Litharge Supplier/Sales in Ontario Canada?

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drtys

Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2020
Messages
22
Hello, looking to buy some litharge for smelting, assaying purposes, am located in Northern Ontario, surrounded by mining companies, would think it would be easy to access this ? Thanks Everyone ( do not need tons of it, ounces or pounds would do,,,)
 
Hello, looking to buy some litharge for smelting, assaying purposes, am located in Northern Ontario, surrounded by mining companies, would think it would be easy to access this ? Thanks Everyone ( do not need tons of it, ounces or pounds would do,,,)
I have about 10 pounds, have to wait for the scale to warm up before I can get an accurate weight, what is your postal code.

litharge.jpg
 
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Hya, postal code is P0M 1N0, Sudbury area, and am looking at one to two pounds depending on price? Thanks for the reply
3 lbs, $150.00 Canadian shipping inclusive - Interact transfer
 
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Hya, postal code is P0M 1N0, Sudbury area, and am looking at one to two pounds depending on price? Thanks for the reply
I've noticed the sellers no longer offer shipping to Canada.

The probable reason is litharge under the dangerous goods act is class 6, a category not permissible to be shipped via Canada Post.

Chances are the package would have slipped through the system undetected, but now being aware a class 6 item is prohibited I'm glade you declined.
 
Hello, looking to buy some litharge for smelting, assaying purposes, am located in Northern Ontario, surrounded by mining companies, would think it would be easy to access this ? Thanks Everyone ( do not need tons of it, ounces or pounds would do,,,)
Located in Ontario.https://alphachem.ca/

Or you could recover litharge form the plates of an old lead acid battery, which is how I obtained mine.

 
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Although shipping litharge domestically through Canada Post is not allowed. Under current Canadian law it is illegal for the police or post employees to search domestic mail (canada to canada). Conservatives tried to have the law changed in 2016 under the guise of curbing the opiate crisis. It was the conservative's contention that domestic mail should be allowed to be opened with a warrant. However, arguably do to government partisanism the liberals shut down proposal and no further bills have yet been introduced. Two caveats to consider, one if the package opens by some unintended means, wink wink, then Canada post is within there rights to investigate. Two, if you are believed to be shipping illegal items it is not unknown for a package to "accidentally" be re-routed cross border thus giving either American customs or Canada's Border Agency the right to search. I offer this knowledge as food for thought without any advice on how you use it.
 
Although shipping litharge domestically through Canada Post is not allowed. Under current Canadian law it is illegal for the police or post employees to search domestic mail (canada to canada). Conservatives tried to have the law changed in 2016 under the guise of curbing the opiate crisis. It was the conservative's contention that domestic mail should be allowed to be opened with a warrant. However, arguably do to government partisanism the liberals shut down proposal and no further bills have yet been introduced. Two caveats to consider, one if the package opens by some unintended means, wink wink, then Canada post is within there rights to investigate. Two, if you are believed to be shipping illegal items it is not unknown for a package to "accidentally" be re-routed cross border thus giving either American customs or Canada's Border Agency the right to search. I offer this knowledge as food for thought without any advice on how you use it.
Good to know, yes I figured properly packaged the parcel stood a good chance of arriving unmolested. After learning litharge was class 6 hazardous goods, Fedex or Purolator were the only legal options.

That's why I posted the video on how to recover litharge from spent lead acid battery's the OP will get about 8/10 pounds from a medium size battery.

I paid our local mechanic $10.00 for the donor.
 
How can you tell when a battery is depleted enough to convert? Most people change batteries at the first sign of hard starting. I have never seen battery Lead in the condition of the stuff used in the video. All the ones I've hacked into, still have metallic Lead in the plates.
 
Both the positive and negative plates are made as grids from a lead alloy - usually antimony but I believe calcium may have replaced the former.

Would not matter brand new off the shelf battery or a junk yard battery, the junk yard battery more than likely having been discharged for a prolonged period of time the positive plates would show signs of sulfate.

The active ingredient ( Litharge ) is whetted with sulfuric acid to make a paste then pressed into the grid. You only want to use the positive plates.

Don't worry about the lead from the grid this will melt into balls which are easily removed.

