Dealing with Waste

[Jmk88]

You can see Dave from the roses that I’m poisoning it all. You know the rose bush right next to my mixing and filtering table. Looks really really really unhealthy doesn’t it?

Almost dead I would say? No?

 

[jimdoc]

You can see Dave from the roses that I’m poisoning it all. You know the rose bush right next to my mixing and filtering table. Looks really really really unhealthy doesn’t it?

Almost dead I would say? No?

Maybe you should start your own forum. You know, only for very very smart people.

 

[Jmk88]

Maybe I should.

I’ll make sure bullying is dealt with swiftly.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

In any case like I said I feel it’s time to bid farewell to the forum.

And yet, you're still here posting.

Trolls try to disrupt, destroy, or change a group, forum, blog, etc. to fit their own agendas.

They post provocative, hostile, or annoying messages. They claim they want to help, but they really only want to cause trouble. They believe their own desires are more important than those of others They often claim to be victims who are treated unfairly. When someone asks them to change their behavior, they'll claim innocence and complain that they are being censored.

Trolls only stay as long they are fed or given attention. So please don't feed the trolls.

Dave

 

[butcher]

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6504209/

Your roses look good but that does not mean the soil around them is not contaminated.

No one ever compared you to a drug dealer, just trying to explain the dangers involved and consequences are similar if you dump toxic waste on your roses, or put toxic waste in your trash bin you can contaminate your soil and your home to the point your land will not be safe for anyone to live on it safely without possible future health risks.

Jmk88.
It is because I would like to help you that I confront you on these matters.
If that is arrogance then so be it.

You are taking it negatively, instead of considering it and using it to learn better and further your study into working more safely, instead of considering the advice or criticism you begin to argue and debate thinking others are just an arrogant closed group of people that are for some reason against you, and they are just full of bull crap or are wrong and have no clue of what they speaking of, while they are trying to help you understand for your own safety, your family's safety and those who live in the same area where you dispose of your waste products.

Sometimes considering--- is helpful before getting upset and becoming argumentive, who knows you may learn that you were wrong or mistaken and can educate yourself better.

You cannot become right until you can realize when you are wrong.

I may not like it when I am wrong or did not fully understand something and then someone points it out to me. But I can enjoy it when I learn I did not know or when someone shows me I am wrong because I cannot be right until I give up my old wrong thinking and learn better.


Arguing and thinking I am right can make me very wrong.
considering I may not be right can help me on my way of becoming right.

Your safety is too important to argue over, your health more important than being right or thinking you are, it is something you should continue to study to become as right as possible...

Calm down my friend we are just trying to help you and others protect ourselves as much as possible from these dangers we have chosen to work with and make these toxic substances as safe as we can before disposal.

 

[Jmk88]

Loooooool.

And bully’s seek compliance without any reason at all. They seek to dominate their fellow man and when unable, they begin to attach character which when the recipient is strong and able enough to withstand, they normally resort to darker mechanisms and ultimately violent means of doing so.

However bully’s rarely have the respect of their fellow man to know them, and therefore lack understanding of their victim who inevitably becomes their enemy. A great Chinese man once said that he who does not know his opposition, Or self, will fall in every battle.

 

[jarlowski1]

Well I can honestly say I am done trying to help this man.... There are those that simply refuse to learn or take advice or criticism and will argue no matter what, and I think this man may be that type. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink...

 

[Jmk88]

Well thanks for all your extensive efforts jarwolkswi I can’t be bothered to retype.

Honestly my man, you have been a huge part of helping me get to where I’ve got and when you’re sitting there with your beer, don’t forget that. It’s me. I’m the one with the problem I’m ungrateful for all your super technical help and guidance along the way.

I’m not getting into this again. You lot have the last word.

I’ll just be posting my results in gallery, I’ll let that do my talking.

But honestly jowski, you have been a massive massive help and I’m one ungrateful, ignorant, stubborn man. Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezwasssss.

This post was edited in order to conform with forum rules.

 

[butcher]

I am a little slow and it takes me longer to learn things, but I am beginning to think you may be right, all I know for sure is this is a disruption to the forum and must come to an end soon one way or the other.




http://www.porexfiltration.com/learning-center/technology/precipitation-microfiltration/

 

[Jmk88]

And now we’re getting somewhere!

Had someone asked me regarding the filtration systems used by these people I would have been able to comment.

I myself use a 0.015um filter system which is triple layered.

This was set up professionally by a consultant for me. I then filter and I can assure you, I have insisted on testing the filtered solution and it does not contain ANY metal whatsoever. None.

I then add copperas.

I would not look very good as a sustainable design consultant if I was found to be poisoning my localised environment with heavy metals. And note you can send to land full but if you begin to produce larger quantities very regular you will need to take it somewhere else.

