I’m an outsider in the chemical industry; I’ve been working on copper recovery from waste liquids for three years and am facing some problems. I need the help of all the experts out there
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This post was last edited by *aoyusan on 2011-8-27 at 11:35. I work in the field of producing gold-stamped plates; ferric chloride is used to etch copper plates, and the waste liquid resulting from this process was originally discharged into the sewer system. Later, someone took interest in it. Through my own experiments and with the help of the experts on this forum, I have managed to extract copper from that waste liquid. The amount of copper obtained is not large – from about one cubic meter of waste liquid, I can get around 200 pounds of sponge copper in a 50-liter bucket, with a purity of around 90%. I would like to ask the experts: are there any major issues with my current approach? Since it’s being carried out in a residential area of the county town, what harm could it cause to the population or individual people? The waste liquid (ferrous chloride) remaining after copper extraction amounts to over one cubic meter per month – is it safe to discharge it directly into the sewer system? Is the price at which the product is sold reasonable? If this approach doesn’t work, what should I do? Thank you to all the teachers, and I would like to thank here the several teachers on this forum who have helped me! I hope to get a reply.
I’m not aware of the price, but it’s definitely wrong to discharge your wastewater directly. The copper content in that waste fluid is surely above the allowed limits; discharging it directly will contaminate water sources and ultimately cause harm to people. Therefore, you need to treat that waste fluid first
-- Doing it in a residential area – it’s ridiculous. --