How to best extra lead from batteries?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
I've found a nice big fat old battery and I'd like to know how to, safely, get the lead out for possible future casting.

Ideally, I'd like a method that also generates the greatest yield too.

How do you do it?
 
I thought the same thing a couple years ago.According to my research there is no safe way to extract the lead from a lead acid battery without some serious chemistry. The regents necessary aren't readily available to consumers.
 
Do not, repeat do not, try to melt down batteries for the lead. :eek: First of all, the process gives off Arsine and Stibine gases, which are uniformly fatal when inhaled. Battery processors have methods in place to deal with this. Second, the yield of usable lead would be very low as the acid over time has converted a lot of it into sulfates and other products. There are many ways to get lead besides wheel weights. Check with your local scrap yards, advertise on Craig's List, buy from Rotometals.com, prices really aren't that bad and you know exactly what you're getting. Goat
 
Riiiight...

So it seems that the answer to the question "How do I get the lead out safely" is.... you can't! Well, back in the bin the battery goes.

I could probably hack off the external poles of the battery, but that is it!

Oh well....:(
 
Trade it in

I trade my old batteries in at the local battery store, I think I get $2 for a standard size battery $3 for a tractor size.

I looked into this a few years ago and determined that there was no safe way for the home user to reclaim the lead out of it.
 
Sell the battery and buy lead.

Getting lead from batteries is not cost effective. I've tried it. A ton of work, the acid eats your cloths, boots, and is dangerous. Not to mention the time involve, both in getting the lead and cleaning up the mess.

One session, I figured out the cost. For what I had to pay for a replacement shirt, jeans, I could have bought a heck of a lot of bullets.

No sir, it ain't worth it.

I bet, if your shop is anything like mine, you can find enough scrap iron, brass, batteries, etc. to take to the scrap yard, and trade for enough casting lead to do your winter casting.

Heck, talk to your neighbors, I bet they have a lot of scrap they would love for you to haul off.

Kind of un-related, but it points out what I'm talking about. I had a neighbor kid who turned 16 and got his driver's license. Barrowed his parents truck and trailer and went through the valley checking with neighbors to see if they had any scrap iron 'n suck that they needed hauled off.

Kid paid for his gas, and got enough money to buy an old used car and pay his first year's insurance.

If this kid can do that, we can do enough to buy a bit of casting lead, without the danger and headache of busting up batteries for the lead.
 
Strontium, Cadmium, Stibine, Arsine.
None of them are good for you, but all them (and more) can be released by smelting lead-acid batteries.
Strontium and Cadmium are like lead, and fool your body into using the molecules in place of calcium in your body. ...Not good.
Stibine and Arsine can be fatal with a single exposure.

Stibine/Arsine toxicity excerpt from wikipedia:
Stibine binds to the haemoglobin of red blood cells, causing them to be destroyed by the body. Most cases of stibine poisoning have been accompanied by arsine poisoning, although animal studies indicate that their toxicities are equivalent. The first signs of exposure, which can take several hours to become apparent, are headaches, vertigo and nausea, followed by the symptoms of hemolytic anemia (high levels of unconjugated bilirubin), hemoglobinuria (high levels of hemoglobin in the urine) and nephropathy (kidney damage).
Click to expand...

Note in this commercial operation, that all workers are wearing respirators, and access to automated equipment performing the initial smelt is tightly controlled (only the camera man):
Battery Recycling
 
I know of two men who got a very small amount of Arsine gas. This was not from batteries, but the results are the same.
One took a medical retirement and died within the following year from complications of the poisoning.
The other is still working with some severe heart tissue damage.
He went in for multiple blood replacement transfusions in the weeks following the incident.

The worst part was none of this was their fault, a cleaner had been used that was not supposed to be. When they were welding on the section of pipeline they got arsine gas in the smoke burning off from the cleaner.

Batteries are a really bad idea, James Pond I know you ditched the idea, I'm putting this up for anyone else who may think this is a good way to get lead.
 
I thought the same thing a couple years ago.According to my research there is no safe way to extract the lead from a lead acid battery without some serious chemistry. The regents necessary aren't readily available to consumers.
Click to expand...

I have to correct this; baking soda naturalizes acid and a battery can be dismantled BUT the lead you will get might not be the same mix and hardness for bullet casting. Casting lead has a lot of fumes and scagg so if you wanted to try you might be better off just buying some
 
I have to correct you right back: Simply neutralizing the wet acid won't make it safe. The baking soda doesn't remove the cadmium or strontium nor the arsine or stabine that was formed by arsenic and antimony in the alloy reacting with the acid previously. The cost of acid getting onto and destroying clothing is pretty minor compared to the medical and/or funeral costs associated with tissue damage caused by vapors of those other compounds or their oxides or their sulfates.
 
I got $9 and change from the scrap metal dealer for a group size 78 car battery last year. That's twice what a battery place would have given me for it.

Batteries don't contain much lead; they have lead oxide and lead sulfate in them. It *can* be converted back to metallic lead, but not easily and not safely. Take the money and run.
 
YES!! What Unclenick said. And further, dont try and extract the external posts, I've seen this cause an explosion. That particular task is best left to professionals with the correct equipment to handle such hazerdous materials.
 
For those of us old enough to remember the batteries that had to be checked regularly, then refilled with distilled water. Those type of batteries were a good source of lead, and the only hazard was the sulfuric acid.

Modern maintenance-free batteries have the above listed added chemicals to make them never need filling. In fact, they are sealed permanently, no way to check the water/electrolyte levels.
 
SO ,,,,

I'm thinkin the best and by far safest way to get lead from that battery is this...

My local scrapper is paying $12.00 for used car batteries. At an average price of $1.00 per lb. for processed lead I would be getting near 12 lbs. of lead using the money from the sale of the battery. No hours spent trying to recover lead, no cost in time or matierials smelting and fluxing the lead, no medical bills or final resting place exspenses incurred from processing toxic matierials, just a smooth, easy, and cheaper way to get to the bottom line...:rolleyes:
 
After reading all of this, I think I'd rather get lead from my pencil. Or my brother's lead foot. Or I think I must have a lead butt, because growing up all I heard was to get the lead out and get my butt in gear...
 
For those of us old enough to remember the batteries that had to be checked regularly, then refilled with distilled water. Those type of batteries were a good source of lead, and the only hazard was the sulfuric acid.

Modern maintenance-free batteries have the above listed added chemicals to make them never need filling. In fact, they are sealed permanently, no way to check the water/electrolyte levels.
Click to expand...
Modern maintenance-free batteries have Calcium in the lead which makes the recovered lead from them as bad for casting as would be Zinc in the lead. If you mix such lead alloy with your bullet alloy, you will end up with a great deal of lead alloy that will not cast a usable bullet.
 
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