# Silver Chloride - Sometimes I don't know where my head is



## Dawnsdad (Jul 22, 2019)

In cleaning up my workshop preparing to get back to processing some material I have had sitting around for years, I came across a 5 gal. bucket with about an inch of silver chloride in the bottom. The chloride was still moist with a very small amount of green water on the top. So I quickly added about a gallon of water. Seems I remember advice from someone to not let the chloride get dry, but I don't remember why. If it's just a matter of it clumping together when it dries, I think I caught it in time. If anybody has any wisdom to add, I would appreciate it.


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## Lou (Jul 23, 2019)

When it gets dry, there are much less options left to convert it back to the metal with any semblance of a quantitative yield. 

The ol' karo n sugar aldose method will scarcely touch it then...


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## Dawnsdad (Jul 23, 2019)

It wasn't dry. More like a paste. When I added more water and stirred it up, the cloudy water looked pretty much the same as a fresh batch. So..... if I add NaOH, will I be able to visibly see if it's not working, i.e., will it not change color? 

I have an induction melter that I haven't used for 2 or 3 years. Would it be feasible to thoroughly dry the AgCl and melt it under borax in a well ventilated place? Would that cook out the Cl?


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## Lou (Jul 23, 2019)

No, that'll just make a bunch of chlorine and colloidal AgCl smoke and silver chloride borax glass. Best thing to do with it is to throw it in the concrete mixer with metal punching/H2SO4 as you have been advised. It is a great process for silver chloride and particularly applicable to material which may have gone slightly crystalline.


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## snoman701 (Jul 23, 2019)

If you are going to melt silver chloride as is, you have to mill it with soda ash and borax. Heat slowly and covered. 

And expect losses....huge losses....like 40%+


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