# Silver Recovery from Plated items



## agpodt77339 (Nov 24, 2007)

I have several pounds of junk and broken silver plated and sterling silverware. What would be the best way to process this? I would like to use either muriatic or reverse electroplating, but do not know if these methods work for silver plate. Also, what would I use to precipitate the silver--I remember reading that you can use salt. Does just normal table salt work? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Chris


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## Lino1406 (Nov 24, 2007)

You need also nitric to make AR
from muriatic. That will dissolve
the problematic base metals, 
mostly nickel. Then rinse and 
cement the resulting silver chloride,
with zinc powder and 10% sulphuric.
In this case, no salt is needed
Lino1406


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 24, 2007)

With only a few pounds of silver plated material, you'll be lucky if there's an ounce of silver, total. Unfortunately, especially for the amateur, I can think of *no way* to make a profit in working this type material. Also, no refiner, that I know of, wants this material. Basically, you have a low grade copper alloy contaminated with silver.


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## Harold_V (Nov 24, 2007)

I took note that a mention was made of having both sterling and plated items. SORT THEM! If you have questions about which is which, test with nitric, or Schwerter's solution. 

If your goal is to reclaim the silver from sterling, dissolve it with nitric acid and water (tap water will do----distilled will eliminate traces of silver chloride), and recover the silver on clean copper (no lead or tin included). Avoid using wire, which will be hard to remove from the cement silver as it reduces in size. If you don't remove all the copper, you have defeated your purpose in purifying the silver. This method will yield silver of quite good quality, and is much faster and easier than processing silver chloride. Avoid that when possible. 

Plated items are, as GSP said, pretty much worthless. With silver rising in value these days, could be you could affect a reasonable recovery by stripping with a sulfuric cell------but I would personally avoid attacking the silver with any acids otherwise. You'll quickly come to understand that it is a losing cause. 

Silver can not be processed with HCl. Nitric acid is the acid of choice, but silver will also dissolve in sulfuric when the concentration is correct. It is not the best way to go. 

Should you choose to recover silver, unless your intention is to sell it as scrap, it should be further refined electrolytically once recovered. While you can achieve a decent level of purity by chemical processing, it is difficult to achieve the industry standard, but worse of all conditions, if your material has been in contact with any of the platinum group, it will be combined to some degree with your silver. It is recovered from the sludge of a silver cell, but otherwise difficult to recover.

Harold


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## agpodt77339 (Nov 24, 2007)

Thanks for the help and speedy responses. I think ill just keep it for sometime later.


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## skippy (Nov 24, 2007)

Yeah, I used the sulfuric acid + sodium nitrate thing to strip some silver plated items. I ended up with a half an ounce or so of silver metal from maybe four pounds of silver plated items. Interesting thing to try, but not something I'll do again any time soon.


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## carver2 (Dec 10, 2007)

Where I work they use silver coated plates that are made of aluminum, they use a lot of these and the resulting sludge goes through a series of filters. When I have changed these I notice a silver leaf affect as they are removed. I know the company spends about $100,000 a month on these printing plates, and that about half of the silver is lost in the process(still a small amount compared to aluminum). I want to know if anyone has ever messed with anything like this before? Thanks Will


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## Harold_V (Dec 10, 2007)

What, exactly, do you want to know? Do you have access to the plates, with the idea of recovering the silver?

Harold


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## carver2 (Dec 10, 2007)

As the printing process takes place some of the silver is slufted off and goes into the filters, along with alot of ink and fibers etc. We change out 10 filters a month that collect all the residues from the presses, and then we pitch these filters in the trash. The plates are sent back for reconditioning. I was interested to find out if the filters might be a concentrator for the silver sluff, and find out if it is of value. Thanks, Will


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## Harold_V (Dec 10, 2007)

Ok, that makes sense. Recovering the lost silver would be easy. Incinerate the filters, screen, remove any magnetic particles, digest with nitric acid. Recover the silver with copper. It might be more involved than that, depending on what else might be in with the silver. Aluminum isn't soluble in nitric, so it's not a problem, although any traces that weren't oxidized would reduce the silver until it was totally digested. You may have to play with the ash a little to hit on a good combination of procedures. 

