouldn't be needed if your towel touches the bottom. It's slow as hell but at least you don't have to keep waiting and feeding/replacing filters as they fill with material. No clogging to worry about with this method either. It's a one pass solution that yields crystal clear waste solution.



Good advice :!:

Here is a link to wick filtering by GSP

:arrow: GSP,s cloth filter....it really works as I found by accident

Here is a thread with pics of my wick filter set up

:arrow: Wick filter

Kurt


----------



## rewalston (Jul 2, 2021)

The following is from another thread that I haven't gotten a response to.

I have some waste questions about the process. Once you have soaked the boards hcl (you stated it can be used twice) what part of the waste stream would you place this solution of different metals into? There is going to be tin, possibly lead, potentially some silver and possibly gold which the solder would have dissolved when the boards were originally produced. So I'm not exactly certain where it would go.



> Palladium wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2011 7:04 pm
> Here’s how I do mine and some things I have discovered.
> 
> After you filter the hcl you can use it again for the next batch. I find it works well for 2 batches. .......


----------



## g_axelsson (Jul 3, 2021)

It sounds like he just uses the acid for more than one batch until the acid is spent.

Gold and silver dissolved in the solder would end up as solid waste sludge and could be collected in a filter. The amount would probably be tiny and not worth bothering with.

I once did a test of lids from pentium MMX (black fiber CPU) lids that were soldered to a gold surface. I could detect gold in the sludge after 50 lids were cleaned in HCl but after aqua regia of the sludge I only got a pale purple stain from my stannous test so I don't care to clean the lids any longer.

If you really want to get clean hydrochloric acid back you could just distill off any remaining acid. The acid that is used up has been transferred into chloride salts and will stay behind as tin and lead chlorides.

Göran


----------



## jhop1994 (Jul 5, 2021)

4metals said:


> Waste treatment for the small refiner.



Very much appreciate such a detailed and well expressed post. This was definitely a qualitative change for me in my knowledge of refinement. Thank you.


----------



## rewalston (Jul 11, 2021)

So, what part of the waste stream would it go into? The bucket with lead to drop everything prior to treating with lye for disposal?



g_axelsson said:


> It sounds like he just uses the acid for more than one batch until the acid is spent.
> 
> Gold and silver dissolved in the solder would end up as solid waste sludge and could be collected in a filter. The amount would probably be tiny and not worth bothering with.
> 
> ...


----------



## goldenchild (Jul 11, 2021)

rewalston said:


> So, what part of the waste stream would it go into? The bucket with lead to drop everything prior to treating with lye for disposal?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not clear on what your question is here. Are you asking what one would do with the bucket of HCL that contains dissolved lead? If so then you would just take care of it on it's own. No need to mix it with anything else from any other process. Drop the metals in the HCL and isolate them from the acid. Treat the acid and dispose of it. You'd then take the lead and separate it from the PMs. Like mentioned it may or may not be worth the trouble of separating the PM's from the lead. Then you simply dispose of the lead. Make bullets. Maybe an anode bar for a deplating cell. Fishing weights possibly? Whatever.


----------



## g_axelsson (Jul 14, 2021)

rewalston said:


> So, what part of the waste stream would it go into? The bucket with lead to drop everything prior to treating with lye for disposal?



It depends on how you treat your waste and what material you dissolved. The spent acid will still contain some acid, dissolved lead and tin, iron, nickel, aluminium, zinc... and probably a bunch of other metals.

One way to remove most of the lead would be to add iron sulfate, copperas. The lead would precipitate as lead sulfate and the remaining solution would be less toxic. If you add sulfuric acid instead of copperas you could distill off hydrochloric acid.

There isn't one and only one way to treat waste. You could just simply evaporate the liquid and send the concentrate to a company dealing with waste, leave it on a city collection point with a detailed note of what it contains if you have small volumes, do the whole pH up - down and filter off hydroxides to end up with basically salt water and solid waste... and so on.
It all depends on where in the world you are and other circumstances.

The only thing I know is that I'll not flush any material, solid or liquid, down the drain at my house. My tap water is pumped up just 50 m from the septic tank. Biological toxins have a short lifespan but metals in solution stays forever. The ground below my house is quite permeable, the ground water table moves up and down about 1-2 meters over the year. The infiltrated water will probably flow away from the well but there are other houses downstream from me.

