# Practical Silver Question



## Stewill (Jan 1, 2016)

Hello,

I've been processing ceramic CPUs for about a year now and have previously have not refined the Silver Chloride once the solution has been cooled on ice, in February I'll be running 10-15KG of ceramics and would like to try reclaiming the silver as well. 

I've read that the Silver Chloride is meant to be dissolved with Nitric acid, turn into a clear blue, then cemented out with copper. Each time I addded to Nitric acid to my Silver Chloride, it would go a murky green and not dissolve. I've also read that I could bathe the CPUs in ntiric acid before putting them in AR to get the silver out then cementing it. What method have you found bed for claiming the silver from ceramic CPUs? 

Thank you for your help in advance.


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## FrugalRefiner (Jan 1, 2016)

Let's start with question of which metal you want to pursue first. Your primary target is gold, so most folks go for that first. Any silver is of minor value compared to the value of the gold.

As far as dealing with the silver chloride, there are several ways to go about it, but nitric acid isn't one of them. Silver chloride will not dissolve in nitric. Many people have used the lye and sugar method, but the result can be incomplete. I'd suggest Lou's method of tumbling the silver chloride with some iron nails and sulfuric acid. You should be able to find his instructions by searching for those terms with Lou as the author.

Dave


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## nickvc (Jan 2, 2016)

Dave is spot on as usual with his advice and chemistry.
If it were me I would simply rinse and save any silver chloride in a container covered with water until you have enough to worry about, it's like a savings fund or a rainy day project when you having nothing better to do but want to be productive, I would treat any PGMs the same and not spend hours days or weeks chasing a couple of grams.
As a side note you could well find gold with your silver chloride depending on how well you rinse your filters or whether you use a vacuum , a stannous test will soon tell you if they do have gold in the solutions.


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## Stewill (Jan 3, 2016)

Thank you for the replies! So from what I've managed to read from Lou it goes as the following:

- Add 5% sulfuric acid and steel to Silver Chloride 
- Tumble them altogether in a plastic container
- Remove anything magnetic with a magnet
- Melt a sample to check it has worked

I'm just planning on saving up my Silver Chloride then once I have a large amount will recover it. When I finally do it, will post up some pictures.


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## rickbb (Jan 19, 2016)

When saving up silver chloride, keep it wet. Letting it dry out can be hazardous.


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## Lou (Jan 20, 2016)

Not only hazardous (the dust) but if dry it is a struggle to reduce it quantitatively.


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