dissolving plated brass (cu+zn) with nitric

shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
xelexo
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

arthur kierski

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
Messages
1,119
Location
são paulo---brazil
read in the forum that one needs 1600ml of nitric to dissolve 1lb of copper-----
i would like to know how much nitric is needed to dissolve 1lb of brass(aprox70%cu-30%zn)??
thanks in advance for any help or information
 
It could be calculated for the various metals but, as a ball park figure, one gallon of concentrated nitric will dissolve about 2 pounds of some common base metals. In my experience, this holds true for metals such as copper, zinc, and nickel - all 3 of these dissolve in nitric with a valence of two. The 2#/gallon, for these metals, also holds true when using aqua regia. Variations can occur at different temperatures and dilutions. This figure is for practical considerations only.
 
A key point is that this is Brazil, nitric prices can be very different. Now if I had 10% near pure gold on 90% brass is it cost effective to remove the brass with nitric?
 
That was my only point.

I do not know why Arthur was asking but he is smart enough to not want to recover base metals in the wet thinking there is a profit to be had.

It will be interesting to see why he asked if he is in the mood to share.
 
well,in brazil i buy 50liters of nitric 42baumé or 70% for 110dollars----2,2dollars a liter---i think it is very cheap if compared to prices in u.s-----the question was asked because i always used nitric to dissolve fantasy jewellery to obtain the gold and rhodium foils---i for some stupid idea decided to use ar to obtain these foils (specially rh) and found that the rh yeald fell by 50%----in other words partly rh dissolves in ar and is dificult for recovering------the question asked is because i decided to return to nitric dissolution instead of ar and until now i treated the fantasy jewellery as copper with plating on it and used the nitric 1600ml per lb---but the material is brass and perhaps (i thought) i could use less hno3----just that-----thanks all for the replies-----Arthur-----ps.how much is the cost of nitric in u.s-?
 
Arthur,

It takes about as much nitric to dissolve zinc as it does copper. The atomic weight of zinc is 65.3, copper is 63.5, and nickel is 58.7. All fairly close. All end up producing M++ (valence of 2) ions when dissolved. Therefore, all take similar amounts of nitric, from a practical viewpoint.

Chris
 
For my plated brass CuZn36, 7 liters of diluted HNO3 per kg of brass works very well.


teclu
 

Latest posts

Back
Top