This video was made because a lot of viewers requested it. Let me know if you think i shouldn't listen to my viewers. Oh wait a minute, you're a viewer.
Ferric Chloride is also very useful for etching other metas besides copper. It works great on stainless steel and iron.. I use it to make labels and logos on stainless steel plates that i attach to finished projects, label metal parts, tools, knife blades, etc. It's also a good way to put a three dimensional pattern pattern or texture on a metal surface that would otherwise be difficult and time consuming using grinders or files. An aquarium bubbler is useful when etching. Ferric Chloride does not bubble when it dissolves metal, so it does not naturally agitate itself to keep the acid fresh near where is need to work..
if its already dark brown FeCl3 then gently heating to make it evaporate faster won't be an issue. But If you heat it too strongly while dry it'll decompose into FeCl2 and chlorine. So just heat it until you reduce the volume considerably, and the let evaporation do the rest.
If you don't have peroxide you can still make ferric chloride by bubbling air through the ferrous chloride. The unused etchant also keeps indefinetely unlike peroxide/hcl.
My first job making about 40,000 lbs/batch, dissolves 10,000 lbs. of steel chopper scrap in 2 hrs. Don't forget free acid 2%, if it gets cloudy watch out, low acid, could become unstable and revert to ferrous chloride and chlorine gas. The dry stuff can be unstable too.
Its weird that no one ever requested hcl/peroxide but lots of people requested ferric chloride. Then when i show ferric chloride i get a large number of people requesting HCl/peroxide. ah well ;)
Could you go through the Fenton Reaction you used during the last oxidation step? It is a fascinating piece of chemistry that tends to go under appreciated, and I was quite surprised when you used it.
Awesome.PCB from Radio Shack is used by custom knifemakers for various finishes on blades as well as to bring out features in the steel such as temper lines or to make "damascus" pattern welded blades really pop.Iv'e heard complaints that the PCB can be difficult to find at times.I can now refer them to this great tutorial on making it themselves!. Great video as always.
i just started a chemistry degree and as much as i love the practicals and the new theory's, there is ALOT of maths and physics that are never really taught at school i think you should do a one-off video to demonstrate some physical chemistry and the calculations behind it
its amazing how simply this can be made with storebought concentrations of these chemicals and end up being far cheaper than buying pre-made ferric chloride.
Thank you for the air pump solution. Now I don't need to buy a 10 gallon bottle of a hydrogen peroxide concentrate when I only need like a 0.1 liter or less.
usually there's a very powerful fan which mixes in a lot of atmospheric air, thus diluting the fumes, as well as the system being made of something fairly inert like stainless steel. You'd be surprised how well materials hold up to fumes even if they wouldn't hold up under direct exposure to the reaction/reactants in liquid form.
Hehe tak. Men underligt at en pen kunne forhindre stærk syre i at ætse kobberet. Jeg forstår slet ikke hvorfor det ikke blev ætset fra undersiden. Hvad indeholdt den pen?
76% HCl is not possible to contain (it would be a high pressure gas) the maximum that can be made liquid at atmospheric pressure is 40%. I don't think you have HCl there, might be something else.
I remember this from high school - we used to keep this stuff in a Coca Cola bottle (it even has a similar dark-brownish tint) and joked that coke dissolves even the copper on our PCBs :D
i tried this years ago. My problem was when boiling it down it it formed what i thought was a sol. I basically turned brown and looked more like a suspention and gave up thinking it was the wrong route. At the time ihad the impression Ferric and ferrous chloride looked the same exept one formed a true solution while the other formed a sol. I would like to see a video on sols from you, I havent seen one on YT, and sols are quite interesting
I've used one part muriatic acid to two parts hydrogen peroxide to etch my boards because it remains transparent in use so that I could see the progress of the etch without taking the board out. The fumes are the main issue and the etch needs to be done outside.
You can get it at most hardware stores in a crude form... look for "muriatic acid." In the USA, it comes as about a 30% HCl which is pretty concentrated. Muriatic acid is used for concrete etching and pool pH maintenance, so it chould be found at a pool store and at hardware stores. HTH.
