# newbie Q: precipitating from HCl liquor?



## scwiers (Apr 3, 2008)

I need to precipitate values from a test batch of Chloride liquor, after it clears, obtained from crushed electronics components (100 mesh). The batch was already treated w/ HCl 29% and a rinse to remove most base values, but likely some undesirable values are still being dissolved. The liquor extraction was started last night. I used the following recipe in a 5-gal bucket, and will be pouring off and filtering the liquor in a few days.

20 lb. crushed electronic circuit board components, 100 mesh
1-1/2 gal HCl (29%)
1 lb NaCl
1/2 gal boiling H2O
approx. 1 gal NaOCl (5%) bleach; a one-cup shot added to the batch every hour or so; smell of chlorine for sure, but not enough to kill an elephant.

in addition for good measure, I’m bubbling ozonated air through the mixture, using a 2g/hr-rated ozone lamp.

There are plenty of companies that sell metal and organic catalysts for precipitating PMs, like the Premion brand, but I’m wondering if on the cheap I could plate out values using Zn turnings, or even metabisulfite (Na2S2O5).


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## Lino1406 (Apr 3, 2008)

Don't use. Only fine powder.


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## eagle2 (Apr 4, 2008)

Yes, the only thing that will work here is Zinc dust. First you have to evaporate away the Chlorine and most of the HCl.


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## scwiers (Apr 6, 2008)

I took 500 ml of the liquor from this test batch, and started boiling it down in a flask. After it had gone down to 400ml, after a few hours, some reddish jelly formed on the bottom. I'm now filtering it out. Clearly, whatever it is, it's not in a metallic state. I doubt that it's a chloride of Iron, because I've never known rouge to be jelly-like. So the question, save it, or dispose of the filtrate into my waste-sludge drum?

Thanks again
Sam


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## Lino1406 (Apr 6, 2008)

How you do that?


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## eagle2 (Apr 7, 2008)

That`s the problem when you lump all those materials together. Your probably pretty well saturated on the base metals, or you could have fibrous materials or fiberglass mixed in making up the jelly. Many resistors or capacitors are mostly plastic, mylar and ceramics. You could have some or all of your values precipitated in that jelly, or none. 

See if you can redissolve the jelly with water or a slight addition of HCl. Then try Zinc to separate anything of value. 

Al


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## scwiers (Apr 7, 2008)

I'll try to collect more of this brown residue. I'm hoping that it's a chloride of Pt: check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum%28II%29_chloride. If I get some more Zn powder, I'll try precipitating the reconstituted residue that way, too.


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## eagle2 (Apr 8, 2008)

FYI. Aluminum Hydroxide forms a gel with water. Insoluble in water. Soluble again in HCl, H2SO4, with some water. Also soluble in alkaline water solutions. It is generally white. Electrolytic capacators have an aluminum shell. So the brown color may be something else mixed in. Iron makes brown precips above PH 3-5, (depending on its concentration).

Al


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## AuMINIMayhem (Aug 1, 2008)

sounds like you could be on your way to making the building blocks for a nice ruby.. 

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

Rubies are Aluminum Oxide in crystalline form.. although I have no idea how you could get it to form, it'd sure make for a nice experiment (Noxx.. you up for starting the "Artificial Gem Harvesting Community" forums?.. :lol: )


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