The Environmental Impact of Ferric Chloride Etchant in Photochemical Machining: Part 2

Part 1 of this paper1 discussed the preliminary sur­vey results obtained from analysing:

• weights and areas of ferrous and copper materials processed
• quantities of ferric chloride etchants consumed, and
• whether etchant regeneration was utilised or not. For the evaluation of company performance in the efficient utilization of etchant, three assumptions were made. These were:
  • The etched out area of a sheet of processed metal had been taken as 10%, so that 90% of the metal formed the part plus scrap.
  • All ferrous metals were treated as if they com­prised 100% iron. 3. All copper-containing metals were treated as if they comprised 100% copper.

Part 2 of this paper dis-cusses these assumptions based on a second ques­tionnaire sent to the com­panies who participated in Part 1, and includes re­sults from three additional companies (R, S and T) which asked to be in­cluded in the survey. The two questionnaires have therefore elicited re­plies from eighteen job­shops based in ten different countries from three continents.