Thanks for the tutorial. We use ferric chloride in ceramic to make great colors on rakued art. Can buy small bottle for $9, now we can have lots for little cost. Thanks NurdRage
Back to Basics: Can you please make a series of short videos teaching us how to make simple acids, bases, compounds needed in most general experiments?
Given that both of your iron sources (nails and steel wool) are actually steel, I'm curious if the trace amounts of carbon and other alloying materials have any effect on the reaction. I'm guessing it's a negligible effect or you'd tell us to get pure iron or iron oxide, but do you know whether the carbon is still mixed in with the ferric chloride or went into a side reaction whose result evaporated or something?
@Potato_Quality7 I figured that would be the case (or, at least, reading my old comment and knowing how my mind works, I assume I figured that would be the case), but I do like hearing about the negligible side reactions, and NurdRage sometimes likes to describe them. Also, wow, I've been watching NurdRage for at least 12 years. That's at least one career change ago.
@@tildessmoo Dawg, I did not expect you to reply at all. How's life man? Yo, 12 years? That's a lifetime ago. I'm no chemist myself so unfortunately I cannot give a precise answer. However, since we're not doing precise chemistry, it probably won't matter. The aim is to make corroding goo. Throw stuff in there until it's acidic to the touch, and the Copper won't stand a chance. To back this up, I read you can reuse the Ferric Chloride, even after it reacts with the Copper to leave trace impurities in the solution. Jokes aside, it would be nice to hear NurdRage speak on this, though.
@Potato_Quality7 I'm kind of surprised the TH-cam notification engine even bothered, honestly, but I still rewatch old NurdRage videos when I'm bored, so maybe it's not that surprising. This video came out right around when I was switching from being a waiter to a mechanic, which I'm normally grateful for because I'm making more money and have a lot more job stability, but given I broke a finger at work this week, it's a little harder to be optimistic. I'm not a chemist either - I studied Classics in college, which I like to joke is why I'm a mechanic now - and my amateur science interests tend to be in a more physics direction, but it's just always fun to see a scientist break down their passion for us laypeople, and chemists like NR and NR and... E&F (nah, they don't all have the same initials!) always have the best practical demonstrations.
@sammy3212321 well, modern US pennies aren't made of mostly copper anymore: they're made of zinc and plated with a few thousandths of an inch of copper on the outside. But if you have an old penny (pre-1980 or so IIRC) then it will dissolve If you have enough ferric chloride.
The trick to crystalize this is a desiccating bag/chamber. I found a good trick for making a good desiccating chamber . I used a large rubbermaid tub that seals completely. I bought crystal kitty litter which is pure silica gel . I use a half of a coffee can with mostly the silica gel and about a cup full of Sodium Hydroxide. This mix seems to work just as fast as if it were sodium hydroxide alone, but way way cheaper.
Many years ago I was doing a lot of circuit boards in this acid (I didnt make it myself though). I remember that I drew with a special pen where I wanted the cobber not to go. How did that Work? What did the pen do?
I have a request. Grignard reagents used to make whatever chemical you choose - explaining the chemistry and applications of those particular reagents. If not, something organic and synthetic. Ortho, para and meta aromatics and how to synthesize and/or seperate the products?
Regarding PCB, I used to make PCB and I hated using Ferric Chloride. It's slow, it requires heating (you have to get the etching fast enough so the solution doesn't start to seep under the positive mask), it stains. Ugh. A better solution we found was Nitric Acid. Yep. Very diluted and good for many uses. turns a lovely shade of blue when it has enough Cu ions. The only caveat was the amount of care and safety needed when preparing the diluted solution, smoking nitric acid is no joke.
I'm just here because I love to stuff happen because of other stuff that... uh does something to the stuff. And hopefully learn something along the way. Thank you for uploading.
I use ferric chloride because the reaction is slower and more gentle on the printed traces. For me hydrochloric acid + h2o2 usually damaged very thin lines.
