Mild Carbon Steel Sulphuric Cell _sulfuriccell_

[rickzeien]

Have you tried the tumbler yet? It looks like it might make a Faraday's cage.

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[nickvc]

Looking good Phil keep us updated and with your excellent photos 8)

 

[philddreamer]

Thank you all!
I had a chance today to set up the tank,

and, started running some batches of TeleCom pins...


First 6 pound batch took 2 hours... I had trouble with my power source; it finally gave up..., so I went to the old battery charger. It took 1 hour to de-plate the second 6 pound batch. Another 34 pounds to go! :mrgreen:
So far, so good! 8)

Thanks!

Phil

 

[philddreamer]

Some pic's of the before and after...

 

[philddreamer]

I'm de-plating my 4th, 6 pound batch of telecom pins, and my power source keeps shutting off more often... :?
so it just dawn on me that... my acid might be saturated! :shock:

What is the maximum grams of gold per gallon in the acid before the process starts to foul!?
If the expected yield is 1gm /pound x 24# that = 24gm; if 2gm per pound then 48gm...
would that foul 4 gallons of acid?

Thank you!
Phil

 

[goldsilverpro]

Hey, Phil,

I always harvested when the amperage would not fall close to zero, as it should, after all the parts are stripped. When a lot of gold particles float around, the amps will stay pretty high. In the 50 gallon tank I had, stripping 8 hours a day, I harvested about every 3 weeks. I used plating racks that held about 300 all-gold IC packages and I was stripping the very thick Au/Sn and Au.Si brazes plus the 50 microinch gold plating. It took about 20 minutes until the amps were nearly down to zero and everything was stripped.

 

[philddreamer]

Hi, Chris!
My 3010D DC Power Supply when kaput... so I started using my 12V battery charger @ 2amps, but it gets hot and turns off after constantly running for 5 min. or so. (It doesn't have a fan.) I then ran it for 2 min. at a time, and tumbling the pins in between charges. I was able to do 6 pounds in about 35 minutes.
I've been debating on getting another 3010D or a 6V charger, 2 - 10 amp... but with your comments, I think I'll buy another 3010D. I like the idea of keeping track of the actual amps.

On another note, I didn't have any issues with the acid overheating... the temp was around 85F. As long as I add ice to the buckets, all is good!
I plan to filter the acid tomorrow...

Thank you!
Phil

 

[nickvc]

Phil in a sulphuric cell you really don’t want to be adding water, ice, the sulphuric needs to be concentrated for it to work well, this may be causing some of your problems.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Nick.
If I'm not fully mistaken, the ice is used in the cooling loop, which is a separate circuit.
See the white PVC tubes in the pic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Phil.

 

[philddreamer]

Yggdrasil, you are correct!
Nick, the ice goes into the buckets to keep the water, that goes thru the sealed water jacket around the tank, chilled...

Thank you, gentlemen!
Phil

 

[philddreamer]

After de-plating 24 pounds of pins, the time came to decant the acid. I had to "brake down" the cooling system in order to tilt the tank and be able to completely drain the acid; so, I added a drain valve at the bottom of the tank, (as previously suggested by a fellow member), for ease draining, without having to disconnect anything...

I also connected a line for vacuum filtering.
Another 40.5 pounds were de-plated this last week... I tried to vacuum filter, but only 12 hours of settling time is not enough; too much very fine silt clogs the filter in no time!!!

Phil

 

[FrugalRefiner]

That's a lot of pins! :shock: Looking forward to the melt.

Dave

 

[philddreamer]

4metals wrote:

Great job, lots of surface area to keep that sulfuric cool. It will be interesting to see how much power you can apply and maintain an operating temperature under 100 F. You should be able to put a lot of plated pins into 4.9 gallons of sulfuric.]

I checked the temp too early on the first run 2 weeks ago, 85F... last week I checked the temp after an hour of running the cell, and temp was 70F!!!! The trick is the iced water and agitation!
My power source was my car battery charger... I was running 12v and 10+ amps, lots of "fizzing"!
I received my 3010D DC POWER SOURCE last Friday... the fizzing wasn't so vigorous, but I could keep better track of the volts and amps.

GSP wrote:

I always harvested when the amperage would not fall close to zero, as it should, after all the parts are stripped. When a lot of gold particles float around, the amps will stay pretty high. In the 50 gallon tank I had, stripping 8 hours a day, I harvested about every 3 weeks. I used plating racks that held about 300 all-gold IC packages and I was stripping the very thick Au/Sn and Au.Si brazes plus the 50 microinch gold plating. It took about 20 minutes until the amps were nearly down to zero and everything was stripped.

I'm only using 3 gallons of acid... so, after running 40.5# of pins, I started to have a bit of "trouble"; then I remembered that when the amps go to 0, the deplating is done... but while reviewing the previous posts, I understood what happened yesterday, no fizzing and the amps going up and down 1.5 to 2.75 or so...
hummmm… I'll remember next time!

Thank you gentlemen!
Phil

P.S. 4metals also wrote:

When Phil gets all of the kinks out he can quit his day job and start selling his units.

Hummmm... I like that idea!!! :mrgreen:

 

[archeonist]

Is there already a button?

 

[philddreamer]

The yield from several types of pins that I ran thru the cell was around 10g plus maybe another gram in the filters... those 10g are in one of these buttons. The rest of the buttons are from high yield pins a ran thru PMAR.

Phil

 

[bigpagoda]

Looks Great Phil! Been waiting to see the results from this project- Really nice.

 

[philddreamer]

Thank you, Paul!

Phil

 

[Bertho]

I am looking at building a small version of the cell and was hoping to use PVC and I see some PVC parts in the acid. I looked up a very comprehensive PVC compatibility chart and sulfuric acid was listed as a bad combination. What is your experience with PVC and what alternatives do you suggest? I like the idea of solvent welding PVC.
Bertho

 

[philddreamer]

Most of the PVC components are used on the water cooling system... but, yes, I've used some PVC on the acid draining spouts. No problems... the acid hasn't affected the PVC at all.

Take care!
Phil

 

[rickzeien]

How does the solvent welding hold up to the acid?

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