Sulfuric Acid From A Car Battery
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- čas přidán 17. 01. 2021
- After a few years, one of my 12 V lead acid car batteries has effectively died, and I thought it was about time to recycle it.
Before recycling however, we can extract the sulfuric acid from the cells, and store it for later use.
We manage to get about 3L of ~35% acid from the battery, but must keep in mind the lead contamination in the future. Hopefully I'll be able to distil it at some point, which will obviously remove all the contained lead. - Věda a technologie
The forbidden sprite
Just a tip for anyone else, I got my acid from an auto parts store. It was sold as battery acid for recharging the acid of car batteries. Was cheap too like $30 used for 6 quarts, or 5.68 liters.
Which country you are from?
In Australia? Where from?
6 Quarts? Bro I think that's how people measure soup stock lol
The lead dioxide could be used to make a crude anode for perchlorate production.
Or for more sulfuric acid from Copper Sulfate :3
I always keep the lead and melt it down too,
Also the lead sulfate Is more soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid due to the formation of some sort of disulfate complex
It would be worth your time to distill that and get an azeotropic (98%) and leave behind any other contaminants. Great source for those that cannot find it easily, thank you for sharing!
Please if anyone can answer this it would help me alot. Is there any way to easily covert sodium sulphate to the bisulphate form? Preferably without any acids.
You use a DC welder to renew it.. if it doesn't start to boil at 60 amps with caps off in 20-30 seconds stop cause a dead cell won't charge and will explode
It's amazing to me how hard it is to get chemicals in some countries. I bought 3 gallons of 98% sulfuric acid on clearance in Walmart. I paid $8 per gallon. It was meant to be used as drain cleaner. Another youtuber actually had some of the same brand. He tested it and cleaned it up with distillation.
Yeah in australia and europe chemicals are really hard to get, in europe you cant even have nitric acid over 3% without having a liscence and in australia its hard to get conc sulfuric acid, all the drain cleaners are potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide
@@EdwardTriesToScience Are you in Australia? I am in the US and we can get almost any chemical shipped to us. Obviously you can't buy large amounts of dangerous chemicals without the authorities being notified by the seller. I read there is some kind of international treaty to regulate sulfuric acid as a precursor for making illegal drugs. Which is crazy because China just ships the illegal drugs already made... I am collecting some of these things with the idea of doing some experiments and videos. I'd like to make some rockets.
@@EdwardTriesToScience I just subbed to your channel.
Your lucky. Here in Australia we are a nanny country. Can't get shit.
@@drmarine1771 you can if you know where to look. I've got 5L bottles of 98% sulfuric and 68% nitric that i bought straight from a chemical supplier in melb :)
here in my country, you can get any sulfuric acid easily by buying "red part" of car/motorbike battery acid
afaik, while the "blue part" is the aquadest or H2O
sorry for my bad english
I always thought elecrolyte from a flat battery was almost water?
Hi, love the video very helpful. Is this 100% pure sulfuric acid when filtered or does it contain or chemicals and water? Thanks
It is less than 30% concentrated and contains extremely significant lead contamination.
Using sulphuric acid and iron to check for copper in ore?
I have refined a lot of battery acid and sometimes it gets something floating around in it while distilling that causes it to bump like crazy so what i do is distill off most of the water using a heating mantle for better heat control and distill slowly until it starts to fume in the boiling flask and then run it through a fritz and that seems to help a lot to stop it bumping, then distill with gas and if it starts bumping to much let it cool and filter again.. you won't get a lot of acid from just 1 old battery, it's only about 10 to 15% on average at a guess..
I just measured the density of the acid from a bundle of dead batteries I have. It measured 1.08 at about 10 Deg C. I reckon that is about 12 % from looking at a few online concentration tables.
I may be measuring it incorrectly though and dissolved metals may make a difference too... I am not sure.
How can I remove battery acid from car paint?
@@user-rq9ud6sl8l I use a short length of steel brake line with polyethylene hose.. I drill in the top side of the battery cells because their sealed these days but it's definitely doable.. for a vacuum sorce I use a brass engine oil sampler running to a gas adapter to vacuum the acid but a gas adapter going to a asperator works really good but often needs clearing but that happens either way.. hope this helps mate, if it wasn't real clear just ask whatever you need, I've just been diagnosed stage 4 cancer so I'm probably making less sense than usual
How can I removed battery acid from car paint?
