[maxvortex]

Did some one try to remove oxidation layer with ultrasonic washer ?
Can this be done with any acid or maybe just with tap water ?

Max

[Arkcon]

Briefly, no.  The oxidation layer on aluminum, copper is too tightly bound.  Iron rust might flake off if the chunks are big enough, but that's hardly descaling, its just like rubbing your finger over.  A mild acid may work, but may also corrode.  Now, if the pieces are milled parts, or possibly milled and glass beaded, ultrasound is good for pulling metal dust out of crevices, I would do that before I painted or had them black oxidized. 

[maxvortex]

Did you try this ?.
I'm just asking because i think that this should work.
If it can clean grease and some other things that it should be able to clean the oxidation layer. There are bunch of videos on yt regarding this thematic and this is one of them.

Removing rust from metal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlDCNE0ISgA

Btw. is there any other way to remove the oxidation, but without using acid.
 

[Arkcon]

No, I've never tried removing oxidation with ultrasound.  What I described was above, cleaning dust off a metal was done in a household jewelry cleaner.  I have put clean metal in a laboratory ultrasonic cleanser, left it over lunch, and wen I took it out, saw a faint bit of crystalline detail in the block of machined steel -- it was an old-style HPLC pump head.  So it did do something ... just nothing necessary, or controlled, or good for the part, in that particular case.

Now I haven't looked at the youtube video, because my internet pipe is too narrow for me to do that for just any reason.  But you have to be aware that people do sometimes fake those, sometimes for pretty much no reason.

[maxvortex]

I agree with you but from electronic point of view, this should work.
So i was thinking that i could create some ultrasound emitter that would break the chemical bond. My knowledge in chemistry is just basic one so please explain me what is happening in this oxidation process and how to reverse it. I know that oxygen molecules are bind to metal surface but from technical stand oxidation is defined as the loss of one electron when two substances interact.  It would be logical to think that this oxidation bond can be braked with adding one electron.

In electro chemistry this can be done with DC and sodium carbonate but i dont understand how is sodium carbonate helping in this process.

One really stupid idea :-)
If this would be technically possible to do, can i convert this oxygen molecule back to water ?

Max
   

[Arkcon]

Some of what you're saying is nonsense.  Sorry.  Urm ... sorry for being blunt, and also for it not working.  Ultrasound does breaks bonds, sometimes bounds that aren't broken thermally.  Its OK, for example, to use ultrasound to help dissolve an organic solid, but you may decompose the compound with too much ultrasound.  Corrosion is just another compound, but its not as energetically liable as a complex organic compound.  Now you can remove corrosion electrolytically, essentially causing the oxygen in corrosion to convert into another form -- either O₂ to bubble free, or to reform water, or another compound.  But the metal ion doesn't go back to the substrate as a smooth metal plating, it just falls off as a powder.  So just
convert this oxygen molecule back to water ? isn't as simple as you suggest.

[maxvortex]

You don't need to apologize. I'm not chemist. My field of work is electronic and radiocommunications but i will try to adapt :-).

Btw. thank you for you explanation. As you write down "Corrosion is just another compound, but its not as energetically liable as a complex organic compound "

That was the idea. To break this. But i was thinking, this oxidation layer is just tiny layer and maybe there is a way to convert this back to water. But as mention, this would be very tricky to do. OK. i will make one ultrasound cleaner and try it to see what will happen.

[JGK]

Given that the test we used to test the functionality of our ultrasonic bath (which we used for timed dissolution work) was the bath's ability to produce holes and/or erode aluminium foil, I would say putting any aluminium material in the bath is not advised.

You may remove the oxidation but will also probably pit/corrode the aluminium  as well.