Information on Refining Copper via +/- winning/refining

[Acid_Bath76]

I've been reading up on some of this stuff, and thought I would share this with everyone.

 

[butcher]

Thank you, you planning on refining copper?

 

[nickvc]

I really can see the attraction of going down this route, by running cells and using anode bags you can concentrate your values using a well known and documented process, the biggest problem is having a high enough grade of copper 98%+ to make the cells run efficiently and with the least amount of attention with just a very small % of other metals in the mix including your values. In my opinion to make this a viable proposition your going to need some very large cells and a lot of scrap pure copper to start the process with the cost implications to do this, the upside is once running it would need little attention and very little cost, possible maybe for a home refiner who has the space and the initial money to invest in the materials and equipment.
Deano , Noidea, is running tests trying to find a way around some of these problems and we can but hope he finds a few ways to make this possible on a smaller scale suited to the vast majority of the forum members but I see problems in making this work as a usable ongoing process not needing constant attention.

 

[Acid_Bath76]

I'm working with e-scrap. It was fun in the beginning. Actually, it's still a blast. I enjoy the challenges and the problem solving. As anyone will tell you on here, and as I'm sure you already know, you're already dealing with loads of copper. The PM ration to garbage is crazy, and if I want to earn a worthy income from this, I think I'm going to have to squeeze everything I can out of the material. My solution: Incineration, removal of ferrous from non-ferrous, taking the PM's and combining with very large copper sheets. Into the copper cell. I've been looking into this. If 2% of the copper sheet within the cell contains the PM's, and this 2% weighs approximately 20lbs, then you're looking at a copper sheet weighing approximately 980lbs. Yikes. I'm thinking you could spread that 20lbs of precious material around between the anodes. It's still a large operation, but I don't think you have to have something like they do in Amarillo to make this profitable. Maybe I'm wrong. My research continues.
I've spoken to a few refineries, and they seem to go about it in a similar way. Shredding of material, incineration, melting the metallic material with copper to form a homogenous mixture. They take a sample, and give you your percent composition. Since copper is the main component, I assume they extract the PM's via refining the copper. The start up with all this is probably a little expensive, but I think you could recover your costs fairly quickly. Like I said, I continue to read into all this. I'm still referencing HOKE when I'm in the lab, and that simple fact has me question whether I'm ready to jump to the next level. Regardless, I'm working with this material, and if there is a more cost effective way to do it, then it really needs to be explored. I've rambled enough. I'm going to eat my pancakes, drink my coffee, and take the dog for a walk. You all have a nice Sunday!

 

[Smack]

Been playing with it myself a bit. Have well over 1k lbs. of copper and the majority is wire. From what I have read in some research is that all copper wire used for electricity is pure copper (copper that has been refined by electrolysis), like house wire, windings and so on. I was quite successful pulling copper out of solution from pins that I processed in Nitric by using electrolysis. But have not had time to do much lately. Work will end soon so I'll have more time to play around in the shop.

 

[Acid_Bath76]

Thank you, you planning on refining copper?

Butcher, well there seems to be a lot of it in my e-waste material. It would be interesting to see if it's possible to do almost everything at once. Refine copper and isolate PM's. It seems this is how the larger companies do it, and I'm curious if it's possible to do on a smaller scale. By that I mean, something that could fit in a 20X20 lab. I know the start up cost would be a little pricey. I continue to read. On and on.

 

[butcher]

I always thought if the major of the materials you work with is copper then you should be refining copper with other values as gravy, with E scrap there are so many metals (copper is major), some of these metals become pains in our necks (tin solder), these you would need to remove from the copper, luckily copper is very low in the reactivity series (just above our values), and you could start by adding copper to your (treated copper Escrap from removing most of the base metals) and then adding your refined copper back in, the big thing I see here is COST, fuel in melting, acids and waste stream treatment, electricity, man-hours, chemicals, the list goes on.

Acid_Bath76, a man can do most anything if he wants to bad enough, but I think I would look into cost and trouble on this first, studying this is great, no one ever lost by getting more brain cells energized.