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Step 4Clean Up (Not Much To Do)
The clean up really is just a matter of rinsing out the sponge, throwing away the rubber gloves (or rinsing them off for reuse), and cleaning any spilled drops of ferric chloride from the work surface.
You can reuse the sponge over and over, so rinse it and let it dry, and keep it with your bottle of ferric chloride.
You can reuse the sponge over and over, so rinse it and let it dry, and keep it with your bottle of ferric chloride.
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Disposing the etchant in small amounts over a long time is no different than disposing the whole lot at once, it would all still end up down the drain.
Better to collect it all up (whatever way you etch) and take it to a proper disposal place in the end.
Where I live the local firehall will take whatever chemicals. You just drive them over in an onimous container and they'll add it to a big pile of mysterious things.
good lord :-)
all mine's pvc
"Disposal Considerations
Whatever cannot be saved for recovery or recycling should be managed in an appropriate and approved waste facility. Although not a listed RCRA hazardous waste, this material may exhibit one or more characteristics of a hazardous waste and require appropriate analysis to determine specific disposal requirements. Processing, use or contamination of this product may change the waste management options. State and local disposal regulations may differ from federal disposal regulations. Dispose of container and unused contents in accordance with federal, state and local requirements. "
Its not much help, but I would take it to a landfill on one of their hazmat days, although its not illegal to dump it.
That said don't forget you are using a tiny fraction of the FeCl3 solution that the "traditional" method calls for per. PCB (and I bet lots of that solution goes guess where?). Also, the small amount of solution that is used using this method gets diluted many times over will probably not effect house pipes to any measurable degree. Just flush with lots of rinse water after each session.
You should always be careful about what you put down the drain. But ...well , I don`t know really.
I see what you`re saying , about this being a small source of copper into the nature. And I think it is.
But it could have been interesting to do some math on it, sometime : )
thats what i think when i pour stuff (harmful) down the drain
The thing about all this is...when you flush material down the drain, it DOES NOT go into your local lake, stream, river, or ocean! It goes to your community's waste water treatment plant. They precipitate out the metals (it is valuable to them), and the even use ferric chloride in the treatment process!
So unless you live on a boat and you dump your waste at sea, or you live in the back woods of some remote location and your sink and toilet pipes drain directly into the creek, your use of ferric chloride to etch circuit boards is NOT going to hut any aquatic life!
The people in your neighborhood collectively put more copper into the water system (from the copper cladding on the zinc pennies wearing down in their pocket and then laundering their pants) than you every will by etching circuit boards at home.
Am I missing something huge here, or is this a good idea?