# Deplating silver-plated flatware



## flyfisherman

Hello everyone!I got some silver-plated flatware that i would like process for silver.After searching forum it looks like there is few methods for striping silver.Which is the fastest and cheapest?Appreciate your advice.


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## Geo

the easiest way i have found is fairly dangerous. if you are comfortable working with sulfuric acid, this process will work with no problems. make a solution of (by volume) 95% concentrated sulfuric acid and 5% concentrated nitric acid (68% will be fine). it doesnt matter if you are making a quart or a gallon or a drum. 95/5 sulfuric acid and nitric acid. place the material in the solution. you will see an immediate reaction. if the base metal is copper, you will see bright copper when the silver is removed. same with whatever base metal you are working with brass, copper and zinc (i think its ok, GSP would know). to recover the silver without fouling the solution, use salt to precipitate silver chloride. cap when finished. to re-use, you need to add some more nitric acid. only the amount used previously. you will know by the amount of silver precipitated.


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## goldsilverpro

Geo said:


> the easiest way i have found is fairly dangerous. if you are comfortable working with sulfuric acid, this process will work with no problems. make a solution of (by volume) 95% concentrated sulfuric acid and 5% concentrated nitric acid (68% will be fine). it doesnt matter if you are making a quart or a gallon or a drum. 95/5 sulfuric acid and nitric acid. place the material in the solution. you will see an immediate reaction. if the base metal is copper, you will see bright copper when the silver is removed. same with whatever base metal you are working with brass, copper and zinc (i think its ok, GSP would know). to recover the silver without fouling the solution, use salt to precipitate silver chloride. cap when finished. to re-use, you need to add some more nitric acid. only the amount used previously. you will know by the amount of silver precipitated.



Geo, what you're suggesting is tricky. Unless you know exactly how much salt to add, you could add an excess and end up with HCl in the solution. This would inhibit further stripping. I guess you could analyze the silver and then add only enough salt to precipitate, say, 90% of it. However, I would expect the Cl- added to immediately generate Cl2 gas when it hits the sulfuric. I've used the 95/5 solution many times to strip silver. When it slows down, I add a little more nitric to perk it up. When it really slows down, I dilute it about 3 or 4 to 1 and then cement with copper or precipitate as AgCl. I might also mention that, for thick silver, this 95/5 solution strips very slowly at room temperature. It is standard to run it about 190F, which is something I would not recommend anyone doing.


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## Geo

i stop adding salt while the solution is still green. thats the way i started doing it and have done it that way ever since. ive had to evaporate the solution twice down to concentrated sulfuric and start over. i cant say how much silver i ran through (i should keep better notes) but the sulfuric seem to be about the same every time. also, when i evaporate, any impurities in the sulfuric precipitates out.


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## MysticColby

about how much silver is there on a typical silver-plated utensil?


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## flyfisherman

Thank you guys for info.Concentrated H2SO4 is very nasty thing to work with,is there any alternative?I mean to work with sulfuric acid of this concentration :twisted: requires goggles,apron,gloves and maybe face shield.


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## Geo

MysticColby said:


> about how much silver is there on a typical silver-plated utensil?



it depends on the maker and of coarse the wear on the utensil. theres a calculator on the forum somewhere but i cant remember where its at.


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## Geo

flyfisherman said:


> Thank you guys for info.Concentrated H2SO4 is very nasty thing to work with,is there any alternative?I mean to work with sulfuric acid of this concentration :twisted: requires goggles,apron,gloves and maybe face shield.



there is a reverse electroplating cell, but again, it uses sulfuric acid. to remove the silver plating, im afraid you wont be able to do it without using it. if you try to use nitric, it just plates back out on the base metal while contaminating what you do manage to strip off.


