# Silver Cell Electrolyte



## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

Hello ! I have almost completed my batch and am going to make silver shot and run it through a silver cell, what is a good starting point for the Electrolyte mixture?, I have a few pounds of cemented silver I have to rinse and dry, I started with 640 80/20 dimes, the projected amount is 30.00ozt, but my recovery has been LESS than my anticipation on several occasions, at least this time I would like a good chance of .999 silver crystals to make this formidable, I have re-worked my cell and I think it will perform a bit better, any thoughts or comments will be most appreciated, on a side note does anyone have a detailed method of making silver chloride, it seems that some of videos are rather vague as to actual amounts..


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## snail (Mar 24, 2022)

If you are recovering silver from a used solution going to waste there is no need for calculation. 

You just add small amounts of sodium chloride or HCl ( I prefer HCl ) with stirring till the color shifts from blue to greenish, then you a sure all the silver has converted.

Then let it settle, decant or siphon off the liquid and start your rinses till they are clear.


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## Gsracer (Mar 24, 2022)

Gwar, i find a good starting point at 150 grams of silver per liter of electrolyte. You can add more if need be as you go on. If your shot is relatively pure the electrolyte can be reused multiple times.


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## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

Gsracer, ok, so I will use 5ozt to start, how much nitric..?


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## Gsracer (Mar 24, 2022)

Start with 125ml and add more until it’s all gone.


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## orvi (Mar 24, 2022)

Gwar said:


> Gsracer, ok, so I will use 5ozt to start, how much nitric..?


Depends on conditions and temperature. Meaning if the nitric is reduced only to NO2, or all the way to NO. One electron vs. three electrons. This could make a huge difference.

I would advise to do it like this:
Start with 1:1 ratio (weight of Ag to volume of 65% nitric) - this empirically work for me. Dilute nitric with equal ammount of distilled water, get it on hotplate and heat it until all of the nitric is throughly consumed. It may take several hours to acomplish this. Do not allow the solution to boil as much as you can. Boiling wastes acid. But sometimes it is hard to regulate the hotplate to do the thing as you want it to do 

Then, decant the pregnant liquid to another container. You know, that in that solution, there is no free nitric. You will most probably end up with some leftover silver. To this add just small volume of nitric (diluted as in previous step) and repeat. It is much quicker to do it like this.

If you consume all of the nitric from the first dose, and add additional nitric into the pregnant solution, it ends up very diluted = reaction with leftover silver, even at boiling point will be much slower.

You can also stop the dissolution after spending the first batch of nitric, wash the remaining leftover silver with distilled water, and substract the undissolved silver from the ammount you started. If it isn´t much, it won´t make such a difference in making electrolyte. You will only make few dozen mL less 
Or start with more silver, and you satisfy your needs in terms of AgNO3 quantity in one shot.

Personally, I don´t like "precise" shooting the ammount of nitric to just dissolve the silver. Excessive boiling, heating, occupying space in my fumehood... When I am left with just a bit of silver, say like under 20g, I either wash it and add it back to the pile, or crank the ammount of conc. nitric just to dissolve it quickly  In my situation, I couldn´t have beakers left on the stove overnight.


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## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

Whew, I'm doing SOMETHING very wrong, 420 Canadian dimes, 80/20 silver ratio, and this is what has been recovered, I doubt there is even 10ozt, (sigh) the show must go on though, live and learn (I hope), I'm going to dry the shot thoroughly and weigh it up for a total, I think my recovery days are at an end if I can't even break even.
The silver cell will eat even more silver..


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## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

Thanks Gsracer and orvi !


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## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

Final result 13.66ozt


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## orvi (Mar 24, 2022)

Gwar said:


> Whew, I'm doing SOMETHING very wrong, 420 Canadian dimes, 80/20 silver ratio, and this is what has been recovered, I doubt there is even 10ozt, (sigh) the show must go on though, live and learn (I hope), I'm going to dry the shot thoroughly and weigh it up for a total, I think my recovery days are at an end if I can't even break even.
> The silver cell will eat even more silver..


Nice thing about refining metals is, you cannot destroy the actual atoms  There are two possibilities:
1) your silver is left somewhere (in precipitate, undissolved material, some washing solutions, spilled when pouring the powder to crucible, overheated and evaporated with oxy-acetylene torch etc.). Test the solutions that were left with one drop of saturated NaCl and you will clearly see if they contain silver. I think that after dissolution of the coins, you filter the juice and precipitate silver on copper. Make sure that you precipitated all of the silver. Sometimes good portion is locked between fallen silver dust. It need to be stirred when precipitating. At the end, after filtering the cement silver, I always pour some brine to the leftover solution, to scavenge last bits of silver as AgCl.
2)the claimed ammount of silver was not there.


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## Gwar (Mar 24, 2022)

orvi, I will do so ! Many Thanks, G


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## Gwar (Mar 25, 2022)

I followed the advice of AMS-Pro, Gsracer and orvi, I believe it has paid off, I started with a new anode and while making the electrolyte I added nitric / distilled ratio based on silver content and waited till the nitric was spent, odd though, while filtering the electrolyte I had silver nitrate crystals clog the Buchner funnel.. there is definite growth, not thick but there are crystals sprouting, the power supply is functioning properly, I think I wasn't getting a good connection last time, the cell has been running about an hour now, Thanks guys !!


