# Silver Chloride theoretical question



## Dawnsdad (Aug 8, 2019)

Here's a question that is more theoretical than practical: If you have silver chloride in a beaker, exposed to light, it oxidizes, right? So, if you had enough time to wait, and you stirred it frequently, would you eventually have all silver oxide without using NaOH?


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## Lino1406 (Aug 8, 2019)

Nop. After one or two atomic layers are converted to silver, not silver oxide, and then the radiation is blocked completely. This is in accordance with the Le Chatelier principle


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 8, 2019)

After one or two atomic layers are converted to silver, not silver oxide, and then the radiation is blocked completely.


I understand what you are saying. That is why I mentioned stirring frequently. Sometimes as I am rinsing silver chloride, I get drawn away to do something else. When I come back, sometimes hours later, the sides of the beaker are coated with silver that has been affected by exposure to light. I am tempted to get one of those magnetic stirrers and set a beaker of silver chloride on it in direct sunlight connected to a timer to stir it a few seconds every minute or two.


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## anachronism (Aug 8, 2019)

Don't be tempted. Lino is correct.


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 8, 2019)

I don't mean to seem argumentative, but has anyone actually tried this? It seems quite logical to me that the layer of black atoms would block light from reaching, and therefore affecting, the rest of the solution. But it does not seem logical to me that if you remove the barrier (stirring) and allow the light to reach more atoms, that more atoms would not be affected. As an experiment, today I put about 2oz. worth of silver chloride in about 500ml. water in a beaker out in my work area. As everyone might expect, about a half hour later when I went out there, the sides of the beaker were coated with black. I stirred it again, blending the black with the pure white and went back inside. A little later I came back out to find a new layer of black on the sides of the beaker. I repeated the process several times today. Each time the silver chloride got the slightest bit darker in color. So it seems to me that my idea is working, albeit slowly.


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## butcher (Aug 8, 2019)

Photography

A subject I know very little to nothing about, I have very seldom used a camera, so understanding how it works, I do not possess much knowledge of, but silver and its salts I have had some fun with,

silver nitrate ions in my jar will slowly convert to silver metal atoms in the light, this is a very slow chemical redox reaction if my silver nitrate solution is fairly pure (not much of another reducing agent involved in the solution), and if kept pure and in the dark.

If the silver nitrate solution is not pure or has something in solution which could act as a reducing agent which can give electrons back to the silver, this reaction may proceed very slowly in the dark, but the light will intensify this reaction.



Take a jar of silver chloride and try to convert it to metal with light and sunshine, can it be done yes, well only somewhat in my best guess, the silver chloride crystal structure would only convert on the outside layer, the internal portion of the crystal would not be converted, even if you could convert all of the crystals outer core to metal, you would still have a major portion of your silver locked up in the silver chloride crystal lattice as an ion of silver under a shell of silver atoms. If we can see the crystal without a microscope it is a cluster or a large group of atoms, my belief, the black silver surface will convert in light fairly fast, but I believe the silver ions shaded by the silver metal crust or inner layer of the crystal structure will not get reduced to metal.

My guess is that your answer can be found by photography, silver chloride is not as easy to convert back to the silver metal as the bromide or iodide, but we can use it to take a picture.

If I spread the silver chloride out on paper the paper would suck up some of my silver ions, I would essentially lose some of my silver in the process, so we can coat the paper with the whites of eggs, to form an insoluble layer, as an added bonus the egg whites also can act as a reducing agent (like gelatin in film)a source of electrons for our silver ions.

We can mix a little table salt in with our organic egg whites, not only keeps our silver ions from penetrating the paper after it dries, but also gives us an emulsion layer,

Now wetting this dried egg and salted paper with some silver nitrate the silver nitrate is converted to finely divided insoluble silver chloride dispersed widely in the emulsion that is just waiting for a redox reaction to begin, the organic egg whites just itching to react and give up its electrons to the silver chloride ions, keeping this in the dark the reaction is extremely slow weeks... but in the sunlight which acts as a catalyst the surface layer of silver chloride will darken as the eggs help to reduce the silver chloride to metal in the light, the more shaded areas of this picture are still silver chloride ions which can be washed away from the reduced silver black metal, by dissolving the areas less or unexposed to light with something like sodium thiosulfate to dissolve the silver chloride salts but still leave silver metal in the emulsion...