5yo me: continues licking battery acid
Surprised you didn't do a quick titration to prove the acid consideration with the battery in this 'dead' state.
I thought it changed with the state of charge, converting the Sulfuric Acid to lead sulphate on the plates(This lowering the density) and returning the sulpher back to the acid when it's charge.
Yeah, in hindsight I probably should have checked the actual concentration. I was kind of trying to keep the video as short as I could though, and didn't even think of it.
You're right on the fact that the acid is more concentrated (or more dense) in the charged state, in fact that's exactly how the hydrometer piece would measure the charge state of the battery, through checking the density of the electrolyte.
Hopefully by charging the battery as much as I could before extracting the acid, I might have got a reasonable concentration, but I guess I'll have to check.
@@ScrapScience I'd love to know the results. Quick followup video? Maybe even compare flat to charged batteries?
I tended to stay away from them as I assumed by the time the battery was fully dead (Non-rechargable) most of the sulpher was some in some kind of non-convertible form.
I'd love to have this assumption proven wrong and find out that even 'dead' batteries left on an aggressive charger overnight(15v, few amps, leave it to 'boil') can yield a descent amount of usable acid. I have access to a bunch of old car batteries(A mechanic friend) but they are always quite dead.
Right. The "acid" in dead batteries usually is mostly water.
Lead sulphate has very low solubility in water and it is even less soluble in sulphuric acid. According to Wilkipedia, the Ksp for lead sulphate is, 2.13 x 10−8 (20 °C). This means that for a sulphate concentration of 1M, the lead concentration will be 10−8M (ie 0.00000001M). The atomic weight of lead is just over 200g/mol, so a saturated solution of lead sulphate in 1M sulphuric acid would contain 0.000002g
That’s true if you only look at the direct solubility of the lead sulfate, but there are other things going on as well.
Primarily, in high concentrations of sulfuric acid, lead sulfate will react to form the much more soluble ‘lead bisulphate’, which complicates things a lot.
It’s very difficult to tell how much lead is actually in solution, but it is enough to cause the lead in a battery to slowly be electroplated between electrodes over a battery’s life.
The battery is sure to have led sulfate crystals on its positive electrodes. and maybe the concentration of sulfuric acid is much less what you expected . What would happen if you refilled the battery with distilled water and tried to reverse charge it?
It converts back into sulfuric acid and distilled water! I grew the crystals from a car .battery .
Did U ever get an answer to this Question upon the idea of using water to reverse-charge a car batter for purpose of remove lead Christal’s?
wouldnt it be possible to get the lead out electrochemically instead of distilling the acid?
That's a really good idea.
I doubt it could be used to remove absolutely 100% of the lead in solution but I think it would do a good job of removing a large majority of it. I might even give it a go at some point to see how well it works.
I'll probably need to get some lead testing strips...
@@ScrapScience Suppose you weigh the carbon electrode to be plated, before and after plating. And compare to what you expected.
@@ScrapScience Having many, many years ago made the mistake of attempting to anodise Aluminium with acid straight out of a battery I can confirm the lead will plate out to some degree or other, no idea how effective it'd be to remove the contamination but it certainly plated out and pitted the aluminium pretty badly ;)
Sulphuric acid from iron pyrite experiment?
Thank you for the video.
What also in inverter battery
would you say micron filter paper could successfully remove this lead carbonate? what percent of lead do you imagine would be left in the acid?
Lead carbonate isn't actually the contaminant in the acid. What we have is soluble lead, so it's impossible to filter it out.
The lead carbonate is only generated once we neutralise the acid with sodium carbonate, which is great for removing the lead, but it also destroys the acid too.
Is it possible to purify all the lead in sulfuric acid from lead acid battery via filters and distillation?
Also will regular jar with welded glass pipe that goes to receiving flask withstand 337°C in sand bath without cracking?
Yes, and most likly not.
Would be working the pbo2 electrode from that car battey as a last long electrode for kclo3 production ?!
No. It definitely would not.
I'm actually looking for a way to dispose of sulfuric acid. I do a lot of mechanic work and don't live in a populated area so its impossible to recycle it. Is there a way to neutralize it? Thanks.
If your waste is just general sulfuric acid (ie. it has not been previously used in a battery), then you have a few options:
1) If you can bring it to somebody whose plumbing is connected to a large sewer system, it's perfectly legal to pour it down the drain (in fact, it's sold as drain cleaner in many areas anyway). Maybe dilute it with water a little before this though.
