I’ve been doing anodizing at a hobbiest level for awhile and have turned out quite a number of parts, now when I want to get more into it the city stiff arms me!

I got a master business license and applied for a home occupational license so I could report earnings on my taxes and I started plans to double my tank capacity to around 60 gallons. The city denied me the license so I went down to talk to the head honcho. He said that the city hasn’t ever allowed that kind of work and because of the sulfuric acid (regardless at what concentration I buy it at) I would not be allowed to run it from home.

He classifies the sulfuric acid as a High Hazard Occupation – H. I’m not totally convinced that he has sufficient chemical engineering experience to make that judgment but he told me that I would have to be the one to prove it otherwise in order to continue the application and receive the license.

Can people with that home occupational license tell me where they live and if they had any kind of hurtle like this to jump? I don’t really want to just plate things, anodizing is funner to me!

The electrolyte that I need for my anodizing tank is 4.8% sulfuric acid diluted in water by volume.

SO! By definition the city says a chemical is considered a corrosive if it inflicts a certain amount of damage to tissue over a given amount of time. 98% sulfuric acid diluted in water by volume IS a corrosive but I’m not convinced that a 4.8% concentration would be still considered a corrosive at that level of dilution (it would take longer to inflict the same amount of damage right?)

The amount of total diluted acid will be around 50-70 gallons. At the concentration that would mean I would have a maximum of 3 to 4 gallons of 98% concentrated sulfuric acid (this might help if the quantity of acid is an issue)