For the small amounts of waste I produce I first extract a dirty copper by cementing on iron (probably some lead and tin mixed in with the solid copper). The resulting liquid is mixed with NaOH until neutral. The hydroxides are mechanically separated and dried. The liquid is put in a plastic pan and the water evaporates over time. This way I reduce the waste to dry waste and very low volume and I leave it at the local recycling center for free.

I'm trying to be frugal in my refining (hi Dave!) so I don't produce too much waste and I cherry-pick the scrap I refine. Some I only stockpile until I find a better method that doesn't produce too much waste. One of my favorite methods is the sulfuric acid reverse plating cell for pins, then I can sell the metal as brass afterwards and doesn't have to mess with any dissolved metals.
Another method that I'm looking at is using cyanide. The same reason to keep down waste.
If I need to denox a solution then I use evaporation, less waste than other methods.
Dissolving gold powder... HCl and strong hydrogen peroxide rather than bleach, no additional solid waste is produced. Everything can be evaporated off. The same is true for aqua regia too.

Göran


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 5, 2021)

I've been trying to raise the pH but sodium hydroxide isn't doing anything it seems.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 6, 2021)

At which pH did you start? Where is it now(pH)? 
Where did this waste come from? Which processes, how much of which acids, and did you overshoot any of them? 
I found that waste containing H2SO4 takes quite a bit more pH+ (Lye, Soda Ash, limestone powder/ chalk) to even start to get it to rise from pH1. 

To raise +\- one gallon of 'normal' waste, I start with one kilo of soda ash in a bucket and filter the cemented waste solution into that bucket, watch the reaction closely, it can "boil" over. Do it in a ventilated area. I pause and filter in between, sometimes twice. 
When pH goes over 9, some hydroxides will redissolve, so make sure to filter in between at around that point. 


Martijn.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 6, 2021)

It was used AP and ar. I dropped the pms. But now trying to raise it to drop out the iron after I put it in. pH is 0 or below.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Oct 6, 2021)

Add more sodium hydroxide.

Dave


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 6, 2021)

Ok but it seems as if I've added at least 20+ grams. Maybe way more. Because I put some in a bottle with distilled water and used that too.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 6, 2021)

I just ordered some soda ash. This waste is catching up to me. Although I am letting some evaporate.


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Oct 6, 2021)

20 grams of NaOH to how much acid??? 100 ml.? 1,000 ml.? A couple of gallons? 20 grams isn't much.

Allowing your waste to accumulate is a very common mistake. Don't let it build up. Process it on the same schedule you refine. If you're creating a liter of waste solution each week, you should be treating a liter of waste each week.

Dave


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 6, 2021)

Probably about that much. Plus all rinses! Ice also been doing silver with plenty of rinsing. But what I'm trying to raise the pH in is approximately half gallon? Yeah seems like I turned around and I had 10 gallons of waste looking at me. Well it's being dealt with and properly as well. So no worries. But yeah I'm hitting the brakes on all pm recovery until I'm under 5 gallon of waste. Unfortunately I have 100 grams of silver to precipitate and rinse. And rinse. And rinse rinse rinse! As well as some mylars. B but not many and just wanted to get those out the way while I was already working with silver.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 6, 2021)

Also. Well it's probably pretty vain of me. But I've recovered roughly 14 grams of gold since I've been at it again and still have plenty of CPUs and good plated pins and other stuff to precess. But I was thinking I'd make a gold ring out of the recovered gold and silver. Perhaps a gold ring with an onyx rectangular stone with solid gold legs coming out of it? To look like an ice chip? Or somehow replicate gold fingers? I'm sorry it's of topic. Just wondering if we got any jewelers in the circle.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 7, 2021)

What I did with my first 7 grams of recovered gold, is a rolling ring hand hammered from a small button. 
https://youtu.be/S3Nyso3BapY. 
No fancy stones or anything, this was hard enough for me, but lots of fun to do and even more to give to my wife. 
Lost wax casting method will be my next try.


----------



## butcher (Oct 7, 2021)

Nice video, Martijn, The ring looks great, that just gold seems to shine brighter on that pretty little hand you have modelling it in the video, Ill bet she just loves it.