Contaminated soil with nickel or copper really isn’t difficult to deal with. Unless it’s extreme.

 

[butcher]

You did not remove all of the heavy toxic metals from your acidic solutions if all you did is to raise the pH to a neutral solution of pH7 and filter it, no matter how fine the filer paper you used, or how well built of a filter press your using, and what good would it do to add sulfated salts of iron to this toxic filtered solution unless you need copperas on your roses?

I myself use a 0.015um filter system which is triple-layered.

This was set up professionally by a consultant for me. I then filter and I can assure you, I have insisted on testing the filtered solution and it does not contain ANY metal whatsoever. None.

I then add copperas.

The only way the filtered solution would not contain "Any metal whatsoever. None. is if you distilled the solution prior to filtering the purer water condensate, otherwise you have metals in the salt solution (including soluble toxic metals) whether your test reagents or methods can detect them is another discussion.

If you do not contaminate your soil with copper, nickel, or other metals you will not have to be concerned with how hard it is to clean up the hazardous waste from your soil.

Dumping any of the products from recovery and refining of metals, acids, salts, chemicals or even water from washes into your garden soil, is just well, a bad idea, to say the least, and foolish would not be too far off a description, asking to be poisoned would probably fit the bill.

Stop the trolling, start studying so you that you can gain an education of the facts you so misunderstand at this point about treating your waste for proper and safe disposal.

 

[Jmk88]

I have indeed boiled over a dozen litres down and there were certainly no visible precipitates.

One would assume they would be concentrated following such and a professional waste processor would be able to identify them.

I have left a message with the company for information on the testing strips they use.

I will provide the information once it’s received.

 

[goldenchild]

Shouldn't the last solution after total waste treatment be salt water? I thought that if you removed all metals from solution and then neutralized it, it should be salt water? At least before some desalinization process.

 

[butcher]

Yes, the solution will be salts of metals and the acids at pH7.

Our drinking water still contains metals at PH 7 , so saying the solution has No metals, absolutely none, is just not true, luckily most of our drinking water is treated by the earth for our wells, and by water technicians for city waters, and the toxic heavy metals have been removed for the most part making water safer to drink.

What is flushed into a sewer by the people living upriver is treated for drinking water by the people living downriver.( living in the city downriver you can just hope that man is doing his job properly), and they are not contaminating your drinking water and their sewer facilities are working upriver, and also they are doing their job properly.

If you drink from a well or a spring just hope your neighbor is not dumping salts from his attempts to learn to dissolve metals in acids, thinking his solutions are safe to dump on the ground that makes his roses grow big and pretty from the all of the metal nitrate salts involved...


metal + acid = salts
salt of the metals and acids

What you dispose of is not gone.


If I have an acidic solution with heavy metals the solution will contain metal cations and the acids anions along with the acidic hydronium ions in solution H₃O, basically, ions of any metal or metal ions of that alloy previously involved some of these metals we may need to stay healthy (in small quantities) can be toxic to our environment or our health in larger quantities, several of the metals we are involved within our scrap metal alloys or electronic or other scrap are heavy metal poisons.

Once we put metals and acid together in solution, all kinds of reactions can be taking place with byproducts forming in solution.

Evaporating an acidic solution can besides evaporate water, drive reactions forward, drive the more volatile components out of solution and begin to push out the metal and acid ions as the lesser soluble salts crystalize out of solution, one acid and metal can push another acid out of solution and even change the metal salt involved in solution...

Many of these ionic salts of metals and acids can be insoluble salts,( see solubility rules) others are fairly soluble but can be pushed out of solution by an overload of how many ions the concentrated solution can hold, just as adding table salt to hot water there comes a point where the ionic solution will hold not more ions and adding more salt it leaves NaCl in the bottom of the glass, the temperature also plays a role on the solubility of metal salts

If I use copper to cement and recover the values from solution, I still have an acidic copper solution with the other toxic heavy metals left in this acidic solution (any metal that was involved in the alloy of the scrap being dissolved).

Adding iron metal will displace most of the copper ions from solution converting them to copper metal, as the iron and its metals alloys dissolve into solution as ions, as iron gives up electrons to the copper ions...
Besides copper the iron will displace other metals from solution (basically contaminating the copper powder with toxic heavy metals) metals Like Cadmium, cobalt, nickel, lead, antimony, arsenic, bismuth can contaminate the copper metal and salts of metal dragged down with everything else...

Now adding sodium hydroxide will help to convert the acids to salts, depleting the hydronium ions involved in the solution, raise the pH, and begin to form metal hydroxides. as you raise the pH towards being more basic many metal ions will become more insoluble to the point we can begin to remove them as salts of the metals and or hydroxides of the metals. as we raise the pH to PH7 (neutral many of the metal salts become more insoluble metals like iron form hydroxides and precipitate out of solution given time along with more of the copper ions metals that give strong color to the solution...