Maybe a stupid question... It produces very unhealthy fumes if you evaporate it, right? Is there a temperature-limit in evaporation i shouldnt cross (Decomposing stuff)? Of course not letting it cook till dry... Only to reduce the liquid ammount and let natural evap do the rest... Or is it even best to let it sit without raised temperature till it is evaporated?
Hey! I know that this may be a stupid question! but how do you know when the ferric acid have been totally saturated and is time to replace! and maybe more important! is there a way to get the copper out and recycle the acid again? because I have been only using muriatic acid mix with Hydrogen Peroxide! but it saturates very fast and take for ever to do the job! Thanks
Where do fumes go? And how are they rendered inert? Never fully understood how a hood works, or how a fume hood could possibly be designed so as not to corrode or risk inadvertent reactions happening downstream (up the flue, so to speak).
This could come in handy now that Radio Shack is out of business. I used to buy ferric chloride from them, but now I would need to mail order it. But muriatic acid is available from the hardware store so I can still have a local source.
Most sanitation plants will use something like sodium borohydride to precipitate out the heavy metals. But in some cases it is stored in an effort to recycle, some one may us CuCl as a feed stock.
Won't the Fe(3+) ions catalyse the decomposition of H2O2 (to H2O and O2), therefore requiring you to use more H2O2 than mathematically necessary? Or is the oxygen made that way directly consumed by remaining Fe(2+)?
I used 30-33% household HCl, first it goes real fast, but after few seconds a lot of Carbone is form and slow down the reaction. Now I boil it, but it goes still slowly.
As always, this is a really great video. Would it be possible to make a video on making potassium persulfate or sodium persulfate? Those two chemicals have been my preferred copper enchants for years now.
I work at a company that makes circuit boards, I work in the lab with chemicals and don't work with the circuit boards at all. I see large tanks with solutions of copper, nickel, tin, gold, and maybe another. So I don't work with iron at all. Know if this means we work with a different type of circuit board? Or maybe the circuit board is treated with an iron solution before I ever see them?
I had a bucket of a copper compound, and I added a bunch of aluminum to it to make it easier to dispose of. However, I forgot to dispose of it, and now I have these very large and long crystals. They have a index of refraction lower than that of water, and they are very light. I'm not sure what copper compound it was, so could you please give me an explanation of what crystal I might have on my hands? Thanks.
This video was awesome. It seems like something I could do (carefully) at home. Not really sure where I'd source the acid and the peroxide, let alone at the right concentration, but if I wanted to I could work it out. So yeah, more home chemistry plz.
You can add more HCl by way of hardware store muriatic acid. The solution will still be quite murky and you certainly expect a somewhat slower etching process due to contaminants. See Nurdrage's other video on different types of etchant solution including CuCl2 etchants and it will be a lot easier than working with ferric chloride.
@KamaTheSnowLeopard because many plastics are impervious to acids. Polyethylene is one of the few materials that will not dissolve in hydrofluoric acid (HF) which will even dissolve glass.
i suppose you can concentrate the solution, then acidify with hydrochloric acid and reoxidize it with the hydrogen peroxide solution, but probably you will only could do it few times until the solution get satured in copper chloride and it gets preciptated.
Can you explain why you still need the hood when you are using the ice water to cool and re-condense any fumes that escape? Is it just a safety precaution?
Nice video. But žhat really interests me is whether it's possible to regenerate ferric chloride that had been used for long time and has lots of copper in it? It would totally make sense to lots of people out there who use FeCl to etch PCBs.
well, most PCBs have a solder-resist mask that is also a good etch-resist. The gold plating is also on top of the copper, which means it acts like a protective layer, preventing the copper from being dissolved. All in all, there are better ways.
Hey nurdrage it would be so awesome if you could show how to make the tinplating solution that is offen used to protect the pcb after it has been etched a commertial product for this is called bundgaard sur tin and i have no clue how it is plated on to the pcb as it is not electroplated onto it - but i bet there would be a lot of good chemestry in it.
