MSDS Liquid Fire

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My local hardware store had liquid fire, for 17.00 a gallon, seems a price
I can handle. But I can not find an MSDS on it does anyone have a link
or know if there is any other junk in it? Bottle says concentrated sulfuric nothing about buffers or anything, just the standard warnings of acid dangers, water, etc.

thanks,

Jim
 
Do you think this would work (liquid fire)for making the nitric acid using
the cold process discribed within this forum? I would like to use
it as it is cheaper for me than battery acid and already concentrated.
The only other stuff I could find at the hardware store was rooto
and it stated on the bottle 12 buffers - with no idea of what they are
seems only 2 ingredients in liquid fire may not be too bad.

If battery acid produces results that are worth the extra effort I would
be willing to do that also, please let me know.

This is what I am planning on processing, I have 4 lbs of electrical contacts from breakers, relays, main disconnects, motor starters, etc. I have them sorted by manufacturer, amperage and device type (special attentions to relays as I think they may contain Pd) all others should just be Ag alloys with various amounts of Cu or CdO. I have seperated any with a density above 12.0 because I do not know why it would be above that but I do have about 3/4 of a lb that are, any ideas?

thanks,

Jim

Merry Christmas
 
Hi James:
If your density measurement is right (12), I sure would process them separately. Silver density is 10.49. Palladium =12.02.

Some silver contacts may have a small amount of gold, which would bring up the density. But its a tough call to decide how to separate. You must have a very accurate scale and volumetric measurements.

The only Palladium points I ever saw where small slivers on miniature relays.

Al
 
I was kinda figuring the heavy ones were something like that, I recall have herd of it before. My relays are from a chemical evironment they contain high values of Pd and Pt, I just havent figured out how to get the pms out of them yet. My company pays 256.00 each for them new and you could easily fit 2 or 3 of them in the palm of your hand. The terminal attachment contacts are heavy plated gold for the thermocouple type r and Pd for the power & arc quence leads. Lots of them little blue surface mount caps some that are black, and 4 small enclosed relayw with 300,000 life cycle gaurantee.

Jim
 
Looks like you have contact with a lot of valuable scrap.

If you are new to refining, I would suggest starting with a easy process, first.
Like maybe doing the Silver contacts and saving all the other precips. Then when you get the experience try Gold processes.

I would save the Pt group until last, and not do it until you have experience and know exactly what methods you want to use. You need some lab equipment and a place to work. Platinum Group processes are among the most difficult and most valuable. Its easy to lose a lot of values. High prices are here to stay and you don`t have to be in a hurry.

Identify the Tungsten and separate that. I think, you don`t want to refine that. It is valuable as is. So there are places you can sell it.

Al
 
Yes, I get this stuff all of the time, I am an electrician and HVAC/R & commercial kitchen equipment repair tech. I only wish I could get the other guys in the company to save the stuff they pitch out for me.
But my area is separated from thiers and we are all too busy.

I was just going to try and just get the silver and let all of the other
stuff that does not dissolve go into a safe place till later. I do for the most part only have silver, the other high grade stuff is from saving for a long time as they are very, very, reliable.

Jim
 
eagle2,

I've run many tons of palladium point scrap. When the telephone switching offices and large plant facilities went from relays to digital, there were millions of pounds of pure Pd contact relays coming into the scrap market. This stuff is still out there. A few years ago, I discovered about 5000# installed in the attic of a 750,000 Sq ft manufacturing plant.

Palladium points are usually about 1/8 long, and skinny. They are gray/silver and usually are tapered on the edges. The cross section kinda looks like half a hexagon or octagon. They have a nickel backing and this is attached to a copper-base blade or wire.

We once ran a 50,000# batch of this material. This gross weight included the shelving, relays, sockets, wiring, and everything else. It took 2 men, 2 months, in and out the door. We pulled the relays, learned how to disassemble them, and cut close to the points with a small, reciprocating alligator shear. At today's prices, the batch would be worth about $6/gross pound, in palladium. There's also lots of copper.

