# dissolving lead



## Anonymous

What acid is best for dissolving lead?


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## Oz

Nitric will do a fine job but I doubt I answered your question since if you had pure lead there would be little reason to dissolve it. You may have it as a chloride with silver in which case boiling water would effect your separation, but you give few clues as to why you ask.


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## goldsilverpro

The nitric has to be dilute. Strong nitric will form lead nitrate crystals on the surface of the lead and the dissolving action will stop. I always used hot 7/1, water/nitric.


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## Anonymous

I should have given more information.I am real idiot when it comes to chemistry,I don't know why I have waited until I am 73 years old to start to try and learn something about it.I have been trying to dissolve various metals in acids.So far I have used Muratic acid to dissolve copper and iron.Now I want to dissolve lead but I don't think Muratic acid will work.Also are there any basis that will dissolve lead?
?


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## goldsilverpro

Hot concentrated muriatic may work but it's hard to live with the fumes.

Don't worry about the age. You've got a lot of company. Harold_V and I are only 3 or 4 years behind you.


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## LittleJohnnyH2SO4

john taylor said:


> I should have given more information.I am real idiot when it comes to chemistry,I don't know why I have waited until I am 73 years old to start to try and learn something about it.I have been trying to dissolve various metals in acids.So far I have used Muratic acid to dissolve copper and iron.Now I want to dissolve lead but I don't think Muratic acid will work.Also are there any basis that will dissolve lead?
> ?



It definetly won't work, as lead chloride is insoluble. It is slightly soluble in hot water, but not very.

Nitric acid is the way to go. I can't think of any common substitutes.


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## goldsilverpro

Johnny,

Have you ever tried to dissolve Pb metal in hot conc. HCl? If not, try it.


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## LittleJohnnyH2SO4

goldsilverpro said:


> Johnny,
> 
> Have you ever tried to dissolve Pb metal in hot conc. HCl? If not, try it.



How much lead are we talking, and how much acid. It's all about equilibrium constants and complex formation...

And this is why I dislike analytical chem class.


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## butcher

the acid peroxide will break down the lead/tin of solder air bubbling and time, the tin is souble in the dilute HCL, and lead chloride insoluble except what amount the acid can hold.

nitric dilute will disolve lead, but if tin the tin will not completely dissolve but make a slimmy pasty liquid, silver if any will easily disolve in nitric.

tin dissolves in Hcl easily'
silver wont disolve in HCL passivates(but a little may if strong oxidizer used and heat)silver chloride insoluble.
lead wont hardly dissolve in cold HCL (maybe some if high temperature and oxidizer used, lead chloride insoluble except what acid may hold (lead will probably break down to powder). 
lead and silver Chloride can be seperated with boiling hot water,
silver can be seperated from lead with ammonium hydroxide (caution Hazardous, dont let dry out and precipitate by acidifying to silver chloride powder with Hcl) lead will not dissolve in ammonia,
lead sulfate insoluble',
Lead passivates in strong H2SO4,
tin will disolve in H2S04,
silver will disolve if HOT concentrated H2SO4,
heat and oxidizers can have more effects on metals,
you may need to veryify some of this info, as it's from my forgetful head.


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## Anonymous

This is most likly a real dumb question but I am really ignorant about chemistry.I can dissolve most metals by placing them in water and running a low voltage currant through them.If I keep changing the positive and negative wires I can dissolve both sides pretty evenly.It does not take very long before the metals are dissolved in a liquid state.My question is is this dissloved metal the same as metal dissolved by using acids.It appears to me that acid eating up metal creates electricity so running electricity through the metal is just a reverse process with the same resaults.