I use them from store in pellets and dissolve in water, what is needed when the solution dries out (similar to the crystallised form), or just enough water to disolve? How many times it is fesable to repeat? Usually I try to use as small volume as possible to do etching, and dispose remains if I don't have anything to etch any time soon.
Nice to see how it is done, but I`d rather continue to buy the powder for ferric chloride in a electronics components store (it is pretty cheap too). I have, however, a question: will that work if the nails are rusty?
Hello and thanks for the video! Can you tell me what the chemistry is in my result? Used electronic scrap, partially to dissolve the steel before going after the Au, Ag, etc. Solution was as you showed, but there was some additional black sediment (carbon from the steel?) and more interestingly, much of the remaining metal is now copper plated. HCL doesn't react with Cu, at least not like that, so what caused copper plating to occur? Can provide pictures if you are interested. Thanks!
It doesnt say nothing on the bottle just HCl. My proffesor gave it to me and said it is 76%. I didnt know that HCl over 40% cant be contained in normal conditions. Maybe it is 37% and my proffesor was wrong. Anyway, thanks so much for responses.
I was wondering, one of the by-products of PCB etching is copper chloride salts(I use the HCl/H2O2 method). Now, these are, of course, very harmful to the environment. How would one go about properly disposing of the copper salts, or at the very least reacting the copper salts to a less toxic form. I considered attempting re-electroplating the dissolved CuCl and CuCl2, but I'm curious if there is an easier way(I'm sure there is).
A large fraction of my viewers are DIY hackers, makers, amateurs and electrical engineers. This video is for all of you.
how did you evaporate it? and so is it anhydrous?
can I not just use the acid without adding water,
hey bro, how to crystallize ferric chloride?
This video was made because a lot of viewers requested it. Let me know if you think i shouldn't listen to my viewers.
Oh wait a minute, you're a viewer.
😂😂
Ferric Chloride is also very useful for etching other metas besides copper. It works great on stainless steel and iron.. I use it to make labels and logos on stainless steel plates that i attach to finished projects, label metal parts, tools, knife blades, etc. It's also a good way to put a three dimensional pattern pattern or texture on a metal surface that would otherwise be difficult and time consuming using grinders or files. An aquarium bubbler is useful when etching. Ferric Chloride does not bubble when it dissolves metal, so it does not naturally agitate itself to keep the acid fresh near where is need to work..
It's also pretty good for showing Widmanstätten patterns in meteorites too.
if its already dark brown FeCl3 then gently heating to make it evaporate faster won't be an issue. But If you heat it too strongly while dry it'll decompose into FeCl2 and chlorine. So just heat it until you reduce the volume considerably, and the let evaporation do the rest.
If you don't have peroxide you can still make ferric chloride by bubbling air through the ferrous chloride. The unused etchant also keeps indefinetely unlike peroxide/hcl.
I've used Ferric Chloride before to etch PCBs but never new how it was made. Cool.
My first job making about 40,000 lbs/batch, dissolves 10,000 lbs. of steel chopper scrap in 2 hrs. Don't forget free acid 2%, if it gets cloudy watch out, low acid, could become unstable and revert to ferrous chloride and chlorine gas. The dry stuff can be unstable too.
I got a job at a etching company and soon introduced to working with Ferric Chloride. Pretty cool stuff.
Ferric chloride is awesome for etching knife blades! Thanks for this video!
You are one of the better TH-cam edumacators that put regular schooling to shame.
Its weird that no one ever requested hcl/peroxide but lots of people requested ferric chloride. Then when i show ferric chloride i get a large number of people requesting HCl/peroxide. ah well ;)
You can't please everybody. Thanks for all the education you share with us.
Well, now I want to know how to make hydrogen peroxide.
I love this guy. He gets me interested in science and chemisty...my true loves of life :)
I have no idea what you are doing 95% of the time but I still subscribed and watch your videos
Could you go through the Fenton Reaction you used during the last oxidation step? It is a fascinating piece of chemistry that tends to go under appreciated, and I was quite surprised when you used it.