2) In some cases, you can just neutralise the acid with lots of bicarb-soda (making it much easier to handle), though note that this reaction gives off a lot of bubbles. The resulting solution can usually be poured down a drain as well.
3) If you can't access any plumbing with a sewer system, you'll just need to neutralise it with bicarb-soda, and look up your local laws surrounding the disposal of sodium sulfate (which is what you'll have in solution after neutralisation).
If your waste is used battery acid specifically, the lead contamination makes the disposal much more difficult. You'll need to dispose of this at any organisation which does car battery recycling. Usually, general rubbish tips will have a section for car batteries, where you can probably drop off a container of your acid to be recycled.
@@ScrapScience Or put some comercial caustic soda and neutrilize it.
Mate. A few questions. 1 what did you use for a filter. I tried it and it ate the filter to a black glue. 2 where are you . 3 there's a lot of acid you mentioned but it's only 30 % can ithe water be boiled of to increase its purity?
1) I just used paper towel, when below an acid concentration of 50% it seems to hold up fine for me.
2) Australia.
3) Yes, but boiling the water off sulfuric acid (to get highly concentrated stuff) is a very dangerous task that requires high quality glassware and temperatures close to 300C. I wouldn't attempt it without intense research and extreme safety precautions.
@@ScrapScience thanks for replying. Not sure what happened to my filter. Also since your in Au. I i found in my local hardware store in victoria a product caled Moflo.. apparantly it's 98 % sulphuric.
Have a great day Ps. Great chanel.
Cheers 🍻
@@ScrapScience I would think that at 100C water would boil away. Why is 300C necessary?
@@ctsirkass The boiling point of water is highly dependent on what you've got in solution. With sulfuric acid solutions, the boiling point of water stays around 100 C until you get to about 50% concentration. After this point, removing the water starts to require more thermal energy, and the boiling point rises exponentially to above 300 C once you get towards the really concentrated stuff.
You can look up 'sulfuric acid concentration vs boiling point' on Google images if you want a graph of how this works.
What would happen if u electroplated with titanium mesh? Could the lead plate onto the titanium sheets?
I have a follow-up video about trying to remove the lead by electroplating, but it doesn't seem to work very well:
czcams.com/video/tQ-Wysb-z4I/video.html
What to do if you get in contact with battery sulfuric acid, lead acid or any part of the battery chemicals?
The MSDS for sulfuric acid has all the information you need
If sulfuric acid reacts with water (violently), how come we add distilled WATER to our car batteries that have 35% sulfuric acid in them, without any bubbling or spitting? Too low of a concentration of acid?
Correct, it is only significantly concentrated sulfuric acid which can (under the right conditions) react violently with water.
so if you were to clean a led acid battery after this step how do you clean the inside plates( can you use vinegar?) or am i completely in the wrong track
No clue, sorry. I'm personally of the opinion that restoring lead acid batteries never really yields good results, so I'm not knowledgable on the topic.
I will say that vinegar is not a good plan though - you'll end up with a bunch of lead in solution then. A real hassle to dispose of.
Where do I buy one of these bat trees ?
Does the arsenic also dissolve in sulfuric acid?
I'm not 100% sure, but from some quick research it seems like that's the case. There might be as much as 3-4g/L under acid concentrations like this
What if you use something like oxalic acid to remove the lead sulphate?
lead oxalate isn't much less soluble than lead sulfate I'm afraid, so you'll find it difficult to remove any large portion of the lead that way.
@@ScrapScience oh, I'm sorry, didn't know that
Could this be used as a cleaner of bricks, toilet bowls. etc - limescale remover? if so a cheap way of making it ...over buying
I'd be very cautious of the lead that's present in it, so I personally wouldn't use it around the home like this. Not sure exactly how much lead is in there though...
@@ScrapScience Thanks from the UK! Cleaning outdoor brickwork/concrete is now a big thing - doing so with safely gloves, suit, mask, etc;
so the lead wouldn't be an issue since cars have already deposited lead and soot and poisons on the bricks already, many companies use steam cleaning;
I think it could be as good as the brick acid sold commercially...to loosen paint/stains etc
Hello dear sir. I have some questions, how can I contact you?
Now I know why it feels like my car battery is filled with liquid
Would this acid, with a 12 volt charge, strip nickle away from steel?
Iron is dissolved faster than nickel, so I'm afraid not.
