# Quartering Silver with copper to desolve in AP



## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

So I have around 3oz of stearling I want to make into rounds or bars. But I don't have any nitric acid. And whyle laying here reading Hoke before bed. I had an epifaney (sp?). If karat gold can be quartered to be desolved, why can't silver? Nothing comes to mind as to why it can't be done, whitch it may as I hit submit button, and a search of the forum turns up nothing on the subject. This question also stems from processing CPUs in poor man AR in which I dropped silver chloride.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 20, 2012)

Wouldn't you just part the silver in a silver cell?

There is a ton of great information on how to process silver, all over the forum, and a few youtube video's to boot, if you are looking for them.


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## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

I'm trying to get by with what I have at hand at the moment. And use the Capitol I have to make some cash to reinvest in exactly what you mentioned. Thanks for the suggestion tho. I have HCL NaOH KNO3 H2O2 SMB. Iodine is cheap ish. But too slow. If I had the cash to spend on a cell, I would get nitric first. 

I did find a thread on useing AP on braising rods 15% Ag 80% Cu. Seems promising!


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## goldenchild (Apr 20, 2012)

AP is HCL + peroxide. Peroxide is an oxidizer. So you would basically be making AR. AR will create the silver chloride coating and no progress will be made. Don't waste your time trying this.


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## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

That's was my initial concern Goldenchild. But between a couple of threads here on the forum about braising rods 15/85 Ag/Cu I thought it may work. The main thread about AP and the braising rods did dead end so thats probably a bad sign. 
I kno I shouldn't reinvent the wheel. Thanks for slapping some sense in to me!


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## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

What really got me to thinking about quartering silver was when I processed some CPUs with poor mans AR And I get silver chloride dropped. Their should be a way to Replacate that by quartering.


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## MysticColby (Apr 20, 2012)

goldenchild said:


> AP is HCL + peroxide. Peroxide is an oxidizer. So you would basically be making AR. AR will create the silver chloride coating and no progress will be made. Don't waste your time trying this.



he knows that.
the same happens to high karat gold alloys - when you add nitric to dissolve the base metals, the gold gets in the way. He wants to add copper, so that when you add AP, there is enough copper to just dissolve that the silver chloride falls off, revealing more silver and copper. The end result being copper chloride in solution and silver chloride precipitate. I see no reason it wouldn't work, though I don't know how much diluting would actually need to happen to make it work, but the result wouldn't be very pure silver.


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## etack (Apr 20, 2012)

If you could get sulfuric acid you could make poormans nitric. filter well then drop with HCl. I say HCl because you are not using a pure nitric acid. Then convert it to silver the way you like.

Eric


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## Geo (Apr 20, 2012)

one pot nitric is a poor choice for processing silver.


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## etack (Apr 20, 2012)

Yes it is not ideal but when you cant get nitric it will work. He could make nitric acid and it would be cleaner. 

AztekShine could wait and get nitric but that was not the point of the post. You can get sulfuric acid anywhere and he already has the nitrate. He can work with what he has or buy what he needs.

Eric


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## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

My distillation skills are top notch! I have full understanding of the process. And much practice. 8) 
But from what I have seen that isn't really an option. I haven't looked at the boiling points either though. I could use my filter flask with a "thumper" if the temps are far enough apart. 

I feal like I'm beating a dead horse now. But the quartering issue still seams probable. No nessicarly with copper. 
Maby lead or tin. And used in AR just like processing CPUs. If I hadn't processed the CPUs I would have never thought of this stupid idea. I know reinventing the wheel is a bad idea. I may have watched too much McGuiver. But necessity is the mother of invention. 

I thank everyone for their input so far. I don't plan on trying this now though. I have some other projects I should be able to use as cash flow. But I would like to leave this open to debate and maby some of the master chemist here can give some input.

etack, thanks for seeing where I'm coming from. Even tho some may want to say Don't encourage the tard! :lol:


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## goldenchild (Apr 20, 2012)

Another thing to consider... copper isnt exactly easy to melt. Even if this theory could ork it would be hell to try to melt 9+ ounces of Cu. I think you would need much more for the silver to come down as chloride


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## AztekShine (Apr 20, 2012)

Small lots Would be nessicary. Then time comes into play. And cost of fuel. 
Let's concider tin or lead. Lead chloride would be easy to remove, it seems. No experience with large quantitys though. 
Here's another crazy idea if tin was used would it be possable to to just desolve in HCl. Silly I'm shure, I may be too dumb for my own good.