Thanks, use this in my shop and it is pain to locate sometimes. Easier to make and have volume. Your the best channel on here
Awesome.PCB from Radio Shack is used by custom knifemakers for various finishes on blades as well as to bring out features in the steel such as temper lines or to make "damascus" pattern welded blades really pop.Iv'e heard complaints that the PCB can be difficult to find at times.I can now refer them to this great tutorial on making it themselves!. Great video as always.
i just started a chemistry degree and as much as i love the practicals and the new theory's, there is ALOT of maths and physics that are never really taught at school i think you should do a one-off video to demonstrate some physical chemistry and the calculations behind it
its amazing how simply this can be made with storebought concentrations of these chemicals and end up being far cheaper than buying pre-made ferric chloride.
Cool video !
I prefer when simple products are used because it is simple for a beginner
This is one of the most interesting channels ever
Its probably ~37% then. you'll have to titrate it to be certain. But there is no way you can have 76% HCl, what does it say on the bottle?
Thank you for the air pump solution. Now I don't need to buy a 10 gallon bottle of a hydrogen peroxide concentrate when I only need like a 0.1 liter or less.
usually there's a very powerful fan which mixes in a lot of atmospheric air, thus diluting the fumes, as well as the system being made of something fairly inert like stainless steel. You'd be surprised how well materials hold up to fumes even if they wouldn't hold up under direct exposure to the reaction/reactants in liquid form.
I wish TH-cam would have been around back in high school!
Hehe tak. Men underligt at en pen kunne forhindre stærk syre i at ætse kobberet. Jeg forstår slet ikke hvorfor det ikke blev ætset fra undersiden. Hvad indeholdt den pen?
76% HCl is not possible to contain (it would be a high pressure gas) the maximum that can be made liquid at atmospheric pressure is 40%. I don't think you have HCl there, might be something else.
People requested ferric chloride. No one requested hcl/peroxide. If enough people request hcl/peroxide then i'll do that one.
I remember this from high school - we used to keep this stuff in a Coca Cola bottle (it even has a similar dark-brownish tint) and joked that coke dissolves even the copper on our PCBs :D
You are the first youtube I ever watched
0:34 why it's colour turned yellow , is hcl yellow is colour ? And which acid is used for toilet cleaner which is yellow is colour in my case ?
i tried this years ago. My problem was when boiling it down it it formed what i thought was a sol. I basically turned brown and looked more like a suspention and gave up thinking it was the wrong route. At the time ihad the impression Ferric and ferrous chloride looked the same exept one formed a true solution while the other formed a sol. I would like to see a video on sols from you, I havent seen one on YT, and sols are quite interesting
I've used one part muriatic acid to two parts hydrogen peroxide to etch my boards because it remains transparent in use so that I could see the progress of the etch without taking the board out. The fumes are the main issue and the etch needs to be done outside.
Thank you so much!
Also, woud be great if you show how to recover the solution after it has been used a lot, and not working anymore.
You can get it at most hardware stores in a crude form... look for "muriatic acid." In the USA, it comes as about a 30% HCl which is pretty concentrated.
Muriatic acid is used for concrete etching and pool pH maintenance, so it chould be found at a pool store and at hardware stores. HTH.
Thanks for the tutorial. We use ferric chloride in ceramic to make great colors on rakued art. Can buy small bottle for $9, now we can have lots for little cost. Thanks NurdRage
Back to Basics: Can you please make a series of short videos teaching us how to make simple acids, bases, compounds needed in most general experiments?
There is also a nice way to etch copper circuits with NaCl + CuSO4 solution in water. Always wondered how in works.
Given that both of your iron sources (nails and steel wool) are actually steel, I'm curious if the trace amounts of carbon and other alloying materials have any effect on the reaction. I'm guessing it's a negligible effect or you'd tell us to get pure iron or iron oxide, but do you know whether the carbon is still mixed in with the ferric chloride or went into a side reaction whose result evaporated or something?