@@ScrapScience hmm, idk number one way to remove nickel plate from a revolver is an electro sulphuric acid bath for 3-5 min. I just wanted to see if this acid would be strong enough to work.
do you need to wear a respiratory mask in order to manipulate the sulfuric acid ? My car battery leaked some kind of white-ish liquid and I would like to know if I need to wear one before cleaning it
A respiratory mask is not necessary since there won't be any fumes unless you heat the acid up. However, gloves and face protection are a must (though you've probably thought of that anyway).
@@ScrapScience i must add that it has been mixed with destilled water at some point, i don't know if this mix could make any fumes though
Yeah, you definitely won’t need to worry about masks or fumes in that regard.
If you’re not aware, I’d recommend getting some bicarb soda to spread over the spill before you start cleaning it (it will bubble away for a little while). That’ll neutralise the acid to give you a much safer mixture that’s easy to clean up.
@@ScrapScience Well, thanks a lot for the fast reply and the informations sir ! Keep up the good work 🙏🔥
I didn’t hear/see why he did this emptying..etc
What is the acid best uses besides in acid batteries?
I just need it to do chemistry. I can't really think of many other reasons you'd need to do this.
@@ScrapScience ah knowledge..yea seems good for that and art..sometimes for removing stuff like strong sticky stuff and plastics.
@@ridingvenus kno3-hno3 🤫
What product has 98% sulfuric acid or a higher concentrated sulfuric acid.
Some drain cleaner products I suppose? That's only if you live in certain countries though.
Why it is hard for you to get H2SO4? Where u live?
I have never seen any hardware store around the world doesn't have Conc. Sulfuric as drain cleaner
I live in Australia. Almost all hardware stores here don’t sell it and the ones that do charge around $70 per litre or above.
@@ScrapScience have you looked into Paramount Chemicals at all? They've got a lot of stuff and its (mostly) well priced :)
@@g-radical349 I've managed to get some things from Paramount chemicals indirectly (through an intermediate contact), but I was unaware that they sold to individuals.
They definitely look like something to remember when I need chemical supplies, thanks for the tip! :)
(liquids/acids might still be tricky because even Australian businesses seem to be pretty reluctant to send stuff through to Tasmania. That's okay though, there's still a bunch of handy supplies there in solid/powder form)
In Quebec you can buy sulfuric acid but 500 ml is 45 dollars Can.
If new battery do you get less Led
It’s unlikely, as the dissolution of lead is not necessarily dependent on charging/discharging the battery.
I’d imagine the electrolyte will be saturated with lead sulfate regardless of the battery’s age.
Unless you are a licensed plumber, you can't even buy acid drain cleaner anymore.
U can in Texas
.4gram/liter of lead sulfite is very miniscule.. think its ok.. thanks.
While it’s not a lot in terms of contamination for chemical synthesis, it is definitely a lot when it comes to the environment and chemical disposal (in fact, there’s likely a lot more than 0.4g/L after some more research). Please do keep it in mind if you intend to use ‘spent’ battery acid for anything.
What about bubbling hydrogen sulfide ?
I'm not really sure how effective that would be. In strongly acidic conditions the equilibrium of metal sulfides tends to lean towards H2S rather than actually precipitating the metal sulfide. I doubt it could remove all the lead contamination I'm afraid.
Whit are you telling me that buttery are made of acid or is only on car buttery
Just car batteries, yeah. That's why we call them lead-acid batteries.
Standard batteries use different chemistry, so don't contain any acid.
I have no source of sulfuric acid and have to make it on my own. I burn sulfur to make sulfur dioxide and vacuum the gas in to a flask of hydrogen peroxide.
Same
Keeza, why do you need this sulfuric acid to endure all the hassle of making it on your own?
@@Mark300win doesn't take much effort and I don't need it often. I only make moderate amounts whenever I do plan on doing something that involves the use of it.
I poured some battery acid on my tongue what i do?
Use more acid.
Won't the acid react with the filter paper?
Only in very high concentrations. Below around 50% it seems perfectly fine
@@ScrapScience oh ok thanks!
Ayyy ur thumbnails r getting better
Can you do the led tree to get led out aka the tree of Saturn
While generating a lead tree is an excellent way of removing lead contamination in most circumstances, in this case it would almost definitely require destroying most of the acid before it’s fully effective.
In situations like this, the hydrogen ions (due to high concentration) are more easily reduced than the lead ions, so simply replacing the lead with a more reactive metal by a single displacement reaction is near impossible.