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## butcher (Aug 9, 2019)

Silver chloride and copper I chloride in the silicate (sand) (slag) glass.
Redox reaction via light/dark.
http://makahiki.kcc.hawaii.edu/chem/everyday_photo_oxid.html


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## rickzeien (Aug 10, 2019)

butcher said:


> Silver chloride and copper I chloride in the silicate (sand) (slag) glass.
> Redox reaction via light/dark.
> http://makahiki.kcc.hawaii.edu/chem/everyday_photo_oxid.html


That is amazing. I never would have thought that the reactions could occur while in a solid state.

Thanks for sharing. 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


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## peter i (Aug 11, 2019)

rickzeien said:


> butcher said:
> 
> 
> > Silver chloride and copper I chloride in the silicate (sand) (slag) glass.
> ...




Solid-state chemistry is a huge (and both scientifically and industrially) important area.


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 11, 2019)

Thanks a lot, butcher, for your very insightful answers. You obviously know your chemistry and you explain in a way that makes if much easier for a blockhead like me to understand. So, after a couple days exposure to direct sunlight and sporatic stirring, the beaker contents have turned a nice silvery gray and what sticks to the side of the beaker is easier to stir off. I'll continue until stirring doesn't bring up a cloud that is any different color than what sticks to the side of the beaker. I'm sure that this would have worked much faster if I had the time to go out and stir every 5 minutes or so. Your comment about clusters is well taken. I'm wondering if that will be a significant factor and if frequent or constant stirring would cause enough friction to break up clusters. Being a hard headed old fart, I went ahead and ordered a cheap magnetic stirrer from Amazon. It will arrive tomorrow and I will be able to try a constantly circulating batch of AgCl to see how that goes.


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## butcher (Aug 11, 2019)

Just my guess:
Mechanical stirring and grinding may help somewhat to help convert a little bit more of the silver chloride silver metal, but without some other reducing agent involved besides the light energy I believe you will still only get a partial conversion of the whole, my guess only the few thousand atoms on the outer portion of the silver chloride crystal would see the light, if you could just separate each crystal ion, and give it back an electron, this is where a reducing agent willing to give up an electron to the silver ion would be needed in my opinion.

silver will dissolve in nitric acid, silver chloride will not.
After getting a small test batch as dark as you can maybe you can test to see how well light and stirring alone works, my guess is not well at a full conversion without using another reducing agent.

I suspect the impurities like copper chloride will have an effect on how well the conversion with light alone would proceed, it would be interesting to do some experiments with pure and impure silver chloride...


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 12, 2019)

I wish I had paid better attention when I had H.S. chemistry over half a century ago. If I understand your answer correctly, it seems to me that it might be a good test of this method to add nitric acid to what I am thinking is my "finished" batch. If there is any residue left, that would be AgCl, right? I'm glad I haven't started drying it yet.


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## butcher (Aug 12, 2019)

I would not dry it out.
You could run a test on a small batch...

Dissolving the silver metal from the silver chloride with nitric.
Or by
Dissolving the silver chloride from the silver metal with thiosulfate...
(Ammonia could be used with precaution because it could cause an explosive reaction if not handled properly.)


I do not believe you will be able to get a complete conversion with light energy alone, I believe you will need to add some other reducing agent (supplier of electrons).


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 13, 2019)

I didn't have in mind to dry it out. I thought I would add nitric and see if it left anything behind when it dissolved as much silver as it could. The only thing that would prove is yes/no did the sunlight convert all of the silver? A more conclusive test would be to start with a known weight of pure silver and go through the whole process. But..... if some AgCl remains after dissolving this batch, I will already know that 100% of the silver has not been converted. Even so, use of this method will greatly reduce the amount of NaOH I need to use. Will adding NaOH have any affect on the already converted silver?


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## butcher (Aug 13, 2019)

Will adding NaOH have any affect on the already converted silver?

Once the silver ion (salt of silver) (silver chloride) gets back an electron (in this case from light energy) it becomes a silver metal atom, it is already reduced to the metal,


sodium hydroxide will not oxidize (take electrons) or reduce (give up electrons) the silver metal, (unless heated between 500 to 900 deg. F.). 