Hey there, from 12 years ago. Probably negligible. Steel wool is about 98% iron. Should be fine.
@Potato_Quality7 I figured that would be the case (or, at least, reading my old comment and knowing how my mind works, I assume I figured that would be the case), but I do like hearing about the negligible side reactions, and NurdRage sometimes likes to describe them. Also, wow, I've been watching NurdRage for at least 12 years. That's at least one career change ago.
@@tildessmoo Dawg, I did not expect you to reply at all. How's life man? Yo, 12 years? That's a lifetime ago. I'm no chemist myself so unfortunately I cannot give a precise answer. However, since we're not doing precise chemistry, it probably won't matter. The aim is to make corroding goo. Throw stuff in there until it's acidic to the touch, and the Copper won't stand a chance. To back this up, I read you can reuse the Ferric Chloride, even after it reacts with the Copper to leave trace impurities in the solution. Jokes aside, it would be nice to hear NurdRage speak on this, though.
@Potato_Quality7 I'm kind of surprised the TH-cam notification engine even bothered, honestly, but I still rewatch old NurdRage videos when I'm bored, so maybe it's not that surprising. This video came out right around when I was switching from being a waiter to a mechanic, which I'm normally grateful for because I'm making more money and have a lot more job stability, but given I broke a finger at work this week, it's a little harder to be optimistic. I'm not a chemist either - I studied Classics in college, which I like to joke is why I'm a mechanic now - and my amateur science interests tend to be in a more physics direction, but it's just always fun to see a scientist break down their passion for us laypeople, and chemists like NR and NR and... E&F (nah, they don't all have the same initials!) always have the best practical demonstrations.
@sammy3212321 well, modern US pennies aren't made of mostly copper anymore: they're made of zinc and plated with a few thousandths of an inch of copper on the outside. But if you have an old penny (pre-1980 or so IIRC) then it will dissolve If you have enough ferric chloride.
The trick to crystalize this is a desiccating bag/chamber.
I found a good trick for making a good desiccating chamber . I used a large rubbermaid tub that seals completely.
I bought crystal kitty litter which is pure silica gel . I use a half of a coffee can with mostly the silica gel and about a cup full of Sodium Hydroxide. This mix seems to work just as fast as if it were sodium hydroxide alone, but way way cheaper.
Many years ago I was doing a lot of circuit boards in this acid (I didnt make it myself though). I remember that I drew with a special pen where I wanted the cobber not to go. How did that Work? What did the pen do?
I have a request. Grignard reagents used to make whatever chemical you choose - explaining the chemistry and applications of those particular reagents. If not, something organic and synthetic. Ortho, para and meta aromatics and how to synthesize and/or seperate the products?
So sorry for the ignorant question.... but are there any health risks from fumes in this process?
Yes, you'll want to do this outdoors or under a fume hood or with a respirator appropriate for filtering chemicals.
Hydrogen gas is being released. Keep away from ign sources
Wanting to do my own etching at home, this will certainly start to explain possible methods and the chemistry behind them :)
there's usually some HCL left, so don't breathe the fumes. But otherwise, as long as you have adequate ventilation, it's fine.
Regarding PCB, I used to make PCB and I hated using Ferric Chloride. It's slow, it requires heating (you have to get the etching fast enough so the solution doesn't start to seep under the positive mask), it stains. Ugh.
A better solution we found was Nitric Acid. Yep. Very diluted and good for many uses. turns a lovely shade of blue when it has enough Cu ions. The only caveat was the amount of care and safety needed when preparing the diluted solution, smoking nitric acid is no joke.
thank you! this should save me from dealing with the local radio shack
Use a protective layer, like tape, for the pattern desired. The Cu takes the Cl atoms from the Fe.
Yup!
say you etched a bunch of boards. Is the a way to remove the copper and restore the Ferric Chloride?
how you evaporates it? are you just heat it directly or there's another thing to do??
