Finally got some of the manganese oxide dried out, after decanting most of the water, having washed it with a crapload of water to get rid of the residual potassium sulfate and caustic potash. Whilst it looked like a fair quantity, theres an awful lot less when its been cleaned up and baked dry. Left it on top of the grill, with the grill tray out of the way so as not to set the residual grease in there on fire (filled the house with smoke a time or two or three forgetting to do that before. No harm done, just fire alarm needed the reset button poking and the windows opening because the place stank of bacon and sausages etc. only burnt to a crisp.
Cleaning another batch of ore refined from batteries at the moment, I think I'll end up gutting quite a few more before I'm done, digesting the manganese dioxide in sulfuric acid and precipitating with base once the carbon has settled out, then conducting a thermite reaction to liberate the metal, using something like a strip of lithium metal poked into the top to set it off, (like a fuse, blowtorching the end to light it and have it set off the magnesium/manganese hydroxide-oxide refined product, hopefully to be left with a lump of manganese in the crucible. Don't have enough yet, to fill one with the thermite mixture. But working on that.
And my carbon rods arrived today in the mail too (for electrodes, once I get a working power supply again)
