# Making "Copperas" - ferris sulphate



## austexjwlry (Jun 18, 2007)

Copperas - is an iron salt, chemical name ferris sulphate. In Hoke's book on pg. 64 it says one way to make it is to dissolve iron in sulphuric acid, then crystalize out the salt that forms.
I cut up some cast iron scrap, put them in old cast iron frying pan, mixed
up some dilute sulphuric acid , covered the pieces in pan. It went to work right away. Started to stink real bad like rotton eggs. Stank up my whole shed! Stank for two days straight! Managed to clean frying pan really well before I gave up due to smell!
I read somewhere else to make away from light. Does anyone know a proper way to do this?

Thanks
Wayne


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## teabone (Jul 14, 2007)

I make my copperas using a dilute sulphuric acid in a glass container . Using small iron nails or steel wool that have dissolved in this mixture , you then evaporate until crystals form , they will be a greenish yellow looking iron sulphate, i.e., copperas .


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## scavenger (Jul 20, 2007)

I bought some at my local chemist , drug store etc..Iron supplement for women. Red tablets. 100% ferrous sulphate. Grind em to powder and yer done.


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 20, 2007)

The red color don't sound like ferrous sulfate. Should be sort of a pale green. Maybe they put dye in it. Have you tried it? Does it drop gold?


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## Harold_V (Jul 20, 2007)

Assuming the tablets are nothing more than dyed ferrous sulfate, the cost would be staggering as compared to buying in bulk from a garden supply. I would also think it has a fair amount of filler added unless it's very tiny in size. Is it possible the red color is nothing more than a coating? 

I used garden variety ferrous sulfate with acceptable results--even when it had a light brown appearance. Cost was very attractive as compared to the cost of drugs. I found that much of it was still a light green crystal, so by adding a few drops of HCL to the solution, then filtering, I got acceptable results. Shortly thereafter I started using SO2, and never used copperas again. 

Harold


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## catfish (Jul 20, 2007)

Hey Guys:

Like Harold sez, you can buy it at just about any place that sells fertilizer. Also you can buy it on eBay. Two Pounds for .99 or 50 lbs for 12.00.

It is called several names, Iron Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Green Vitriol, Iron Vitriol, Copperas, and Melanerite.

It should look like the attached photo.

Catfish


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## EVO-AU (Oct 11, 2007)

There is a book titled "Recovery and Refining of Precious Metels" by A.A. Ammen. One of the great extractive metallurgists of all time. Anyway, in the chapter on refining black sands, there is a short but concise description of making copperas. Your stink probably came from the cast iron fry pan. I used an orange colored glass pie shaped dish. Darn, I can't think of the trade name. ( This computer is at another location. ) I do get a slight numbing acid smell, but I do all my cooking outside.

Unfortunanately, the book is around 50 + bucks. When I bought it, the price was $24.95. So much for progress..But if you want to spend the money, it has stuff in there that will toast your brain.

EVO_AU :?


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## Irons (Oct 11, 2007)

produces tons and tons of the stuff. Sulphuric acid is used as a pickle and Ferrous Sulphate is a byproduct.
They probably have to pay to have it hauled away.

Harold is right, the garden supply here sells it cheap and it's pretty good quality.

It's a waste of good Sulphuric Acid to try and make it.

You can also burn Sulphur in air which gives Sulphur Dioxide, a much better precipitant.

You can buy agricultural Sulphur very inexpensively. It's used to acidify alkaline soils.

Making an SO2 generator is not rocket science.

Sulphur tends to evaporate and settle out on surfaces as it cools (sublimation), so you should bubble the output of the SO2 generator through water to catch and Sulphur particles before you use it as a precipitant.


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## Harold_V (Oct 11, 2007)

EVO-AU said:


> Your stink probably came from the cast iron fry pan.



Specifically, the stink came from iron that was contaminated with sulfur. Cast iron was commonly prepared in a cupola that was fired with coke made from sulfur-bearing coal. Modern techniques (induction furnaces) avoid adding the unwanted sulfur.