Thanks for sharing your video, and thank you for your support on the forum and helping other members.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 7, 2021)

Thanks Butcher, I posted it a while ago on the forum. But every now and then other members seem to have the same idea of making a nice ring from self refined gold. So i share ot again. And getting a couple more hits on the video :mrgreen: at 134 hits now... no, it's just for fun. 
It makes the gold worth even more imo. And piceless for her. And it sure makes the wife appreciate the hobby a bit more :lol: 
Now I'm looking for a jeweller to make wedding bands for us from my own gold and silver which I could never have done without the help of you all. Getting married next year! Finally after 22 years... yeah I know...shame on me :roll: 

Love this forum and all you great guys! Sharing is caring :!:


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 7, 2021)

I finally got it to 2.5 pH. Let the iron disolve in it for a few hrs. Now it needs to be filtered then that's it?


----------



## phoneguy16 (Oct 7, 2021)

Martijn,

My wife and I have been married for 35 years. In that time we have had 3 "weddings". We think they are all legal, but since 2 of them were in Las Vegas we can't be sure. :lol: What we can be sure of is our commitment to each other. It does not matter what OTHERS think or feel about you, what matters is what YOU and your wife feel about each other. Your commitment of 22 years to each others speaks louder than anything. 

Peace to you and your family.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Oct 7, 2021)

Rreyes097 said:


> Probably about that much. Plus all rinses! Ice also been doing silver with plenty of rinsing. But what I'm trying to raise the pH in is approximately half gallon? Yeah seems like I turned around and I had 10 gallons of waste looking at me. Well it's being dealt with and properly as well. So no worries. But yeah I'm hitting the brakes on all pm recovery until I'm under 5 gallon of waste. Unfortunately I have 100 grams of silver to precipitate and rinse. And rinse. And rinse rinse rinse! As well as some mylars. B but not many and just wanted to get those out the way while I was already working with silver.



Silver is a pretty cruel mistress.

I use an adopted method that gsp suggested at one time. The rinse water from the first rinse of the cement, can be the h20 in the next 50/50 nitric usage on silver. The second rinse, can be used as the first rinse for that next batch. And on and on. I dont go that crazy about it. But, I will reuse rinse water, and try to evaporate as much as possible in between processing of silver batches.

Every little bit of "waste" that can be reused, should be
Save money. Save waste. Save time processing the waste. Save from not having to buy ("new" instead of "used"). Be Frugal. Be Dave. 

I really want to start purifying the copper that I've cemented out onto iron in my waste stream. Im sure I would end up recovering some pms from it. ...pgms that didnt cement easily onto copper or whatever reason. (Definitely not from any mistake Ive made... bahaha :shock: :lol: :lol: ) and pure copper to boot. It may not be worth it in the end. ..I think I just like the magic that is, electricity, and chemistry.. and how it all intertwines ..I've been writing a post on a silver crystal thread for a cpl days now. Its far too long. 
Not unlike this.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Oct 7, 2021)

phoneguy16 said:


> Martijn,
> 
> My wife and I have been married for 35 years. In that time we have had 3 "weddings". We think they are all legal, but since 2 of them were in Las Vegas we can't be sure. :lol: What we can be sure of is our commitment to each other. It does not matter what OTHERS think or feel about you, what matters is what YOU and your wife feel about each other. Your commitment of 22 years to each others speaks louder than anything.
> 
> Peace to you and your family.



6 years, one post
...what was it that made you come out of your shell? :lol:


----------



## Martijn (Oct 8, 2021)

Rreyes097 said:


> I finally got it to 2.5 pH. Let the iron disolve in it for a few hrs. Now it needs to be filtered then that's it?



Look at this graph. There are others. You could filter at each lowest point of each hydroxide but at nine and eleven is fine. I do it three times, the first time around 7. 


Most of the metals like copper and nickel should have cemented out before raising pH.

Martijn.

@ phoneguy16, thanks. And I agree.


----------



## phoneguy16 (Oct 9, 2021)

@Topher_osAUrus, Perhaps it is because we just celebrated the union of our daughter and I am feeling sentimental or it is just as a wise person one told me you can learn more with your ears than your mouth. I speak when I have something to add, not when I just have something to say.

