It is possible to separate silver from tin by melting/smelting ?

[bcgold]

Before I had set up the test cell had put some ram sticks in a post with a dilute hcl leach after heating it up for half an hour set it aside to cool then overnight these crystals appeared.

Since the predominant species in the leach was tin, it would be safe to assume these are tin crystals.

A heated leach will hold more salts than a cold one will so by heating your electrolyte you will probably have better results replacing the tin ions as they're being plated out onto the cathode.

With the formation of crystals I knew the liquor was saturated and this is what lead me to set up the experimental cell.

 

[bcgold]

Forgot to mention remove battery's, aluminum heat sinks then when pulling aluminum caps try to pull them leaving the legs behind ( electrodes ) leading inside the capacitor, as these might be silver.

Whatever the electrodes are made of they dissolve during electrolysis and go to slime's.

 

[anachronism]

It's certainly got potential. If you're effectively taking the tin out of solution with electrolysis so you can load more into the solution without wasting the solution you are using then it sounds like something worth looking at.

Jon

 

[bcgold]

If you fail to maintain an equilibrium in your electrolyte it will eventually end up as a barren solution. When other species are present the use of the electrolyte is not infinite, it will eventually foul.

From time to time small additions of fresh acid are needed to maintain a supply of free acid.

In this parting operation ( tin / silver ) copper chloride is your enemy, thankfully the solder mask keeps this to a minimum.

 

[bcgold]

Nicer tin deposit, with luck it just might peel off as a sheet.

 

[bcgold]

From that first load of motherboards.

 

[rickzeien]

Really nice. Can you post some pics of the cleaned boards and SMDs?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[anachronism]

Can I ask how you are sure that this is Tin please?

 

[bcgold]

Can I ask how you are sure that this is Tin please?

What I"m doing is a recovery, both the tin and silver will have to be re-refined.

Pure tin when you bend it, it will cry.

From the activity series of metals I have removed from the boards, battery's and aluminum on the next batch have removed the majority of iron.

 

[bcgold]

This is turning out to be a real adventure, tin catches fire when you try to melt it.

Downloaded Metallurgy of Tin from openlibrary.org, this clearly describes what is taking place when I tried to melt some of the recovered tin into a button.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Why would you be heating it to such a high temperature? Tin melts at 231.9°C (449.5°F).

Dave

 

[lunker]

I have achieved the same results. When trying to melt the resulting metallic cement. It fumes with a white smoke and sublimates white. I’m not sure if you could add a carbon source and smelt it? At first I was under the impression it could be re melted at its normal melting point. I believe treating it as a tin ore might work. Economics of recovery??? But is a great way to recover mlcc off boards.