# Aluminum in AP for rejuvenation



## bigubuddy (Mar 8, 2013)

Please don't hammer me as this is my first post. Being new to refining (2 years) I have been shy to post this. My first year processing PCB fingers I had 7 gallons of saturated AP solution. I have been dropping copper from my AP using Aluminum scraps. The AP turns almost clear (still faint blue) and I filter it, evaporate 50% of the water and store it in bleach containers. I am curious to find out wether or not anyone else has been using this method of restoring their AP for reuse. I have been having good luck stripping PCB fingers with this same solution, adding just a small amount of hydrochloric 20% and 3% peroxide to rejuvenate the solution. It takes an extra 24 hours of soaking but it does not cost as much as a new batch. This year I have only created 1/2 gallon of extra AP. I have not been able to find any other posts on this subject except for Steve's electrolytic copper recovery / AP rejuvenation process in the handbook. Any thoughts ?

I have been storing the reddish brown sludge for further refining later. I like Harold's idea of a savings plan.


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## Geo (Mar 8, 2013)

this is not rejuvenation. its neutralizing the hcl. when you cement copper with aluminum, your loosing chlorine to the reaction. you are weakening the acid every time you add copper. if you add oxygen to the solution, it will convert as much copper as the solution will hold in copper(II) chloride. the excess copper will precipitate as copper(I) chloride. this will also cost the solution chlorine by dissolving oxidized copper (copper(I) chloride) but nearly as much as removing the copper completely. to re-use the solution, you need to dissolve more copper. the light blue color of the solution after the copper is removed is nickel. nickel is toxic, almost 100% of all humans are allergic to nickel to some degree. while effect most very little, there are a certain percent of people whose reaction is so sever that it can scar and even cause death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel


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## Anonymous (Mar 8, 2013)

Geo said:


> this is not rejuvenation. its neutralizing the hcl. when you cement copper with aluminum, your loosing chlorine to the reaction. you are weakening the acid every time you add copper. if you add oxygen to the solution, it will convert as much copper as the solution will hold in copper(II) chloride. the excess copper will precipitate as copper(I) chloride. this will also cost the solution chlorine by dissolving oxidized copper (copper(I) chloride) but nearly as much as removing the copper completely. to re-use the solution, you need to dissolve more copper. the light blue color of the solution after the copper is removed is nickel. nickel is toxic, almost 100% of all humans are allergic to nickel to some degree. while effect most very little, there are a certain percent of people whose reaction is so sever that it can scar and even cause death.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel


That's ironic that you should mention the allergic reaction people have with nickle, because I am. I was told that when I was around 18 years of age when I went to the doctor because my wrist kept itching. The doctor told me that I'm allergic to nickle. As of now, discovering that I'm allergic to it, when I wear belts, if the buckle touches my skin, and especially if I sweat or damp in any way, I break out in a rash that itches like heck. The same thing with wire framed sunglasses. If I wear them, I break out and itch around my eyes, along the sides of my face and above my eyebrows. 

My body can definitely tell if I have nickle on me. I have to be careful about the bottom of watches too, and the clasps because I've broken out in rashes before. All in all, I wear mostly plastic things instead of metal if I can. Also, .925 silver breaks me out, 10K and 12K gold breaks me out too, and any fake jewelry.

Kevin


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## Barren Realms 007 (Mar 8, 2013)

testerman said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > this is not rejuvenation. its neutralizing the hcl. when you cement copper with aluminum, your loosing chlorine to the reaction. you are weakening the acid every time you add copper. if you add oxygen to the solution, it will convert as much copper as the solution will hold in copper(II) chloride. the excess copper will precipitate as copper(I) chloride. this will also cost the solution chlorine by dissolving oxidized copper (copper(I) chloride) but nearly as much as removing the copper completely. to re-use the solution, you need to dissolve more copper. the light blue color of the solution after the copper is removed is nickel. nickel is toxic, almost 100% of all humans are allergic to nickel to some degree. while effect most very little, there are a certain percent of people whose reaction is so sever that it can scar and even cause death.
> ...



You don't need to do tests on material just find out what breaks you out faster and the worst and then just touh and you know what you have by the reaction.


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## solar_plasma (Mar 9, 2013)

Could be interesting to investigate: when the Al has cemented all the less electronegative metals out, it will form aluminium chloride, which in a two-stepped process forms aluminium hydroxysomething, Cl- and H3O+. The last two are nothing else but HCl, which also would gas out, if you would evaporate the H2O.

Caution: there can still be beryllium from cobber alloys in the solution, so still treat it as highly toxic.

