# Waste products and their uses as household chemicals



## lazersteve (Oct 14, 2007)

All,

I'm with GSP on this whole waste disposal thing. I for one am very concerned that any one of you is indiscretely disposing of the hazardous by products from the methods mentioned on this forum. 

I'm not a full blown tree hugger, but I sincerely care about our children's future on this planet.

I'm also very concerned about the legal ramifications of the improper disposal of these wastes.

In an effort to do my part in helping everyone here, including myself, I have began to assemble a list of household uses for the by products of our refining efforts. In some cases this will require us to convert the wastes into a useful form to be used in a responsible manner. Of course, not all by products will easily lend themselves to this mentality.

My first reference to will be to a government sponsored database that I reference regularly in my chemical endeavors, The *Household Products Chemical Database* found here:

Household Chemicals Database

I have linked you to the Ingredients search page so you can bookmark it and search for yourselves on any chemical in which you are interested in the household uses and safety data.

The first by product I have identified is Copper Sulfate. This is a by product of the electrolytic cell reaction and has legitimate uses in it's pure form as listed in the database here:

Copper Sulfate, pentahydrate

Please study the Sections on Health, Toxicity, and Chemical information carefully before utilizing this by product as mentioned in the database. Also be sure to check the manufactures recommend application methods, safety, and usage limits before hand.

This does not mean that you can dump as much of this chemical you desire. Be responsible and use the by product accordingly as outlined in the database. Who knows maybe there is an industrial market for some of the by products? :idea: 

I encourage every member to post information on this subject whenever possible.

Be Safe and Responsible,

Steve


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## goldsilverpro (Oct 14, 2007)

No offense, Steve, but I think you're dreaming about finding uses for any of this waste. It's noble but not realistic. It's pie-in-the-sky. I've been through this before. Take the copper sulfate, bluestone, as an example. In the cell, you're also going to always have nickel sulfate mixed with it, from the nickel plating underneath the gold. What do you do with that? In most all refining solutions, there will most always be mixed metals. The costs and efforts of separating these metals would surely outweigh the costs of preparing it for legal disposal.

If we were big companies, and were doing only one specific type of scrap with limited waste types, I might agree with you. We, however, end up with a myriad of different types of wastes and most all are very chemically complex. We are also small generators and selling small quantities of any chemical is difficult. Also, in order to purify these chemicals for reuse or sale, it would require processes that would generate new and different kinds of waste.

I know you mean well and I don't disagree with you very often but, in this case, I must make a stand. I think your post will give false hope to the members. I think we should concentrate our efforts in preparing all this stuff for legal disposal. That's the number one priority.


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## lazersteve (Oct 14, 2007)

GSP,

You are 100% right, but the site is helpful with the toxicity information. It also discloses EPA recommendations for disposal if available.

It's still within reason to think that by converting the by products to a more benign form, they may have a legal and legitimate uses.

My overall point is that we should all pitch in to identify exactly what to legally do with the by products of every reaction.

Steve


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## goldsilverpro (Oct 14, 2007)

I certainly agree, Steve. It is an excellent website. I didn't check it before I posted.

In the'80's, I knew of a medium sized refinery, in California, that generated about 1000 gallons of acid waste a month. Somehow, they found out that oil well companies were interested in this type waste for, somehow, flushing oil wells??? They, of course, gave it to them at no charge. They picked it up every few months. I have also heard of this being done in Texas.


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## aflacglobal (Oct 14, 2007)

If we were big companies, and were doing only one specific type of scrap with limited waste types, I might agree with you. We, however, end up with a myriad of different types of wastes and most all are very chemically complex

Yah that is the killer. No simple cheap effective method for removal on a small scale. Yet. lol To many complex issues when you have that many metals in the same mix. If it was just one it would be to easy. Say a platter just doing etching of boards you would know what’s there. Dummy cell.

