video Make Ferric Chloride (for etching printed circuit boards)
We make ferric chloride, a well-known etchant for printed circuit boards.
Get 20g of iron. This can be in the form of nails or steel wool. It's best to use iron that's rusting, that indicates it doesn't have other metals like zinc or chromium that's normally used to prevent rust. To the iron add 100mL of water and 100mL of 12M hydrochloric acid. The iron will start reacting with the acid to produce hydrogen gas and ferrous chloride. If the reaction is proceeding too slowly for your liking you can heat up the mixture. A flask of cold water on top is useful to reduce evaporative losses.
Once the ferrous chloride solution is made it needs to be oxidized to ferric chloride. The fast way of doing this is to add 200mL of 3% hydrogen peroxide. Do this slowly with lots of stirring as the solution will heat up a lot. If it gets too hot to hold (about 60 celsius) stop and let it cool before adding the rest of the peroxide. If you don't want to use peroxide the slow and cheap way of oxidizing it is to bubble in air using an aquarium pump. It can take several days but it has the added advantage of keeping the solution concentrated.
After oxidation you'll have a solution of ferric chloride ready for use.
Get 20g of iron. This can be in the form of nails or steel wool. It's best to use iron that's rusting, that indicates it doesn't have other metals like zinc or chromium that's normally used to prevent rust. To the iron add 100mL of water and 100mL of 12M hydrochloric acid. The iron will start reacting with the acid to produce hydrogen gas and ferrous chloride. If the reaction is proceeding too slowly for your liking you can heat up the mixture. A flask of cold water on top is useful to reduce evaporative losses.
Once the ferrous chloride solution is made it needs to be oxidized to ferric chloride. The fast way of doing this is to add 200mL of 3% hydrogen peroxide. Do this slowly with lots of stirring as the solution will heat up a lot. If it gets too hot to hold (about 60 celsius) stop and let it cool before adding the rest of the peroxide. If you don't want to use peroxide the slow and cheap way of oxidizing it is to bubble in air using an aquarium pump. It can take several days but it has the added advantage of keeping the solution concentrated.
After oxidation you'll have a solution of ferric chloride ready for use.
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It produces very unhealthy fumes if you evaporate it, right?
Is there a temperature-limit in evaporation i shouldnt cross (Decomposing stuff)?
Or is it even best to let it sit without raised temperature till it is evaporated?
Happy to see him here :)
I am not really sure you can call an advantage here. Stripping copper through chemical processes creates a resultant substance that you need to treat carefully, the spent copper-laden corrosive is fairly toxic and many states require you to take it to a approved haz-waste collection site. I think NR is doing the awesome thing of making everything from base materials, the holy grail of us 'structable nerds.
Back to advantages for a second though, I have read the cupric chloride etchant( I believe that is what you referencing) can be reinvigorated and thus it has a longer used life ounce for ounce. It still need to be treated with respect and caution.
That is it creates sharper edges and finer details. Was not making a moral judgment on value/environmental-friendliness/street-cred. It just works better at eating metal in a controlled manner.
CuCl is close to the results of FeCl on copper. But on some other metals it does not come close.