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## flyfisherman

About striping silver plate with 95/5 sulfuric-nitric solution,should i keep mixture about room temperature,or heat it up a little? Would it take hours to strip fairly heavy film of silver say at room temperature or it would go faster?Thanks for info :!:


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## nickvc

GSP has answered your question, for it to work on heavy plate it needs heat and to be honest you then have a seriously nasty acid mix that will cause severe injuries or worse. I have to agree with GSP this really isn't a process for a home refiner or hobbyist, I have worked around acids nearly all my working life and ran my own commercial refinery but I don't think I would do this and certainly not without good fume extraction, heat control and measurement and proper safety protocols, the amount recovered to me wouldn't be worth the risks.


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## tek4g63

nickvc said:


> and to be honest you then have a seriously nasty acid mix that will cause severe injuries or worse. I have to agree with GSP this really isn't a process for a home refiner or hobbyist, I have worked around acids nearly all my working life and ran my own commercial refinery but I don't think I would do this and certainly not without good fume extraction, heat control and measurement and proper safety protocols, the amount recovered to me wouldn't be worth the risks.



I agree with nick on the nitric/ sulfuric acid mix. I have personally been tinkering with the reverse electroplating cell for silver plated flat ware, with nominal success. At this point I'm not as much interested in getting the silver, as I am in learning how to get my cell to work effectively. If I was only after the silver I definitely would have given up by now. :|


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## goldsilverpro

Although there are exceptions, such as high quality silverware, I would say that most silver plating you'll see is in the range of 50 to 200 microinches thick. In dollar value, that would be from about 1 to 4 cents per square inch of silver plated area. Not much.


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## MysticColby

thanks, GSP. I couldn't find another post that had the value, I was probably searching for the wrong terminology.
I estimate a spoon and fork have about 5.4 sq in surface area, which puts the total value at about 5 - 20 cents. silver plated knives would have a larger surface area, but is it just the handle that's plated? or am I confusing them with sterling knives?


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## goldsilverpro

MysticColby said:


> thanks, GSP. I couldn't find another post that had the value, I was probably searching for the wrong terminology.
> I estimate a spoon and fork have about 5.4 sq in surface area, which puts the total value at about 5 - 20 cents. silver plated knives would have a larger surface area, but is it just the handle that's plated? or am I confusing them with sterling knives?


When I gave the 50-200 micro" figures, I was thinking more of jewelry and electronics. For flatware and holloware, it could be much higher. Here's a thread with a chart I found in the very reliable 1967 Handy & Harmon book on silver (written by Butts and Coxe, believe it or not). I don't know how you would tell what the quality is, though, unless it were marked. Maybe the Standard Plate (2 oz/gross of teaspoons) is, uh, standard. It runs about 300 micro" or about 6 cents/inch2. Just remember that all those numbers in the chart are for new teaspoons. Any use or polishing would reduce the value.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1804

I did more searching on this. The attached pdf gives the US Federal Specifications of silverplate for all sorts of different types of dinnerware. I guess this is for dinnerware used by government facilities (Embassies, officer chow halls, etc.). Note, however, that this entire pdf represents the thickest silver quality given in the chart in the link above - for teaspoons = 9 tr.oz./gross (144 pieces). I guess you could extrapolate the numbers in the pdf to silverware of lesser quality.

For British silverware, I found a reference that said the minimum standard is 20 microns thick = 800 micro" = 14 cents/inch2. In another place, it said the British standard was 35 microns = 25 cents/inch2. Nick (nickvc) is British and is very knowledgeable. Maybe he can add something to this.

I found several references that said they commonly apply 1 micron (40 micro") of silver for each year of intended service. I noticed some silverware that claimed 10 years of service and assume that means the silver is 10 microns or 400 micro" thick.

From a practical standpoint, except for giving an idea of the silver thicknesses used, all this info is probably worthless since it can be all over the map. Whatever you have, it is what it is.


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## flyfisherman

Looks to me that even if each silver-plated item gives 2-3 gramms of silver,the method to recover it with strong acid mix is way to dangerous ,certanly not worth to risk your health for.


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## nickvc

I can ask around and try to find out if there are any average plating thicknesses for silver plate but I suspect they are all over the shop. Just to add to the confusion there is also what is known as Sheffield plate this is the early form of silver plated items, it's the silver equivalent of gold filled where a plate of silver is heat welded to a copper sheet and rolled down to the thickness required before been turned into items. To be fair this is usually worth much more than any silver value as it tends to be of 18th century origin.