What would it matter in this case anyway? If you are trying to convert silver chloride to an oxide of silver.


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## Dawnsdad (Aug 19, 2019)

lol. I'm just trying to be sure that I don't inadvertently screw things up. These are strong chemicals and my knowledge is very limited. I would hate for my ignorance to lead me to ruin a batch of silver by causing a reaction that I wasn't aware could happen. 

One thing I am not clear about is what is happening early in this whole process. When the AgCl is exposed to light, it releases the Cl, right? I get it that I would have pure silver at that point. But it turns black and somewhere I'm thinking I read that the black substance stuck to the side of the beaker is silver oxide. If that is the case, where did the oxygen come from? The water? The air? Also, if left in this blackened (oxidized) state, what will happen when I melt it? Is it even necessary to strip the oxygen?

I'd like to get away from the use of chemicals wherever possible. Judging when I have added enough NaOH by the change in color is somewhat subjective to me. What if I'm slightly off in my judgement? It recently happened to me that I had a batch of AgCl that I thought was just about the right color when a big blob of NaOH, much more than I intended, dropped in the bucket. So now I had way too much NaOH in there and it took a lot more water to wash it out. I saved the water I poured off, thinking that I can probably recover a lot of silver from it, but I'm not sure how. Would muratic acid do the trick? 

butcher, I think we may have been talking about slightly different conditions of AgCl. My AgCl has always had the consistency something like whipping cream, maybe slightly thicker, but no noticeable pieces. So when you wrote about clusters of AgCl, I was thinking about a few atoms sticking together. But this weekend I experienced something I havent seen before. I had a bar of silver that I had poured a few years ago. It was about 8 oz. and had a slight copper tint to it, so I decided I'd dissolve it again to get rid of the Cu. I wasn't paying that much attention when I hit it with the brine and for the first few rinses. But when I was transferring it to a beaker, there were a considerable number of big chunks about the size of a quarter and most of the rest was white pieces about the size of a grain of rice. I figured all this would break up when I gave it a good stirring, but it resisted. So I put it all back in a 5gal. bucket and applied the paint stirrer with my drill a few times. I'm about ready to put it back in the beaker again, so I'll see if it is more like what I am accustomed to. If those pieces were what you meant when you were doubting that I would get a complete conversion, I can understand why.


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## anachronism (Aug 19, 2019)

You're over thinking it Sir. I fully understand why, so don't take that as a dig at you. 

Listen- keep your silver Choride moist, and take it out of sunlight when it's dropped until you convert it. That's the simplistic but best way to do things.

It's your choice how you convert it however if it's damp and out of direct sunlight you won't have an issue. Trust me it's not as bad as you think.

Hope that helps

Jon


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## butcher (Aug 19, 2019)

The grains in the hammer are crystal structures some of which are formed during heat treating, acid etching is sometimes used to check for this crystal matrixes.

The black or violet is elemental silver atoms in clusters big enough to see with your naked eye.

You will not change the whole mass of the solution to silver with light alone, you will gain a partial reduction of the silver chloride at best, especially with it in a jar, without using some other reducing agent....

My choice would be H2SO4 and iron, I dislike the caustic conversion method.

Add a little sulfuric, some nails, and stir in the sunlight...


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## Dawnsdad (Oct 7, 2019)

UPDATE:

Although the magnetic stirrer worked, it was not strong enough to handle more than about 2 oz. worth of AgCl. So I bought an ice cream maker on clearance at WalMart and adapted it to sit on top of a 5 gal. bucket and stir continuously at 40 rmp. I set it stirring for about 2 days. When I was satisfied that it was unlikely that any more AgCl would be converted, I set about drying it. I did not go thru the sugar step because a RKI at the refiner I normally sell to told me that is was unnecessary because the oxygen should cook off. I did not filter it because nothing had been added since I had rinsed the AgCl until the water was clear. After it dried, the total weight was about 300g. Using my small induction melter, I charged a crucible with about half of the material. I expected some smoke as per responses here because I expected that there would be some percentage of the AgCl that had not been converted. I heated to 1,080C and noticed very little smoke. However, when I poured the molten mass into water to make shot, I got quite a surprise. There was a lot of loud popping and I noticed very few visible silver pieces. Adding the rest of the powder to the crucible, I also added a little borax. This time I let it continue at 1080C for about 30 minutes before pouring into cold water. Again there was a lot of popping noise. What I found when I drained the pot of cold water was mostly black/dark brown grit about the consistency of very coarse sand, a few flakes of very shiny silver and one fairly large piece of shiny silver. 

