liquidlightning - 7-7-2012 at 01:41
Well, after a few calculations, I have found that to make sulfuric acid from hardware store copper sulfate to be around $19.83 per liter as per my
local prices. I have checked around on ebay and it seems to be around $20-$25 per liter. Just was wondering if this seems to be fair pricing, or if I
am just looking in the wrong places.
Anyway, on to the main point of this post, what can I store my produced acid in? I don't really have many containers that I think would be suitable
for it, except maybe a 250ml glass volumetric flask with a plastic stopper. The stopper is what worries me with it. That and the fact that the glass
is pretty thin.
Hexavalent - 7-7-2012 at 04:18
Plenty of threads here on this matter already. Search around a little before posting, please.
Thread reported.
ScienceHideout - 7-7-2012 at 08:13
Unless you have proper platinum electrodes- you really won't have any good concentration of acid. You might be able to just buy sulphuric acid from
the same hardware store with the copper sulphate. Making sulphuric acid doesn't really work- it is not efficient.
Anyways- sulphuric acid can go into pretty much any glass or plastic container. I keep my H2SO4 in plastic bottles- never gave me any troubles. Glass
would be better yet, though! I wouldn't worry about it too much. You can also keep the container that you choose in a bag for secondar containment.
Good luck!
al93535 - 7-7-2012 at 09:22
I had a friend who drank LOTS of captian morgan, in the largest bottles you can get. I had her save them for me, and they are perfect for acids. The
only downside is the small mouth, good for pouring but not so great for filling. I used a coffee pot to fill them from, makes a perfect stream.
Also, I used to get my acid solely from napa auto parts in 5 gallon lots. Its 37% pure H2So4 and water. The cost? 20$, so in the end you get 6.66
liters of 98ish% acid for 3$ a liter plus the energy to heat it 
Not bad at all!
It takes a while to boil it down, but...
barley81 - 7-7-2012 at 10:23
A mole of copper sulfate pentahydrate weighs ~250g. Each liter of 98% sulfuric acid has 18 moles of acid in it. Assuming 100% yield, it takes 4500g of
copper sulfate to make a liter of sulfuric acid (4.5 kg). You can buy 4.5kg of copper sulfate for $19? That's a good price. Where I live, 1kg of
copper sulfate costs $10.
Have you tried Rooto Professional Drain Opener? This product is 96% sulfuric acid and I found it to be quite clean (if purchased recently). It's $10
per quart at my local hardware store and is probably purer than acid made from copper sulfate (if you have a platinum anode, the acid you produce
might be comparable in purity).
liquidlightning - 7-7-2012 at 18:01
I was planning on using a gold electrode.
I can buy copper sulfate at $13/ 2 lbs.
This would be 907.18474 grams, or 3.63309868 mols.
3.63309868 mols of sulfuric acid is 655.64846 ml.
Thus costing $13 for 656 ml, or $19.83 for a liter.
Purchasing the acid would probably be simpler, but it wouldn't be too hard to convert the copper sulfate. Besides, I need copper sulfate as well.
And sorry about the re-post topic, forgot to search.
Erbium_Iodine_Carbon - 7-7-2012 at 19:00
Like barley81 said concentrated sulfuric acid is 18mol/L, therefore your 3.633mol of concentrated acid will only be about 200mL. This figures to
$64.41 per litre which is very expensive, especially considering purity etc.
18mol/1L=3.633mol/xL
x=3.633/18
x=0.20183L H2SO4
Price/L=$13/0.20183L
Incidentally, there is a "Liquid Lightning" brand of sulfuric acid drain cleaner sold where I live, but it claims to have "12 buffers" which to me
says there's lots of crap dissolved in it and it's only 40 some percent H2SO4 according to the msds(http://msds.homehardware.ca/OpenRepositoryFile.asp?s=152971&...). It's also colored dark brown to black. Is this where you got your name?
Erbium_Iodine_Carbon - 7-7-2012 at 19:10
Like barley81 said concentrated sulfuric acid is 18mol/L, therefore your 3.633mol of concentrated acid will only be about 200mL. This figures to
$64.41 per litre which is very expensive, especially considering purity etc.
18mol/1L=3.633mol/xL
x=3.633/18
x=0.20183L H2SO4
Price/L=$13/0.20183L
Incidentally, there is a "Liquid Lightning" brand of sulfuric acid drain cleaner sold where I live, but it claims to have "12 buffers" which to me
says there's lots of crap dissolved in it and it's only 40 some percent H2SO4 according to the msds(http://msds.homehardware.ca/OpenRepositoryFile.asp?s=152971&...). It's also colored dark brown to black. Is this where you got your name?
liquidlightning - 7-7-2012 at 20:32
Ohhh oops I multiplied by the density. My bad. I see then, I will just buy it.
[Edited on 8-7-2012 by liquidlightning]
grndpndr - 8-7-2012 at 05:14
'Liquid fire' is I believe what you want.Its MSDS claims 1.84sp. gr.However the last bottles I bought yrs ago were discolored brown -black.So I did
invest in some rooto for comparison which I havent done as of yet.My preference for particular synthesis is to boil down battery electrolyte.Much
cleaner end product and in fact cheaper in quantity.Problem may be an auto store inquiring what need you have for gallons of batt electrolyte