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## butcher

My math skills are not very good, but looking at this if the silver plating is 0.0025" thick, and silver 0.0025" thick is one troy ounce per square foot ( or 144 square inches) this means, one troy ounce of silver for 144 square inches, or 144 sq in /31.103 g= 0.215grams of silver per square inch.

lets say a dessert spoon is 5 square inches (5 sqin x 0.215g =1.075 grams of silver per dessert spoon.
At spot $32.00/t oz silver ($32.00 / 31.103g/toz = $1.02 per gram).

If my math and figures are correct this spoon has a dollars worth of silver, or a gram of silver.

If I used the same type of concentrated sulfuric cell used on the forum to deplate gold pins with, modify it a little, it would be very interesting to check my math.


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## goldsilverpro

butcher said:


> My math skills are not very good, but looking at this if the silver plating is 0.0025" thick, and silver 0.0025" thick is one troy ounce per square foot ( or 144 square inches) this means, one troy ounce of silver for 144 square inches, or 144 sq in /31.103 g= 0.215grams of silver per square inch.
> 
> lets say a dessert spoon is 5 square inches (5 sqin x 0.215g =1.075 grams of silver per dessert spoon.
> At spot $32.00/t oz silver ($32.00 / 31.103g/toz = $1.02 per gram).
> 
> If my math and figures are correct this spoon has a dollars worth of silver, or a gram of silver.
> 
> If I used the same type of concentrated sulfuric cell used on the forum to deplate gold pins with, modify it a little, it would be very interesting to check my math.


In that same Handy and Harmon book, it says the Fed Spec plating of 9 oz/gross of teaspoons has an average silver thickness of .00125". That would only work if the area on a teaspoon were about 10 square inches and not 5.4, as MysticColby gave. I just measured the surface area on one of our teaspoons and came up with about 10.5 square inches.

On another subject, it seems that the silver plate on copper wire, if done according to ASTM B298, is a minimum of 1 micron, or 40 micro" thick, which is about $0.007 per square inch at a $32 spot. I think that applies to both stranded and solid wire. I found a lot of references to this. Here is one.
http://www.fiskalloy.com/products/electroplating/


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## henos

Hi
After a couple of attempts to say that the mixture silver-plated flatware (except knives), eg 10 kg gives about 400 - 450 grams of silver. 
Knives have an average of 1,7 g Ag/pc

Large spoons and forks indication 90/45 include up to 5% by weight of Ag
Small pieces (spoons, forks, etc.) have more-to 6% by weight.


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## goldsilverpro

henos said:


> Hi
> After a couple of attempts to say that the mixture silver-plated flatware (except knives), eg 10 kg gives about 400 - 450 grams of silver.
> Knives have an average of 1,7 g Ag/pc
> 
> Large spoons and forks indication 90/45 include up to 5% by weight of Ag
> Small pieces (spoons, forks, etc.) have more-to 6% by weight.


It seems to be different in different countries. In the US, the Fed Spec teaspoons run about 5.5% silver. However, I would think that most of what is made here is not Fed Spec. My guess is that most is probably closer to what is called Standard Plate. This would be about 2/9 of Fed Spec or 1.2%.


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## MysticColby

sorry if my area-of-a-utensil approximation was misleading in it's lack-of-accuracy. To get it, I visualized a spoon, estimated the width of handle, length of handle, width of spoon part, length of spoon part, then used math to figure the surface area. very very very approximate just to get an idea of scale.
to sum it up, it looks like a given utensil could have anywhere from $0.10 - $1.10 in silver on it 

for a small batch, sulfuric/nitric bath wouldn't be very wise. But if you have 1000, or even 100, silver plated things it could be a fun day at the hotplate-in-fumehood.


