Cheap clay crucibles

[goldshark]

I noticed many Indonesian E-waste recyclers use smelting process with cheap clay crucibles, they use this kind of crucibles only one time, then they break it to get metal button for further processing.

I found this video talking about same crucibles producing.



I tried to understand what they exactly use for the crucible recipe by YouTube translator, I noticed that they only use clay from agriculture rices fields (as read by YouTube translator)

Anybody have any idea about what they exactly use to make this kind of crucibles? Can we just smelt E-waste using normal pottery clay?

Here another video I shared before for e-waste smelting using same crucibles.

Clays are a very fine component of aggregates, usually in the silt class of how fine it is. The clay is a product of various Feldspar decomposition. What you look for is the Alumina quantity. Clays will vary in their Alumina content, so every pottery clay is a little different, depending on its source. A good melting crucible will have on the order of 60% Alumina, 35% Silica, 5% other minor components. There are a variety of crucible compositions available, depending on what metals, temperatures, and fluxes are required. There is a paper put out by the US Bureau of Mines, giving various compositions for your specific requirements. Try this link https://wwwosti.gov/servlets/purl4389738 . Crucibles have a set order for drying and firing, and tempering. A little too involved for a quick reply, as books have been written on this subject.
The burners appear to be either diesel, or waste oil ( very cheap to run ) thinned down with diesel or gasoline. Oil has a couple times the BTU content of gasoline, and slightly more than diesel. The fuel is generally put in a pressure rated tank, propelled by the compressed air, then sprayed through an atomizing nozzle. An oil filter is a good idea to filter out nozzle plugging particles.

 

[Ayham Hafez]

Clays are a very fine component of aggregates, usually in the silt class of how fine it is. The clay is a product of various Feldspar decomposition. What you look for is the Alumina quantity. Clays will vary in their Alumina content, so every pottery clay is a little different, depending on its source. A good melting crucible will have on the order of 60% Alumina, 35% Silica, 5% other minor components. There are a variety of crucible compositions available, depending on what metals, temperatures, and fluxes are required. There is a paper put out by the US Bureau of Mines, giving various compositions for your specific requirements. Try this link https://wwwosti.gov/servlets/purl4389738 . Crucibles have a set order for drying and firing, and tempering. A little too involved for a quick reply, as books have been written on this subject.
The burners appear to be either diesel, or waste oil ( very cheap to run ) thinned down with diesel or gasoline. Oil has a couple times the BTU content of gasoline, and slightly more than diesel. The fuel is generally put in a pressure rated tank, propelled by the compressed air, then sprayed through an atomizing nozzle. An oil filter is a good idea to filter out nozzle plugging particles.

The link you shared is not work.

I only need to make a crucible to be used for only one time, it must be cheap, will try the method of Ultrax to see if I can use the local pottery clay to make a one time smelting crucible (maybe after 1 month cause am in vacation)

Regard the fuel they used in the video its diesel as they already told me.

 

[Ayham Hafez]

Here another video that really simplify E-waste smelting, just portland cement with some and air blower. No Furnace No Crucibles

 

[Ultrax]

Incase I dissolved calcium carbonate in 1 liter HCl till it stopped fizzing, then filtrate the calcium chloride solution, how much water I can add to the filtered solution to make the proper concentration to soak crucibles into it? And how much time needed for soaking? Can I use similar solution different times for soaking different crucibles?

You need saturated solution of CaCl₂.
Calculate reaction you need 74 gr of Calcium chloride per liter of water.
Or just buy dry CaCl₂ and prepare the solution.

 

[goldshark]

The link you shared is not work.

I only need to make a crucible to be used for only one time, it must be cheap, will try the method of Ultrax to see if I can use the local pottery clay to make a one time smelting crucible (maybe after 1 month cause am in vacation)

Regard the fuel they used in the video its diesel as they already told me.

Try https://wwwosti.gov , then scroll down down to crucibles. You may have to go to google, then enter into the search. Don't know why it doesn't highlight.