# Silver cell



## plante1999 (Jan 14, 2012)

First I am an home chemist so , I know realy well chemicals.
I want to set a silver cell to get the silver from Silver plated copper wire (from E-junk). I dont want to mess with HNO3 (nitric acid) since it is costly and restricted here, I can make my own from the air, but I prefer to keep it for my chemistry hobby. Wath electrolite should I use for a silver cell? 

Thanks!!!


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## butcher (Jan 15, 2012)

I see several problems:
You would not get much nitric electrocuting air, (a little yes).

(You could use nitrate salts sodium or potassium to get the silver cell running can you get these? I know most anybody who lives outside of the cave can get sulfuric acid also distilling would be recommended).

problem with plated silver is you would also dissolve copper, and then you have these two to separate again, you can use a copper sulfate solution to break down metals and then use hydrochloric acid and oxidizer solutions to dissolve copper, leaving insoluble silver chloride, but this is very time consuming and costly, the tiny amount of silver will not pay for chemicals. 

There is a fairly new post on the forum of a member trying an experiment he studied written in German, but sorry I cannot remember details now (seems like was posted in the last several months so searching by date may help)from memory it was a sulfate solution with oxidizer (but my mind is foggy).

Usually we would just say sell the silver plated stuff as copper, and go buy silver.

Are you sure this is silver plated wire and not tin plated wire?


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## jimdoc (Jan 15, 2012)

It is here;
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=12530


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## plante1999 (Jan 15, 2012)

In fact I already made some nitric from the air and it was prety dilute. In fact I dont know if it is tin plated or silver plated , but the wire is from old pc.

I can get 100g NH4NO3 (ammonium nitrate) as a nitrate salt.


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## butcher (Jan 15, 2012)

ammonium nitrate is not very good for making nitric acid (it works well but could be very dangerous if done wrong) ammonium nitrate can decompose with force, and when distilling this hot acid solution,you would not want that "force" throwing shards of glass and acid at you (for this reason I will suggest against its use).

sodium nitrate fertilizer can be ordered from online garden centers in 5 pound bags, if you cannot get it, or pottasium nitrate (sump remover, or fertilizer locally).

auto parts for battery acid (napa auto sells 5 gallon bags in cardboard. or the hardware for drain cleaner concentrated sulfuric.


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