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## henos

MysticColby said:


> (...)
> to sum it up, it looks like a given utensil could have anywhere from $0.10 - $1.10 in silver on it



I achieve in my practice generally about 3g of normal (large) spoons, provided that it is not heavily worn. 
So per ounce Ag takes about 11 pieces. These results are here in Europe, I do not know how it is in the U.S.


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## MysticColby

ok, that does it. I'm going to start saving silver plated stuff I get for free. When I get a big box full, I'll recover it, probably with this method. I don't expect I'll get enough to warrant a reverser electroplating cell.


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## goldsilverpro

Henos,
I quote your post from another thread


> I use the dangerous mixture H2SO4 + HNO3 (95/5 volume), hot (80 C). He comes true.
> Silver crosses to the solution after the submersion, copper stays. You use the solution so long, until silver
> stops to dissolve. I pour still HNO3 then a bit. Glasses and necessary glove !
> You should then thin the solution water 1: 10.. One can push down silver the pieces of the copper, so long, until he
> stops to give off. Good luck!


That's essentially how I used to do it, although I never liked doing it. Have you tried it at a lower temperature? I know it's much slower but it's also much safer. I had good luck at room temperature but it was on thinner silver. Stirring helped. With a small lab stirrer, it might work reasonably fast on thick silver at room temperature.


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## butcher

I do not think we would have to heat the concentrated sulfuric cell that much, heating it would make it de-plate faster but would also increases the danger of running the cell, it would still de-plate the silver from the base metals just taking a little longer, the small cell will generate heat in the reaction.

Just like the gold de-plating cell not having water in the solution would be important, so we would not attack the base metals unnecessarily. 

I believe this would be similar to de-plating gold in our cells, where gold persulfate is formed at anode, and precious metals is de-plated as a persulfate, but once this leave's the proximity of the anode the gold is insoluble in the sulfuric acid precipitates out of solution as the ions move toward cathode, and persulfate is diluted in the acid away from the anode).

Silver is only slightly soluble as a sulfate so I believe it would also fall out of solution once electrolyte was saturated, (other wise wouldn't it plate to cathode, or the reaction cease once electrolyte reached a certain percentage of silver?), the small amount of nitric may help to keep silver nitrate (or maybe copper nitrate) in solution to assist in keeping electrolyte conductive.


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## henos

goldsilverpro said:


> (...) Have you tried it at a lower temperature? I know it's much slower but it's also much safer. (...)



I'd love to at low temperatures, but very poor performance indeed.

I do it a few years, a relatively simple way for a couple of plastic buckets, etc., and somehow luckily manage to avoid an accident. 
Of course, safety glasses, gloves, etc.
I think that safety is also a good plan work.

In one day I was able to convert 50 - 60 kg flatwares.
Total time processing to obtain a pure metal melt is 3 days.


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## henos

goldsilverpro said:


> Henos,
> I quote your post from another thread
> 
> 
> 
> (...)
> You should then thin the solution water 1: 10.. (...)
Click to expand...


it's a little outdated ... Now saturate the mixture and allowed to stand to gain
AgSO4 crystals in it, which creates the following day.
After separation of the crystals is referred to as acid for use .


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## henos

Hello,
I put some pictures of these crystals AgSO4.
I do not know exactly how it is, but I think that emit acid solution hydrated crystals, as well as the crystals are formed 
from a solution of CuSO4 x 5H2O. Thus, there is could and binding of water from the solution, which then gives the acid 
largely devoid of water (which is formed by the reaction of dissolution Ag in the mixture of H2SO4 + HNO3)

best regards


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## goldsilverpro

The CRC Handbook only lists Ag2SO4 and none that are hydrated. CRC is pretty good about listing all varieties, so I'm wondering if a hydrated species of Ag2SO4 exists. Ag2SO4 is listed as a white rhombic crystal and that appears to be what you have.


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## henos

Right, Ag2SO4, sorry ...
I myself was surprised at the last photo. While these other finely with
dissolved in water give a white precipitate sparingly soluble, these high dissolved
quickly and with almost no sediment. But could it be hydrated?
But I do not think I've discovered something new.