@@ScrapScience ok thanks for getting back to me I thought I was onto something lol
if i dump out the battery acid and wash out the insides of my battery and use new battery acid and recharge it would be enough to revive to to like new if all my cells are undamaged?
No idea, sorry. Battery restoration is beyond me, and not worth the effort in my opinion.
Why you didn't destilate it?
I definitely don't have the safety equipment or the high quality glassware required to pull that off yet.
Distilling sulfuric acid is more dangerous than any of the chemistry stuff I've done on the channel so far, and I'm just not prepared to do it.
@@ScrapScience If you order lab grade glassware directly to your house with credit card police will arrive soon for background check...
what exactly did you use for filtering?
I just used a paper towel in this case. Since the acid concentration is under 50%, the paper isn't damaged by the filtering process.
Did U ever get an answer as to what type of filter to use for cleaning debris from sulfuric acid?
Why didn't you boil it
I don’t need it to be concentrated. I also don’t like to deal with boiling hot sulfuric acid in any capacity.
At 5:35
Scrap Science "That's impossible to filter out."
Cody's Lab "Hold my electrodes."
The fact that sulfuric acid is in our batteries makes me uncomfortable
All batteries have acid in them. It is not a big deal.
The hydrometer is crap. But I have the same battery. Good deep cycle. But now one is dead. Don't try desulfators or Epsom salt. I tried running a small part time business. Not worth it. Because when you charge it. 2 closest cells get extremely hot. If you use a glass hydrometer? You can extract clear acid. Just don't push it in too far.
like the video
cool, im gonna use used battery acid as ph down for my plants. wont tell my patients
phosphoric acid is much better
wash the battery to get more acid out.
use a oil drain pan
SHOUTING AT MY PIONE *take off the cover* 😂😂😂😂 you know there is access panel on top of the battery on the other side from where u drilled holes 😂😝
Well yes, but the access holes weren't big enough to allow the solution to pour out of them. I needed to drill a second hole for each cell so that the pressure could equalise as I was pouring the acid out.
The access holes on this particular battery are for allowing pressure to escape, and to input water into cells that are running low - they're not designed to pour the acid out.
I have just poured out about 7 batteries like this out of the top caps. Most of the top caps extend down inside the battery quite a long way so you can't get the last third or so of the acid out, which is a bit annoying. I would rather loose a bit of acid than having it dribbling out of drilled holes though.
A CAH Bat tree
I live in the jungle of Peru where a certain white powder drug (the one that Zelensky likes) is made from coca leaves. Hard to get sulfuric acid here. Got a small amount on the down low from a battery store. We used to could buy Muratic acid by the gallon in the grocery store but not anymore.
What the hell
Zelensky Is tve Churchill of XXI century,Winston brew alcohóli and Vova take coke but Putler like Hitler never win this war
Should've siphoned it 😅
17 volts @ 30 amps for 15 minutes.... let rest an hour..... do this 5 times..... anything over 15.5 volts breaks down sulfates, the heavy amps penetrates the heavily sulfated plates and burns out shorts......
What happens if you leave it on longer than 15 mins? Does it cooked the solution/plates?
You dont want to drink that
Strangely the police caught a young lad in the park near me drinking battery acid, they had to let him go because they didn't know what to charge him with.
@@royblackburn1163 haha thats good one
mm tasty
Boil that water out
After taking out the H2S04 from the battery refil the battery with distilled water and recharge the battery....you will get more acid from it.
Batteries don’t die, just add water 🤔
They do from being discharged for a long time which leads to internal corrosion or sulfation
Kufufuabetri
perfect for the next victim
Now that you have lead electrodes, maybe worth trying this: czcams.com/video/1eaajyj_Skc/video.html
Pb can probably be removed by activated carbon. Even unactivated carbon should work. Reheat bbq charcoal in closed container with vent to above 500oC to remove any volatile organic contaminants. Cool and use like activated carbon. Should be about 10% as effective as activated carbon.
Hello dear sir. I have some questions, how can I contact you?
A few people have asked this so far, and I'm afraid I'll have to give you the same answer as everybody else.
At this stage I don't really have the time to correspond with people by email or by any means besides the youtube comments, sorry. Most of my time is taken up with university studies at the moment, but at the end of the academic year I'll (hopefully) have the time to set up an email to associate with my channel.
If you can wait until the end of the year, I should be more than happy to talk. Or if what you need can fit in the comments here, I'm always keen to respond.
@@ScrapScience u just wasted your time replying. That was a bot