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-----Recover thin sheets of copper from recycled scrap
Q. Hello experts,
I am highly pleased to be in the midst of vast experienced people in the metal processing niche.
Please, how can I get a very clean, not rough thin sheet of copper from recycled copper? I would want the use of electrolysis. However, I still need it to be smooth.
Student - Toronto, Canada
November 6, 2025
A. Hi Joseph.
I'm not sure yet if this is just theoretical for a report, or if you are actually trying to build a prototype for a processing plant. And I'm not sure if a couple of small parts in a beaker will suffice for the proof of concept or you need something more substantial. If on the other hand you are a home-based scrapper intending to do this, you are welcome to try but we need to warn you that you'll probably find the undertaking impractical.
But in general you dissolve the copper into an acidic solution either with mild acids and electricity, or with stronger acids and no electricity.
Then you electroplate the copper onto a stainless steel sheet (passivated, to limit how tightly the plating adheres) until it is thick enough to be removed.
In actual practice, rather than plating onto stainless steel sheets immersed into the copper plating solution you created, an option would be to plate a thin stripe of copper onto a very slowly advancing stainless sheet, maybe in endless belt form.
Plating tends to form dendrites rather than plating smoothly, and organic addition agents are used in the plating solution to limit that problem.
You can probably learn more by searching this site for "copper electrowinning", or trying a search engine or AI agent for that term.
Electrowinning of copper is a big industry, with major installations of copper electrowinning onto cathode sheets.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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Thanks so much. I did not know I can actually dissolve the copper and electroplate it later.
- Ontario, Canada
November 12, 2025
A. Hi again, Joseph.
Yes, the dissolving and plating out are generally done as two separate operations, the main reason probably being that removing impurities from a batch is far simpler than trying to remove unpredictable types & quantities of contaminants on the fly in the few seconds between dissolution and plate out.
But I know of a copper electroplating shop which uses scrap copper as their source of the needed copper.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
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