Adam Seychell wrote:
>
> rolanyang wrote:
>
>>Do you have a digital camera? Can you take a photo
>>of your solution? When you have something that looks
>>like http://www.techfreakz.org/cucl2/?slide=5
>>the solution is probably right.
>>
>>If you're getting brown or sludge, then first bubble
>>air through it or add H2O2. If that doesnt help, then
>>start adding HCl until it turns blue-greenish.
>>
>>Adding too much HCl won't slow down the reaction
>>but not having enough CuCl2 will.
>>
>>Here's another idea:
>>does anyone know if copper powder is cheap?
>>The reaction would likely go a lot faster
>>since the suface area of powder is drastically
>>greater than when using plain old scrap wire
>>or boards.
>>
>
> You can get copper powder from some art supplies, but its VERY
> expensive for what we are doing. I think they use it as pigments
> in paint, or coating surfaces. Its almost fine as flour and thus
> dangerous to breath in.
>
> You can react either, copper carbonate, copper(II) oxide (black
> pigment powder) or copper(II) hydroxide (bright blue powder for
> fungicides) with HCl and instantly get copper(II) chloride
> solution. The problem is none of these are easily/cheaply
> available as scrap copper in the quantities we need (1 kg of
> copper). Maybe they are, but I don't know of any.
> You can get few hundred grams at very high $/kg or buy 25 kg bag
> from an industrial supplier at low $/kg but you'll have ∗way∗ to
> much. Unfortunately there is no in-between.
>
> I'm going to have a better play around with getting copper metal
> to react with HCl and do it fast as possible.
I bet it's been tried, but does this work: CuSO4 + 2HCl -> CuCl2 + H2SO4
CuSO4 is in garden shops.