# Need some help with stainless steel



## Frenchmen (Apr 7, 2012)

Hello everyone,

a few weeks ago i bought Lazersteves CD of refining silver. I have a lot of silver plated flatware, in the first step i want 
to dissolve the silver with copper(II)-sulfate. Now I want to build a device which can hold 10 spoons or knifes at the same 
time. It must be also electroconductive. I thought V4A would be a good choice but i don't know how it react in the solution.







What material is the best choice?

Thank you for your help and have a nice easter weekend


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## butcher (Apr 7, 2012)

Copper sulfate electrolyte will break down silver and copper into a powder in the cell, it will not refine it, these powders can be separated by other acidic methods, but when I tried it I found it cost me much more than the small amount of silver was worth.

Any material like stainless in acidic solution as anode in your copper sulfate electrolyte, would dissolve iron into solution and contaminate your cell.

This may be a better Idea to look into, much like the concentrated sulfuric acid gold de-plating cell.

A concentrated 98% sulfuric acid, with 5% sodium nitrate powder in electrolyte may work better, to de-plate silver, using a lead cathode, silver as sludge may form, if keept concentrated, copper for the most part should not dissolve at the anode, I have not tried it, but I believe it would work, This is a process Hoke's book mentions, that is used by the silver plating industry to de-plate silver for re-plating the article with silver, Hoke's book also mentions recovery from solution briefly, but I would try just removing silver sludge, not diluting the acid until you were finished using the electrolyte.


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## Frenchmen (Apr 7, 2012)

Thank you for the information, it was just an idea. I will have a look in hooks book. :lol:


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## Lino1406 (Apr 9, 2012)

Instead of stainless consider titanium


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