Thank you.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 10, 2021)

So add iron when it gets to 7? Or the iron already has dropped when it reaches 7? I finally got soda ash and it works so much better then the sodium hydroxide. I've already added the iron for a few hours before I started to raise the pH. So is it my understanding that as I've increased the pH the iron has dropped correct? The liquid looks shiny on the top. But it's otherwise clear. Till you reach the bottom where the metal collected. I want to do this correctly.


----------



## Yggdrasil (Oct 10, 2021)

Maybe the sodium hydroxide has reacted with the CO2 and carbonized.
Open container or old batch?
NaOH should be stronger than soda ash.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 10, 2021)

Rreyes097 said:


> So add iron when it gets to 7? Or the iron already has dropped when it reaches 7? I finally got soda ash and it works so much better then the sodium hydroxide. I've already added the iron for a few hours before I started to raise the pH. So is it my understanding that as I've increased the pH the iron has dropped correct? The liquid looks shiny on the top. But it's otherwise clear. Till you reach the bottom where the metal collected. I want to do this correctly.



You misunderstood somewhere.. 

*Displacement of metals in solution:* a more reactive metal in placed in a solution containing lesser reactive dissolved metals(salts). The salts in solution are displaced by the more reactive metal, which goes into solution. Look for reactivity series wikipedia. There is a table with the order of reactivity.

*Stockpot*: all solutions after gold, PGM's or silver precipitation go in there. It's a bucket with some copper in it to displace the all precious metals (recovery of traces). Copper goes in solution in this step to get pm's out.

*Iron pot:* the second step after the stockpot. here the same reaction takes place, i.e. displacement of all lesser reactive metals onto IRON. Iron goes into solution in this step to get copper, nickel and more out. 
So after the iron pot there is a lot of iron in the solution the needs to be taken out. 
All the more reactive metals than iron will also be in solution, as copper and iron can't get them out; due to the reactivity series. 

Both the stockpot and the iron pot use an air bubbler for circulation to get all the metals out by displacement. With air added, it also acts as an 'AP' bath (or iron chloride leach for the iron pot), so don't leave the copper in to long, it will be consumed as long as the is free HCL. (which by the way will save you on soda ash for not having to neutralize the free acid.. Pull out the copper upon formation of CuCl1.)

You can tell by the color of the waste water in the iron pot if most of the copper has been displaced. From darker green to pale green. 
You can also test for copper with ammonia. (test means a couple of drops of solution in a spotplate and a couple drops of ammonia added to see the effect) 

*After the iron pot* a lot of the harmfull metals are out and we *continue to pH precipitation* by adding lye or soda ash to the filtered iron pot solution. 
In this step salts are pushed out of solution because the salt is not soluble in high pH solution. It falls out as a hydroxide. Not as metal. Hydroxides can have completely different colors than their metals, and can look metallic but also like slime. 

You don't add iron to your pH precipitation. 

Filter when it gets to (7) 9 and once more @pH11. @ 7 is optional. 

Martijn


----------



## Martijn (Oct 10, 2021)

I just read 4metals actually raises the pH to 2.5 before adding iron to the iron pot. That is something different.
adding iron at pH 7 would not have any affect I think, because iron is not soluble at that pH, so I expect displacement not to occur in that situation.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 10, 2021)

I Rose the pH to 2.5 and put iron in it that's when I put the iron I've already done the copper before that. So I guess I gotta [email protected] like I am right now. Then I'll raise it again to 11 and filter again. I got that right? Also is this the same procedure for day nitric and sulphuric acid? I have some waste of that from using it for silver plating. But I don't think I'll be doing that again.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 11, 2021)

Have you read the entire post on page one from 4 metals? Most of the answers to your questions can be found there. Other questions may require reading more pages.
Not trying to be unwilling, but doing some research and putting in the effort by yourself will make the do's and don'ts stick better than us telling you how to. Your question is answered in the first sentence. 
You also should filter/decant after the iron pot, before raising pH.


