Can you reclaim zinc?

[mazo kid]

The other day while taking my mandatory "down time" due to surgery, I was re-reading thru my Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. In the chapter on Metallurgy of Molten Lead Alloys, the author states that once lead has been contaminated by zinc there is nothing that can be done to recover the alloy. By this, I take it to mean that once the zinc has been melted into the alloy at high temp., you can't let it solidify, then remelt at 600* and recover the zinc, compared to melting WW at 600* initially and picking the floating zinc out. Has anyone tried this? Just curious, as I thought I would remelt some WW at low temp and be able to pick out any zinc that had possibly gotten into the initial smelt. I had smelted several buckets of WW a couple of years ago without regard to temp. Didn't know any better at the time. Emery

[mtgrs737]

Good Question!! I too would like the answer to that question. Maybe Bill Ferguson would know?

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive done it and made contaminated alloys castable. but you will never get it all out and it still will be more of a chore to cast with. If you repeat the heating and cooling process a few times and get as much as you can out and then cast hot it will make decent bullets though.

[jonk]

I would think that just like salt in water, it is impossible to get out- unless perhaps you boil off the lead, not possible with our setups and very stupid.

That said, just as cold water holds less salt than hot water, I would think that just barely melted lead will have less capacity to mix with zinc than hot; ergo you CAN skim some off, but some will always remain.

[wiljen]

Zinc is separated from zinc-copper alloys by reacting the alloy with an aqueous alkali metal bisulfate to dissolve zinc selectively with respect to copper. Zinc is recovered from the resulting solution by precipitation in the form of zinc carbonate or zinc hydroxide. I wonder if a similar process could be devised to remove zinc from zinc-lead alloy? It would probably require powdering your alloy to provide enough surface area to work.

[Ricochet]

Melting and skimming just above the melting point of lead, below that of zinc, is the way zinc is removed from lead in the original processing. It works. Let it sit stagnant for a while to accumulate a zinc "scum." Don't flux it back in. That's where casters go wrong, thinking they're saving tin or other important alloy components.

[Ohio Rusty]

Almost all of the knobs and handles for cabinets and drawers that are cast are made from zinc. I bet you coulf get recycle money for zinc since it is a valuable metal for the cabinet industry.
Ohio Rusty

[Andy_P]

I just had one of those "moments". Zinc is worth more than lead, so why have I been throwing them out? From now on, I keep them, and when I have say 100 lbs, off to the scrap dealer for my $50-100 check.