# Anhydrous Ferric Chloride AKA CBX



## afreakofnature (Feb 15, 2012)

Noob question, as you can see by my number of posts.

I have done extensive research here for the last week and have read Ms. Hokes book. I also ordered lazersteves DVD, which I hope will be coming soon ;-) Anyways, I saw on Ishore that they used to make was was called CBX. From my research I found that it is actually anhydrous ferric chloride. It seems like a very simple, non toxic, no acid way to strip fingers. However I can not find any process on how to do this except for 3 basic pictures on Ishore. Questions I have are. Does anyone know a method or a video to do the stripping and clean up properly? How much anhydrous ferric chloride (% too) do you put in water (site just says one bottle to one gallon). Does it produce toxic fumes? I was hoping this might be something that can be done inside with out worry of fumes poisoning the air. How much can you use, how do you know when it is spent? The last pic on Ishore shows gold and brown debris, is that gold too or do you need to filter or dissolve that? Where can you buy it, besides eBay? I really can not find any info on this. It seems like it dissolves away all metals except gold, might this work as a way to remove gold from black sands (new idea!) I have seen comments on it that it is expensive compared to AP but would still like to try it none the less, on the hobby scale. Plus if it might work on Black Sands from prospecting this would be a dream for me, I have buckets of this stuff. Thanks in advance for the help.


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## Dr. Poe (Feb 15, 2012)

Ferric chloride hydrolyzes in water or acid to give ferrous chloride and chlorine. It is mostly useless unless hot and is mostly used to etch copper or brass plates for designs. It can dissolve anything that chlorine in water can dissolve, but takes a whole lot more to do it. It's created in situ when you dissolve black sands with any chlorine producing substance and must be boiled to expel the chlorine or extra reducing agents added to overcome it when trying to reduce your metal to the metallic. 
I don't see much profit in using it to strip electronic parts. Acid/peroxide is cheaper, more efficient and evenly as toxic.
My opinion is; "Don't waste your money or time." Dr. Poe :|


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## jack_burton (Feb 15, 2012)

Gotta agree with the good Doctor. Forget anything to do with Shor. Hydrochloric Acid/Peroxide ("AP" as it's refered to throughout the forums) is tons cheaper. If you are worried about fumes, I've never had a problem doing outdoors.


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## Geo (Feb 15, 2012)

afreakofnature said:


> Noob question, as you can see by my number of posts.
> 
> I have done extensive research here for the last week and have read Ms. Hokes book. I also ordered lazersteves DVD, which I hope will be coming soon ;-) Anyways, I saw on Ishore that they used to make was was called CBX. From my research I found that it is actually anhydrous ferric chloride. It seems like a very simple, non toxic, no acid way to strip fingers. However I can not find any process on how to do this except for 3 basic pictures on Ishore. Questions I have are. Does anyone know a method or a video to do the stripping and clean up properly? How much anhydrous ferric chloride (% too) do you put in water (site just says one bottle to one gallon). Does it produce toxic fumes? I was hoping this might be something that can be done inside with out worry of fumes poisoning the air. How much can you use, how do you know when it is spent? The last pic on Ishore shows gold and brown debris, is that gold too or do you need to filter or dissolve that? Where can you buy it, besides eBay? I really can not find any info on this. It seems like it dissolves away all metals except gold, might this work as a way to remove gold from black sands (new idea!) I have seen comments on it that it is expensive compared to AP but would still like to try it none the less, on the hobby scale. Plus if it might work on Black Sands from prospecting this would be a dream for me, I have buckets of this stuff. Thanks in advance for the help.



i had similar questions about ferric chloride, and what i came up with is that the actual process for (lets say stripping the foils from fingers) was basically the same as the process for AP. the main difference is AP can be re-used literally indefinitely if treated correctly, ferric chloride on the other hand can be described as a "one trick pony" after the solution is saturated with copper its usefulness has come to an end and needs to be dealt with as the toxic waste it is.


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## afreakofnature (Feb 15, 2012)

Thanks for the replies. I have no problem doing the AP process outside, but sometimes the temps here get to zero. Will that affect the process other than it taking longer (i think i read that in a post).


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## butcher (Feb 15, 2012)

A big problem with iron chloride is it works best heated, but also if heated to strongly it can convert to Iron hydroxide that most any acid will not dissolve, this and fine gold powders make it a nuisance to get all your gold back from these red powders,


Copper II chloride (AKA acid peroxide), is so much easier to work with, and can be reused; it also will not reduce other metals into your gold powder like iron chloride can.

When working in cold weather acid peroxide works just much slower, but there are many methods to heat solutions, all my work is done outside, I take advantage of the weather no matter what it is, and also have to come up with solutions to overcome the effects of the weather when it is not desirable to my reaction.


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## afreakofnature (Feb 15, 2012)

What are some of the solutions you have come up with? I have not researched too much on that so I apologize if it was stated before. I have read that people use a crock pot. I would think if put water in a crock pot and then put your glassware containing the AP inside with a lid, that has a small hole might work. However i bet condensation would build up and possibly contaminate the AP solution?


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## butcher (Feb 15, 2012)

Need some idea’s to heat solutions.