Harold


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## Lino1406 (Dec 11, 2007)

Coating aluminum with silver is
very hard to accomplish. Is it put
directly or has an undercoat. What 
implied is: maybe the craftsmanship
matters more than the silver, in the
said 100000. Is there a tolerrance
for silver ammount between the 
supplier and client? These are few
of the many interrogation marks.
N.B. only concentrated nitric
doesn't dissolve Al.


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## Harold_V (Dec 11, 2007)

Lino1406 said:


> N.B. only concentrated nitric
> doesn't dissolve Al.



It's a matter of degree. 

I am a retired machinist/toolmaker. I ran a commercial shop before pursuing refining on a full time basis, and took advantage of my refining techniques for one job that was run on a repeat basis. I produced hammer housings for a contact printer for Univac (many years ago, as you might understand). The housings were made of 6061-T6 aluminum, and required a polished face prior to anodize. Tolerance on these parts on several dimensions was held to only one thou, so it was important that part size not be altered significantly when cleaning up after buffing. You likely understand that buffing compound leaves behind a black waxy residue that is not easily removed. Stoddard solvent proved ineffective, and I had no ultrasonic cleaner at my disposal. 

The only method I found that would clean the parts satisfactorily was a pickle in nitric acid. I used a dilute solution, what I would estimate to be 25% tech grade, 75% water, which was heated below boiling. A couple ten thousandths of size change was noted after considerable time in the pickle, so the dissolution rate in even dilute nitric is almost insignificant. A non-factor, really, if recovering silver is the concern. The biggest problem would be getting the aluminum out of the silver nitrate solution without precipitating the silver. 

Harold


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## Lino1406 (Dec 12, 2007)

Dear Harold,
I agree with what you said about medium strength
nitric. There is nothing better than experience
where you are nothing else but great! Now from
the description of the process (textile printing?)
would you expect aluminum on those filters?
Could this be the explanation for the"silver leaf effect"
- what is that? again, we lack information.
Lino1406


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## Harold_V (Dec 12, 2007)

Lino1406 said:


> Now from the description of the process (textile printing?) would you expect aluminum on those filters? Could this be the explanation for the"silver leaf effect" - what is that? again, we lack information.
> Lino1406



I'd have to agree------we lack information, and what is shed could be nothing more than aluminum. If, however, silver and aluminum were combined, it would be easy to separate the two, I'm sure you'd agree.

I routinely used aluminum to reduce silver chloride when I refined. I did so because it was readily available to me. I, otherwise, would likely have used scrap steel. Silver mixed with aluminum, like silver mixed with gold, is very easy to separate. 

Harold


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## carver2 (Dec 12, 2007)

Well i shall soon find out, I got a container of the filter material today and as we speak it is drying out. When it is dry i will ask what the next process is. Thanks, Will


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## Anonymous (Mar 8, 2008)

Hi The eaiest way is to treat it like copper.Melt the entire items into an anode,You can add some extra copper too.Electro refine copper in a bath of copper sulphate and sulphuric acid at appox 0.5 volts.copper will go to cathode .Nickel will be dissolved in the bath.and silver and palladium and gold if any will fall down under the anode.Donot forget that in old days they also used to use palladim with silver to reduce tarnish.Wash the powder melt it and refine silver in silver nitrate and a little copper nitrate bath at about 3.5 volts ,9999 silver will be at the cathode and palladium and other precious metals will fall below the anode.I hope it helps


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## wifitekman (Mar 21, 2011)

Silver is pushing $37.00 an ounce today. Would recovering silver from plated items be worth it?