Instead of dissolving everything in the clipped point and dropping the Pd, I decided to selectively dissolve the nickel and the copper base, leaving the very pure palladium untouched. I found that a very dangerous (maybe, the most dangerous combination of chemicals I have known), hot, very strong solution of chromic acid and sulfuric acid dissolved the copper-base (with great relish and foam!) and nothing else - please don't try this at home - the problem is, what do you put it in, that won't break or be attacked - iron or steel might work. The nickel backing was then dissolved in hot full-strength muriatic acid. The result was a very pure Pd - with no loses - sold very close to spot. We didn't even melt it. We got top dollar in point form.

If a precious metal, especially when pure, is layered onto base metals, it often pays to dissolve the base metals away from the PM, rather than dissolve everything. In the case of the Pd points, I would wager the Pd would lose purity if you, the reader, were to attempt to refine them. It's already pure - don't mess with it!

Most, but not all, telephone relays are just like other plastic box relays, except they are long and skinny and, instead of short blades, the points are mounted on long, round wires. They are called "wire relays."

More rarely, pure Pd points are used for other applications. In every case that I have seen, however, they all looked the same.
 
I have developed a few acids that use either chromic acid or a dichromate to act as an inhibitor towards the dissolving of certain metals. In this case, it allows the copper to be dissolved, but inhibits the attack on nickel and palladium. Lots of trial and error to find the right combo. There were hints, however, in the literature.
 
Hi GSP and Jim.

Thank You for all the info.

Wow. Wish I could run into stuff like that. 25 years ago, I used to bid on DOD sealed auctions and then go to different Bases for pickup. That way I ran into varied scrap. Yes, the Pd points you describe are the same as what I have seen. I have long since cut them off, but never processed them, except for a few to experiment on.

I never knew the points were pure. I dissolved a few with AR, converted to Chlorides, got rid of most of the Copper by moving the PH to 6-7, then back to 3-4 and dropped out the Pd with Dimethylgloxime. It was only to prove what I had, because I had had no idea I was dealing with Pd. I thought it might be Pt. I knew I had some Nickel in there, because the yellow precip. had a touch of red.

The Chromic mixtures give us something to think about.

But what do you think about using the Hcl-Cupric-Peroxide method? That will dissolve away the copper, iron, Tin, and I think the nickel, also. Pd is not mentioned in my EMF series. I would guess that its below Copper and would not be dissolved by the process.

Al
 
Al,

I have successfully dissolved Pd with AP (no copper) many times.

The Pd you see on my website videos was all dissolved using AP only.

The source material in the videos was monolithic capacitors which contained nickel, tin, titanium dioxide, barium titanate, Pd, and some Pt.

The Pt was not attacked by the AP, but the experiments were not heated.

As with AR, if your scrap contains a large percentage of base metals as compared to PMs you will have to get the base metals into solution before it starts eating away the PMs.

For this reason I always try to remove all the base metals before going for the PMs.

Steve
 
I have built a small rotory grinder to make the contacts a metallic powder and allow me to process 1 gram at a time as a samlpe and I am going to process 1gr of each type, size, application and manufacturers contactor pad then I will know what each has. I am not however going to mess with the ones that I know for a fact contain PGM at this time they will remain for stock pyle and experience to grow. Even though I pretty much understand what everyone has said, and many years ago had a couple of years of chemistry, I will wait for them, as I am in no hurry. I do need to process the regular stuff to check for Au content because some of the pad to have a yellowish color to them and I am still worried that some of the silver ones may be alloyed with Pd as they have a grayish color as compared to the white silver color of silver and the densities run 11 - 11.5 these one concern me because everything I have seen so far that dissolves silver also dissolves Pd. If I dissolve it all and then add pure silver and it has Pd will the silver it cement out? I have several oz of 999 silver available.

jim
 
Jim,

Adding non-iodized salt or muriatic acid to the solution of Silver and Palldium should drop the Silver as Silver chloride.

Silver chloride can be converted back to native silver via dilute sulfuric acid and metallic iron, zinc, or aluminum.

