hair bleach question

[timmeh87]

well im currently brewing up some CuCl2 etchant following (loosely) the instructions that were on hackaday recently.

i dissolved a large amount of copper in HCl with the aid of some weak (3%) hydrogen peroxide. i mean a large amount. i put pieces of copper water pipe in there overnight and in the morning it had eaten right through in some places.

anyways, now i have a highly saturated solution of brown copper 1+ ions and im trying to oxidize it back to its useable state (copper 2+ ions). - this all makes more sense if youve read the article

so im running a fish tank bubbler through it right now (i have about 200ml of thick black solution), but im totally impaitent. ive carrried out some small scale experiments in test tubes, and hydrogen peroxide works very well to oxidize the solution almost instantly. (back to the most beautiful emerald green)

which is why im looking for a more concentrated source of hydrogen peroxide. i understand that hair bleach is sold as 30 and 40 %vol hydrogen peroxide solution. what i want to know is if you can purchase PURE hydrogen peroxide hair bleach, or if theres other crap in there to make it thicker or something. does anyone know of any specific brands that would work?

or any other source of >10% H2O2 in general? i have some oxy-clean type stuff which has it, but theres way to much detergent in it.

[OlduvaiHand]

First off, there's no way you're going to be able to get the stuff pure. Hydrogen peroxide in high concentrations is really corrosive and frankly not safe to handle outside of a professional or laboratory environment. If you're really interested in getting a higher concentration than the standard 3% solution you find at the drug store, you have 2 readily available choices:

1. Get some hair bleach, which will be somewhere between 3% and 10% (not 30-40%, which would be industrial grade)
2. Go to a health food store and see if you can find some higher concentration stuff, still <30%, for homeopathic remedies. Some places carry it.

Ordering online isn't going to be an option unless you impatience is balanced by your budget, since hazmat fees for industrial grade stuff are going to put your shipping costs well beyond the actual benefit you'll see from etching a little bit faster. My suggestion: be patient, it won't take that long.