When I cooked mine, did not cover the material, the fellow in the video said if the material over heated would return to elemental lead - not going to happen with the cover removed or by adding an oxygen scavenger.

If your smelt has no carbon source the litharge will not convert to lead.

Screenshot from 2023-03-06 18-11-52.png
 
Thanks Stoneware, very informative. Can the Pbo be removed from the grid by tapping, or banging with a hammer? Or just heat it all, let Pb go to balls, then pick them out? just asking if there are any ways to expedite the process, heating the Pbo only.
If I heard correctly ( subtitles ), the guy said it would convert to metallic Tin.
 
Thanks Stoneware, very informative. Can the Pbo be removed from the grid by tapping, or banging with a hammer? Or just heat it all, let Pb go to balls, then pick them out? just asking if there are any ways to expedite the process, heating the Pbo only.
If I heard correctly ( subtitles ), the guy said it would convert to metallic Tin.
Just heat the positive battery plates as they are lead and all, you may find some of the plates badly deteriorated and fragile from age.

Inside the battery case just below the end of where the plates reside in the cell, sump is about an inch in depth, the sumps purpose i to keep any shed from collecting between the plates where it would cause a short circuit.

On newer battery's the manufacture has placed an envelope over the positive plate, have not done any research on the envelope as I just assumed its use was a better way to insulate the positive and negative plates from coming into contact.

In the old days (1950's ) wood separators were used, then latter glass matt, now the envelepope which would speed up the manufacturing process.

The negative plates have lead sponge paste pressed into the lead grids.

Do not use a blender as the guy in the video demonstrated, any lumps left after heating break up easy. And for those new to the forum cook this inside a fume hood or outdoors.

Under no circumstances breath any of the fumes or dust- lead and its compounds are toxic.
 
If I heard correctly ( subtitles ), the guy said it would convert to metallic Tin.
The translator doing the subtitles had it wrong on two counts, no way litharge can be converted into tin metal, the only way litharge itself maybe converted back into metallic lead is by adding a carbon source or an oxygen scavenger such as we do when using litharge during smelting.

It's this conversion from an oxide into metallic lead throughout the flux mixture that makes litharge a better choice over using metallic lead at the bottom of the crucible.

As the litharge is converted into metallic lead it rains lead, as it falls to the bottom of the crucible collects any metals which will alloy with lead on the way down.
 
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Using battery lead for bullets is not a good idea, the hardened lead wears out the gun barrel.


Antimonial lead alloys consist of around 1% up to 10%+ of antimony added into the lead base metal. The antimony is used as a lead hardener. While lead's ductility is desired for machining the metal, pure lead is very soft. With the addition of antimony, the lead becomes very hard and durable.


Lead–calcium alloys utilize only a small amount of calcium to provide the required mechanical properties for modern battery grids. The calcium content varies between 0.03% and 0.15%. Lead–calcium alloys have a freezing range of only 1–3 °C compared with 50–75 °C for lead–antimony alloys.
 
2.376 Kg of litharge recovered from a $10.00 donor battery of medium size.

Edited to correct weight.

litharge.jpg
 
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If under taking the recovery of Pbo from batteries, you should watch some of the other videos on Youtube about making batteries in either the Middle East or India, These guys are processing around 100 Lbs. at a time. NO PPE's at all. No gloves, respirators, wearing sandals, Etc. Crazy. Pbo dust flying everywhere.
 
If under taking the recovery of Pbo from batteries, you should watch some of the other videos on Youtube about making batteries in either the Middle East or India, These guys are processing around 100 Lbs. at a time. NO PPE's at all. No gloves, respirators, wearing sandals, Etc. Crazy. Pbo dust flying everywhere.
Class 6 hazardous goods.

Attached, Litharge Safety Data Sheet
 

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  • ghs_029-930-011.pdf
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Thanks everyone for your help, up to this point we collected the cloth/ bagged lead plates from old batteries then melted these plates in cast iron pot , after which the molten metal was poured into a large pan then cut into one ounce pieces and these are what we use as collectors in the smelting processes. More reading will be done before we convert into litharge.
 

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