Lye sugar problem

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kjavanb123

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Apr 1, 2009
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All,

I tried this method to convert a kilogram of silver chloride to silver metal, and it failed. I am curios of there is any ways that lost silver can be recovered. Here is what I did with some photos,

1- the silver chloride as my starting materials, the copper nitrate completely removed prior to lye sugar method.
image.jpg

2- Purchased 2kg of lye pellets, added water twice volume of silver chloride, then added 2 kg pellets as stirred. Here what solution looked like,
image.jpg

3- Prepared a concentrated sugar solutij by adding 4kg of sugar to 3 liters of water, and qdded while stirred to the solution in step 2, here what solution looked like,
View attachment 1

4- Rinsed 3 times with water until solution became clear, but unlike when cementing with zinc, the dark gray residue were not as solid as I thought it wouod be,


I saved solution and residue, any helps would apperciate it.

Thanks
Kevin
 
Tough to say exactly what may have happened. It looks like you have at least successfully made silver oxide but it just didn't reduce to elemental silver. Where are the "lye pellets" from? Do they contain anything besides lye? Also, it's possible you didn't get all the acid out of the chloride. I think that will stop it from reducing to elemental silver. Lastly, there is really no need to make a sugar solution. Simply adding sugar in granular form or syrup if using something like karo to the water that is already there is sufficient. Making an aqueous solution will just add to the waste stream you have to contend with later on.

At this point you could simply melt the oxide into solid bars and throw them in a silver cell. Or try the process all over again.
 
You also need to stir it a lot, and I mean a lot. To fully convert, each molecule of silver chloride has to contact a molecule of sugar long enough for the reaction to take place.

Hand stirring usually is not long enough, I use an old blender and let it run for a few hours.
 
rickbb said:
You also need to stir it a lot, and I mean a lot. To fully convert, each molecule of silver chloride has to contact a molecule of sugar long enough for the reaction to take place.

Hand stirring usually is not long enough, I use an old blender and let it run for a few hours.

Depending on the quantity manual stirring can be enough. All the boiling that occurs can help agitate the material enough to reduce it all.
 
Hi,

Thanks all for your advise, I followed Lou's comment, and worked great, added 98% sulfuric acid to the dark brown almost black solution you see in the first post, and it turned gray, and after few hours grayish residue percipitated as seen in the following picture. I shall melt them tommorow and post photos.

image.jpg

Thanks and regards
Kj
 
Make sure you take out a 5-10 g sample, rinse the acidity off, add a little borax and soda ash and melt it. Your slag should be creme colored if the iron sulfate was rinsed off or black if some remained. There will be a dense white smoke if AgCl is present and the slag will have a weird metallic look if it is unconverted.
 
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