# DISSOLVE AND REFINE SILVER WITH POORS MAN NITRIC ACID



## mythen10 (Aug 10, 2022)

I can dissolve silver in sulfuric acid combinated with potassium nitrate and after refine?if yes wich are steps?


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## 4metals (Aug 10, 2022)

Yes but they are 2 entirely separate things. 

First thing is get proficient at making your nitric acid, there are many threads here on the forum about that process. 

Second is decide how you want to refine the silver. That depends on which form you are getting your silver. The options are dissolve the Silver in your nitric and cement it on copper and make up a cell. Or drop it as a chloride and choose the caustic sugar method. 

But more facts and figures from you will get you better answers.


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## mythen10 (Aug 10, 2022)

4metals said:


> Yes but they are 2 entirely separate things.
> 
> First thing is get proficient at making your nitric acid, there are many threads here on the forum about that process.
> 
> ...



shugar lye is best method
but distilling nitric is boring I search a quick way and I think mixing h2so4 with potassium nitrate will work, but after I read on the forum mixing h2so4 with ptn will not work with silver.


IF I MIX 200 GR OF NITRATE WITH 100 ML H2SO4 AND I DISTILL AT NORMAL TEMPERATURE ABOUT 150⁰ C (not 80⁰ boiling point of pure nitric acid because the process is to low and need hours to distill) HOW MUCH WILL BE THE % OF PURITY OF ACID WITH APROXIMATION?


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## Golddigger76 (Aug 10, 2022)

Or if you are in the United States you could always order some JSP 67% nitric from Walmart for $38 per liter, I use it all the time, around the cheapest I have found.


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## mythen10 (Aug 10, 2022)

Golddigger76 said:


> Or if you are in the United States you could always order some JSP 67% nitric from Walmart for $38 per liter, I use it all the time, around the cheapest I have found.


expensive 38$ for 1 litre, normally must be cheap, but if I distill like how I write 200 gr of nitrate with 100 ml sulfuric acid at 150⁰c you don't know wich will be the concentration?
Me I am from Romania but I stay in another country but in Romania possession of nitric acid is punish from 1 to 5 years of jail and intention to enter in possession from 6 months to 5 years because is explosible precursor they make nitroglycerin, only with company and special authorization from police you can buy nitric acid wich is cheap 10 litre 68% is around 25 euro in Romania is used for cleaning rust


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## Shark (Aug 10, 2022)

Anyone tried this?


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## Yggdrasil (Aug 10, 2022)

I have what is needed, but had no reason to.
Please guys report if you have done it.
I think Lazersteve had a procedure about doing it cold?


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## Shark (Aug 10, 2022)

Yggdrasil said:


> I have what is needed, but had no reason to.
> Please guys report if you have done it.
> I think Lazersteve had a procedure about doing it cold?


I have the chemicals, but have not tried it. I am very curious to know if anyone has tried it, and how it worked out for them. I have used Lazersteve's method a good bit. I have also used butchers method for several years. Both with good results. I know of a third method, but I haven't used it on silver enough to be confident in trying to explain it.


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## Alondro (Aug 10, 2022)

Hot sulfuric acid will dissolve silver. It needs to be heated to about 80C for the reaction to begin. But you need very good ventilation and/or vapor capture to deal with the fumes. 

Once all the impure silver is dissolved, allow it to cool, place the beaker in an ice water bath (until the liquid levels in the beaker and bath are level, and stick a copper rod in. The silver will crystalize out on the rod, but not re-dissolve, since the sulfuric acid is now too cold to react with it.

You'll need to knock silver off the rod, especially if you've dissolved the max amount of silver the acid can dissolve. It'll form a solid crust over the copper rather quickly. 

You'll end up with silver metal and dark-colored solution of copper sulfate (it will not be hydrated, so it'll look different than typical copper sulfate solution, in the same way that concentrated copper chloride in conc HCl looks dark brown-green rather than blue-green as when it's in HCl-water solution).

Do not add water when doing the conc. sulfuric acid dissolve. Silver sulfate is only marginably soluble in aqueous solutions (only about 13g/L of water at 100C), and most of it will drop out. Its solubility increases with progressively higher concentrations of sulfuric acid to water. When you reach about 60% sulfuric, I believe the solubility increases to around 100g/L at roughly the boiling point of water (about 3 Troy oz of silver sulfate... which will yield 2 Troy oz of silver once reduced). At that level, it might be useful for cementing later onto copper in the hot solution.

Warm dilute sulfuric acid IS useful for getting rid of base metals from silver-, gold-, and (only relatively cool) platinum-plated parts. It's NOT advisable for palladium, which will begin to dissolve slowly as the sulfuric acid warms. 

If you have Pt or Pd (or other PGMs) to recover, 60% sulfuric with simple NaCl added to a concentration of just a little over 0.1M (3.6g/L) and heated to 125C for about 10 hours will completely dissolve the PGMs. They can then be cemented out on copper or dropped with typical reducing agents used for PGMs. 

Looked through a number of industrial research papers to find this data.


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## Shark (Aug 10, 2022)

That’s one I haven’t tried also. One day…..


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## mythen10 (Aug 10, 2022)

Alondro said:


> Hot sulfuric acid will dissolve silver. It needs to be heated to about 80C for the reaction to begin. But you need very good ventilation and/or vapor capture to deal with the fumes.
> 
> Once all the impure silver is dissolved, allow it to cool, place the beaker in an ice water bath (until the liquid levels in the beaker and bath are level, and stick a copper rod in. The silver will crystalize out on the rod, but not re-dissolve, since the sulfuric acid is now too cold to react with it.
> 
> ...


thank for answer but me I search a way to get the silver as nitrate salt using a nitrate salt without using nitric acid


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## BlackLabel (Aug 12, 2022)

mythen10 said:


> thank for answer but me I search a way to get the silver as nitrate salt using a nitrate salt without using nitric acid


Sounds to me like having a steak without killing a cow.


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## Rreyes097 (Dec 30, 2022)

Golddigger76 said:


> Or if you are in the United States you could always order some JSP 67% nitric from Walmart for $38 per liter, I use it all the time, around the cheapest I have found.


For reals?!?! Has to be ordered? From Walmart?


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