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## butcher

not a dumb question , only dumb answer I can think of, electricity and chemicals do work very similar, they can remove electons from metals atom, just like in a chemical solution one metal will plate to another so it will also in electolisis, both of these methods are used in refining and recovery of metals, acid eating metals does not by itself create electricity, but two disimilar metals in an electrolyte will create electricity, the electrolyte can be acidic or basic, one metal looses an electon and that atom become an ion going into solution as and the other metal being higher in electromotive series attracts this ion and plates it to itself, this is a chemical reaction, a battery, and will produce a current if wires are tied to the metals, the potiential voltage produced is determined by the difference in metals, the current or amperage can be size of these metals etc. when you charge up this battery you created you are making the metals go back were they came from. 
also metals are positive and acids are negative the come together to make a salt example copper Cu (+)and ntric acid HNO3 (-) make a salt of copper nitrate Cu+NO3-, or if we mixed hydrochloric acid HCL and NaOH caustic soda (sodium hydroxide)(lye)(red devil drain cleaner) together we make somthing we eat on our french fries, --HCL + NaOH-->NaCL(table salt)+H2O (water),either of these can be dangerous to us but mixed we eat them, funny a stong acid and a strong base neutralize to flavor our food.john hope this gets you to look into this more , there are no dumb questions if we will learn from them, only people who are affraid they may sound dumb and give up asking something that may help them learn now that would be dumb not to ask questions. one question can open a world of information to you keep seeking the answers.


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## Anonymous

I have played around a little making salts from various acids and basis.I was wondering if it is possible to return the salts back to their original state.For example,if I took vinager and nuturalised it with lye then evaporated it down I would end up with a very pleasant tasteing salt.Is it possible to return the salt back to vinager and lye?


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## qst42know

I don't think butcher was recommending you make your own salt for your fries. Just indicating the wonders of chemistry. Some chemical bonds are easily made and unmade while others will be stubborn and almost irreversible by any practical means. While ALL the elements can be accounted for in any reaction not all will cooperate with what you try to accomplish. :wink:


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## butcher

lets make muratic acid (HCL), from that table salt.
NaCL sodium chloride (table salt), we will need an acid lets use sulfuric,
H2SO4'
NaCL + H2SO4 -- HCL + NaHSO4 (we can precipitate out the sodium hydrogen sulfate) or better distill it out.
fun stuff huh?


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## hoardpm

I am new to the whole refining hobby. Through my quest to find old computers to extract the gold I have run into the problem where people want you to take their old monitors also. I know how hard it is to get rid of these things but, I have taken them just to get something to start with. Anyhow, I have been told that these monitors contain up to 10 pounds of lead. Is there a way to extract the lead from the glass? I was thinking that crushing the glass into a powder or almost powder form and disolving in acid then pracipitating the lead. Is this possible? Has anyone tryed this? Or is this done through other means....any information would be helpful.


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## glorycloud

You really are better off charging people to take the monitors and then pay to have them recycled locally. Find out from your local recyclers how much they charge for CRT monitors. They may even take them for free unless you live in California or Massachusetts. 

Then simply charge your customers a dollar or two more that what you are charged and everyone is happy. If they don't want to pay, walk on by amigo and go to the next customer (unless they are sitting on a boat load of old 486 or Pentium Pro PC's).


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## hoardpm

that is what I figured I was going to have to do. I would have never taken the monitors in the first place but, I was trying to get some material to work with and that was the trade off for getting some e-scrap to work with. As you know, beggers can't be choosers. So.......anyone want about 20 monitors


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## jimdoc

I usually give away all the working monitors on craigslist.
I have had churchs and schools that had computers donated
to them with no monitors. Both those places have taken 10
to 20 each time. I will probably stop taking them when I get
cleaned up, unless I get somebody that will take them all from
me. A friend saw some in the trash that were gutted in philly,
he looked to see if there were any computers there for me, and
then he said some trash pickers came along and took them all
like they were stealing them. I wonder if they have a buyer for 
them? 
Jim


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## teclu

butcher said:


> lets make muratic acid (HCL), from that table salt.
> NaCL sodium chloride (table salt), we will need an acid lets use sulfuric,
> H2SO4'
> NaCL + H2SO4 -- HCL + NaHSO4 (we can precipitate out the sodium hydrogen sulfate) or better distill it out.
> fun stuff huh?



Hello Butcher,


Can you tell me please the quantities required and the procedure for obtaining 1 liter of HCl 32%, using battery H2SO4(1,28 density) and NaCl.