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 11, 2021)

Yes I've read it. But I'm just trying to confirm my understanding. Hence my questions. And I've read everything regarding waste. Well everything I can find of course.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 11, 2021)

He wrote: 

"The procedure that follows is for your acid waste only, it is not for cyanide or leaching type wastes, only the spent acids used to digest the metals you have refined."

:wink:


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 13, 2021)

Martin, so that post you posted means it is ok to do this with my nitric and sulphuric acid waste? Because that sentence you quoted says it's for my acid waste only. But does it matter what kinds of acids? It doesn't say. But thanks.


----------



## Martijn (Oct 13, 2021)

Yes, all the acid waste including sulphuric. 
H2SO4 will take a lot more soda ash to neutralize, as I've noticed, and you may have to dilute it or use lime to neutralize it before the pH will start to rise. 

I think in my case the solution was saturated with soda ash and could not dissolve anymore soda ash, stopping the neutralizing reaction. 
You could look for other uses for the sulphuric waste to deplete it before treating it as waste. 
I'm sure butcher has some some suggestions. How much sulphuric waste do you have? And from which process?


----------



## Rreyes097 (Oct 13, 2021)

I have about a gallon or half gallon I can't be sure of sulfuric acid and nitric acid that I used to get silver plating off of silver plated stuff. My other sulfuric acid waste is from my sulfuric acid cell for gold plating which is diluted with distilled water.


----------



## Topher_osAUrus (Oct 15, 2021)

Make copperas. Boom. Recycled


----------



## Dbaschiera (Nov 4, 2021)

Martijn said:


> What I did with my first 7 grams of recovered gold, is a rolling ring hand hammered from a small button.
> .
> No fancy stones or anything, this was hard enough for me, but lots of fun to do and even more to give to my wife.
> Lost wax casting method will be my next try.



Hi Martin, lost wax method is the way to go. I have been melting metal for sometime…I use copper and brass scrape to make crosses and other items…I use two methods 1. Petra bond sand with molds I’ve made and loss wax method. I have a 3D print so I design my items that way for the molds. Good luck and I’m sure the wife loves it!
Dino


----------



## Dbaschiera (Nov 4, 2021)

Dbaschiera said:


> Hi Martin, lost wax method is the way to go. I have been melting metal for sometime…I use copper and brass scrape to make crosses and other items…I use two methods 1. Petra bond sand with molds I’ve made and loss wax method. I have a 3D print so I design my items that way for the molds. Good luck and I’m sure the wife loves it!
> Dino


Very nice video!!


----------



## Rreyes097 (Nov 4, 2021)

I've been trying to raise the pH on this gallon on waste which includes nitric and distilled water. Basically the waste from silver processing. I thought the soda ash was better than sodium hydroxide but it seems to me that it takes a lot longer and a lot more soda ash then what it would have taken for sodium hydroxide but the sodium hydroxide raises the temperature of the waist and I'd rather not do that. But the soda ash bubbles up and wants to over flow the container I have it in. Not sure how to speed this process up or even do it more efficiently. But I'm trying to be environmentally friendly as a refiner should be it's just frustrating and so time-consuming.


----------



## Yggdrasil (Nov 4, 2021)

That's chemistry my friend.
You may not like it, you may not even want it, but it is what happens.
A plan is worth more than a thousands regrets, but that requires that you understands what happens and what you expect to happen. (Hokes anyone?)


----------



## Martijn (Nov 4, 2021)

I used to have that happen to me in the beginning when i used too much acid. Or when treating with sulfuric acid waste. 
The soda ash reacts violenly with free acid. Creating gases. Once most of the the acid is destroyed, the pH will start to rise. 
Take your time and keep adding slowly. 
Soda ash is cheaper than NaOH, that's why i use it. 
As you get more experience in how much acid is needed, the waste treatment will go faster.

Martijn.


----------



## Martijn (Nov 4, 2021)

Another basic rule in chemistry and waste treatment is never fill a reaction vessel more than half. Leave room for the reaction and use a catch basin for overflowing.


----------



## Elemental (Nov 4, 2021)

Secondary containment should be considered at all times during all parts of the chemical reaction process. It can be as simple as a large Rubbermaid tote that holds a 5-gallon bucket or two that can hold waste material if it should a bucket fail, or having a ceramic dish beneath your beakers on a hot-plate. Too many times, I've been reading about people asking how to recover metal from dirt, concrete, sand, etc. Even when doing melts in my electric furnace, I have secondary containment in case my graphite crucible were to break. It's a hell of a lot easier to separate a glob of silver from a metal pan than to watch it go in the dirt or concrete.