As has already been mentioned, the use of steel works well, and avoids the excessive free carbon, anyway. Much better starting material, assuming you use mild steel. Avoid using alloys. 

Harold


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## EVO-AU (Oct 12, 2007)

Thanks Harold: I had a hunch what the problem was, but couldn't put my finger on it. Worked sand-crabbing in Northern Indiana and remember that when low graphite cast iron was poured, the sulfur stunk up everything. In regards to your other post to me, I am working on a reply. Evo-au[/b]


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## Harold_V (Oct 12, 2007)

Irons said:


> You can also burn Sulphur in air which gives Sulphur Dioxide, a much better precipitant.



When I started refining in earnest, I used bottled SO2. I can't imagine using anything else, especially when you start refining in volume, where the addition of other reagents increases the volume of solutions. 

Having a supply of decent quality copperas is a good backup for those times when you may wish to use a different precipitant, although, I found that once I started using SO2, I never found need to do so. The sole exception I can think of might be when running out of SO2 and being in the middle of precipitation. 

Harold


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## Irons (Oct 12, 2007)

Harold_V said:


> Irons said:
> 
> 
> > You can also burn Sulphur in air which gives Sulphur Dioxide, a much better precipitant.
> ...



I agree, if you are into refining as a business and have a local source for the SO2 cylinders, why bother with a homebrew setup.
It's like Amateur Radio, some people like to do things from scratch. It's not vey efficient, timewise or even financially, but for those of us living in caves and mine tunnels, the simple things work the best.

Here's a patent on a Sulfur Dioxide generator:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4966757.html

It's expired, so you can glean some ideas if intersted.

Everything but the squeal.


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## Harold_V (Oct 12, 2007)

Irons said:


> I agree, if you are into refining as a business and have a local source for the SO2 cylinders, why bother with a homebrew setup.
> It's like Amateur Radio, some people like to do things from scratch. It's not vey efficient, timewise or even financially, but for those of us living in caves and mine tunnels, the simple things work the best.



It's obvious to me that I should have been far more specific. 

My endorsement of the use of sulfur dioxide was in support of your post, but the use of bottled product isn't for those that are infrequent users, and may not even be an option for a serious refiner. Not today, anyway. I didn't mean to imply that a person should avoid a generator. Far from it, in fact. 

My first contract on bottled gas was easy (early 70's)----but the supply house (Van Waters & Rogers) discontinued dispensing the product, which necessitated a move to a different supply house (Great Western Chemical, now defunct). Towards the end, they were unhappy with my frequency of replacement, in spite of the fact that I had paid a deposit on a bottle that was greater than its value. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Oct 12, 2007)

I worked with a guy in Oregon that made SO2 water to drop gold. To use it, he just poured it into the gold solution. He saturated ice water with SO2 and put it into sealed gallon jugs. You would think that the jugs would pop their lids but, they never did. I couldn't see much sense in it but, the guy loved using it. A fume hood was a must.

The same guy made a vacuum pump with a sump pump sitting in a 5 gallon bucket of water. It had an aspirator plumbed onto it and the water circulated back into the bucket through a pipe. The pipe formed a handle, so you could easily lift it out of the bucket. It worked amazingly well. The head ratings on the pump and the aspirator had to be matched. The only problem was that the water got so hot after an hour that the pump stopped. This was always solved by putting in fresh water. The guy had been using the same pump for years. Never wore out.


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## aflacglobal (Feb 9, 2010)

8)


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## dick b (Feb 9, 2010)

GSP:
You just gave away my secret idea!
Been working years trying to develop that idea. 8) 
By the way it does work great and operating costs compared to a regular vacuum pump are next to nothing. $25.00 for a aspirator, a small valve, a 1/6 hp fountain submergable pump and a 5 gal poly bucket. High Tech.
The real plus is that by adding baking soda to the water, it helps neutralize the fumes.
Thanks a lot.
dickb


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