With multiple feed sources you have foreign substances that interfere with the separation of various groups. If you could drop it all out at once you would still have nothing more than a group of mixed up materials, still in need of further refining and processing which would lead to added processing cost. Now for a company doing 50,000 lbs a day it might be feasible. I'm with Steve though in his thinking. I just haven't got it figured out yet. That’s right, Yet.  
The hamster told me about a idea the other night i need to check on.


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## Irons (Oct 15, 2007)

Finding uses for the waste stream is important.

I try to use Potassium salts whenever possible because plants metabolize them and Sodium builds up making clay and combining with the Chloride ion to make salt.
After I clean up my solutions, all that's left is a mix of Potassium, Calcium and Sodium Nitrates, sulphates and carbonates. I dilute it and spread it on an area that is not a good garden area but grows weeds and grass like crazy. I then mow the area and mulch the clippings in my Garden.

Everyone loves my veggies and they grow and produce much better than using chemical fertilizers.

I hate Chlorine. I avoid it as much as possible. I have some recovered Gold that I just finished that has never seen Chlorine. It has a couple of percent PGMs but I have a market for Native Gold and by doing it this way, all I do is remove contaminants so that it's castable.


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## donald236 (Feb 28, 2008)

im not trying to get off the subject of the matter of waste disposle , but i am very new at this whole thing and im wandering how does everybody 
get rid of there waste chemicals after the refining processes and the chemicals are no good any more for refining?


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## mike677 (Feb 20, 2011)

Hey Lazer Steve, I want to do the right thing with my waste too. After refining some silver via nitric acid, salt, lye, dextrose method, I neutralized the waste water/nitric acid with baking soda. 5 gallons of waste water/nitric acid took about 5lbs. of baking soda before it stopped fizzing. I want to be confident that I can now dispose of the solution in the sewage system without it being harmful to the environment. What are your thoughts?


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## mike677 (Feb 20, 2011)

mike677 said:


> Hey Lazer Steve, I want to do the right thing with my waste too. After refining some silver via nitric acid, salt, lye, dextrose method, I neutralized the waste water/nitric acid with baking soda. 5 gallons of waste water/nitric acid took about 5lbs. of baking soda before it stopped fizzing. I want to be confident that I can now dispose of the solution in the sewage system without it being harmful to the environment. What are your thoughts?



A journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.


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## lazersteve (Feb 20, 2011)

mike677 said:


> Hey Lazer Steve, I want to do the right thing with my waste too. After refining some silver via nitric acid, salt, lye, dextrose method, I neutralized the waste water/nitric acid with baking soda. 5 gallons of waste water/nitric acid took about 5lbs. of baking soda before it stopped fizzing. I want to be confident that I can now dispose of the solution in the sewage system without it being harmful to the environment. What are your thoughts?



If your waste solution was blue (copper nitrate) after the salt was added and the silver removed you could have reused the acid by dehydrating and using the sodium/copper nitrate solution as an electrolyte to dissolve sterling silver.

Search the forum for copper nitrate cell.

Now that you have neutralized it you have sodium nitrate and copper hydroxide if you used lye. You can filter the copper hydroxide out of the clear solution and use the solution to make more nitric acid.

NaCl + AgNO3 + Cu(NO3)2 --> NaNO3 + AgCl + Cu(NO3)2
2NaOH + Cu(NO3)2 + NaNO3 --> Cu(OH)2 + 3NaNO3

Steve


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## mike677 (Feb 20, 2011)

Thanks Steve.
But search results returned nothing on a copper nitrate cell and frankly I am afraid it would be over my head anyway. Filtering the waste solution for reuse sounds difficult too, but I am definitely willing to do it for economical as well as environmentally friendly reasons. In any event, if I feel it is too involved, can you confirm that my neutralized solution should be OK to dispose of in the sewer system? Also, (and I don't know if this will have anything to do with your answer), when the lye was added to the precipitated silver/salt solution, it turned a light reddish brown color which was not like your video. Thanks again.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Feb 20, 2011)

mike677 said:


> Thanks Steve.
> But search results returned nothing on a copper nitrate cell and frankly I am afraid it would be over my head anyway. Filtering the waste solution for reuse sounds difficult too, but I am definitely willing to do it for economical as well as environmentally friendly reasons. In any event, if I feel it is too involved, can you confirm that my neutralized solution should be OK to dispose of in the sewer system? Also, (and I don't know if this will have anything to do with your answer), when the lye was added to the precipitated silver/salt solution, it turned a light reddish brown color which was not like your video. Thanks again.



The redish brown should be your copper dropping out of solution. Once that settles your solution should be clear. You can get some PH test strip's, a PH meter, or a pool test kit and test your PH. If it is around 7 you should be ok to dump it.


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## mike677 (Feb 20, 2011)

No, I am talking about the white mud after it had already been precipitated and dried. After pouring distilled water over the top of the dry mud, I added
the lye and the mud turned the reddish brown color. After adding the corn syrup, it still was reddish brown. Even though this happened, I continued the process. After the mud dried, I melted it and it did turn into silver metal though.


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## goldnugget77 (Feb 20, 2011)

Hi Steve
This is a very good thread you started 
If I can spend bit of time to reuse a solution than I will do that regardless of the cost factor.



> Now that you have neutralized it you have sodium nitrate and copper hydroxide if you used lye. You can filter the copper hydroxide out of the clear solution and use the solution to make more nitric acid.


Lets say you have lye ,nitric fumes ,hcl fumes mixed with water.
This is from the usual reactions with silver and gold
What can be done here to reuse this stuff.

Also I visited those 2 links and I couldn't figure out how to use it.
I typed copper nitrate in the search box and there was no result


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## mike677 (Feb 20, 2011)

By the way, I forgot to mention this: My waste water was light blue but when I added the baking soda it turned a deep dark blue.


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## goldnugget77 (Feb 20, 2011)

Hi Irons can you explain this so that it is easier to understand my non chemists
Thanks



> I try to use Potassium salts whenever possible because plants metabolize them and Sodium builds up making clay and combining with the Chloride ion to make salt.
> After I clean up my solutions, all that's left is a mix of Potassium, Calcium and Sodium Nitrates, sulphates and carbonates. I dilute it and spread it on an area that is not a good garden area but grows weeds and grass like crazy. I then mow the area and mulch the clippings in my Garden.


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## lazersteve (Feb 20, 2011)

mike677 said:


> By the way, I forgot to mention this: My waste water was light blue but when I added the baking soda it turned a deep dark blue.



*This post pertains only to waste copper nitrate solutions generated from dissolving 925 sterling silver with nitric acid or from inquarting reaction where silver was used to inquart the karat gold scrap.* With waste solutions from scrap karat gold there will be some side reactions also due to small amounts of other base metals besides copper found in karat gold.

You used baking soda so the reaction is a bit different. The one I originally quoted above is a clean copper nitrate solution plus lye (sodium hydroxide). It is understood that you have already removed the silver chloride as it contains the valuable silver.

Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and copper nitrate gives sodium nitrate and copper hydroxide and carbon dioxide:

2NaCO3H + Cu(NO3)2 --> 2NaNO3 + Cu(OH)2 + 2CO2

The Copper hydroxide is a pale blue gelatinous substance. The blue compound *must be* filtered out of the solution before the liquid is safe to dispose of. The blue/green compound should be saved for use in making Copper Chloride etch (aka Acid Peroxide) without needing peroxide:

Cu(OH)2 + 2HCl --> CuCl2 + 2H2O

The liquid should be clear and can be dehydrated until crystals form and then used in any of the poorman's recipes needing sodium nitrate.

The reddish brown color sounds like an iron compound to me. If your waste solution originated from sources other than dissolving silver you will have other base metals in the mix that will produce other side reaction and mixed products. 