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## jewelerdave

I love getting plate, I can pick it up cheap. About a buck a pound. melt it into strips that are mostly copper and about 1.2% Silver, and dunk it in my waste solutions and it cements out the silver in solution as well as the silver in the alloy comes out.

Not something anyone can really pay on but it helps with waste control and you get that little bonus plate when all said and done. A few oz here and there always adds up 

Also just did some cool you tube vids melting and making 100 oz silver bars
http://www.youtube.com/user/prospectorsgold

Thanks,

David


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## skippy

Henos, could you give a few more details on how you do the procedure? I'm interested in what kind of container do you use, how is it heated, do you do anything to stop the sulfuric from taking up moisture from the air, and how much silver sulfate can you produce given your volume of acid? 

In your post about the silver sulfate salt that easily dissolves, I recently read something in an old trade journal from the early-mid 1800s where they were refining silver with sulfuric acid, and they mentioned adding steam to the sulfuric acid and there being two different salts produced as the steam was admitted.

Here follows part of the document:

The clarified solution is siphoned off the gold from A A into C, which is an open cast iron pan, say 8 ft. by 4 ft. and 1 ft. deep. It is supported by means of a flange in another larger pan - not shown in the diagram - into which water may be admitted for cooling. Steam is blown into the acid solution, still very hot, as soon as C is filled. The steam is introduced about 1 in. below the surface of the liquid, blowing perpendicularly downward from a nozzle made of lead pipe through an aperture 1/8 in. in diameter. Under these circumstances the absorption of the steam is nearly perfect, and takes place without any splashing. The temperature rises with the increasing dilution, and may be regulated by the less experienced by manipulating the cooling tank. An actual boiling is not desired, because it protracts unnecessarily the operation by the less perfect condensation of the steam. No separation of silver sulphate occurs during this operation (and, consequently, there is no clotting of the steam nozzle), the large amount of free acid, combined with the increase of temperature, compensating for the diminution of the solubility of the sulphate by the dilution. The most important point in this procedure is to know when to stop the admission of steam.

To determine this, the operator takes a drop or two of the solution upon a cold iron plate by means of a glass rod and observes whether after cooling the sample congeals partly or wholly into a white mass of silver bisulphate, or whether the silver separates as a monosulphate in detached yellow crystals, leaving a mother liquor behind. As soon as the latter point has been reached, steam is shut off and the solution is allowed to crystallize, cold water being admitted into the outer pan. The operator may now be certain that the liquid will no longer congeal into a soft mass of silver bisulphate, which on contact with water will disintegrate into powder, obstinately retaining a large amount of free acid; but the silver will separate as a monosulphate in hard and large yellow crystals retaining no acid and preserving their physical characteristics when thrown into water. After cooling to, say, 80° F., the silver sulphate will have coated the pan C about 1 in. thick. There will also be found a deposit of copper sulphate when the mother acid, after having been used over and over again, has been sufficiently saturated therewith.

Read more: http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/scientific-american/sup7/Refining-Silver-Bullion.html#.USGPxGftNdg#ixzz2LDI5CLVM


I don't know if your salt may correspond to the bisulfate or not, but I thought the whole deal was interesting. In fact the whole deal of processing silver for gold recovery through the use of sulfuric acid in the 19th century is pretty interesting - historically interesting that is! It was quite sophisticated, with steam powered sulfuric acid pumps constructed from lead, and quite large processing volumes!


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## henos

Welcome
In fact, already do not use this method, but I will explain shortly. 
The water heater, I used an electric boiler with temperature control. Heat must be tight, otherwise
the process will not continue. Larger bucket equipment (PE) with an acid, to the
a second smaller diameter of the bottom of the holes in the course-silvered elements.
Some emit nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide think. In the summer it gets much easier. 
I do not have a way to separate the air from the acid moisture, never I have not bothered. 
Periodically, you need to pour a small amount of HNO3.
After saturation acid (when the performance drops significantly) shed all of the
canisters, I left the next day. Of course, the crystals were formed more rapidly
the strong cooling. I sipped crystals on the funnel (vacuum), flooded
water, next added the copper cementation etc ...

