Lead extraction from a battery

Do it or not do it is your business. People like throwing the libertarian principles around here, so how about you guys try to live by them? ;) This is a large, certified facility. The sewer system is designed to accommodate acid, no one is being hurt. Researchers and students are pouring liters and liters of acid down the drain every year... (And solvents and bases) Oh, noes! :p

Well, since you know so much about chemical facilities... If you are in <see my location> some time, let me know, I think I'll be able to arrange a little tour. I'll only ask you to eat crow figuratively afterwards - deal? ;) After all, stories on an internet forum are only worth what we pay for them, right?

On another subject: Lead aprons are indeed the most efficient ways of protecting your private parts from X-rays and not likely to be replaced with something else for the foreseeable future... Problem is - doctor offices / radiation technicians are usually a little unhappy if you try to walk off while still wearing one of their aprons ;) They also tend to catch you pretty quickly if you try to run... What's with the added weight and all :p

P.S. My friend got a good laugh from the comments and asked me to mention that: 1. Your best protection in the lab is your brain. 2. Those are chemical glasses and are splash and shatter proof. 3. The lab smock is rated to resist burn through by _concentrated_ sulfuric acid for 10 minutes... 4. We have no intention of doing this on a large scale, just need enough lead to shoot a nice Berdan II :) The facilities we have available are perfectly adequate for a small scale

P.P.S Dear sunray, that comment is so unsurprisingly in line with your other comments, I'm not even surprised :p (Love your signature!)

P.P.P.S One more disclaimer: by all means please stay away from anything like this. Proper facilities are important and I want you all to stay safe :)
 
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Interesting, but shame on you for doing this and living to post about it. Now others will do the same. This is a good example of someone doing something contrary to shooting dogma and the mindless backlash that results - right on script.

P.S. Don't forget that lead can be absorbed through the skin and to only cast outdoors or you'll inhale lead fumes. I can quote plenty of recycled and embellished Interweb threads that prove it.
 
When I was taking chemistry in university we where told to dilute any acid before dumping it down the drain. Only thing we couldn't dump down the regular drain was organic solvents.

This all reminds me of when I worked a summer in a chrome plating facility and some of the guys would flick drops of chromic acid at each other for fun. Burned through the cottons coveralls in seconds; nothing chemical resistant but the gloves. They where later shut down for a laundry list of health and safety violations.
 
Instead of scrounging for free lead - I buy it. If I could get free lead tin and antimony and melt them into pucks for free I would only save about 26% on my reloading costs or $32.69 per 250 bullets based on 405g 45-70 loads. Why go through a toxic head ache of battery recycling to save a relatively small amount? IMHO

I buy my lead from alchemy extrusions in Hamilton. I get to choose the alloy that I want (lyman #2 90% lead, 5% tin, 5% antimony). Taxes in I pay about $2.20 per pound. They make up a batch on demand and pour it into little pucks that fit in my pot. The lead is consistent, completely clean and requires little fluxing. The chart below breaks down my costs- mileage may vary for other loads.

Prices Include 13% HST 45-70 405gr big game hunting loads

Case - Starline 45-70 brass 0.79
# Reloads per Case 10
Price Per Case 0.079 $/Case
Case Lube - Hornady 1-Shot 600 cases per $15.20 can
Price lube Per Case 0.025333333
Powder (gr) - IMR-3031 - 56.5gr per load
Price Powder $220.35 Per 8 lps container
Price Powder / Grain 0.003934821 $/gr
$ / Charge 0.222317411
Lead 90:5:5 Pb : Sb : Sn $2.26 Per 1 lps
Bullet (gr) 405
Price Lead per Grain 0.000322857 $/gr
$ / Lead Bullet 0.130757143
Primers $39.55 Per 1000 Primers
Primer Unit Price 0.03955 $/primer
$ Cartridge 0.496957887
Qty of Bullets 250
Cost of Bullets per Qty $124.24
Cost of lead alloy per Qty $32.69
Percent savings if Pb : Sb : Sn is free 26.31%

* I use enamel coated bullets instead of lube at a cost of a few dollars per thousand- it's so low I don't track it.
 
I pay about $0.40 a pound at most.....Making 1 oz slugs the cost savings adds up pretty fast. Never mind the bullets for the 30-30, 30-06, 38/200, 9mm etc.

I am planning on getting together a supply that will last me a life time....so in ten years when you are paying $5.00/lb, i will still have my $0.40/lb lead...

Just saying

Doors of Perception said:
Instead of scrounging for free lead - I buy it. If I could get free lead tin and antimony and melt them into pucks for free I would only save about 26% on my reloading costs or $32.69 per 250 bullets based on 405g 45-70 loads. Why go through a toxic head ache of battery recycling to save a relatively small amount? IMHO

I buy my lead from alchemy extrusions in Hamilton. I get to choose the alloy that I want (lyman #2 90% lead, 5% tin, 5% antimony). Taxes in I pay about $2.20 per pound. They make up a batch on demand and pour it into little pucks that fit in my pot. The lead is consistent, completely clean and requires little fluxing. The chart below breaks down my costs- mileage may vary for other loads.

.
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yomomma said:
p.s. There is a palce in Burlington that is cheaper.....the shot I buy works out to about $1.40 /lb
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I hear you - inflation marches on. Are you referring to Mars metals?

Slugs need pure lead which is I think only found in xray, roofing flashing and old plumbing - I was in a pinch so I did not hit the scrap yards and just bought it instead at $1.70/lps from alchemy. Also, I could not find tin for less than $20/lps to alloy with.