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Two hours in..


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Gwar said:


> I followed the advice of AMS-Pro, Gsracer and orvi, I believe it has paid off, I started with a new anode and while making the electrolyte I added nitric / distilled ratio based on silver content and waited till the nitric was spent, odd though, while filtering the electrolyte I had silver nitrate crystals clog the Buchner funnel.. there is definite growth, not thick but there are crystals sprouting, the power supply is functioning properly, I think I wasn't getting a good connection last time, the cell has been running about an hour now, Thanks guys !!


Now that's progress. The numbers on the power supply look great, and the crystals look pretty good. They'll be thin ish for the first 24 hours roughly, then they'll start to get chunky. 

I'm so glad you finally got your setup operating like it is, wonderful persistence, you did great.

You're welcome for any knowledge that helped, but you definitely deserve the most credit in using the knowledge obtained to work for you. 

Thank you for the pictures.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Thanks AMS-Pro !


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Only criticism I really have is the second picture with your funnel, the black tube should be all the way on the nipple.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Yes, that was and has been a bugger, it will soften up soon..


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

You could always use near boiling water to soften the tube up a little bit. Only soften it enough to get it on all the way. 

Other than that, I very much look forward to the progress you make.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Great idea..


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

This was my starting recipe, not 100% accurate, but close


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Got that new NHO3 hunh? HNO3

4.5 oz. Silver actual?


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

What is your Electrolyte silver/liter ratio when you diluted your silver nitrate?


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

I would maby include the percentage to the HNO3 label as well. I believe you were using 65% right?


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

The silver was 6 and a half troy ounces, I let the nitric expel itself by adding more silver until the reaction was complete, there was one small disc remnant left over.. as for the actual number it was just over 400ml


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

The HNO3 is 70%, it was slower reacting than the HNO3 I usually use from Duda Energy


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

For the fuse, all I could find was a 5amp, I don't have it connected yet, but I am wondering if that may hamper growth, I believe the suggested fuse was 3amp..


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Ahhhh, I see how you have your spread sheet set up now. I would still add the 70% to the column description with HNO3 as those percentages do vary when you buy it. I was pretty sure you had 65% at one point.

The 400ml is little weird for the number, but if that's what it is then okay. So dissolved about 4.23 ounces (131 grams)? that would leave about 2.27 ounces between the disk and the crystals that were in your funnel.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

I believe that about sums it up, but there was actually just under 7ozt total


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

The 5 amp fuse would just allow a little more power through before kicking. Considering your Power supply is running at 4 amps, you would be blowing that 3 amp fuse.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Good point !


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

This is the setting as of now, it fluctuates slightly and then I dial it back in..


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

at the high end amp range that would put your cathode block exposed surface area around 17sq. inches, is that right?


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

I did order a new graphite block, unfortunately it was coming from China and they were unable to post it ?? My new furnace came with a graphite mold identical to my original set up, it is 3" x 2 1/2" x 1/2"


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

if your surface area is less, then you're over the .35 amp (high side) per square inch.


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

13 sq. inches of surface area, your amp range should be between 2.21 amps to 4.55 amps. 

.17-.35 amps per square inch.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

I just adjusted it to 4.55amps, the cell growth pic doesn't do it justice.


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Well it's definitely growing fast. Lower amps = slower growing chunkier crystals. 4.55 is at the top of your range. but better than the 6+ you had.


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

Certainly exciting though.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Yes, very much so..


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

I have a tendency to use my phone till it breaks, my current phone is 3+ years old. So I certainly understand picture quality frustration lol. On a positive note, whomever sees it in person after seeing a picture of it, should certainly be more impressed as a result.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

I like to use my digital camera, cell is the last resort for me..


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

My current drooped as well, it's reading 2.27v


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 26, 2022)

4.55 Amps, within 2.21 to 4.55 Amps range.
2.27 Volts, within 1.5 volts to 3.5 Volt Range.
10.329 Watts, within 3.315-15.925 Watt range.
0.5 Ohms Resistance, within .33 - .77 Resistance range.

Edits*

Amps, volts, watts, and resistance at the lower range is optimal.

Amps, and watts currently are on higher side. Amps at higher side will result in crystals growing faster, and thinner.

The volts, and ohms are at a happy medium currently. A wonderful base line.


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## Gwar (Mar 26, 2022)

Had to terminate the cell tonight, I have to pack for a quick trip to Portland, OR for a week, the results are satisfactory IMO, seeing is that this is only my third time performing the steps, the electrolyte did turn mildly bluish in color after about 8 hours in, the anode is intact and could be used for the next batch, overall the power supply worked much better and was more controllable, the connection for the cathode was beefed up and the basket was a compliment to the setup, because I chose to utilize the Buchner funnel, the rinsing was much easier and I filtered the crystals 10 times using distilled water with ease and didn't consume a lot of time.


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## AMS-Pro (Mar 27, 2022)

Safe travels.

That's a good looking 8 hours, 3rd time's a charm. It's wonderful you got the setup rolling good, and you're able to start filling in your spread sheet with solid numbers. The hard part is over.


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