If we talk about neutralizing a pickle,the pickle is not an acid nor
alkalic. In other words the solution is balanced out and has a PH of7.
G’day Pedro; I completely disagree with that! I never heard of any
substance which would remove copper oxide from the surface of sterling
or low carat gold which at works at room or boiling water temperatures
and is not acid. Sparex, for instance is sodium hydrogen sulphate or
sodium acid sulphate. Citric or oxalic acids are both acids. And
Sparex certainly does not have a pH of 7; it is more like 3.5. Then
there is no point in trying to plate out the copper in used pickle; it
is so cheap that you simply dispose of it properly and make up fresh.
Now,during the pickling proces you get little copper particles
in this solution.
Sorry, but you really don’t get ‘particles’ You get copper IONS and
sulphate IONS or citrate or oxalic ions and hydrogen ions. These
cannot be seen even with the most powerful microscope, so they cannot
properly be called particles. They are sub microscopic parts of
molecules which have an electric charge.
I hate contradicting folk, but I felt I had to in this one If you can
show that I am wrong, please enlighten me.
John Burgess; @John_Burgess2 of Mapua Nelson NZ
Hello John,
It lookes like you are very upset or am I wrong !! If I understand
everything right,you say that pickle is an acid,right? Well, thats
exactly what I tried to explain !What I mean is,its not an acid AFTER
it is been neutralized,AFTER the addition of washing soda. I’m not a
chemist that’s for sure otherwise chemistry should have been my
hobby. What I know about a solution being an acid or not is that
everything below a PH of 7 is acid or sour or whatever you may call
it.Everything above 7 is alcalic.Those things are facts.If one adds
an alcalic solution to an acid untill a Ph of 7 is reeched, then I
call it neutralized. About those particles,well I’m very sorry that I
didn’t mention those “things” with the right name.The question from
Mary was not that hard,so I didn’t went to deep into it talking about
ions and molecules.Again sorry. I had never the luck of getting any
english education.I’m 41 now and what I know about english is what
you see on your screen.So sorry again for not knowing the english
language as someone who was born with it.I did not know that one had
to pass an examination to share what he knows on a forum like this
one.So again sorry for not knowing my language better then I do. I
could share my knowledge (whatever it might be)and answer the
question in my motherlanguage being belgium.Then my verbs and
writting would be 100% correct without any discussion possible,but I
dought that anybody would have a benefit of it. For that reason, this
will not happen again,believe me.
Regards Pedro
Palonso@t-online.de
Dear John, One of the benefits of hindsight in participating in the
Orchid Forum is that you can be almost certain who is going to jump
on mis-Your correction of the sparex misinformation
begged for re-direction and you did an excellent job. Todays’ forum
has the recurring thread on “snotty” pickle a.k.a. Sparex. I’ll save
you the trouble of recommending that the inquirer use pool Ph
modifier (sodium bi-sulfate)We might just as well rethink our jewelry
chemical sources of supply as the future portends that Wal-mart will
completely take over the world of retail commerce.I wonder how long
it will be before Wal-mart has on site jewelry repair. Just think
what an opportunity that might be ! Wal-mart sells the crappy jewelry
and then it makes money on repairing it…ah, progress!..gives you goose bumps…
Ron at Mills Gem, Los Osos, CA.