Elemental


----------



## Rreyes097 (Nov 4, 2021)

Thanks Martin


----------



## MicheleM (Nov 18, 2021)

Hello everybody, 
I have a question for you 
I'm dealing acid waste these days. I have 2 different buckets; in one bucket I put an iron bar and I'm waiting for complete cementation of copper and other base metals before filtering and raising the pH , in the second one i used Aluminium for cementation and after filtering I'm raising the pH with baking soda. at pH 4 the solution appears orange with some gelatinous substance (Al hydroxide I guess), it is normal? Why the orange colour? 
Thank you , have a good day


----------



## butcher (Nov 18, 2021)

Iron in differing oxidation states can give solutions color, iron oxidizes to ferric (iron ions missing 3 electrons) Fe+3, and ferrous (iron ions missing 2 electrons) as you raise pH you can change the oxidation state of the iron ions or compounds ...










Iron(III) - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org












Iron(III) chloride - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org












Iron(III) sulfate - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org













Ferrous - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org












Iron(II) chloride - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org












Iron(II) sulfate - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





Depending on the acids used we can have different salts of iron ions such as chlorides or sulfates or so on, oxidized iron ions which are combined with the reduced ions of the acids we used to from these iron salts, the pH can change the different oxidation states of iron, such as chlorides, or sulfates or from the more acidic Fe III ions to the less acidic Fe II ions.


----------



## MicheleM (Nov 18, 2021)

Thanks @butcher I thought that all the Fe was cemented using Aluminium but evidently not


----------



## butcher (Nov 18, 2021)

See the reactivity series of metals, noting the place of hydrogen H+ or H3O (basically that which makes solution or ionic compounds acidic) and notice the place of aluminum (Al is above H+ or H+ is more reactive than Al), also noting the place of the other metals which are below hydrogen H+ in the reactivity series of metals, such as iron or copper which do not evolve hydrogen as gas in a chemical reaction, but instead reacts to form water H2O in the chemical reactions involved...

Aluminum will also consume acid (H3O) as it evolves the hydrogen gas in the reaction which will also affect the pH...

Aluminum is not the best way to displace iron salts from the solution, the waste becomes littered with problems of filtering and drying forming a gelatinous gunky mess aluminum hydroxides are very hygroscopic loving water and thus are hard to get dry or deal with.

Adding a base or basic solution (such as lime or NaOH...) and raising the pH itself will precipitate the iron salts (along with other metal oxides and hydroxides, which makes treating your waste easier to deal with, without having to deal with the water-loving goopy aluminum hydroxides...

Different metals precipitate at differing pH of the solution, thus we adjust the pH and decant metal salts at differing stages, and change the pH again to get other metals out of the solution decanting the solution and adjusting the pH again to bring it back to neutral pH and decanting again, where we have removed most of the more toxic metals giving us a more clear solution of mainly less toxic salts (such as sodium or potassium chlorides or sulfates...), depending on the salts we are dealing with, less toxic solutions that can easily be evaporated to dryness and be disposed of...

I also dry and heat the more toxic metal hydroxides to redness to convert them to less soluble oxides before disposal...

Note also metals can go into and out of solution or be in or out of solution at a wide range of pH anywhere from very acidic solution with a low pH to a high pH alkaline solution, some metals are amphoteric, they will dissolve in acid, and can be precipitated with raising the pH by adding a basic solution, adding more base can redissolve the metals back into the solution at a higher pH...

A study in dealing with waste will give you a much better understanding.


