Hi,

I'm soon going to start messing around with designing circuits again, either
with breadboard type things or making PCB's with UV sensitive boards and
Ferric Chloride. I'm concerned about the toxicity of this evil looking
stuff and how best to dispose of it and the dissolved copper.

A good many years ago I made some PCB's and, trying to solve the disposal
problem, discovered that if I put a bunch of nails of a certain type into
the used Ferric Chloride solution, they would become coated in the dissolved
copper, which I could then wash off with water, recovering the copper by
letting the wash dry outside. The remaining ferric chloride looked pretty
much like the virgin solution and I'm pretty sure etched boards again.

Doing some Googling throws up the answer "you can't really recycle Ferric
Chloride". (I really don't want to have to use electrolysis). Well what was
my
experiment showing?
And also, what about the UV developing solution - I
believe it's a bleach, but can you just chuck it down the sink?


Cheers,

Gareth.