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## goldenchild (Apr 20, 2012)

Tin could possibly work but again you may run into problems melting. I would think since there is copper in the sterling you would need to have large amounts of tin. The silver content would probably have to be something like 2-5%. Just a guess though. You could always take a few grams try to inquart it with tin, cornflake it and give it a try I suppose. Let us know how it goes if you try it.


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## etack (Apr 20, 2012)

If you want to go the AR rout than you will need to atomize it do a search on it. Put it into the AR filter than wash with ammonia. save the solids to put back into AR. Then to get your silver add HCl. Filter then procces AgCl the way you like.

Eric


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## Harold_V (Apr 21, 2012)

AztekShine said:


> What really got me to thinking about quartering silver was when I processed some CPUs with poor mans AR And I get silver chloride dropped. Their should be a way to Replacate that by quartering.


I am of the opinion that you don't understand the reason for inquartation. Do you? 

There is no need to inquart silver. I'm struggling trying to understand what your objective may be. Care to divulge your thoughts?

Harold


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## AztekShine (Apr 21, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> AztekShine said:
> 
> 
> > What really got me to thinking about quartering silver was when I processed some CPUs with poor mans AR And I get silver chloride dropped. Their should be a way to Replacate that by quartering.
> ...



My understanding is that inquartation is Applied to dissolve silver from karat gold it the gold is 16-18k because silver forms silver chloride in AR. According to Hoke leaving the Gold refined...I think she said. I'm not shure in that.....but at any rate my reasoning is that...I was looking for a way around useing nitric to dissolve silver. I figure that if gold can be quartered and refined in nitric. Silver can be refined in a similar way without useing nitric. By quartering with some metal and attacked with the appropriate acid. 

Harold, this stems from my recent move half way across the country and being broke at the moment.

Can I apoligize ahead of time for trying to invent the wheel? :|


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## Harold_V (Apr 21, 2012)

AztekShine said:


> I figure that if gold can be quartered and refined in nitric. Silver can be refined in a similar way without useing nitric. By quartering with some metal and attacked with the appropriate acid.


Ok! Now I understand. 



> Harold, this stems from my recent move half way across the country and being broke at the moment.


Makes sense, although I'm not convinced there's a solution. It's possible you could melt the silver with something like zinc, then dissolve with HCl, or maybe even sodium hydroxide---but I'm of the opinion that you won't remove some contaminants (copper, for one). 



> Can I apoligize ahead of time for trying to invent the wheel? :|


Not a requirement. Good question, actually, now that I understand where you're coming from. Shows you're thinking. Besides, I understand how difficult it is to procure nitric acid these days. 

You could use sulfuric acid to part the metal, too, although it does dissolve silver to some degree, but you're still stuck with copper. Unless it's an oxide, it doesn't dissolve with dilute sulfuric, or with HCl. Bottom line is, I don't think there's a substitute for nitric where silver is concerned. 

I'm not well versed in cupellation, but that would be a way to eliminate base metals, although I expect it would be far more costly than using nitric and a parting cell afterwards. 


Harold


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## AztekShine (Apr 21, 2012)

I have my douts also. A test is in order. But I have other items to attend to that are definate at the moment. Soon I hope this can have a definate answer.

Harold, thank you!

Will


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## johnny309 (Apr 21, 2012)

A ..best choice is to melt with zinc(case from battery) or solder...it is easier ,lower melting point and good collector,...and not speaking for the fact that involves metals that "dissolves"(forms salts) with HCl....AgCl not come so easily(you have to expose the metal to acid ,in AR is forming because is the transformation of silver nitrate and not the pure metal).

Edit: my english is "rusty"...hope Mr.Harold can forgive that.


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## Geo (Apr 21, 2012)

heres a thought. melt the sterling with tin solder, a very high content of tin.and either pour into shot or cornflake and dissolve in hcl. this will leave silver and copper, a hard boil in hcl with a little copper chloride should dissolve the copper remaining. it still wouldnt be pure but it would be alot cleaner than sterling.


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## AztekShine (Apr 21, 2012)

Yeah tin would be easier than copper to melt and cheaper. I feal that if the process you mentioned ,Geo ,was repeated it could maby reach 98-99%.


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