Alternative to Sulfuric acid

[dalepittman]

We manufacture brass casings for the military. One of the steps is to clean the brass after annealling. This is to remove the oxidation that occurs with a sulfuric acid, then wash. Is there an alternative to using the sulfuric acid that isn't as corrosive, without bringing in carcinogins, strong alkali's, etc.?

 

[mluckman]

We have used a product called AR-696 from Crews Chemical. Below is a link to the product page.

http://www.crewscorp.com/AR-696Tech.pdf

 

[AnodizingRI]

Citric acid may be worth a try. You can get small amounts (1 lbs) for about $5 from various websites.

 

[MatthewL]

Ok, I'm a little late to this party, but I have been handloading brass for about 15 years, and there are several ways to get the oxidation off of brass. I use a vibrating cleaner setup with ground corn cob or walnut shells as the cleaning media. It can be reused several times before it has collected too much material to work well. I have also read of others that put it in a mesh bag and run it through a front-load washing machine with a little detergent, and allow the metal on metal contact to clean the cases up. Of course, it depends on the amount of brass we are talking about here. Since you are probably dealing with large quantities, an industrial rotating dryer (for polymers and the like) loaded with about a 4:1 media/brass ratio and then screened to remove the media afterwards could work. I have also had good luck using a little automotive wax in the media, it helps shine the brass and also leaves a thin coating of wax that aids in resizing and also helps to keep the brass from oxidizing during storage.

Matt

Quality, quantity, cost. Pick two.