Drained after the addition of fresh acid could continue to operate. It came out
very efficiently, because I produced virtually only Ag2SO4 crystals.

Note-as you know, the hot acid is a very dangerous combination!
Regards
henos


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## skippy

Hmm, I wondered if PE or similar would hold up, it's a scary prospect having a failure of your container, it would be pretty violent if the container failed into your water bath (did I get that right that you are heating with a water bath?) Plastic isn't likely to rupture, if it is resistant chemically enough - however using water anywhere near this mixture seems like a potential additional hazard. Thanks for the info! It's interesting that someone has used this on a larger scale. 

There was a post on this forum near the beginning with someone using concentrated sulfuric acid in a cell to deplate silver. It sounded reasonable, but still a lot of trouble for the return. I think with a low enough voltage and current you might be able to plate right from the anode to the cathode, so as not to exceed the ability of silver sulfate to travel from the anode to the cathode. Here's the post, maybe it'll interest you. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=267&p=15938&hilit=rooto+teaspoons#p15938


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## solar_plasma

goldsilverpro


> When it really slows down,



How many gramm silver can be stripped in 1 l hot sulfuric/nitric before you have to dilute and cement? Would I have to expect masses of NOx gas while stripping? Maybe this will be my plan C. I did this once with hot nitric/H2O2, which in it dangers may be comparable, wouldn't it? That time I stripped 50g silver in 2 hours from forks, knifes and spoons - one after one in a 500 ml beaker.

(no panic - this one I would do in a laboratory)


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## skippy

As I recall from the batch I did it was around 40 grams per liter before it stopped working.


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## solar_plasma

Wow, that's not much compared with electro-deplating. Thank you!


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## skippy

Yeah at a certain point the base metals started reacting in the sulfuric, it had gained too much water. I had used a mushy sodium nitrate (ie not really dry) but the water could also be coming from the air and the reaction itself. I may be able to do a little better eventually, but I think my 40 grams per liter is in the neighborhood of the maximum possible. 
The fumes were worst during sodium nitrate additions. I wouldn't say the volume of fumes ever was large, but you will be spending time around the vessel taking out deplated material and putting fresh in, so breathing protection is a really good idea and of course run it outside or in a fume hood. Be careful against any splashing when taking items in or out of the stripping tank. A stainless vessel worked fine for me.

I'd do more of this stuff if I could source more silver plated stuff at a low enough price, and if I find another use for the spent acid. I'd like to try to use it to dissolve gold filled.


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## chaseonbase

skippy said:


> Yeah at a certain point the base metals started reacting in the sulfuric, it had gained too much water. I had used a mushy sodium nitrate (ie not really dry) but the water could also be coming from the air and the reaction itself. I may be able to do a little better eventually, but I think my 40 grams per liter is in the neighborhood of the maximum possible.
> The fumes were worst during sodium nitrate additions. I wouldn't say the volume of fumes ever was large, but you will be spending time around the vessel taking out deplated material and putting fresh in, so breathing protection is a really good idea and of course run it outside or in a fume hood. Be careful against any splashing when taking items in or out of the stripping tank. A stainless vessel worked fine for me.
> 
> I'd do more of this stuff if I could source more silver plated stuff at a low enough price, and if I find another use for the spent acid. I'd like to try to use it to dissolve gold filled.



I think what your doing is awesome. Ive been trying to find good sources for sterling at prices around spot, but most sources are just exhausting with prices way over spot. Now silverplate on the other hand I can get hand over fist.(at a great price) Im a newb to this hobby, but would love to learn more. Some of the jargen is difficult for me to understand, but im sure it just takes time. I can definitely help you with getting silverplate.


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## solar_plasma

> I think what your doing is awesome. Ive been trying to find good sources for sterling at prices around spot, but most sources are just exhausting with prices way over spot. Now silverplate on the other hand I can get hand over fist.(at a great price) Im a newb to this hobby, but would love to learn more. Some of the jargen is difficult for me to understand, but im sure it just takes time. I can definitely help you with getting silverplate.