----------



## MicheleM (Nov 18, 2021)

Thank you @butcher , 
yes, my plan was to precipitate the majority of base metals with a single more reactive metal , rise the pH at 7, 9 , 11 and then back at 7 try to filter at each stage (following the metal ion solubility chart). I used at first time Al because I missed this thread. From Reactivity series - Wikipedia I understood that Al would precipitate roughly all the other base metal but in the link are not shown all the different state of oxidation. Now I'm using Fe. Thank you very much again


----------



## DJPGold (Feb 26, 2022)

I’ve just done 12 pages of reading and still didn’t quite find what I specifically would like to know.
I have a stock pot bucket that contains copper 2 chloride from treating RAM fingers, as well as the HCl and bleach solution and SMB used to dissolve and then drop the gold. 
I plan to add some HCl used to dissolve tin from RAM sticks. I also have 100g or so of silver contacts from relays with copper on them and some pieces of brass and copper that have silver plating/pieces on them. Can these go straight in the stock pot to recover the silver later as it’s not worth enough for me to bother going for right now? 
I would also like to chuck any copper based, non magnetic, gold plated crap in the stock pocket also to recover the metals much later on. Thanks for any response.


----------



## Martijn (Feb 27, 2022)

You can use the HCL with tin as stannous chloride. 
As far as i know, silver does not react with CuCl2.
Try it in a test tube with one contact point.


----------



## Paul73 (Jun 30, 2022)

4metals said:


> Waste treatment for the small refiner.
> 
> Most of the practicing alchemists on this forum generate waste liquids which, if you have the time and desire, can be neutralized and made free of toxic metals rather simply. The required supplies are simply a pH meter, a few plastic tanks (15 gallon size is ideal), an aquarium air pump and some tubing, slab of copper, some scrap iron. The advantage you have in being a small producer is that you have the time to let the solutions sit and react before proceeding to the next step. Because of this you do not need expensive pH controllers or a filter press and the associated pumps.
> 
> ...


Great post, important information. As far as being a small producer, that I surely am, I am a curious experimenter that is very cautious with the varying reactions I am encountering. I do not have a fume hood and all experimentation is being done outside in the open air. I live in a rural area and all my wastes after being neutralized will be dumped into a 1000 gallon concrete holding tank that that contains my sewer waste and all my my sink and bath/shower wash waters. This container will be pumped out for disposal every couple of years therefore, whatever I dump into this tank will be greatly diluted. As far as container sizes, I am working with pint size and smaller jars, so I believe that I will be using 5 gallon plastic containers of which I have quite a few for the neutralization process. I have not gotten to that point yet as I am still deciding what metals to attempt to recover by the various processes I am experimenting with. I so far have refined about 1/2 gram of approximately 12K gold. I have separated quite a bit of what I believe is K copper from various boards I am depopulating and then dismantling after burning. I have some other containers that have stuff in them I am trying to identify. I had the bulk of this stuff up for auction and thought I had a buyer who stated he was interested in it for metal recovery but the buyer never completed the offer and that got me interested in the phrase (metal recovery). Hokes article is very interesting reading and I sincerely hope her comments will help me identify some of the material, I also will be posting some pictures (if I can get my camera to work satisfactorily) on this site in hopes someone will take the time to look at them and help me identify the materials they contain. And the reading and learning goes on and on (learning never ends for me).


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Jun 30, 2022)

Paul73 said:


> I live in a rural area and all my wastes after being neutralized will be dumped into a 1000 gallon concrete holding tank that that contains my sewer waste and all my my sink and bath/shower wash waters. This container will be pumped out for disposal every couple of years therefore, whatever I dump into this tank will be greatly diluted.


That is a terrible idea! It's like saying "I rinse my wastes down my drain but I run a lot of water after it, so it's greatly diluted". One of the dangerous parts about our waste solutions is that there are numerous metals dissolved in them. They are poisonous! They're not just going to settle out to the bottom of your tank. They will pass through it to your leach field and end up in the ground water, run off into the streams, and poison everything they touch.

What do you think happens to that waste after your septage hauler pumps it out of your tank? Your hauler will take it to a sewage treatment facility, where they will pump it out into the facility's system. There, it can poison the beneficial bacteria used in those facilities, resulting in a huge cost for the facility. If they trace it back to you, you'll be paying the bill.

If it was as easy as simply diluting it and having it treated by the local sewage treatment plant, we would all do it. It's not. You need to follow the instructions you've just read and treat your waste responsibly.