I have done a lot of searching and reading about AgCl, both here and on the internet in general. But I am still at a loss as to what happened and what I have. Best as I can understand, under exposure to UV light, AgCl disintegrates into elemental chlorine and metallic silver. I would think that the Cl would off-gas during the process, leaving metallic silver and some AgCl that stubbornly refused to convert. Multiple sources say that the melting point of AgCl is 455C. So, when it melts, wouldn't that break the bond between Ag and Cl? If so, what is it that I have and how do I get it to nice, shiny silver?

One thing that might hold a clue is this: After I had poured everything out of the crucible, I turned it over and tapped it on the hardwood floor. Out came a mass of about 50g of the same dark metal grit, fused together but not completely melted. I'm thinking that, for some reason, I might need to raise the temperature. I took the mass to a refiner who shot a XRF of the thing and he said that it showed to be silver - no impurities. So I am also wondering if all this coarse grit might be suitable for use in a cell?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


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## butcher (Oct 7, 2019)

in the silver chloride crystals, I do not think the chloride ions are oxidized to form chlorine in the silver chloride matrix and gas off while some of the silver ions of the crystal matrix are reduced to silver atoms during exposure to the ultraviolet light.

a two-step pre-roast before melting and lots of sodium carbonate or carbon flux may help to convert the chlorides to gas and the remaining silver ions to silver.


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## rickbb (Oct 7, 2019)

Seems like a lot of work to me. "...stirred for 2 days", you could have converted it all in hours with either sulfuric/iron or sugar/lye methods.

But that's just me.


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## Dawnsdad (Oct 7, 2019)

rickbb said:


> Seems like a lot of work to me. "...stirred for 2 days", you could have converted it all in hours with either sulfuric/iron or sugar/lye methods.
> 
> But that's just me.



lol. It's not as if I sat there 2 days stirring. I'd go out in the morning and plug it in, then when it started to get dark, I would unplug it. One day was probably sufficient, but I am experimenting with what I hope will be a new innovation, trying to find the optimal amount of time. Several sources I have consulted say pretty much the same thing -"AgCl quickly darkens on exposure to light by disintegrating into elemental chlorine and metallic silver." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_chloride) If that were the case, it would be ideal. But it is not what has been my experience. The dried product, before I melted it, looked very much like it should; dark gray - very much like silver powder. But upon melting, it changed considerably leaving me to think I might be close to my goal, just lacking one step. There may be something I need to do before melting, or during melting that will successfully complete my experiment.

The sulfuric/iron method is not practical for me at this time. And the NaOH/sugar method is a little more subjective than I like. So I am trying something different. I am very grateful for the patient comments many have made to this thread.


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## butcher (Oct 7, 2019)

I find this is interesting but not surprising.


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## Shark (Oct 8, 2019)

A cast iron pot will work with what you already have. I just bought a used ice cream maker and kept the plastic bucket. I had a piece of 8" x 12" x 1/2" cast iron and cut it down to replace the plastic paddle in mine. A few holes and some screws and it works for the iron and sulfuric method.


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## g_axelsson (Oct 8, 2019)

Your black grit is molten silver chloride. The XRF doesn't see the chlorine so it reports it erroneous as pure silver.

UV + stirring is only converting the surface of the silver chloride grains, the center is still silver chloride.

Göran


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## rickbb (Oct 9, 2019)

yep, what he ^ said.


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## Dawnsdad (Jan 13, 2020)

Long overdue update:

Anticipating being out of country for a while and, then, surgery, I put everything on hold. I left the AgCl which had been continually stirred in sunlight until thoroughly black with plenty of water to keep it hydrated until I could get back to it. You may recall that it did not lend itself well to melting and pouring to make shot. It made very loud popping noises when it hit the water and formed more of a grit than any kind of shot. But it did make solid blocks when poured into a mold. So I decided to try putting those blocks thru a cell to see if that would produce silver crystals. It didn't. The electrolyte solution turned quite cloudy and the nylon filter material I used clogged up. I had to use nylon because I could not find the vacuum cleaner bags I have used in the past. So now I am considering two paths to follow.