Thanks in advance!

teclu


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## butcher

well thats alot of math maybe I can try and spend some time on it when things get slow,
2NaCl + H2SO4 --> Na2SO4 + 2HCL(gas)
look on the periodic chart to get weight of each grams per mole'
Na, Cl, H. S, O, plug the weight of each into the formula on both sides of arrow, to get a ratio of chemicals,
this can be somewhat dangerous to breath these gases, and I am not sure of how hot the reaction would get? 
you would have to do some careful expieriments on small scale to see.
but if you just use rock salt and poured on an amount of sulfuric acid in closed container with hose that would bubble the gas into water to make your acid, since the amount of acid wiuld give certain amount of gas figureing stiochiometric equation to me would not be needed.
now this will create HCl gas, and if bubbled into water would make muratic acid.
are you sure you want to do this? can't you just get muratic it is so plentiful and cheap.
here is al little on this. for you to look over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloric_acid http://www.ucc.ie/academic/chem/dolchem/html/comp/h2so4.html
http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/chemistry/stoichiometry-questions-113370.html
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6767528/description.html
http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/faraday/lect4.html
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Hydrochloric_acid


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## lazersteve

All,

On the subject of buying HCl, today a terror suspect was arrested in the US. They found he was using HCl to make a bomb or something (I don't know the details) of some sort. 

I heard on the news tonight the government is now going to add HCl to it's watched chemical list! Making HCl may become yet another hurdle for hobby refiners and swimming pool owners!! :lol: 

Steve


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## butcher

home brew HCl
table salt and sulfuric acid to make muratic acid 
2NaCL + H2SO4 --> Na2SO4 + 2HCl
(HCl gas if no water was involved),
2 NaCl (table salt),
2 Na --- 2 x 23 g/mol = 46g/mol (sodium),
2 Cl --- 2 x 35 g/mol = 70 g/mol (clorine),
(46+70) = 116g/mol (2 table salt),
plus,
H2SO4 (sulfuric acid),
2 H --- 2 x 1 = 2g/mol (hydrogen),
S ---32g/mol (sulfur),
4 O ---4 x 16 = 64g/mol (oxygen),
(2+32+64)=98g/mol (sulfuric acid),

so 116g/mol table salt reacts with 98g/mol sulfuric acid on left side of arrow,
---------->
now for our products on the right side of arrow,
Na2SO4 (sodium sulfate),
Na2 -- 2 x 23 + 46g/mol (sodium),
S --32g/mol (sulfur),
O4 -- 4 x 16 = 64g/mol (oxygen),
(46+32+64) = 142g/mol (sodium sulfate),
plus, 
2HCl (hydrogen chloride) gas if no water involved,
2H --- 2 x 1 = 2g/mol (hydrogen),
2Cl --- 2 x 35 = 70g/mol ( chlorine),
(2 + 70) = 72g/mol (2 HCl gas)
so our products on right side of arrow is 142g/mol of sodium sulfate and 72g/mol of hydrogenchloride gas if no water was added in equation,

some water would be there and how much we used can be another story, if we had alot of water the HCL (mixed like muratic acid) up to the azeotrope of the solution (I'm not sure but 20% seems familiar I may be wrong here?),HCL would be in this water solution and the sodium sulfate will be a precipitant at bottom of this, chilling may help to get most of it to settle out, for processes that the sulfate which may stay in solution this would be all you needed, but for others distilling would leave all the salt behind in reaction vessel. and running gas through water by bubbling would give you a pretty pure muratic acid (if dilute can be concentrated to azeotrope, if too concentrated will have excess HCL gas leave water solution),

Now forgive me if there are any mistakes in this as I have never had a chemistry class and could not even read when I got out of school, so my math and chemistry is not the one to learn from.and I hope I did not mess this up to bad.I'm just learning too. :lol:


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## teclu

butcher said:


> home brew HCl
> table salt and sulfuric acid to make muratic acid
> 2NaCL + H2SO4 --> Na2SO4 + 2HCl
> (HCl gas if no water was involved),
> 2 NaCl (table salt),
> 2 Na --- 2 x 23 g/mol = 46g/mol (sodium),
> 2 Cl --- 2 x 35 g/mol = 70 g/mol (clorine),
> (46+70) = 116g/mol (2 table salt),
> plus,
> H2SO4 (sulfuric acid),
> 2 H --- 2 x 1 = 2g/mol (hydrogen),
> S ---32g/mol (sulfur),
> 4 O ---4 x 16 = 64g/mol (oxygen),
> (2+32+64)=98g/mol (sulfuric acid),
> 
> so 116g/mol table salt reacts with 98g/mol sulfuric acid on left side of arrow,
> ---------->
> now for our products on the right side of arrow,
> Na2SO4 (sodium sulfate),
> Na2 -- 2 x 23 + 46g/mol (sodium),
> S --32g/mol (sulfur),
> O4 -- 4 x 16 = 64g/mol (oxygen),
> (46+32+64) = 142g/mol (sodium sulfate),
> plus,
> 2HCl (hydrogen chloride) gas if no water involved,
> 2H --- 2 x 1 = 2g/mol (hydrogen),
> 2Cl --- 2 x 35 = 70g/mol ( chlorine),
> (2 + 70) = 72g/mol (2 HCl gas)
> so our products on right side of arrow is 142g/mol of sodium sulfate and 72g/mol of hydrogenchloride gas if no water was added in equation,
> 
> some water would be there and how much we used can be another story, if we had alot of water the HCL (mixed like muratic acid) up to the azeotrope of the solution (I'm not sure but 20% seems familiar I may be wrong here?),HCL would be in this water solution and the sodium sulfate will be a precipitant at bottom of this, chilling may help to get most of it to settle out, for processes that the sulfate which may stay in solution this would be all you needed, but for others distilling would leave all the salt behind in reaction vessel. and running gas through water by bubbling would give you a pretty pure muratic acid (if dilute can be concentrated to azeotrope, if too concentrated will have excess HCL gas leave water solution),
> 
> Now forgive me if there are any mistakes in this as I have never had a chemistry class and could not even read when I got out of school, so my math and chemistry is not the one to learn from.and I hope I did not mess this up to bad.I'm just learning too. :lol:





Now really thank you Butcher, I don't want to produce HCl on industrial scale, but does not hurt to learn from people with your experience more about chemistry and about the chemicals I work with...

teclu


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## Westerlund

Hello All, 

I am a new member. 
This thread is interesting to me because I use lead-bearing enamels on silver.
Most of the time I refine my own silver, but now I am not sure as some of it is contaminated with lead-bearing enamel. Reading the responses to the original question, I think that I am safe if I just dissolve the silver in nitric acid. It will also dissolve the lead. There can be other elements in the enamel like cadmium, selenium, arsenic, I am not sure where this will lead to. 

As for refining silver, I find it cumbersome. It is a lot of work and there is always a loss. I find refining silver more difficult than refining gold. Most of the time, I do not use aqua regia. I inquartate the gold with copper, then use nitric acid. It gives 995 gold. When I alloy, I add 5 parts more gold than normal (755 for 18K for example). I find this much more easy than to take the extra step with aqua regia. 

Thanks for reading. 

Dordi Westerlund


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## au-artifax

This may be a little late, but here is a good way to get rid of lead, then continue using your acid until it is no longer and acid.

Take whatever it is you are trying to dissolve the lead off of and put in in a reaction vessel/flask. Pour in around 500ml full strength HCl (31%) and let it simmer (bubbling but not a full boil) for 30 to 60 minutes. You will notice the acid will stay clear and a grey powder forming on the bottom. You won't see any dissolved lead, or lead salts yet. 

Next, turn off the heat and immediately pour in a liter of H2O. Immediately the solution turns completely white and it resembles the cottage cheese appearance you get from precipitating silver chloride, but it settles very very quickly. That is your lead salt. It will be slightly grayish due to minute amounts of elemental lead, silver, and other base metals, but it is not even enough to worry about; it is waste material. Swirl it around and pour it into a separate container. Even after you decant the water, you can add more water and you will get more white precipitate, until all the grey powder material is just about gone (don't add your second wash to the first... it will dilute the first solution you poured out and can immediately reclaim).
Now because the lead chloride settles so quickly, it takes about 60 seconds until you can add the (now diluted) weak acid solution (from the first time you poured out the solution) back into the vessel to continue working. Now you can turn up the heat a little and maybe eve get rid of more lead.

And as a quick afterthought, make sure to dispose of your waste materials correctly, especially if it contains lead. I recommend converting any chloride metal salts to oxides for safe disposal.
It is actually very cool to watch!!!


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## Toggle

Hot concentrated muriatic may work but it's hard to live with the fumes.


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