# reverse electroplating silver



## azgard (Nov 9, 2010)

i just got some huge copper bus bar thing out of a giant breaker they copper is about 1/2 inch thick and all Silver plated usually i wouldn't bother with plated bars but i got several hundred square inches or more of surface area with a thick plating. seems like reverse electroplating would be easiest as they are way to thick to dissolve in an acid. Where can i get an Electrolyte solution to use for removing silver plating on copper.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 9, 2010)

Who was the mfg. of the breaker and what was the AMP rateing on it?


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## azgard (Nov 9, 2010)

not sure who made it but i beleve its a 200amp. i got about 100lbs of copper out of it but its all silver plated.


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## bigjohn (Nov 9, 2010)

If you got 100 lbs of copper out of it, sounds like a 2000 amp breaker. Make sure it's silver plated alot of buss bars anr zinc plated.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 9, 2010)

It wouldn't by chance be a rachet type breaker out of a motor control center?
Picture sure would be nice.


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## azgard (Nov 9, 2010)

its aleredy been disassembled but ill go take a look at the label on it to see what the name was on it. it was a very heavy unit the whole thing had to been at least 300lbs 3 of us had a hard time loading it into the fan.


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 10, 2010)

azgard said:


> i just got some huge copper bus bar thing out of a giant breaker they copper is about 1/2 inch thick and all Silver plated usually i wouldn't bother with plated bars but i got several hundred square inches or more of surface area with a thick plating. seems like reverse electroplating would be easiest as they are way to thick to dissolve in an acid. Where can i get an Electrolyte solution to use for removing silver plating on copper.



What solution do you plan on using? There's no good way to do this unless you want to use cyanide. Anyhow, I think you'll find that the silver is quite thin. It's best to not use the words "thick plating" unless you really know what you're talking about and can quote numbers.


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## azgard (Nov 10, 2010)

heres a few pictures of the parts i pulled out of it. theres a bunch of contact points that may be silver or silver alloy of somekind. is there any kind of pre made electrolye solution you can get to do reverse electroplating


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## Harold_V (Nov 10, 2010)

That most assuredly was not a 200 amp breaker. My money is on one that is rated in the thousands of amps. 

While I agree, there may be silver plating on those items, you can remove all doubt by checking with Schwerter's solution. Anyone that deals with scrap, or does refining, shouldn't be without it, anymore than a refiner should be without stannous chloride. 

You might achieve results stripping the coating, assuming it's silver, with a silver nitrate electrolyte, but, were they mine, I'd use them for recovering silver from a silver nitrate solution. The silver would eventually report in the spoils, and the copper base would be used to cement the silver from solution. A win/win situation. 

The contacts you showed may be a silver/tungsten type. If they are, when you sweat them from the copper buss, you'll see a waffle pattern on the soldered side. If they do not have the waffle pattern, they will yield more silver. Those made with tungsten tend to yield slightly less than 50%, and require several hours of leaching time in heated dilute nitric. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 10, 2010)

> is there any kind of pre made electrolye solution you can get to do reverse electroplating



No. Not that I know of.


I may be wrong but I seem to remember hearing that the silver is applied to buss bars by immersion plating rather than by electroplating. With electroplating, you can plate as thick as you want. In immersion plating, the plating stops once the copper is completely coated with silver. Therefore, the thickness is limited. It is the same as cementing silver on copper, except that a special silver solution is used in order to produce an adherent and solid deposit.

If I'm right about this, the silver is only about 10 millionths of an inch thick. This would give a silver value of $0.0015 per square inch. It would take about 4.5 square feet to equal a dollar.

Let's assume I'm wrong and the silver is really heavy, say 200 millionths thick. Even in this case, it would only be worth 3 cents per square inch. 

What I'm saying is that I think you're wasting your time, effort, and money, no matter how thick the silver is. Like Harold said, just use this silver coated buss bar to cement silver from other silver nitrate solutions. That way, you'll get it all, eventually.

A way to strip the silver without attacking the copper is in a 95% sulfuric, 5% nitric solution, preferably at about 180F. This is a nasty, dangerous solution that I don't recommend. Also, in order to get the silver, the solution must be diluted, which is another dangerous operation.

The silver will also strip in the electrolytic concentrated sulfuric stripper but getting the silver out of this solution is difficult and I know of no one that has a simple method of doing it.

Forget it and find something that's worth doing!


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## kdaddy (Nov 10, 2010)

I would bet they are tin plated. Nice contacts though.


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## azgard (Nov 10, 2010)

How would I get those contacts off. Would heating them with propane torch get them off.


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## adam_mizer (Nov 10, 2010)

Yes those are called silver tipped contacts and if you do a google search: silver tipped contacts you will come up with replacement suppliers for many contacts.

I have a small box of the contacts saved, maybe one day I'll spend time on them, when I learn alot more about the process.

They are silver and need a hot torch to come off. Oxygen Acetylene or possibly spend a little more time with Mapp gas. Propane takes forever.


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