Conclusion: aluminium chloride with some new HCL and H202 may have power enough to be used for your AP-etching. Otherwise you could destill the whole thing and get pure HCl-solution as the destilate.



Would be nice, if a real chemist would have a look at the process, since I am just a highschool teacher.


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## lazersteve (Mar 9, 2013)

Aluminum will not cement nickle out of acid solution.

Steve


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## solar_plasma (Mar 9, 2013)

I ve never really understood, why the different metal ions only reduces in a defined range of pH-values. Now I know what I have to read one more time again :lol:

It is a chemical equilibrium process, which pushes more to the one or the other side by pH, right?


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## BigU (Mar 9, 2013)

Thank you all for the new information. I will capture the evaporation from the nickel laden AP and test it. I will also go through Hokes again to try and drop the nickel. I am not a chemist nor a teacher. Just an electronics scrap recycler. 11.7 oz 98 % gold in two years with the help of the forum was not a bad pay raise. Took the first year to collect, sort, build a hood and evaporator unit and then read through the material provided through the forum for a safe start. Except for lazersteve I have to laugh at all the utube videos out there that are very misleading and dangerous. I wonder if there is a database concerning deaths from self poisoning while using some of the processes. Would be interesting to know how many people have committed suicide trying to get rich quick and use the information to help others take the precautions recommended by Harold and all others. Safety, safety, safety.
Thanks again.


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## solar_plasma (Mar 9, 2013)

not everything which is possible makes a sense. I would prefere simply to give the waste to someone who is specialized in heavy metal waste. In fact with our antique home brew methods, we can seldom really be sure, that our waste is clean enough for disposing, - unless you can be sure that everything that could be in it would have influence on pH and electrical conductivity and the material would be measured to pH7 and near 0 S/m. Just my point of view.


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## Alentia (Mar 12, 2013)

testerman said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > this is not rejuvenation. its neutralizing the hcl. when you cement copper with aluminum, your loosing chlorine to the reaction. you are weakening the acid every time you add copper. if you add oxygen to the solution, it will convert as much copper as the solution will hold in copper(II) chloride. the excess copper will precipitate as copper(I) chloride. this will also cost the solution chlorine by dissolving oxidized copper (copper(I) chloride) but nearly as much as removing the copper completely. to re-use the solution, you need to dissolve more copper. the light blue color of the solution after the copper is removed is nickel. nickel is toxic, almost 100% of all humans are allergic to nickel to some degree. while effect most very little, there are a certain percent of people whose reaction is so sever that it can scar and even cause death.
> ...



Kevin,

Allergies are indicator of weaken immune system with root cause being damaged or parasite infested liver and thyroid. It takes years to do the damage, so it takes years to heal. If you would really care about your allergies and health go vegetarian and exclude any commercial drinks and foods (specifically pop and chips), specifically products containing "high fructose corn syrup, white bread, vegetable oils, <u>cold</u> water. Eat lost of fresh garlic and onions. You may see significant improvements in a year or two. Administer parasite cleansing. But can tell you for sure, you will feel much more energetic after about a month.


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## butcher (Mar 14, 2013)

My thoughts on this subject:

Aluminum is above hydrogen in the reactivity series of metals, if we just mixed hydrochloric acid HCl and aluminum, the hydrogen gases off (so there is no way distilling this solution would form HCl, without Hydrogen we have no acid), the aluminum would form an aluminum chloride solution, if we concentrated these salts, and dried them and then distilled them we may get chlorine gases coming off, and leaving aluminum oxide powder, but no HCl. 


With copper II chloride the aluminum will cement copper from solution forming, aluminum chloride solution, reusing the solution would not work well, ( as we see from above we would have no hydrogen in solution thus no acid or HCl), aluminum is lower in series than copper so the solution would not dissolve copper or give up its chlorides to the copper (so this solution would be useless to reuse in this method, I believe it would work just as well maybe better to use water than it would to reuse the aluminum chloride solution.

Using aluminum to cement copper from your waste copper chloride, creates aluminum chloride, when we go to treat this solution for waste and drop the aluminum and other base metals with sodium hydroxide we form a gelatinous goop of aluminum hydroxides, these aluminum hydroxide sludge’s are very hard to get to dry, I hate dealing with them, so I try not to use aluminum in this manner, I prefer iron for cementing copper.

Now if you cemented the copper from your copper chloride with iron you make ferrous chloride (a leach for copper, this leach will work to dissolve copper, but it also has its problems.


It is best to keep your copper chloride leach a copper chloride leach, and just reuse it, it can be easily rejuvenated, and used over and over.


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