You should put full 1.8kg of the wire in. I takes about 24 hours
for the acid to really start going dark and cuprous/cupric
chloride mix to be produced. The copper in the air should
eventually go bright blue Cu(OH)2 coating.
Has the HCl still changed from its normal pale yellow to a dark
brown ?. If so then its working. This reaction is an accelerating
one.
I'm sorry if I misguided you and you feel its not working as
expected. I've made 2 batches so far, using this technique.
Eventually I would like to write a web page giving much more
accurate information than I have done so in these posts,
including pictures. I'm still experimenting myself at this stage.
Just add concentrated acid from now on, there should be enough
water for the moment. Don't hesitate to ask any questions.
Adam
grantfair2001 wrote:
> Last night I added 1 litre of HCl (30.5%) to 2 litres of distilled
> water to make 12 litres of 10% etchant (to start off with) in my
> plastic Coleman cooler tank. To this I added 1.8 kg of clean copper
> wire I had washed in dish detergent and hot water.
>
> Twelve hours later, the copper covered with the acid solution looks
> unchanged. About half the wire, which is pieces about 12" long bent
> into different shapes, (so the copper is a large jumble), sticks out
> of the solution. Most of this is covered by a pink coloured, hazy
> looking film.
>
> I don't know what to expect, but so far this is what I have noted.
>
> Grant
>
>
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