Dave


----------



## Paul73 (Jun 30, 2022)

I am still working on recovering the metals that are dissolved in my solutions. My plan is to recover all the different metals as much possible prior to any dumping taking place, currently the allure of gold has my attention but I will be learning to test for the other metals involved and pursuing their recovery. At the current time I have retained less than a gallon the solutions I have made and at the small scale I am dealing with do not expect to have more than a couple gallons of (spent) solutions to deal with. I am still studying Hokes manuscript and I am looking forward to finding out the proper way to get rid of the spent liquids. So far nothing has been put down the drain. Do you have any suggestions for getting rid of them "properly" once I am done experimenting?


----------



## Shark (Jun 30, 2022)

When I first started this it was all a foreign language to me. I had no background in chemistry whatsoever. Reading everything I could find, often several times, I spent many a day totally confused. I read things until I thought I understood it only to run into a problem that forced me to read the same stuff again, only to be more confused. I was one of those back in the day when to many beginner questions could get you banned, and didn’t ask very many. Today we can ask for help to understand what we read with no worry. Reading a lot, and bringing questions to the forum before creating situations is easy and is the right way to do it. Let those trying to help you, walk you step by step through it. It is easier to learn to do it right than it is to learn to fix every problem. Eventually you will start understanding things you didn’t realize you knew. It is just there from reading something else. All the time I have spent reading this forum as well as a huge number of books, I am still learning. I enjoy learning difficult things. 

Make a plan first.

Run it, step by step, by the forum. 

Take sound advice and adapt to these shared experience of the board. 

Step by step, work your way through the processes. 

Believe me, if you want it bad enough to learn it, you want to learn it right.


----------



## Elemental (Jun 30, 2022)

@Paul73

As a school educated but hobby chemist now, I'll tell you there are three ways to get rid of your waste.

1 - Read and study the forum, specifically this message board for dealing with waste. It walks through, step by step what is required, and only used three cheap materials. Soda Ash, Iron Metal, and Sodium Hydroxide. You'll want to filter it in the end, but all in all, a simple procedure if you do the homework of making a plan, test your plan on a small amount of waste, then scale your way up to processing a larger batch of waste. I'm following this same procedure to process ~10 gallons of leftover copper nitrate from last seasons refining.

2 - Pay a company to take it off your hands. There are plenty of chemical waste companies available and they'll take your magic elixir and charge you a pretty penny for it. But it leaves you with a clear conscious and no waste to treat. (Consider it a small price to pay for the gold your just recovered!) Just make sure all your precious metals are out before handing it over. When it doubt, cement it all out (preferably on copper metal).

3 - Piss off the EPA, by which I mean either dump it somewhere, or dispose of it improperly by sealing it up and sending it to the dump. I live on a little 10 acre lake. I'm pretty sure my 10 gallons of copper nitrate would kill just about everything in that lake and poison the people who fish the lake as well. (This really isn't an option, but clearly states that illegally dumping is a bad idea.)

So, there you go, two good and one bad way to deal with your waste. Luckily for you, you're a part of this forum now, who has untold amounts of knowledge and training across a wide range to things. If you get stuck, just drop a question in here and someone will gladly give you a bit of advice on what you should think about trying next.

Elemental

Edit: In regards to your holding tank, if it's a normal septic tank with a drain field, you're going to be killing all the bacteria in there that break down your human waste by dumping your chemical waste in there. Septic tanks only work by having the bacteria eat your solids wastes, so you don't have to have them pumped as often. Frugal already hit on the heavy metals going into your drain field as well and basically making your own mini superfund site.

A tale from long ago, I grew up in a small town in Western Michigan. This little town had everyone on well water. Well, the town also had a dry cleaner, who much like yourself at first, thought dumping was no big deal. So every night, he'd dump his dry-cleaning chemicals out in the storm drain behind his store. Well, people in town started getting sick, and they tested the water and sure enough his chemicals had spread through-out the entire aquifer supporting the town. The town then had to pay (a lot of money) to have a water-tower put in along with piping to a new well station over 10 miles of out town, so they could have clean water. Please don't by like this dry-cleaner. One day you'll move on as we all do, but whatever mess you leave behind will stay.


----------



## Jimbriese (Jul 1, 2022)

Concrete is porous and does not stop liquids from seeping into the ground not a big deal when it’s waste water from house hold use but with the by products of these processes can result in big problems for ground water


----------

