Letter 36025

Removing Zinc from Steel  

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Hi;
I work in roll manufacturing company. Recently I got one job about removing plated zinc over steel roll. ROll Dia is about 30", face length is 54" and about 80" long including shaft.
Zinc is plated over entire roll. I dont want any hazardous method, which cause my worker sick or make environment poisonous by zinc oxide.
I decided to heat the roll in tampering furnace to 450 degree Celcius (790 deg F) and melt the zinc (Melting point of zinc is 780 deg F). I will appreciate any comments, suggestion, other easy methods, or advise.
Thanks.

Kashif
Manufacturing Co. - Chicago, IL, USA

Hello Kashif. Stop! That sounds like the most dangerous, most environmentally troubling, and least effective method to strip zinc from steel that I can imagine :-)

Rant mode on: Such a frighteningly dangerous misunderstanding is, of course, the harvest of the chemical paranoia that our government spends so much tax money sowing. Rant mode off.

Zinc is readily and almost instantly stripped in relatively mild acids like muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid). But, the thing is, who applied the zinc plating? If it was not done in house, neither should the stripping be done in house. Any plating shop capable of zinc plating rolls will be capable of safely stripping the zinc plating. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

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