# I got an ounce of SILVER METAL from my left over liquid



## kadriver (Nov 4, 2010)

I bought one of Steve's dvds called Silver A to Z.

One of the segments was on recovering silver metal from SILVER CHLORIDE.

I had about 4000 ml of clear dark blue liquid left over from refining some silver.

I squirted hydrochloric acid a ldropper full at a time until no more silver chloride would precipitate.

I let all the containers settle and poured off the liquid into my waste container.

I then combined all four containers of silver chloride that I had precipitated in one container.

Using hot water, I washed the silver chloride over and over.

This washing reduced the amount of silver chloride. 

I think the washing got rid of some water solubles that were not silver chloride.

Once the silver chloride was washed and the water was clear of all color I followed the procedure on Steve's dvd.

I could not believe my eyes when I added SUGAR to the mix and silver began to form in the container!

I got an ounce of pure silver metal from the 4000ml of liquid. i was wondering what I was going to do with it.

Steve's dvd paid for itself the first day I got it - THANKS STEVE!


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## goldenchild (Nov 4, 2010)

This is why I no longer cement silver out with copper. It never seems to get all the silver out. Plus you will get purer silver if you use the silver chloride technique.


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## shyknee (Nov 4, 2010)

kadriver
your silver just went up today $26.40 or so ,about a $1.50 jump for one day.


Oh .Hello to everyone out there, buy for now.


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## Harold_V (Nov 5, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> This is why I no longer cement silver out with copper. It never seems to get all the silver out. Plus you will get purer silver if you use the silver chloride technique.


You, clearly, are doing something wrong. You can remove silver to the point where it can not be detected with HCl by using copper. Beyond that, you can also recover all traces of platinum group metals. You simply must use enough copper, and learn to stir the resulting cement silver to liberate any trapped silver nitrate that may have been dragged down. There is no reason I can think of to doubt the use of copper for recovering silver aside from it's high cost. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in order for silver to cement on copper, it must make intimate contact with the copper. There is an exchange of electrons between the copper and silver nitrate solution, whereby the silver nitrate is reduced to metallic silver, and the copper is converted to copper nitrate. 

Harold


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## goldenchild (Nov 5, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> You, clearly, are doing something wrong. You can remove silver to the point where it can not be detected with HCl by using copper. Harold


Yes. I've tried many times to cement all the silver out of solution using copper without success. I would shake off the cemented silver until nothing cemented onto the copper except a black powder. I even sprayed the copper off so it was nice and shiney again and nothing else would cement. 

I'm guessing all the trace nitric was spent and additional nitric would have to be added. But that would be a waste of nitric in my opinion. Especially since at that point there is no way to measure how much more copper has to be digested to cement out the remaining silver (if any). For me HCL is best. It's so much faster. Pour some in and all the silver (chloride) drops out of solution in seconds.


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## metatp (Nov 5, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> I'm guessing all the trace nitric was spent and additional nitric would have to be added. But that would be a waste of nitric in my opinion.


I have never had an issue cementing all the silver with copper. I tested a sample of the solution with salt or HCL, and if there was any sign of silver chloride, I would stir it and let the copper sit a little longer until all silver was cemented. I've made batches from just a few grams of silver to about 500g.

Tom


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## kadriver (Nov 6, 2010)

I will try to wait a little longer next time.

I will wait until the cementing seems to stop.

Then I will add nitric acid a drop at a time while stirring.

I predict that the cementing will re-start once drops of acid are added.

I also want to try the silver chloride process.

I am not that far along yet.

thanks for all of your insight - kadriver


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## azdave35 (Dec 22, 2010)

i wasnt aware you could cement silver from silver nitrate using hcl?..if this is true could someone explain the proceedure to me?..thanks in advance


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## Platdigger (Dec 23, 2010)

It is not cementaion. It is just that by adding HCL or sodium chloride (table salt) or virtually any other chloride for that matter you form silver chloride which is insoluable in the nitrate solution.
Now you have silver chloride to deal with. Do a search on silver chloride and you will see what I mean.


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## Harold_V (Dec 23, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> Harold_V said:
> 
> 
> > You, clearly, are doing something wrong. You can remove silver to the point where it can not be detected with HCl by using copper. Harold
> ...


As I said, you're doing something wrong. I cemented silver for over 20 years without issues----and, for your best interest, that black powder you're talking about is likely something of value. When there's platinum group metals in solution (not uncommon with silver nitrate), it comes down last. Always. And it's black. Always. If your solution is not blue, but green, you likely have been discarding values. 