Baking soda with HCl gives table Salt:

NaCO3H + HCl --> NaCl + CO2 + H2O

Baking Soda with Copper II Chloride gives:

2NaCO3H + CuCl2 --> 2NaCl + Cu(OH)2 + CO2

All of the above reactions assume you are monitoring the pH of the solution and add your base (baking soda) until the pH is 7. *Excess baking soda changes the equations and the products of the reactions.*

Knowledge of these types of reactions are instrumental in developing an environmentally conscience closed loop recovery and refining process.

If you choose to recover the copper as a metal from the waste solution you can follow the threads that 4Metals and myself have posted elsewhere on the forum about the subject. These other threads do not consider recycling the by products of the waste and are only concerned with preparing the waste for proper disposal.

To quote Irons: "Everything but the squeal."

Be safe and responsible,

Steve


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## NobleMetalsRecovery (Feb 21, 2011)

I want to ask a question in good faith. I am in the scrap metal business. I make multiple trips to a local scrap metal yard. Some of the items that they accept and pay for really surprises me. They pay for metal with as much as 25% or more of wood or plastic. For example, if I sell an office chair as scrap metal, only a small part of it is metal. The rest is wood (particle board with formaldehyde) and plastic ( toxic fumes when burned), and they still pay me 10 cents a pound for the whole chair. They get in old furnaces, hot water tanks, dish washers, microwave ovens (which are not acceptable but end up there anyway), old piping from large industrial operations (who knows what could be in those pipes?),and antique farm equipment that could any number of chemicals caked on it, plus complete automobiles. Think of what's in an automobile when it's scrapped. You have oil, antifreeze, mercury, lead, computer circuit boards, chrome, brake shoes, and whatever chemicals have ever been put in the engine. There is no doubt in my mind that every toxic metal imaginable is ending up in the mix. It is all heading to a large shredder, and from there to a large furnace. What I wonder is how would the small amount of waste chemicals we generate have any real impact on an operation of such a large scale. We're talking of thousands if not millions of tons of scrap metal. The furnaces that melt these metals would have every imaginable toxic fume possible. They must have scrubbers to deal with these fumes. If our waste stream was incrementally feed into the waste metal stream, would it even be noticed? I'm not suggesting it would be legal, but I am questioning if it would even make a dent on the environment?


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## golddie (Feb 21, 2011)

> Lets say you have lye ,nitric fumes ,hcl fumes mixed with water.
> This is from the usual reactions with silver and gold


I am thinking about processing some silver polishing waste with this kind of solution 
What do you folks think of that


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## lazersteve (Feb 21, 2011)

golddie said:


> Lets say you have lye ,nitric fumes ,hcl fumes mixed with water.
> This is from the usual reactions with silver and gold



This all results in a mixture of the reactions listed below:

Lye (NaOH), Nitric Acid and Fumes (HNO3 + NOx = NO & NO2), Muriatic Acid fumes (HCl & Cl2), and Water (H2O).

The nitric components:
2 NO + O2 (in air/ by products listed below) → 2 NO2

3 NO2 + H2O → NO + 2HNO3

HNO3 + NaOH → NaNO3 + H2O

The muriatic components:
Cl2 + H2O<=> HCl + HClO (hypochlorous acid)

Cl2 + 2NaOH → NaOCl (sodium hypochlorite: aka bleach) + NaCl + H2O

HCl + NaOH → NaCl + H2O

2 HClO → 2 HCl + O2 

HOCl + HCl → Cl2 + H2O (chlorine water)

With mixed compounds in the reactions it's near impossible to write formulas for all of the reactions taking place. The above reactions are just some of what you may expect to see. Temperature, pH, illumination, and concentration play a role in the equilibrium of the reactions, especially those involving chlorine and NOx.

