The authoritative public forum
  for Metal Finishing since 1989
-----

Testing virgin ferric chloride etching grade

I'm trying to find out if I can test etching grade (1210) ferric chloride ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] for our company so we do not have to send it out to a lab for testing. Our parameters are the basic metals, free hydrochloric & TSS. Arsenic, selenium, mercury (not detectable). The company has made available the purchase of a DR2800 spectrometer from Hach which can test for all the possible parameters we need. But I can't find a standard or USEPA method for testing and I need to know how to set up a calibration curve. I've worked with these methods for wastewater and would like to know if anyone could help. Any help would be greatly appreciated and the more in depth the better. Thank You all.

Jonathan Engler
printing plate manufacturer employee. - Kansas City, Missouri, USA
March 11, 2008

---

That is a nice piece of equipment, but may not meet your customer's requirements.
Hach has a wonderful web site. If you can not find what you need in the operations manual for the machine, look at the web site. If you can not find what you need, Email them what you want to do. Since they make more money off of the chemicals that they sell than off of the equipment, they will get back to you.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
March 14, 2008

---

I echo Mr. Watts endorsement of the Hach instrument. But there is no way that you are going to be able to analyze for those metals to any kind of reasonable limit in that matrix with a Hach chemistry. Their methods are geared to water, not concentrated acids.

You might try looking in the ACS book of specifications for reagent chemicals; the American Water Works Association may have some method for testing that material, which is used a lot in water treatment; or, you may find a method in the AOAC handbook.

You could also send it out to an environmental lab but make sure it's a good one - some of them will simply stick your very specialized sample in the queue with the regular water samples and will give you a result that is quite meaningless.

Dave Wichern
Consultant - The Bronx, New York
March 29, 2008