Even though the solution may become more clear with most of the copper and iron which give color removed at this pH of 7 (neutral) we are not done removing the toxic heavy metals,.

Many metals that may precipitate in a basic solution (when we add hydroxide or an alkaline solution) and then they can dissolve again as we add more caustic soda or alkali's redissolving the precipitate to form soluble metal hydroxide or metal complexes, they may precipitate being slightly basic and then dissolve again as the solution becomes more basic the amphoteric metals.

we need to raise the pH even further to remove more toxic metals, viewing the chart



We see:
Ferric ions (iron) are least soluble somewhere around pH 4.

Copper and chromium least soluble around pH 7 to 8, with chromium being amphoteric begins to redissolve back into solution as we raise the pH to make the solution more basic.

Zinc, nickel, cadmium, and lead are at their minimum solubility at around pH of 10 to 11, with lead and cadmium being amphoteric...

Silver complexes may stay in a solution that is extremely basic, but then we are not discussing silver complexes here.

So raising our waste solution to pH 10 or 11 we can precipitate out most (but not all) of the heavy toxic metals like zinc, nickel, and lead.

Then lowering the pH to 7-8 to precipitate metals most of (but not all of ) the remaining copper and chromium

we do not remove all of the metals in the process, we do not eliminate all of the heavy toxic metals, but we make the solution safe to dispose of (properly) making the solution a much less toxic salt solution.


I go a step further and evaporate my salt solutions to dry salts (some then reused, and other are disposed of properly).

The cemented metals like your copper are not pure and contain other metals and salts of metals that may be more toxic than the metal you cemented from solution, to begin with...

The hydroxides and salts can be dried and disposed of properly, normally, and legally that is all that is normally required before properly disposing of the hydroxides.
Even though they are fairly insoluble now does not mean they are not still water-soluble, so here I also go a step further than necessary dealing with my waste, I roast the hydroxide red hot in an oxidizing environment in order to convert these metal hydroxide salts to the more stable oxides.

Note we did not remove all of the toxic metals from the solution this salt of the acid still holds very reactive metals and traces of toxic metals...


Further discussion not related to our waste treatment:
we do not need to, for our waste, but we could remove more of the traces of the toxic metals using sulfide precipitation and then chelating agents and fine filtering to remove more of the ions from our salts solution.

The remaining salt solution after we are done beside very reactive metals, sodium, potassium, or other reactive metal ions (cations), we also have the ions of the acids left in solution, nitrates, chlorides, sulfates, fluorides or whatever the solution involved with previously in the pot we made this mess in...

To further treat the solution to make it purer the use of Ion exchange is often used which can displace one metal for another metal ion, which may become more insoluble at a different temperature or pressure or will react chemically different.

 

[Jmk88]

Yes. But most of which you can deal with via incineration proper to your recovery process and remove as solids. Nickel being an exception but a caustic treatment will achieve this.

If you’ve got lead or cadmium in your pot during a nitric recovery you have already gone wrong. And have not incinerated you’re material properly.

This is the response I received:

Dear Joe,

Thank you for your enquiry by email. It is nice to hear from you. I hope things are going well and you’ve settled into the new place.

Whilst we would never commit to removing 100% of contaminants in water solutions (and acidic), we are confident we can achieve 99.99% removal of all solids, regardless of their size, this includes all salts and ions.

The definition of contaminants is somewhat hard to agree. However we form salts with our caustic pre treatment methods prior to compression which is then filtered with hexagonally bonded ultra fine layered filters which are cleaned after every process.

We have a number of these systems that can be operated at any given time for extensive periods.

The report you were issued and the treatment methods that we outlined meet the lawful requirements within the U.K. if followed correctly which is set out in our detailed method statement, which we issued to you as an appendix to the core document. We have based our advice on the scale of your work and the premises we visited in September of 2019.

I am happy to provide comfort in writing that the waste quantities you have described to me, if true, do not require professional disposal and can be taken to land fill. As explained to you before, this would only ever change if you believe you have crossed the threshold set out in section 2 of our report.

In which case, it would be prudent to consider appointing a professional waste company such as ourselves for physical disposal, in regards to economic viability. The cost of auditing to obtain your licences would not be viable as a waste producer. You would require the correct apparatus and management which is added cost. Annual maintenance of the systems is another consideration.

In answer to your query regarding our waste treatments, these vary depending on location and the nature of the waste as well as many other variable factors. Our treatment of soluble metals such as copper is carried out by precipitation methods and careful filtering measures. PH manipulation is carried out by our technicians which is digitally monitored to achieve the precipitation of metal salts.

