# Best Way to Recover Silver From Cell Filter Papers



## kadriver (Oct 12, 2011)

I have been running my electrolytic silver cell since December of 2010.

Each time I harvest the pure silver crystals I filter the electrolyte into a gravity funnel coffee filter, then reuse the electrolyte to start my silver cell later on.

I rinsed each filter with distilled water after filtering the electrolyte, then allowed it to dry. I put the dry filters into a plastic bag (see photo).

I know there is still silver in these filter papers.

Please remember that I am only an advanced beginner here with just a little over one year refining gold & silver. I have never tried to recover the silver from these papers until now.

There are always new things to learn. Hoke does not give specific instructions on how to get the silver from these papers.

My first thought is to cover the whole bunch with distilled water, then filter the resulting liquid and throw away the papers.

Then add some muratic acid to the silver nitrate liquid and precipitate silver chloride and convert to silver using NaOH & table sugar as per lazersteve's video.

If anyone has experience with these filter papers, then could you please share the process involved for doing this.

Thank you - kadriver


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## samuel-a (Oct 12, 2011)

Hi Pete.

Your best bet is inciniration, it is well mentioned in hoke book.
Followed by dilute nitric leach.

IMHO, it's just not worth the time and chemicals in recovering what ever traces of silver left on filters, assuming you initially washed them well.


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## element47 (Oct 13, 2011)

Without telling you what to do from a procedural perspective, why don't you weigh a few of those filters in comparison to the same number of new, dry filters, just to see what's there. If you have a fraction of a gram in each and 8 or 10 filters, it's hard to see the exercise being worth it, especially if it involves AgCl. (I have zero idea what weight might be contained in those filters.) 

I know I'm not first to say it, but you're making some superb looking bars, man!


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## Palladium (Oct 13, 2011)

Consider those filters part of your retirement and keep collecting them. I keep mine in Ziploc bags stuffed in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid.


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## kadriver (Oct 13, 2011)

OK, I will weigh the papers and do the weight comparison for the exercise. Plus I will continue to save them as suggested.

I will re-read the section on incinerated filter papers in Hoke's book.

Come to think of it, when I read the post, a light came on as if I had heard that before.

But since I have never done it, it seems as though the process does not even exist for me.

Goes to show how much more there is for me to learn in refining.

Thank you both - kadriver


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