Check what's under your silverplate. If it is pure copper, then it is perfect for a CuSO4 cell. If it is Ni-Zn-Cu alloy or pure Zn, it is work and cost intensive. Then you shouldn't buy over 25% of spot and you should only use heavily plated material like 90-150g Ag/2400cm2. Knives, spoons and forks are almost never copper.

The common attitude on the forum is, that silver plate mostly is no profit.


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## chaseonbase

solar_plasma said:


> I think what your doing is awesome. Ive been trying to find good sources for sterling at prices around spot, but most sources are just exhausting with prices way over spot. Now silverplate on the other hand I can get hand over fist.(at a great price) Im a newb to this hobby, but would love to learn more. Some of the jargen is difficult for me to understand, but im sure it just takes time. I can definitely help you with getting silverplate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Check what's under your silverplate. If it is pure copper, then it is perfect for a CuSO4 cell. If it is Ni-Zn-Cu alloy or pure Zn, it is work and cost intensive. Then you shouldn't buy over 25% of spot and you should only use heavily plated material like 90-150g Ag/2400cm2. Knives, spoons and forks are almost never copper.
> 
> The common attitude on the forum is, that silver plate mostly is no profit.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the heads up solar. Most of the items from my local flea market are silverware. With tons of platters. I know I can get about 7lbs of silverware around 5 dollars. I know theres a bunch of pots and other stuff as well. Next time im in there, ill snap some pics.


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## skippy

solar_plasma said:


> I think what your doing is awesome. Ive been trying to find good sources for sterling at prices around spot, but most sources are just exhausting with prices way over spot. Now silverplate on the other hand I can get hand over fist.(at a great price) Im a newb to this hobby, but would love to learn more. Some of the jargen is difficult for me to understand, but im sure it just takes time. I can definitely help you with getting silverplate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Check what's under your silverplate. If it is pure copper, then it is perfect for a CuSO4 cell. If it is Ni-Zn-Cu alloy or pure Zn, it is work and cost intensive. Then you shouldn't buy over 25% of spot and you should only use heavily plated material like 90-150g Ag/2400cm2. Knives, spoons and forks are almost never copper.
> 
> The common attitude on the forum is, that silver plate mostly is no profit.
Click to expand...

 

Thanks for the props, I had some plans to get regular supply of silver plate stuff through various second hand dealers and what not, but the drop in silver has taken a lot of shine off of it. After stripping a lot of silver plate, I found it's pretty variable. Some has 3% silver, some hardly anything. The average is about 1% and a bit though. I'm going to keep buying it when I can get it at the base metal price or less.


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## solar_plasma

*Geology in the windowsill*

I just observed something quite interesting: I had a sample, about the 100g, of silver contaminated with cobber from the cell bottom. I had dissolved most of the copper by soaking it some days in AP (=CuCl2 which I had freshed up with HCl/H2O2). The silver became a very fine violett-brown powder, we talked about it before, obviosly silver chloride had formed and was darken from the daylight outside.

I did not wash it very thoroughly, just decanted 3 times and put it into a storage vessel. Now some water could vaporize, new water went upwards through the small capillary, took some CuCl2 with it, which ofcourse forms a crust on the surface.

Now, there form some silver light grey spots, typically for more pure silver. :shock: 

*Correct me, if I am wrong: Some copper was left between the silver/silver chloride particles and cementated the light grey silver out of the silver chloride and formed new copper chlorides, which again went up to the crust with the raising water.*


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## FrugalRefiner

It's best not to let your silver chloride dry out. It will crystalize and complicate the conversion back to metallic silver.

Dave


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## solar_plasma

> It's best not to let your silver chloride dry out. It will crystalize and complicate the conversion back to metallic silver.



Yes, if you want to process it by NaOH/syrup or cementation. If processed hot, it has to dry sooner or later. Since I have a lot of different recovered samples, I want to improve my skills at all of those processes. And if I wouldn't have let it dry, I would't have got this interesting, though useless, effect.


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