You can heat it or let it sit
I'm just here because I love to stuff happen because of other stuff that... uh does something to the stuff. And hopefully learn something along the way. Thank you for uploading.
Very good. I always wondered how to make ferric chloride as I use it to etch my PCBs.
i was worried, that you didn't mention the fumehood at the beginning, but was relieved to see the the beaker with hydrocloric acid in your hand...
I use ferric chloride because the reaction is slower and more gentle on the printed traces. For me hydrochloric acid + h2o2 usually damaged very thin lines.
Maybe a stupid question...
It produces very unhealthy fumes if you evaporate it, right?
Is there a temperature-limit in evaporation i shouldnt cross (Decomposing stuff)? Of course not letting it cook till dry... Only to reduce the liquid ammount and let natural evap do the rest...
Or is it even best to let it sit without raised temperature till it is evaporated?
Whoa, the new Intro is great!
Hey! I know that this may be a stupid question! but how do you know when the ferric acid have been totally saturated and is time to replace! and maybe more important! is there a way to get the copper out and recycle the acid again? because I have been only using muriatic acid mix with Hydrogen Peroxide! but it saturates very fast and take for ever to do the job!
Thanks
Huh. I was thinking last night that I need a source of ferric chloride for some steel etching...
Nice timing, sir.
Where do fumes go? And how are they rendered inert? Never fully understood how a hood works, or how a fume hood could possibly be designed so as not to corrode or risk inadvertent reactions happening downstream (up the flue, so to speak).
This could come in handy now that Radio Shack is out of business. I used to buy ferric chloride from them, but now I would need to mail order it. But muriatic acid is available from the hardware store so I can still have a local source.
Or making esters using alcohols and carboxylic acids. That's an easy one and usually it smells nice.
Most sanitation plants will use something like sodium borohydride to precipitate out the heavy metals. But in some cases it is stored in an effort to recycle, some one may us CuCl as a feed stock.
Won't the Fe(3+) ions catalyse the decomposition of H2O2 (to H2O and O2), therefore requiring you to use more H2O2 than mathematically necessary? Or is the oxygen made that way directly consumed by remaining Fe(2+)?
Thank you so much!!! I needed this to etch my Damascus steel!
Did you get desirable results ?
@@Swaminarayan70 well, that was 8 years ago
this man is the jesus of chemistry.
I used 30-33% household HCl, first it goes real fast, but after few seconds a lot of Carbone is form and slow down the reaction. Now I boil it, but it goes still slowly.
As always, this is a really great video.
Would it be possible to make a video on making potassium persulfate or sodium persulfate? Those two chemicals have been my preferred copper enchants for years now.
I work at a company that makes circuit boards, I work in the lab with chemicals and don't work with the circuit boards at all. I see large tanks with solutions of copper, nickel, tin, gold, and maybe another. So I don't work with iron at all. Know if this means we work with a different type of circuit board? Or maybe the circuit board is treated with an iron solution before I ever see them?
I had a bucket of a copper compound, and I added a bunch of aluminum to it to make it easier to dispose of. However, I forgot to dispose of it, and now I have these very large and long crystals. They have a index of refraction lower than that of water, and they are very light. I'm not sure what copper compound it was, so could you please give me an explanation of what crystal I might have on my hands?
Thanks.
This video was awesome. It seems like something I could do (carefully) at home. Not really sure where I'd source the acid and the peroxide, let alone at the right concentration, but if I wanted to I could work it out. So yeah, more home chemistry plz.
Hardware aisle, 37% hcl for etching concrete or cleaning bricks. Peroxide from pharmacy or supermarket. For anyone 10yrs later
Woow amazing video😍😍😍
You can add more HCl by way of hardware store muriatic acid. The solution will still be quite murky and you certainly expect a somewhat slower etching process due to contaminants. See Nurdrage's other video on different types of etchant solution including CuCl2 etchants and it will be a lot easier than working with ferric chloride.