1. Adding NaOH to see if there is any reaction. And then going to the sugar step.

or

2. Considering that the exposure to sunlight may have brought the AgCl to the point that NaOH would have brought it to, I have thought about skipping straight to the sugar step.

Before I try either, I'd like to see if anyone has an opinion of the two choices.


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## goldenchild (Jan 14, 2020)

Can you post pictures of what you have so far? Silver chloride is funny in that when you think it's all converted to oxide it still isn't. For this reason and the fact that you need heat for the sugar to work you should still add the NaOH.


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## anachronism (Jan 14, 2020)

Dawnsdad said:


> 1. Adding NaOH to see if there is any reaction. And then going to the sugar step.
> 
> or
> 
> ...



How do you think that leaving it in sunlight has broken the Silver Chloride down? What chemical process do you believe has taken place?


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## archeonist (Jan 15, 2020)

Light is energy. AgCl salts will decompose into Ag metal and Cl2 gas when exposed to light. This is called photolysis. These kind of reactions are identified by the fact that there is always one compound, in this case AgCl, that forms two or more new compounds, in this case Ag and Cl2 . 

The reaction of AgCl and NaOH is a whole different reaction than the photolysis reaction. The reactionproduct here is Ag2O, a different compound than Ag. 

Your experiment of stirring and converting AgCl to Ag by exposure to sunlight will theoreticaly work. But as Butcher already mentioned, in practice, silver ions and I think AgCl salts, will be surrounded by silver atoms, so the conversion will hold a low yield of silver because the atoms will block the light. 

But the conversion of using NaOH and suger is a fairly easy one, and if stirred thoroughly, the conversion to silver is very high.


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## anachronism (Jan 15, 2020)

I hear you. 

Will that work just on the surface or all the way through?


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## archeonist (Jan 15, 2020)

You mean photolysis? This will work on the surface because light can't pass silver atoms.


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## anachronism (Jan 15, 2020)

archeonist said:


> You mean photolysis? This will work on the surface because light can't pass silver atoms.



Thanks, so for the purposes of the guy's question he can't assume that the conversion has happened as anything more than a "top dressing?" I got the impression that the thought was that because it had turned black, that it was already in the oxide form completely therefore negating the need to convert the Chloride. 

I'm asking here genuinely- Silver Chloride is something I try to avoid like the plague.


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## kurtak (Jan 16, 2020)

Bottom line - you WILL NOT get complete conversion of AgCl to Ag by exposing the AgCl to sun light - even with constant stirring 

To get complete conversion you can ether use the lye/ sugar process (with "aggressive" stirring)

OR - you can use the metal ion exchange method (using zinc or iron as your exchange metals) with aggressive stirring

with the lye/sugar method some people mix the lye & sugar together & then add that mix to the AgCl

I highly recommend you DO NOT do that - it will create a "horrible" mess when you go to adjust the Ph of the lye for proper disposal (&/or use the lye to treat other acidic waste solutions for proper disposal)

Add your lye to convert AgCl to AgO2 - then wash all the lye out of the AgO2 then add your sugar to the AgO2 to convert the AgO2 to Ag - then wash all the sugar out before drying & melting

Kurt


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## snoman701 (Jan 16, 2020)

I think aggressive stirring is an understatement. 

It needs to be abrasive scraping. 

I tumble it in a mini tumbler I made with iron balls...Lou suggests punchings. 

The other method is scraping it in a iron frying pan. 

I personally believe it NEEDS that abrasive scraping to really get efficient conversion. 

I've tried it with just a stirrer, I couldn't get complete conversion.


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## rickbb (Jan 17, 2020)

I use an old blender it agitates quite well.


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## g_axelsson (Jan 17, 2020)

Dawnsdad said:


> You may recall that it did not lend itself well to melting and pouring to make shot. It made very loud popping noises when it hit the water and formed more of a grit than any kind of shot. But it did make solid blocks when poured into a mold.