First let us look at this, some things we just need to warm, copper II chloride solution (what you call acid peroxide) you do not need too much heat, it will work faster but heat also drives out the gas dissolved in solution that we need (oxygen), some other things we need higher heat for, some things we actually want it hot enough to boil, and being able to control the amount of heat is always important.

Luckily most electrical heating devices have some type of control, but many times they will not give us good enough control, take the crock pot it has a switch that can turn on the long full coil of the heating wire inside the crock pot and give us low heat, or turn on the half of this coil, but we really do not have a very fine control of this heating device only hot or hotter.

Most electric heating devices or electric heater are made with heating coils and are basically heating with a wires resistance, so light dimmers can be used to control how much of the wave form of the alternating current is fed to this heater, this way we have more control over how hot some of these appliances get.

If you do use a light dimmer and an electrical outlet use good work techniques to make your electrical devices safe, make sure the dimmer can handle the current rating of the device you control it with, and speaking of electrical safety always use GFCI outlets or an outlet on GFCI breaker on outdoor circuits, electricity and water outside is bad, now add acid to mix, and we increase our ability to electrocute ourselves.

Ok some ideas, immersion heaters like fish tank or livestock tank heaters, blanket or pad type (I have some red flexible pad heaters, bucket, or barrel electric) heaters, old automatic coffee pot heater pads, coffee mug heater pads, crock pots, electric hot plate burners, light bulb heaters (these can be box cabinet type heater, a box cabinet with a light bulb to keep warming cabinet warm, the box can also have doors to close or lock, the bulb can be regulated with light dimmer, and this cabinet heater keeps out the rain and snow), wood stove heater, electric plate warmers, or anything you run into at the second hand store you can use.

Now all I can say is use some imagination to heat your solutions.


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## Dr. Poe (Feb 16, 2012)

And add one more thing: A piece of fiberglass insulation to keep your heat in instead of heating the outdoors. Dr. Poe


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## afreakofnature (Feb 16, 2012)

Great ideas, my imagination will run with this one, for some reason i thought I would have to apply it directly to the solution.


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## freechemist (Feb 17, 2012)

Dear Dr. Poe,

Your statement _:"Ferric chloride hydrolyzes in water or acid to give ferrous chloride and chlorine." _ is simply wrong and brings false information into discussion. So, I am sorry, to have to correct it.

1.) Generally spoken a hydrolysis reaction is a chemical reaction of whatever chemical substance with water. Thus, in simplified terms, a possible reaction of anhydrous ferric chloride with water may be formulated as follows:

FeCl3 + 6 H2O => [Fe(H2O)6](3+) + 3 Cl(-)

The hexaaquo-iron-III-cation,[Fe(H2O)6](3+), is nearly colourless and is e.g. found in crystalline iron alum, NH4Fe(SO4)2·12 H2O. Reference-Link: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_iron(III)_sulfate.
On dissolution in water, iron alum shows acidic reaction, giving a yellow brown solution, containing the cation [Fe(H2O)5(OH)](2+), formed by a follow-up hydrolysis reaction:

[Fe(H2O)6](3+) + H2O <=> [Fe(H2O)5(OH)](2+) + H3O(+).

2.) The reaction of Fe(III)-ions with chloride (Cl(-)), giving chlorine (Cl2) and Fe(II)-ions would be a redox reaction:

2Fe(III) + 2 Cl(-) <=> 2 Fe(II) + Cl2,

which as such never would happen, because, compairing redox potentials, the equilibrium of the above formulated "equation" lies far on the left side. - Or, did you, as a geochemical professional, ever detect the faintest hint of a smell from elemental chlorine on dissolving anhydrous FeCl3 in water or aqueous hydrochloric acid?

Regards, freechemist


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## henn111 (Feb 27, 2012)

Ferric Chloride is a wast of time. I stripped some circuit bd, flatfacks...took four days. Still did not break down everything. Still what I call dirty gold. Still had to process in AR for perfect results. Gold
fell to the bottom and I filtered. Had to add a few ml of hydrochloric acid to get the reaction going. It really undermined the copper and lifted the gold. Cant beat the AR process. I etch copper all the time, circuits, just wanted to play.


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## NoIdea (Feb 28, 2012)

freechemist : well said.
In addition ferric chloride in solution is a lewis acid and as such is quite corrosive, note "corrosive". I have and still do, to some extent, use ferric chloride in my oxidation tray (record player top) which i put anything i want corroded. The secret is to use minimal water, in other words, just slightly damp. Nature has show us that corrosion best suits humid/damp conditions in the presents of an electrolyte, salt, just normal sea salt(nature uses carbon dioxide and moisture to corrode our inside electrical plugs).




I use a spray bottle.

p.s. hydrogen peroxide can also work and is used to oxidize Fe(II) to Fe(III) in etching solutions.


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## james122964 (Mar 27, 2012)

I believe the CBX is actually ammonium peroxisulfate from what I have found. 

Jim


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## bswartzwelder (Apr 4, 2012)

As far as heating and using light dimmers is concerned, crock pots usually consume about 150 watts. This is far below the limits of most dimmers. You could mount your dimmer in a box and add a 120 volt light bulb into the circuit. The light would be a quick and dirty visual indication of how much power is being supplied to the crock pot (or other heating device). Just my .02 worth.


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