If you're having issues recovering all of the silver, you can rest assured, you likely do not have enough copper present. As it gets diluted, it takes longer and longer for the silver to react with copper, simply because it's diluted well. Present more copper and it will cement faster. I used to use several pounds of copper when I'd recover silver. All of it, including traces of platinum and/or palladium were down within 24 hours. *Always.* 

I may be wrong, but I firmly believe that there's a misunderstanding about why copper cements silver. You made mention that there must be nitric present to dissolve the copper. If that was the case, you could pour copper nitrate to silver nitrate and effect a recovery. As we all know, that doesn't work. There's an exchange of electrons between copper and silver in solution, whereby copper goes in to solution and silver comes out. Excessive nitric serves to dissolve copper, but does not hasten recovery of silver. 

*I am open to correction.* 

Harold


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## stihl88 (Dec 23, 2010)

I think they call it Single Displacement Reaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_displacement_reaction


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## butcher (Dec 23, 2010)

No correction, I just want to stress the point that the copper is in elemental metal form and it has all its electrons, the silver dissolved is missing its electrons, which copper being Higher in the reactivity series is more reactive and will gladly change places with the silver, the copper will give electrons to the silver so that it will become a silver metal (only in powder form looking like pepper to me) and copper now missing it’s electrons will dissolve to form copper nitrate in solution, this reaction works if PH is at least slightly acidic better. this is a replacement reaction we call cementing, since this Pepper is elemental silver powder it can be melted without further conversion.

silver is soluble in nitric acid if pure it will be clear as water, adding a chloride (HCl or table salt) (other chlorides will work but we do not use them) silver in solution will form silver chloride, the solution will form an nitric acid or aqua regia depending if excess chloride in solution used (not same proportion but aqua regia the same), silver chloride is insoluble in nitric acid, or aqua regia, so it precipitates out as a white powder or cottage cheese looking fluff, or can just be a milky looking mix depending on conditions, this silver chloride will need conversion with another method before melting, we need to convert it to silver getting the chloride away from it (so it does not evaporate in white smoke of silver chloride fumes in our melting dish, here we use another chemical reaction, sodium hydroxide and kayro syrup to convert silver chloride to silver metal and salt water and sugar missing a hydrogen (sorry I do not know what they call corn sugar missing hydrogen?) GSP said one ounce of silver (41.5g silver chloride) and 133 ML water, 20g NaOH (lye or caustic soda) and 13.3 ML kayro light corn syrup, water wash out the salts and sugar missin the H+,( I hope I got this right, the formula is all over the web and it is GSP's formula for silver chloride conversion, every time I see it on the web I know where it came from too bad he has not got credit for it.),
GSP has a great book and worth every little bit he asked for it, anybody working with silver or gold will sure not be wasting a penny buying his book and heck may get many pennys or gold and silver buttons from reading his book, better get one if he still has it available, the price of silver is going up and up.


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## goldenchild (Dec 23, 2010)

butcher said:


> No correction, I just want to stress the point that the copper is in elemental metal form and it has all its electrons, the silver dissolved is missing its electrons, which copper being Higher in the reactivity series is more reactive and will gladly change places with the silver, the copper will give electrons to the silver so that it will become a silver metal (only in powder form looking like pepper to me) and copper now missing it’s electrons will dissolve to form copper nitrate in solution, this reaction works if PH is at least slightly acidic better. this is a replacement reaction we call cementing, since this Pepper is elemental silver powder it can be melted without further conversion.



So does this mean that as I satated, adding a small amount of nitric could possibly help get any lingering silver out of solution? 

Also I would like to mention the reason I dont use the cementing method is because I would rather not use a silver cell. I know many cement the silver out so that it can be melted and pure enough to be digested in a cell. I remember Harold stating somewhere that this is what he routinely practiced. For me however the chloride method is enough. I last brought a little over 2 pounds of silver to Fournines that tested at .9994 purity on the spectrometer which is fine with me. Gold was the same


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## Harold_V (Dec 24, 2010)

goldenchild said:


> butcher said:
> 
> 
> > Also I would like to mention the reason I dont use the cementing method is because I would rather not use a silver cell. I know many cement the silver out so that it can be melted and pure enough to be digested in a cell. I remember Harold stating somewhere that this is what he routinely practiced. For me however the chloride method is enough. I last brought a little over 2 pounds of silver to Fournines that tested at .9994 purity on the spectrometer which is fine with me. Gold was the same


No one is bound to using a silver cell. Even Hoke recommended silver be sold. 

My question to you is----how do you intend to recover traces of the platinum group? If you process dental wastes, or even jewelry, you encounter them on a regular basis. They follow silver, like it or not, and are difficult to recover unless you part silver in a silver cell. 

