Battery Smelting

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Last Post 25 August 2020

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Mike Mandaville posted this 08 July 2009

Just curious.

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CB posted this 08 July 2009

Very toxic and dangerous. I would leave this one to the pro's.

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skeet1 posted this 08 July 2009

I have allways been told that other than the battery posts there isn't enough lead in the common auto battery to justify the mess of doing it.

Skeet1

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jhalcott posted this 08 July 2009

The low recovery and the toxic ingredients in new “maintenance free” batteries make it a dangerous game.

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runfiverun posted this 08 July 2009

arsine gas is the stuff that smells like mustard. and it was prety famous in ww-1 oh yeah everytime you melt that lead it can release that gas.

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Mike Mandaville posted this 09 July 2009

Jeff Bowles wrote: Very toxic and dangerous. I would leave this one to the pro's. Hello Jeff, and thank you for responding.

Regarding the toxicity of lead, the written record seems to date back through twenty-two centuries. Considering that the lead industry itself is eighty-five centuries old, however, I think that it would be fair to say that among lead workers themselves, the knowledge regarding the toxicity of lead must certainly date back for fully eighty-five centuries.

Regarding the danger of working with lead, I think that the record will indicate that this danger is highly variable, and that it is dependent upon two factors, the first of which is the understanding of safe practices, and the second of which is the thoroughgoingness with which this understanding is applied.

Regarding the experts on this subject, namely, the ones who are already smelting lead batteries, I am not so sure that they are doing such a good job of it. In recent years, the trend here in the US seems to have been to ship the problem overseas, and to let them handle it. After eighty-five centuries, I should think that a better approach could be developed.

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Mike Mandaville posted this 09 July 2009

skeet1 wrote: I have allways been told that other than the battery posts there isn't enough lead in the common auto battery to justify the mess of doing it.

Skeet1 Lead wheel weights have already been outlawed in Washington State, and in Maine, and whether or not this trend will catch on throughout the rest of the country remains to be seen. An automobile tire will obviously not last forever, and it is therefore just a matter of time before bullet casters in these states who have been relying upon lead wheel weights will be looking towards other sources for their lead. And if the trend does catch on, wheel weight melters everywhere will start looking to other sources.

My understanding is that the common auto battery contains about twenty pounds of lead, and that all twenty pounds of that lead are recoverable.

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303PV posted this 09 July 2009

It is best to leave it to the pros. The process is documented in this OSHA publication: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/leadsmelter/rawmaterials/batterybreaking.html>http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/leadsmelter/rawmaterials/batterybreaking.html

There is a lot of lead in batteries, you will find out if you lift one. The problem is that a lot of the lead is in compounds. The only metallic lead in a discharged battery is in the grid , the rest is lead sulfate.

In the past some enterprising hobbyists managed to get a lot of the lead out by filling a stovepipe with alternate layers of wood and the grid plates (with the compound) and then lighting a fire under the pipe. The burning wood will reduce the lead compounds into lead . There is a big problem however because the reduction of lead sulfate will give off large amounts of Sulphur dioxide. I you have ever smelt that then you know what the problem is. I don't think we should give the “environmentalists” any chance to restart the discussion about acid rain.! Another problem is the disposal of the acid.

Therefore it is not a good idea to start your own battery smelting operation.:#:

On another forum and also in the Lyman cast bullet handbook arsine and stibine have been mentioned. These gasses are highly poisonous but also very unstable . I could not find any reference in connection with battery or lead smelting. I think it is a problem that only exists in the minds of some.

By the way : arsine was not used in WWI and it smells like garlic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsine>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsine

Another wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stibine>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stibine

In it you will find the following sentence: “Fortunately, SbH₃ is so unstable that it is rarely encountered outside of laboratories.”

Ok enough said , I will cast some .30 cal bulets.

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Mike Mandaville posted this 09 July 2009

jhalcott wrote: The low recovery and the toxic ingredients in new “maintenance free” batteries make it a dangerous game. It looks like a low recovery rate would be something around eighty percent or so, which would result in a yield of about sixteen pounds of lead per battery. I think that the reason for using a better process, however, would not be to increase the lead yield, but to prevent that other four pounds from going up the flue, and out into the atmosphere. For the sake of the public health, it looks like the recovery rate should be kept as close to one-hundred-per-cent as possible. The extra lead yield would just be a bonus, it seems.

