Lead recovery

[jmorris]

I know my Father did it when he was a kid but he never let me do it, there are still some of the lead bricks he and his Brother made as well as some lead molded in various hubcaps. FWIW you could also set the entire car on fire and the lead from the seams would pool in the dirt below to be gathered up after you move the burned out shell.

They will also buy them back, why they charge you a “core charge” when you buy a battery and don’t have one to give them.

It was 14 years ago last time we hauled any to them.



Excide paid $255 for these back then. They must be worth quite a bit these days, I have seen the junk guys that pick up scrap metal put batteries inside the truck vs in the bed with the rest of the junk.

 

[Random 8]

First off, for safety and environmental reasons, don't try this at home. I did this when I was young and dumb. I do not recommend except in an emergency situation. What my cousin and I did, was to take some broken batteries and ensure all the cells were cracked with a .22 rifle. We then placed them out in my uncles woods for several weeks of rain to let them drain and neutralize. Definately not environmentally sound. We then burned the whole works in a cinder block kiln of sorts with a HOT hardwood fire, with a block bottom angled at aprox 15 degrees to a catch pan. We had evidently re-invented a medieval lead smelting method decades before the internet was a thing. Burned them plastic and all. Relatively clean lead along with wood ash ran out the end and was easily separated from impurities making good enough quality lead to fill fishing jig molds well. This was all before we discovered scrap lead could be traded for pound for pound at the time for beer cans we collected along the roadside. The latter approach was much safer and less labor intensive.

 

[Random 8]

Most metal recyclers will sell scrap lead (at a significant markup, but still far cheaper than online sources), and the good ones will let you dig through the pile and find what you want. Plumbing and telecom/electric duct tend to be near pure lead with some arsenic and tin. In a situation where emergency lead was needed, you'd be better off looking in telephone manholes in the old part of town. Antimony is relatively cheap and available presently, I would stockpile some now if I were concerned about bullet alloy availability going forward. There is tonnage of lead buried in the ground which comes to light more and more frequently with infrastructure replacement that is ongoing. It is here for the forseeable future.

 

[mdi]

I'm surprised to see so many replies to this thread especially with the proliferation of "Lead Poisoning Warnings" seen on forums today. First, heating/melting auto lead/acid batteries emits large amounts of toxic fumes like hydrogen sulfide. Actually there isn't much lead in newer auto batteries, especially if the battery is dead. What lead in a discharged battery has turned into lead oxide and while some of it may be smelted back into lead, the amount recovered is small. If one wanted to use lead from a battery the safest and easiest way is to cut off the posts and throw the rest away.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Take the batteries to a scrap site. Have the $$ they give you to buy lead from them to be on the safe side. The few $$ one may save from doing up the batteries is not worth the hassle/risk to me.

Now, working up buckets of wheel weights for lead? Yes! I'm in for that (if they are lead and not mostly zinc and steel like now sadly).

 

[n2omike]

Lots of videos on Youtube regarding getting lead from batteries. Probably shows how to do it safely... and likely shows how much work it is, and how much lead you actually recover. These are a couple, and there are a lot more.

 

[TEXASJD]

So my buddy has this idea that he is going to recover lead from car batteries... I have zero, repeat zero desire to be a part of these efforts... my curiosity is after inital smelting and flux and pouring into ingots is the remelt more dangerous than any other lead? Is the fluxed lead still contamined or carrying dangerous gasses... not a chemistry genius at all...

If yall are looking for a good source of lead try to make friends with a plumber, my buddy is he has gotten me a life time supply over the last few years 6-700 lbs from demo jobs he has done and all it cost me was a few cases of beer.

 

[Bcwitt]

If I was going to do that, I would use the acid to make my own powder. The thought has crossed my mind. It's just really nasty stuff to work with. H2so4 will destroy almost anything, Especially eyes & skin.

 

[Jim Watson]

I am against it. A dead battery is dead because the lead is sulfided and tied up as sulfide, sulfate, and oxide. There is not much metallic lead left in there.

Things were different when Grandpa melted down batteries. Modern batteries have less lead and that in unpleasant alloys.

 

[Random 8]

I just went down a rabbit hole from lead sulphate and sulphite to lead carbonate to lead styphnate...priming compound...using common industrial chemicals. I hope this shortage ends soon, my inner mad scientist is itching to experiment.

 

[splattergun]

In my area scrap batteries pay $4 each. I can buy scrap lead for about $1.00 per pound or less. That's trading at least 4 lbs of scrap lead per battery.
If he gets only 2 lb of useable lead from smelting batteries himself, his lead is costing him twice as much as simply selling the scrap batteries to buy scrap lead.
That. and it ain't worth the medical and legal risks to smelt them himself.