This is a question for people who are better at chemistry than I am... what solvents will dissolve plastics without harming copper?
I have a fairly large amount of old computer power cords. I originally thought I could use the wire in them for jewelry, but it's a much finer gauge than I work with. But there's still a significant amount of copper there, and if I could separate it from the plastic coverings I could easily sell the copper as scrap. I'd rather avoid manually stripping all of it (it's a VERY large amount of old power cords), and I'd also like to avoid burning it for what I hope are obvious reasons, so I'm currently looking at chemical options.
I have a fairly large amount of old computer power cords. I originally thought I could use the wire in them for jewelry, but it's a much finer gauge than I work with. But there's still a significant amount of copper there, and if I could separate it from the plastic coverings I could easily sell the copper as scrap. I'd rather avoid manually stripping all of it (it's a VERY large amount of old power cords), and I'd also like to avoid burning it for what I hope are obvious reasons, so I'm currently looking at chemical options.