There is an awful lot that will dissolve in lead. And all will have the effect of making the alloy harder even at low concentrations. For this
reason, a physical test is not going to tell you much.
If you are doing a chemical test and do not have modern analytical gear, (who does?) then the first step is to narrow down the possibilities of what
you believe might be in there. Then look for qualitative tests for those elements. Good luck. This is not likely to be easy.
For starters, lead ores generally have a lot of other metals from neighbouring elements: tin, antimony, bismuth in particular. Unless these are
deliberately removed in a refining process, they will still be present to some extent. But there is a truckload of other possibilities as well. What
is the source of your lead? |