We then store our precipitated waste for 30 days before compressing the material and taking to a general waste landfill site. We are licensed to treat large volumes of such waste as well as disposal of. It is very similar to a reverse osmosis process. I can provide you material on this if you request. No fee will be required.

The testing methods on your samples provided were carried out by distillation and measurements of the resulting solids by weight. We have also used testing strips and colour identification which we trust and have regularly audited to maintain our quality compliance qualifications, which forms part of our licensing requirements.

I can assure you that the comments you have unfortunately received accusing you of poisoning the environment are inaccurate at the best and malicious at the worst. We would not advise you in any manner if we believed you were behaving outside the requirements of U.K. law.

Please also remember to wear protective equipment such as gloves when handling any wastes described, as copper hydroxides can be absorbed by the skin and in excessive levels cause blood poisoning. If you adhere to the method statement in line with our detailed risk assessment in appendix 3 you should not encounter issues. The two documents should not be read separately.

Sorry to hear that you’ve had to deal with this. All that work we’ve done to reassure you and seems like you’ve been sent back to where you started!

We are here if needed.

Best Regards,

**** Levi-Johnson

Technical Director and Senior Metallurgist

********* Metals Ltd

 

[butcher]

So Mr. Levi-Johnson has his company have the knowledge and understanding of how to properly treat your waste for you, and properly dispose of its hazardous waste.

I suggest you send your waste to him and let his company deal with it, and stop pouring the toxic solutions in your yard.

If you do not let him and his company treat and deal with your waste then I suggest you learn to do it properly for yourself, you can begin learning how by studying dealing with waste in our safety section.

Dealing with Waste

 

[Jmk88]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Have a good day.

 

[butcher]

Thank you, I will, Joe, and I hope that your day is as good as mine, our health and safety is much more important than any gold and silver, we can only educate ourselves as much as we possibly can to minimize those dangers. even with our limited education with all of our study we should never dump any of these solutions into our soil to dispose of them when we can learn to properly dispose of the waste or pay someone who is educated in that field and who will do it properly.

Again, Joe, I plead that you to spend as much of your time studying the safety aspects and dangers involved in our work, and learn how to protect yourself, gaining a better understanding of how to deal with waste as you spend trying to learn how to recover the precious metals.

Educating yourself is the treasure map to gold, but that gold is no good without your health.
Education is also the key to getting gold but also used wisely is the key to enjoying that gold and staying healthy, and not harming others...

I hope you understand my friend and do so wisely, and we both can gain something from our friendly debate on the subject and better ourselves.

 

[Jmk88]

Agreed. Completely.

Thanks Butcher. I think a nights sleep always helps too.

 

[kurtak]

I am going to come to Jmk88 defense here

Dealing with the toxic waste created in refining is an important part of refining - you can't simply dump the waste down the drain - nor can you simply adjust Ph to 7 - filter & send the solids to the land fill & dump the remaining water/solution down the drain

for starters different metal drop out at different Ph - so depending on metals in solution you may need to adjust Ph - filter - adjust Ph - filter - etc.

Also - hydroxide/carbonate Ph adjustment may (or not) get everything - you may need to use sulfide/sulfate treatment (to drop more crap) - &/or incorporate flocculants &/or coagulants

in other words its a question of if the waste treatment is being done "proper"

the only way to know that is if you have a good idea of the metals in solution to start with & what
treatment(s) may be needed to "clean up" the waste

One metal in solution is relatively simple - the more metals the more complicated

to be sure your waste is "properly" treated - "requires" testing of the waste - AFTER treating the waste - as more may need to be done to insure the treatment is complete

the ONLY way to do that is to contact a "waste treatment" company - tell them what you are dealing with - & they will send you a testing kit with instructions

Clearly Jmk88 has done this - & I am willing to bet the vast majority the "hobby" refiners on this forum have not & are not doing this - they are just following the "basic" waste treatment instruction posted on this forum

So - good job Jmk88 - for consulting with a waste treatment company about "proper" waste treatment

However - that said - you are FAR to defensive which causes you to become argumentative which in turn causes you to "come after" the person(s) replying in the thread - instead of addressing the issue of the thread --- & then the whole thread goes off the hook

So why don't you stick to addressing the issue - instead of coming after person(s)

In other words - focus more on better explaining why/how/what you are doing to insure your waste treatment is done proper & that your waste is safe for disposal

And butcher is right - simply adjusting Ph to 7 & filtering is not good enough - there is more to it then that

So don't get "stuck" on one thing butcher has questioned you about - take it beyond that one point & explain the "greater" details you have learned of waste treatment from the company you have consulted with

Again - address the issue with more details about waste treatment - rather then being so easily offended & then "come after" person(s) when they are "simply" questioning you - should not be as hard as you seem to be making it

Just my opinion

Kurt