Steve


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## golddie (Feb 21, 2011)

Hi Steve 
That is very detailed answer that I will have to study and do some testing and will post the results
Thanks very much


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## mike677 (Feb 21, 2011)

Thanks Steve, but I am still confused. if the nitric acid was neutralized, doesn't that mean that the copper nitrate as well as other dangerous or harmful chemicals were also neutralized?


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## Frankk12 (Feb 22, 2011)

> Lets say you have lye ,nitric fumes ,hcl fumes mixed with water.
> This is from the usual reactions with silver and gold
> 
> 
> ...


I dont think this is good idea because the silver will mix in with all the dirt and will not dissolve the way it should with 
nitric and acid solution
I am not a chemist so dont take my word for it

It might make more sense if you used this solution for gold plated stuff from computers


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## lazersteve (Feb 22, 2011)

mike677 said:


> Thanks Steve, but I am still confused. if the nitric acid was neutralized, doesn't that mean that the copper nitrate as well as other dangerous or harmful chemicals were also neutralized?



The copper nitrate ( Cu(NO3)2 = dark blue solution) becomes the toxic copper hydroxide (Cu(OH)2 = pale blue/green sludge) when baking soda (NaCO3H) is added via:

2NaCO3H + Cu(NO3)2 --> 2NaNO3 + Cu(OH)2 + 2CO2

The clear liquid contains the reusable sodium nitrate salt.

The CO2 is a gas and goes into the air.

Steve


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## golddie (Feb 24, 2011)

The solution in the scrubber with lye in it doesn't look like it can be used for fingers or anything like that.
It looks crystal clear like clean water


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## mike677 (Feb 24, 2011)

Got it Steve . Thanks. I see the greenish sludge in the bottom of my bucket. I have poured the blue liquid through 3 coffee filters and have a medium blue liquid now that appears to be very clean and clear except for the blue color. Am I good to go now?


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## lazersteve (Feb 24, 2011)

If it's still blue, it still has some metals in it.

Try a small sample with a bit more base (bicarb or lye) and and see if you get more of the blue solids.

What is the pH of your solution?

Steve


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## nch (Feb 24, 2011)

I will not let this type of information to people that not know what to do with it! Bether thow, is to make copper sulfate from pure solutions ! It is isee(slow ) to make mistake and spray appel tree, pear tree, chery tree, strawberry...with mixture of nichel, lead, Sn, any other metals.....

Bether to do copper sulfate first time recepis from clean solutions!!! Not from AR , or buy products of refining gold or PGM ....

Many people read this and think whaste products are good for trees! wich is not!

Copper sulfate it is good product against bugs , used with succes! But not Nichel,Sn, Pb, and other stuff! PEOPLE are very slwopy too many times! ( stupid,drunk or distracted ) I included!!!

Numai bine!


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## mike677 (Feb 25, 2011)

Thanks again Steve. I already have quite a bit of lye in the solution and as I said before, there is about 5 lbs. of saturated baking soda in about 10 gallons of diluted nitric acid/distilled water solution. But I will add a bit more and see what happens. I understand now that my goal is to filter until I have almost a clear (not blue) solution.


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## Alentia (Oct 13, 2011)

lazersteve said:


> mike677 said:
> 
> 
> > By the way, I forgot to mention this: My waste water was light blue but when I added the baking soda it turned a deep dark blue.
> ...



Steve,

I had left over Copper Nitrate solution from scrap gold refining and silver removed. When I have added baking soda to neutralize, I have got very light blue salt (looks like) and clear liquid (looks like water). What did I get?

Did I get Sodium Nitrate as salt and Copper Hydroxide as clear liquid?


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## butcher (Oct 14, 2011)

If copper was the only metal in the solution the powders would be copper oxide and hydroxides, (if air dried they can become copper carbonates also),
there would also be a soluble solution of sodium nitrate salt and water, maybe some carbonic acid . the powders would also contain other metals that may have been in solution, depending on ending PH and metals involved the solution could also contain some metal salts.


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