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safe and enviromentaly freindly etchant

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large_ghostman

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You probably all know this but just incase.
Last year I ran out of Ferric chloride and ordered some more, I was told it would take 4 weeks as I buy in 20ltrs at a time and sell some on. This time they didnt have the one I normally buy in, so I tried another approach that works really well but does take some time! (anything from 4 hours to 2 days depending on how you approach it).
What I liked about it was its cheap, very easy to get the parts and eco friendly, you can also get the copper back really easy as well. So you mix sodium chloride to water and then add sodium acetate with white distilled vinegar (5% acetic acid in uk), now this is the bit you can save some time. You have a choice of bubbling air from an aquarium pump into it (first board takes ages but is much quicker as copper chloride builds up) or add a small amount of 3% hydrogen peroxide until the solution starts to go green.
Sodium chloride is table salt, sodium acetate is a food additive and vinegar is acetic acid. All the hydrogen peroxide does is help get things going, but if you have some used solution then you dont really need to add it, or as I said just bubble air in. You can use this time and again and just keep adding sodium chloride, keep an eye on the pH and if it moves much from 5 or 6 then add more sodium acetate and vinegar (they act as a pH buffer).
Once you have loads of lovely green solution and precipitate, just toss in a bit of rebar or any bit of iron. The copper will plate onto the iron similar to electroplating, you end up with a handy copper powder this way.
Do I use it?
Nah I cant be bothered most the time or I am in a rush, but I do use it now for recycling old boards for the copper powder.
It might help someone in a pinch and is safe and easy to get hold of the chemicals.
 
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