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Mike Mandaville posted this 10 July 2009

303PV wrote: http://In>In the past some enterprising hobbyists managed to get a lot of the lead out by filling a stovepipe with alternate layers of wood and the grid plates (with the compound) and then lighting a fire under the pipe. The burning wood will reduce the lead compounds into lead . There is a big problem however because the reduction of lead sulfate will give off large amounts of Sulphur dioxide. I you have ever smelt that then you know what the problem is. I don't think we should give the “environmentalists” any chance to restart the discussion about acid rain.! Another problem is the disposal of the acid. I would be happy to have the environmentalists restart the discussion about acid rain, for the simple reason that those sulfur dioxide emissions could be eliminated with nothing which is more exotic than a bag of lime, which should be available at any well-stocked garden supply shop. The lime could also be used to neutralize the acid.

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Mike Mandaville posted this 10 July 2009

I would like to introduce a woman whom I regard as being a saint. Her name is Alice Hamilton:

http://tiny.cc/YeahMama>http://tiny.cc/YeahMama

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Largom posted this 10 July 2009

I can currently buy lead at my scrap dealer for 20 cents/lb. IF I could get 20 lbs of lead from a battery that would be $4.00 worth. I refuse to risk my life for $4.00

Larry

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CB posted this 10 July 2009

Great tip Mike! Many thanks, that will be great reading for newcomers to the sport. I work with lead quite a bit, about 5 tons a year casting bullets, with the proper safety precautions it can be done with very little risk. I just got checked due to my recent illness. The result was like .00035 ppm.. I wish that were true for the bacteria I managed to catch..

Larry I couldn't agree with you more. Too many other sources for lead to risk it.

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BerdanIII posted this 10 July 2009

.303PV: “... leave it the pros.” Amen, brother! That link is a great source of information on how secondary smelters work. The photos and diagrams brought back memories: the way the boss used to jump everytime the reverb furnace popped or banged (he got burned once by some flying slag), being suspended in a cherry picker over a pot containing several tons of molten lead while trying to drill a hole in the ventilation ducts for a flow reading, the way the puddles on the floor of the battery wrecker fizzed and bubbled, the guy who could one-hand 60-lb. ingots into the oxidation furnaces all day long, workers cutting lead ducting coming from the extruders with a brush axe...(sigh).

D.I.Y. battery reclaiming is a very bad idea; the average guy isn't prepared for all the toxic junk that comes out of the process and has nowhere to legally dispose of it, not to mention the possibility of contaminating the house, garage or barn.

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max503 posted this 23 August 2020

I know it's a bad idea to think of reclaiming lead from a car battery, but I had to check and this old thread came up. I have a deep cycle battery that's no good any more. Before I sell it to O'Reilly's for $10 I thought I'd look it up and this is what I found.

Don't worry. I'm not going to try messing with it. I just had to check before I turned it loose.

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Eutectic posted this 23 August 2020

Been there done that.

We had a bunch of old marine batteries at the dock in Miami. We are talking batteries 4 times the size of a car battery. I hauled them home visions of a lifetime lead supply in my head. Emptied out the acid, broke them open with an axe and washed off the plates. killed the grass in a ten foot diameter circle in the yard. Dad was not pleased!

Fired up the big lead pot and got maybe 10 pounds of lead from ~200+ pounds of batteries. Yes, most of the lead is in the terminals and connections. Most of the lead is in lead sulfate from the sulfuric acid electrolyte. Dead batteries are mostly lead sulfate, lots of dross.

I was in chemical engineering so I looked up the reduction process. I mixed the dross with powdered charcoal briquets, put the mix in a steel pot and arraged a furnace with the rest of the bag of briquets. Aided by Mom's vacuum cleaner as a blower I reduced the lead sulfate at red heat. Vola! a nice 30 pound lead derby in the bottom of the pot. (The sulfur emissions probably exceeded OSHA limits by a LOT).

There was still dross mostly lead oxide, I needed an inert atmosphere furnace. I figure I got maybe 70 -80% of the lead.

Would I do it again NO WAY, I would go to the scrap yard and buy 40 pounds of roof flashings or simmilar pure lead scrap for 50 cents a pound.

Current low maintenence batteries have calcium or strontium in the grids. These bind with antmony which is added to harden the grids. The calcium /antimony or strontium/antimony compounds in the dross react with water in the air to produce the poison gas stibine. Another good reason to avoid batteries.

Steve