Pouring molten salt into water, you should be glad you didn't hurt yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDRWQUUUCF0

Göran


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## Dawnsdad (Jan 19, 2020)

goldenchild said:


> Can you post pictures of what you have so far? Silver chloride is funny in that when you think it's all converted to oxide it still isn't. For this reason and the fact that you need heat for the sugar to work you should still add the NaOH.



I'm not much good at taking pictures and the only camera I have is on my cellphone. The pictures I have taken don't look much like they do to the naked eye. I think it's the lighting, but when I try using the flash, it's worse. I think the light is reflecting off the silver. I've never posted a pic here, but I'll give it a try.

This was a lump of the first batch I melted.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ah309/David200949/0/4edc25f2-bf2f-4c0e-9f12-2fb7e9ad2c12-original.jpg

This one was a crude bar I poured after I could see that pouring shot was not possible.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ah309/David200949/0/bar.jpeg

This is some of the still wet powder. It is hard to get a good pic because of the water and glass.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ah309/David200949/0/WetPowder.jpeg

This dried powder looks much darker to the naked eye than it looks in the pic. I had to use a flash and I think light was reflected by the silver in it.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ah309/David200949/0/DryPowder.jpeg


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## Dawnsdad (Jan 19, 2020)

archeonist said:


> Light is energy. AgCl salts will decompose into Ag metal and Cl2 gas when exposed to light. This is called photolysis. These kind of reactions are identified by the fact that there is always one compound, in this case AgCl, that forms two or more new compounds, in this case Ag and Cl2 .
> 
> The reaction of AgCl and NaOH is a whole different reaction than the photolysis reaction. The reactionproduct here is Ag2O, a different compound than Ag.
> 
> ...


This post has been very helpful in answering many of my questions and inspiring more questions. I suspect that what is going on here may be more complicated than I had previously thought. I had assumed that the exposure to UV light left three compounds: Ag, Cl (which would have likely been off gassed). and unconverted AgCl. The question at that point was "Why is the remaining AgCl not converted and why would NaOH penetrate the AgCl so thoroughly but the UV light not?" I thought the answer might be more UV exposure. Hence the constant stirring. I understand the concept that the light would be blocked by the silver atoms, but would those same atoms not also block the penetration of the "clumps" of AgCl by NaOH?

It seems clear to me at this point that there remains some AgCl. So I guess that the obvious next step would be to add some NaOH. I assume that the production of heat would indicate presence of AgCl.

I still feel that there must be a way to substitute UV light for NaOH conversion. But someone smarter than me will have to find a way to break up those AgCl clumps. 

I hope this thread has proven to be interesting and stimulating. I thank all of you for your thoughtful and well educated responses.


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## goldenchild (Jan 19, 2020)

snoman701 said:


> I think aggressive stirring is an understatement.
> 
> It needs to be abrasive scraping.
> 
> ...



You can do a gentle stir and don't need 100% conversion. You need nothing more than a beaker and a glass rod or for bigger batches a bucket and a big plastic spoon. The secret is that when you start the sugar additions it will boil (or at least get extremely hot) and expose any unconverted chloride. And this will in turn change it to elemental silver all in one motion. Another trick to getting it clean/speeding up the process is to remove the liquid while it's still hot. If using a beaker put it into another beaker. Bucket into bucket. Then the next few washes will still be hot to warm because the sponge is still hot. Hot liquid will wash much better. If left to cool you'll be left with a syrup that will take many more washings to clean. This isn't necessary but the final rinse should be in a buchner funnel. Filtering will make the drying process Much easier and faster.

Here is me back in the day.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM-YsiFnJ1I[/youtube]


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## goldenchild (Jan 19, 2020)

Dawnsdad said:


> goldenchild said:
> 
> 
> > Can you post pictures of what you have so far? Silver chloride is funny in that when you think it's all converted to oxide it still isn't. For this reason and the fact that you need heat for the sugar to work you should still add the NaOH.
> ...



You definitely have unconverted chloride.


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## butcher (Jan 19, 2020)

I enjoyed the video, thanks nice job.


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## Dawnsdad (Jan 20, 2020)

You can do a gentle stir and don't need 100% conversion. You need nothing more than a beaker and a glass rod or for bigger batches a bucket and a big plastic spoon. The secret is that when you start the sugar additions it will boil (or at least get extremely hot) and expose any unconverted chloride. And this will in turn change it to elemental silver all in one motion.

