Chemical Forums

Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: markusius on September 03, 2017, 12:05:35 AM

Title: How to remove copper from phosphoric acid solution
Post by: markusius on September 03, 2017, 12:05:35 AM

Long story short, I use a phosphoric acid bath to convert rusty iron car parts to iron phosphate. In the last batch, a copper ground cable accidentally made its way in the phosphoric acid bath. Now all the parts look like the Hulk, all of them turned green lol.

The question is how do i remove the copper in the solution?

I have removed all metal objects from the bath.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. thx

Title: Re: How to remove copper from phosphoric acid solution
Post by: Arkcon on September 03, 2017, 07:30:44 AM

Eventually, the parts you put in will deplete the copper in solution, producing the result you found -- copper verdigris of any iron parts.  You can try to speed this up with disposable scrap iron.  At some point, your phosphoric acid bath was going to be depleted anyway, and would need replacement.  So you may just bait the bullet and do that now.  But, a bit more discussion about your scale could help us come up with options.