Australia's Science Forum

Does anyone know a quick way to clean copper deposits off carbon rods? I've been using sandpaper and it's messy and tedious.

Try steel wool. Any way you clean them will be messy. If the copper deposit is extremely stuck on then perhaps remove it by scraping with a single edge blade or a Stanley knife and then use the steel wool.

There's an old thread right here that has a few suggestions!
http://www.chemtalk.com.au/viewtopic.ph ... ode#p43583

Nitric acid works, but will need to be done in a fume cupboard. Bigmack's method works for cleaning rusty electrodes, not sure about removal of copper.

This thread on Preproom is also positive about Nitric acid, but soaking in 1M rather than using conc.
http://community.preproom.org/index.php ... rodes.620/

Thank you both.

easy to "unplate" them .
Before beaker of HCl 0.1M . old scrap of copper .
positive ( Red ) on the Carbon .Negative (Black) on the scrap of Copper. Few minutes Later ..... Warning , it does make a bit of Chlorine gas . So best off in the Fume hood ....still,... safer than Nitrogen Dioxide gas given off when using Nitric acid to "eat " the copper off. And as the Copper goes onto the scrap copper , you don't have Copper Nitrate to dispose of .

Ha! Brilliant, bigmack. I knew there had to be a way.