Harold


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## Oz (Dec 24, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> My question to you is----how do you intend to recover traces of the platinum group? If you process dental wastes, or even jewelry, you encounter them on a regular basis. They follow silver, like it or not, and are difficult to recover unless you part silver in a silver cell


This is why I am a fan of inquartation of karat scrap whether it is needed or not. Karat scrap in smaller quantities is typically sold based on gold content alone. The small refiner is competitive because he/she gets the silver and PGM as a bonus. 

I like my slimes.


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## Harold_V (Dec 24, 2010)

I was not interested in processing silver in the least. However, it became painfully obvious to me that it was a requirement. My purpose, of course, was to process anything that had value (in gold) at that point in time---and I had no idea I'd end up processing for jewelers. The moment I started processing jeweler's wastes, it was clear---I must part silver---or lose a considerable amount of value. 

Like Oz, I inquarted everything, mixed as a unit. I found I could weigh the metals as received, add 110% of the weight in silver and be within acceptable parameters to part the inquarted material without issue. There were exceptions, of course, such as a large amount of dental gold, or nuggets. I even included white gold, which will readily part with AR---but my objective was to collect any traces of values beyond gold, concentrating them to the point where the time spent in recovery made it worthwhile. I was well paid for my philosophy.

Unless one refines only e scrap, restricted to fingers and pins, processing silver is pretty much a requirement. Sort of goes together, like mashed potatoes and gravy. 

Harold


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## Barren Realms 007 (Dec 24, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> I was not interested in processing silver in the least. However, it became painfully obvious to me that it was a requirement. My purpose, of course, was to process anything that had value (in gold) at that point in time---and I had no idea I'd end up processing for jewelers. The moment I started processing jeweler's wastes, it was clear---I must part silver---or lose a considerable amount of value.
> 
> Like Oz, I inquarted everything, mixed as a unit. I found I could weigh the metals as received, add 110% of the weight in silver and be within acceptable parameters to part the inquarted material without issue. There were exceptions, of course, such as a large amount of dental gold, or nuggets. I even included white gold, which will readily part with AR---but my objective was to collect any traces of values beyond gold, concentrating them to the point where the time spent in recovery made it worthwhile. I was well paid for my philosophy.
> 
> ...



Othe PM's are not only in jewlery and dental gold. One of the button's I sold a while back showed traces of rhodium and indium and it was processed from CPU's and IC chips.


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## metatp (Dec 24, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> Unless one refines only e scrap, restricted to fingers and pins, processing silver is pretty much a requirement. Sort of goes together, like mashed potatoes and gravy.
> 
> Harold


I was with you all the way until you said mashed potatoes and gravy. I like my mashed potatoes without gravy. :lol:


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## goldenchild (Dec 24, 2010)

Harold_V said:


> My question to you is----how do you intend to recover traces of the platinum group? If you process dental wastes, or even jewelry, you encounter them on a regular basis. They follow silver, like it or not, and are difficult to recover unless you part silver in a silver cell.
> 
> Harold



I guess I've never come across one of the Pt group that was alloyed with Ag. I think Pd would be the somewhat troublesome metal then. For an Ag/Pt alloy the obvious solution would just be inquarting and then digestion in nitric. But for a Pd/Ag or possibly even Ag + Pd + Pt alloy I suppose either a cell or cementation method would be the best ways to go. 

The cell (probably being easiest) would obviously leave the slimes behind in the anode bag. But how would you go about separating using cementation with Cu? What comes to mind is 1 cementing out the Ag and Pt groups with Cu 2 filter and wash well 3 I know Harold will say incinerate  and 4 digest remaining powders in AR. Does this sound correct?


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## Harold_V (Dec 25, 2010)

It's not clear to me what you're asking. 
Slimes (from the silver cell) contain a huge amount of microscopic silver particles, so you must address that issue. The big boys used to boil the slimes in an iron vessel, using concentrated sulfuric acid. That sorts out the silver, then, as you allude, it's on to AR. 

At some point you have to get the remaining silver out of the mix---so going to AR solves that riddle. You need not even remove all of the traces of values from the silver chloride, assuming it's converted to metallic silver by the use of aluminum or iron. Traces of values are simply recycled to the silver cell, where they are once again concentrated for future processing. 

I chose to go after the silver, and in the process, the palladium, using nitric. Silver was converted to silver chloride, then the solution was processed by evaporation, for eventual recovery of platinum, and then palladium. 

The AR solution is processed for platinum, then palladium. You come to understand that there is generally not a clean separation of the palladium with the preliminary silver digest. 

Harold


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