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## Lino1406 (Mar 21, 2011)

Only when it is $370


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## DarkspARCS (Mar 23, 2011)

Lino1406 said:


> Only when it is $370




I heard a report that silver is expected to explode this summer... stay tuned, as copper will be right behind it...


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 23, 2011)

A lot of silver plated objects I've messed with ran about 1%. At a $37 market, that's about $5/pound.


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## wifitekman (Apr 3, 2011)

It may be a good idea to start a thread labeled -Silver Overlay. Apparently, there is a fair amount(even equitable)of silver on items with an "overlay of silver". I have been searching the forum and I have found that questions regarding items with "silver plate" is a very thin placement of silver on a base metal and is so thin, it isn't worth recovering; however, I have found that silver overlay, is probably worth looking at. For new comers to this forum, this needs to be clarified. It seems that plating has some ca notations of actually being "overlay". I have items that indicate that it is silver plated. I also have many items that do not have "plated" printed on them, but have a heavy layer of silver over a base metal. Frustrated, that this appears to be "plated", these items have been set aside. "Overlay" is a specific application. Overlay, must be treated and handled differently. It appears, there may be some merit to recovering the overlay. I'm not sure (actually confused by posts) what will be the best way to recover this silver. 

Below, is a web site that clarifies plated and overlay. Sorry, but you will have to cut and paste. Hope this helps. 
http://www.mecates.com/silver_faqs.htm#what%20is%20overlay


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 3, 2011)

According to this, the sterling overlay (3rd from bottom of list) runs about 20% of the weight, when new, at least for heavy wear objects like cowboy belt buckles. They must use a lamination process similar to gold filled. At 20% (about $100/pound), you could possibly afford to dissolve everything in 50/50 nitric and cement the Ag on Cu, assuming you can buy the nitric cheap enough, probably in drum quantities.

http://www.countrysilver.com/JewelryTerms.html


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## qst42know (Apr 4, 2011)

That link says 20% of the thickness is sterling. Probably to better gauge the maximum depth limit for engraving.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 4, 2011)

qst42know said:


> That link says 20% of the thickness is sterling. Probably to better gauge the maximum depth limit for engraving.



Thanks. Didn't catch that. That would make the weight percentage higher. If 2 sided, it would be a lot higher. Similar to 40% half dollars.


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## qst42know (Apr 4, 2011)

Sterling overlay must not be as regulated as say gold filled. This site it seems can't decide between 25% and 30%.

http://www.garyscustomsaddleryandsilver.com/buckles/custom2.htm


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## wifitekman (Apr 4, 2011)

The reason I brought this topic of overlay up, is because I came across some silverware which, I wasn't sure if I wanted to destroy it. Seemed old and I was having trouble identifying the pattern and colletcable value. As curiosity set in, I wanted to know if it was plated or pure. I filed deep into the spoon. I came to a copper base. I have not properly measured the thickness of the overlay, but it is thick as, construction paper(?). I need silver so I think it's time to put this whole silver process in order. I am going to start by dissolving the the silver overlay items in a 50/50 nitric. It seems odd to dissolve the copper base, and then cement the silver out with copper. My goal, is to make a silver cell and get some high grade silver back. I just bought a KONTES ULTRA-WARE SOLVENT FILTRATION ASSEMBLY. Very anxious to set up the cell and use this vacuum filtering unit. I have some Au that may be a little dirty. I am hopeful that inquarting and re - granulating it will get me into higher 9's.


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## rusty (Jul 6, 2011)

I just ran a bunch of keyboard mylars, to precipitate the silver used my silver plated cutlery. There was enough nitric left in my leach to strip the silver-plate, there were however a few pieces left untouched these I suspect were plated with rhodium.

A good way to reclaim the silver from plated material, precipitate your silver and to distinguish which has been plated with rhodium.

Regards
Rusty


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## shiv (Feb 18, 2013)

Hello guys

I want to know that is the silver coating available on the alluminium printing plates?
And if yes, then
Waht is the process of silver recovery from usable printing plates of alluminium?

Please reply...


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