I am not doubting what you said, but this is the first time I have heard this. I always thought that I needed to add enough NaOH to convert 100% of the AgCl. But LaserSteve cautioned against using too much NaOH in his video. So I was left trying to figure out the Goldilock's point. That was part of the reason I was hoping that exposure to UV light would eventually convert 100% of the AgCl. 

What would be the effect of adding too much sugar?


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## g_axelsson (Jan 20, 2020)

It seems like this thread mixes at least two methods to turning silver chloride into silver.

Tumbling silver chloride with iron punching or in a iron frying pan. In this case we use sulfuric acid as a catalyst.

Chemical turning silver chloride into silver oxide first with lye and then into silver with a sugar.

Göran


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## Dawnsdad (Jan 20, 2020)

g_axelsson said:


> It seems like this thread mixes at least two methods to turning silver chloride into silver.
> 
> Tumbling silver chloride with iron punching or in a iron frying pan. In this case we use sulfuric acid as a catalyst.
> 
> ...



I would love to give the tumbling method a try but, I have yet to see a video on this method. I would be more comfortable if I could see more specifics. How much sulphuric, for example.


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## g_axelsson (Jan 20, 2020)

I have never tried it myself so I can't help you with that. Maybe some of these posts have more to say about it.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=sulfuric+acid+silver+chloride

Göran


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## snail (Jan 20, 2020)

I have used sulfuric and iron many times without tumbling.
You have to be patient.
I have converted batches from 2 ounces in a beaker with a few roofing nails to 50 ounces in a plastic bucket with chunks of rebar.
The reaction must be electrolytic, if you do not disturb it a ring of converted silver grows around the iron.
It could take a few days, the large batch took a week.
I stirred it twice a day. Got good conversion, no signs of silver chloride contamination when melted.
I cover the silver chloride with 10% sulfuric acid about 50% more than the depth of the silver chloride.
Hope that helps, this is the only method I have used for years.

Dale


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## goldenchild (Jan 22, 2020)

butcher said:


> I enjoyed the video, thanks nice job.



Thanks 8)


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## goldenchild (Jan 22, 2020)

Dawnsdad said:


> You can do a gentle stir and don't need 100% conversion. You need nothing more than a beaker and a glass rod or for bigger batches a bucket and a big plastic spoon. The secret is that when you start the sugar additions it will boil (or at least get extremely hot) and expose any unconverted chloride. And this will in turn change it to elemental silver all in one motion.
> 
> I am not doubting what you said, but this is the first time I have heard this. I always thought that I needed to add enough NaOH to convert 100% of the AgCl. But LaserSteve cautioned against using too much NaOH in his video. So I was left trying to figure out the Goldilock's point. That was part of the reason I was hoping that exposure to UV light would eventually convert 100% of the AgCl.
> 
> What would be the effect of adding too much sugar?



You'll certainly still need enough NaOH to convert the the chloride to oxide. But you don't need to convert it 100% in the NaOH additions. That's the key. When the sugar is added the boiling and intense heat will force the NaOH in solution to any unconverted chloride. As far as the amounts to use there really isn't a set amount. I mean there's probably an equation somewhere but it will be off slightly. Just like pretty much everything else we do. Think of using nitric to digest metals. Anyway, it comes with visual cues and experience. In the video you'll see that I just kept adding the hydroxide until "all" the chloride was very dark (black). You'll also notice on the still shot that I clearly didn't get it all converted. White specs galore. I don't see adding excess sugar being a problem besides having to wash it out. Same with the NaOH. They're both water soluble after all.

When it comes to the iron and H2S04 method I see that as more of a recovery method rather than refining. To me it's on par with just using Cu to plate the silver out. To get the silver to completion you'll start contaminating it with the metal used to plate/convert it. With the sugar lye method you're rinsing all the copper away that's in aqueous form. No solid particles of foreign metals anywhere.


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## Krystianes (Jan 25, 2020)

Hi guys 

Have someone tried to convert silver chloride to pure silver with aluminum and hcl? I have tried this method and it worked best for me. Please tell me what you think about that. Thank you


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## snoman701 (Jan 25, 2020)

Generally frowned upon because it makes filtration much more difficult. 

You can read more here.

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3990

Iron / Sulfuric is MUCH easier.


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