Do you find a noticeable ballistic difference from shooting different alloys from various sources - do your bullet weigh the same from batch to batch?
 
sunray said:
I believe if he's dumping battery acid down a drain he's committing a crime on either side of the border.
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From a guy who installs this stuff, if that is indeed a proper lab with acid waste drainage, that material goes into a dilution tank where it is run through a bed of limestone and has copious amounts of water added to it before being released into city sewers. Otherwise they'd eventually dissolve the plumbing main out into the street. And yes labs all over the place dump everything down the drain. But there are nastier things going into plumbing every day. Usually straight into a river...
 
LUTNIT said:
When I was taking chemistry in university we where told to dilute any acid before dumping it down the drain. Only thing we couldn't dump down the regular drain was organic solvents.

This all reminds me of when I worked a summer in a chrome plating facility and some of the guys would flick drops of chromic acid at each other for fun. Burned through the cottons coveralls in seconds; nothing chemical resistant but the gloves. They where later shut down for a laundry list of health and safety violations.
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We were doing some work in the local railyards and got talking to the old timers. Back in the day they used to have epic asbestos fights in the maintenance shops. Apparently the loose version of asbestos can be packed like snowballs if you add a little water....
 
kennymo said:
From a guy who installs this stuff, if that is indeed a proper lab with acid waste drainage, that material goes into a dilution tank where it is run through a bed of limestone and has copious amounts of water added to it before being released into city sewers. Otherwise they'd eventually dissolve the plumbing main out into the street. And yes labs all over the place dump everything down the drain. But there are nastier things going into plumbing every day. Usually straight into a river...
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The specs also say that there's a pH meter in the tank there so that if the pH drops too much, it can be adjusted. (Not that I've seen _that_ with my own eyes...)
LUTNIT said:
we where told to dilute any acid before dumping it down the drain.
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I rechecked, and I did remember to say we diluted and flushed the acid. Also the pictures show that the sink filled with water...

And, honestly, sulfuric acid is rather benign compared to, say, those CFL light bulbs... or household cleaners (bases) that are much slower to degrade in the environment...

As far as cost of buying vs scrounging - I hear you, but there's also the fun factor of doing something yourself. Chances are high that this will get too tiresome at some point... besides the story is generating offers of free lead that people have lying around :p
 
So after all is said and done, how much lead do you average from each battery? How hard is it? I've heard you usually recover on average less than 2lb on a modern maintenance free battery. If that's the useable yield, we sell batteries to the recyclers here for $6 each if there is no core charge. That would be $3/lb not counting the time and energy. Certainly not worth the work imho.
 
sawzall said:
So after all is said and done, how much lead do you average from each battery? How hard is it? I've heard you usually recover on average less than 2lb on a modern maintenance free battery. If that's the useable yield, we sell batteries to the recyclers here for $6 each if there is no core charge. That would be $3/lb not counting the time and energy. Certainly not worth the work imho.
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I was getting about 30 cents a pound for scrap batteries. It's not worth it extracting lead from batteries, because batteries contain very little elemental lead. The majority is lead oxide. You can't separate lead oxide by melting, it requires smelting.

I posted a lengthy description of the smelting process a while back. Smelting is essentially a blast furnace, where you mix in a carbon source and limestone and melt it under no oxygen conditions. (yes, you need temperatures hot enough to melt the limestone).

There are electrolytic processes, but they aren't very efficient, and require an extremely strong base (opposite of acid, and just as nasty)
 
Andy said:
Interesting, but shame on you for doing this and living to post about it. Now others will do the same. This is a good example of someone doing something contrary to shooting dogma and the mindless backlash that results - right on script.

P.S. Don't forget that lead can be absorbed through the skin and to only cast outdoors or you'll inhale lead fumes. I can quote plenty of recycled and embellished Interweb threads that prove it.
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Hilarious.

To the original poster, thanks for posting your experience. I have a couple of batteries I set aside months ago that I intended to play with someday, but decided a while ago that given the facilities I would need to build to do it right it isn't worth it. You would likely need to process a couple thousand kg per annum to justify the investment.
 
BattleRife said:
Hilarious.

To the original poster, thanks for posting your experience. I have a couple of batteries I set aside months ago that I intended to play with someday, but decided a while ago that given the facilities I would need to build to do it right it isn't worth it. You would likely need to process a couple thousand kg per annum to justify the investment.
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If you were actually smelting, that requires VERY extensive (expensive) environmental approvals, permitting, emission controls, monitoring, and reporting. Not much different than if you were recycling radioactive materials.

To make it profitable would likely be a few thousand tonnes a year, not kg. The environmental approvals and permitting is the same for a few hundred kg or thousands of tonnes.

Just to clarify, the approvals and permitting is for smelting, not melting/casting of refined metals.
 
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We have no intention of smelting. I have not weighed the actual lead output yet, I'd estimate it at around 60% of the battery weight - yes half the plates are lead oxide (or partly sulfide since this is an old battery) on lead wires, so we can recover the terminals, lead anode plates and the lead wires from the cathode (IIRC) plates. We did not actually have any car batteries - mostly motorcycle and one tractor battery, but they were free so financially it's a win ;)

We are not in this to make a buck, more to practice doing it. Lead availability may change in the future. And this story generated another win - more people now know I have a use for lead so I got a few offers of free lead people had stashed in their attics and garages.

If we did not have access to a lab, the biggest concern would be how to dispose of the lead oxide that is going to be left over. The lab has a specialized waste disposal service, if not for that I have no idea what to do with it.
 
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