@KamaTheSnowLeopard because many plastics are impervious to acids. Polyethylene is one of the few materials that will not dissolve in hydrofluoric acid (HF) which will even dissolve glass.
i suppose you can concentrate the solution, then acidify with hydrochloric acid and reoxidize it with the hydrogen peroxide solution, but probably you will only could do it few times until the solution get satured in copper chloride and it gets preciptated.
I love all your videos!
Love your videos, they help time to time in my chemistry exams ^^
I was wondering if there is a good way to recycle this or at least neutralize it for disposal?
Can you explain why you still need the hood when you are using the ice water to cool and re-condense any fumes that escape? Is it just a safety precaution?
You actually are right however, unless the hematite is powdered it's much to slow of a reaction.
Yeah, it's hard to get the smaller traces to come out pretty good.
Nice video. But žhat really interests me is whether it's possible to regenerate ferric chloride that had been used for long time and has lots of copper in it? It would totally make sense to lots of people out there who use FeCl to etch PCBs.
Excellent demo NurdRage! You need to show it to indeeditdoes , so he can extract more of the copper before he throw away the circuit boards. :-D
well, most PCBs have a solder-resist mask that is also a good etch-resist. The gold plating is also on top of the copper, which means it acts like a protective layer, preventing the copper from being dissolved. All in all, there are better ways.
Hey nurdrage it would be so awesome if you could show how to make the tinplating solution that is offen used to protect the pcb after it has been etched a commertial product for this is called bundgaard sur tin and i have no clue how it is plated on to the pcb as it is not electroplated onto it - but i bet there would be a lot of good chemestry in it.
after watching this video , i decided to buy a pack of 20 cents of Ferric Chloride.
I think mixing iron oxide (hematite Fe2O3) with HCl should do the trick directly like :
Fe2O3 + 6 HCl ---> FeCl3 + 3 H2O
But i might be wrong
if you try electolisis of brine with iron electrodes won´t you get iron cloride on the oxidising side?
I use them from store in pellets and dissolve in water, what is needed when the solution dries out (similar to the crystallised form), or just enough water to disolve? How many times it is fesable to repeat? Usually I try to use as small volume as possible to do etching, and dispose remains if I don't have anything to etch any time soon.
Nice to see how it is done, but I`d rather continue to buy the powder for ferric chloride in a electronics components store (it is pretty cheap too).
I have, however, a question: will that work if the nails are rusty?
Does the Air bubbling method require an acidic solution to oxidize the Ferrous chloride?
Sorry if this has been asked, but why do you disguise/lower your voice?
Hello and thanks for the video!
Can you tell me what the chemistry is in my result?
Used electronic scrap, partially to dissolve the steel before going after the Au, Ag, etc.
Solution was as you showed, but there was some additional black sediment (carbon from the steel?) and more interestingly, much of the remaining metal is now copper plated.
HCL doesn't react with Cu, at least not like that, so what caused copper plating to occur? Can provide pictures if you are interested. Thanks!
It doesnt say nothing on the bottle just HCl. My proffesor gave it to me and said it is 76%. I didnt know that HCl over 40% cant be contained in normal conditions. Maybe it is 37% and my proffesor was wrong. Anyway, thanks so much for responses.
Is FeCl3 unstable? Does it decompose to FeCl2 and Chlorine gas? I've noticed a distinctive "halogen" smell from the commercial stuff.
I was wondering, one of the by-products of PCB etching is copper chloride salts(I use the HCl/H2O2 method). Now, these are, of course, very harmful to the environment. How would one go about properly disposing of the copper salts, or at the very least reacting the copper salts to a less toxic form. I considered attempting re-electroplating the dissolved CuCl and CuCl2, but I'm curious if there is an easier way(I'm sure there is).
Thanks, NurdRage. This is extremely useful to me. Can steel wire such as safety wire be used?
And how much is concentrated Ferric Chloride made by this process?
nice video!
h2o2 + hcl also work to decompose copper
It will work if you add the hydrogen peroxide before speeding up the dissolve of the iron?