# Silver plated bus bar



## kwxj61b (Apr 29, 2013)

I have a lot of silver plated bus bars. I want to refine the silver. Can anyone show me the way to refine it?
Thanks.


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## element47.5 (Apr 29, 2013)

Nobody here can "show you" the way to refine it, nor can they show you the means of dealing with the extremely dangerous chemicals and and fumes that are involved. Apart from the fact that all that information has been laid out here many, many times, nobody has the slightest idea of whether you have a suitable location and the skill and safety items necessary to avoid killing or blinding yourself or the others around you. We do not wish to encourage people to engage in the use of these hazardous reagents without the requisite safety gear, and if that seems selfish or elitist, sorry. The information is here on this forum, but you have to search for it. 

What I *CAN* tell you is that it is a near-certainty that the overall cost to refine the silver plating will be much greater than the value of the silver you might recover. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I have not read any credible member of this forum ever state that he/she can refine plated items for value greater than the cost of the chemicals involved. And a good many members here are professionals, with established labs, with fume handling equipment, who buy their chemicals for much less than you are likely to be able to do. It simply isn't an economic feasibility when you consider the chemical costs.


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## rusty (Apr 29, 2013)

kwxj61b said:


> I have a lot of silver plated bus bars. I want to refine the silver. Can anyone show me the way to refine it?
> Thanks.



I see that you joined our great forum April 3rd, 2008 and that I may assume you have read all the precautions dealing with acids.

Stripping silver from your copper buss bar would be a similar process used to strip plated silver from cheap flatware. 

Before engaging in making any attempt at removing silver make sure it is silver - Potassium dichromate can be bought to make schwerter's solution.

Stripping silver plate. http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16166


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 29, 2013)

I've sweated a lot of points off of silver plated bus bar but have never felt the silver plating on the bus bar was worth messing with, especially considering the difficulties and the expense required to remove it, economically. I never knew exactly how thick the plating was but it always seemed thin. I spent awhile searching for the thickness of the silver plating on bus bar and the only seemingly reliable reference I found (from a bus bar manufacturer) said it was from 5 - 15 microns thick. That would make it worth from 2.7 to 8.0 cents per square inch of silver plated area. That seems high to me, but maybe that's what it really is.


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## scrapman1077 (Apr 29, 2013)

Use the buss bars to cement silver out of solution, once the plating strips you start dropping all the silver out.


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## Smack (Apr 29, 2013)

You can do it, but it's a lot of work in front of the fume hood standing there wiping and rinsing with the exhaust fan running the whole time sucking up electricity. Like Scrapman said, it's better to use them to do your cementing so your in essence killing two birds with one stone. You can combine the two in that when you see all the silver plating is off the bus bar and silver is cementing onto it and you still have free nitric in solution you can have a rinse pan there and use a chemical proof brush to wipe the bus bar clean while the next bus bar is in your silver nitrate solution and repeat. Hope that makes sense.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 29, 2013)

Smack said:


> You can do it, but it's a lot of work in front of the fume hood standing there wiping and rinsing with the exhaust fan running the whole time sucking up electricity. Like Scrapman said, it's better to use them to do your cementing so your in essence killing two birds with one stone. You can combine the two in that when you see all the silver plating is off the bus bar and silver is cementing onto it and you still have free nitric in solution you can have a rinse pan there and use a chemical proof brush to wipe the bus bar clean while the next bus bar is in your silver nitrate solution and repeat. Hope that makes sense.



I agree but this would be only be good if you have a lot of silver from other sources to cement. However, if the man has, say, a ton of bus bar and his goal is to just strip the silver from it and recover it, it's a losing proposition, in my estimation.


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## rusty (Apr 29, 2013)

Abrading would be your most cost effective.


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## Smack (Apr 30, 2013)

goldsilverpro said:


> Smack said:
> 
> 
> > You can do it, but it's a lot of work in front of the fume hood standing there wiping and rinsing with the exhaust fan running the whole time sucking up electricity. Like Scrapman said, it's better to use them to do your cementing so your in essence killing two birds with one stone. You can combine the two in that when you see all the silver plating is off the bus bar and silver is cementing onto it and you still have free nitric in solution you can have a rinse pan there and use a chemical proof brush to wipe the bus bar clean while the next bus bar is in your silver nitrate solution and repeat. Hope that makes sense.
> ...




ha, yea that would be way too much. kwxj61b you never said how much you have, so how much do you have?


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## kwxj61b (Apr 30, 2013)

I have more than a ton of the material. Thanks guys for all those info.


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## Paulezy (Sep 10, 2015)

I have a similar amount of silver plated copper bus bars from circa 1930's circuit breakers. Did you ever find a good system for removing the silver from the bus bars? I will have it all sent to a refiner but I wanted to have a good idea of what to expect. I am doing small pieces to find the percentage. They seem to yield pretty good for plated silver. I put a 1.15lb bar in 30/70 nitric acid/ distilled water solution and yielded 2.74 oz of silver with trace cadmium and copper. 93 % silver. The copper bar underneath precipitated the silver and all of the solution was neutralized.


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## justinhcase (Sep 10, 2015)

Put them up in the trading section.
I am always short on good thick sacrificial copper bar.
If it has silver plating I would pay a couple of pence more on the kilo.
eBay might be your best friend,plated items go for silly silly money a lot of the time.


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## watlarry (Sep 10, 2015)

You could try the H2O cell......http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16591&hilit=H2O+CELL#p167641


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## butcher (Sep 11, 2015)

I tried some experiments in the past with the bus bars and other electrical copper plated with silver.
Using a copper sulfate cell, the copper cell, and recover the silver powders, the silver and much of the copper powder (slimes) in the bottom of the cells anode bag were saved for silver recovery where the copper used in other processes, the copper cathodes could be used or sold, I saved most of mine, used some of the smaller ones for cementing.

Small copper bars silver plated pieces can be tied up in a cotton anode bag (sock) surrounding a bar of copper sticking out for the anode bag for attachment of the anode lead of the power supply, I used a battery charger and a trucks headlight in series with the cell, most of the copper will plate over to the cathode, silver and some copper powders and small pieces of copper pretty much remain in the anode bag.

I cannot say my copper cathodes were pure, but seem to be of a pretty pure copper, although they may not be as pure as electrical copper...

I was able to recover the silver, cannot say much of a profit (lots of time was involved), but I had great fun in the experiments.


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