If you were using a solvent which contains chlorine to begin with, the silver would have already combined to make silver chloride and would not be in the solution anyway. Silver chloride is only slightly soluble in acid.

Steve
 
goldsilverpro said:
I have developed a few acids that use either chromic acid or a dichromate to act as an inhibitor towards the dissolving of certain metals. In this case, it allows the copper to be dissolved, but inhibits the attack on nickel and palladium. Lots of trial and error to find the right combo. There were hints, however, in the literature.

Besides being very corrosive, they are very toxic and some are known carcinogens. The EPA will come down hard on Chromium pollution.

A scratch on the skin will form ulcers that take moths to heal when exposed to chromates. I speak from first-hand experience there.

Don't pour chromium salts down the drain. You may get a very unfriendly visit from the local DEP.
 
Just because you use a toxic chemical, it doesn't mean that you will pollute. It is usually very easy, if you know what you're doing, to totally not pollute. All it takes is knowledge, ingenuity, and, maybe, a few bucks.

I spent about 10 years in the plating industry in the '60's and '70's. For about 4 of those years, I spent a lot of time traveling around, designing and troubleshooting our some 1500 customer's plating facilities. I was in 100's of plating shops. Most had very large tanks of such things as 40 oz/gal chromic acid, chrome plating solutions or 10 oz/gal sodium cyanide, copper plating solutions - on opposite sides of the room, of course! Some tanks were as large as 5000 gallons. There were many 100's of plating shops in L.A., at the time. Most were manned with smart Mexican workers.

The point is, in 10 years, I only heard of 2 or 3 accidents. I don't even remember anyone getting sick. People were immediately trained how to work around this stuff, safely. There was adequate equipment to eliminate hazards. The equipment was designed for safety. If any industry has mastery over the proper use and disposal of some of the nastiest chemicals on Earth, it's the plating industry.

You can work safely and responsibly with any chemical, if you know it inside and out.
 
I have a question since you guys are talking
about chromates. I found a reagent bottle
that is labeled Nuetral Potassic Chromate
that the top is stuck on and is almost full.
It is a clear glass with glass stopper like
acid bottles.
I tried looking it up, and found that is a
cancer causing solution, but no real info
on what is is and what it was used for.
I didn't want to risk spilling it by trying
to remove the top. Anybody have any
safety precautions I need to know about
this stuff? Thanks. Jim
 
goldsilverpro said:
Just because you use a toxic chemical, it doesn't mean that you will pollute. It is usually very easy, if you know what you're doing, to totally not pollute. All it takes is knowledge, ingenuity, and, maybe, a few bucks.

I spent about 10 years in the plating industry in the '60's and '70's. For about 4 of those years, I spent a lot of time traveling around, designing and troubleshooting our some 1500 customer's plating facilities. I was in 100's of plating shops. Most had very large tanks of such things as 40 oz/gal chromic acid, chrome plating solutions or 10 oz/gal sodium cyanide, copper plating solutions - on opposite sides of the room, of course! Some tanks were as large as 5000 gallons. There were many 100's of plating shops in L.A., at the time. Most were manned with smart Mexican workers.

The point is, in 10 years, I only heard of 2 or 3 accidents. I don't even remember anyone getting sick. People were immediately trained how to work around this stuff, safely. There was adequate equipment to eliminate hazards. The equipment was designed for safety. If any industry has mastery over the proper use and disposal of some of the nastiest chemicals on Earth, it's the plating industry.

You can work safely and responsibly with any chemical, if you know it inside and out.

I have no doubt that you are quite capable in handling chemicals safely, but there are those who frequent this site who are not aware of the dangers involved in handling Chromium and other toxic metal compounds. To even mention their use is an implicit recommentation unless the potential hazards are noted. Many jurisdiction have codes regulating the use of Chromium salts and other toxic materials. To use them without the proper permits and zoning could leave one open to financial and legal liability.
A caveat was my intention.
Chromates are capable of passivating certain metals such as Lead and retard their going into solution. It's not a technique for those unskilled in the arts.
 

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