# silver on powder



## Rickthenewb (Apr 6, 2011)

Hey guys, I usually don't mess around with silver but I was just offered around 5000 lbs of powder containing 
Ag – 7.21%
Mo – 1.18%
Zr – 0.07%
Zn – 8.72%
Cu – 8.28%
Ni – 73.02%
Fe – 0.29%
Cr – 0.46%
Ti – 0.78%
Now I am not sure if this is the full contents or if its mixed with some sort of silicon.
I am getting a small sample and was wondering the best way to isolate the silver.
I was thinking HCl will dissolve the Zn and the Nickel, after that I'm not sure how to proceed.


----------



## shyknee (Apr 6, 2011)

wow :!:


----------



## sebastionay (Apr 6, 2011)

Are you gonna buy all of it? What price have you been offered?


----------



## Rickthenewb (Apr 6, 2011)

I am doing a recovery for 20% of product, that's what I have been offering my customers.


----------



## sebastionay (Apr 6, 2011)

how are you getting customers?


----------



## goldsilverpro (Apr 6, 2011)

Rickthenewb said:


> Hey guys, I usually don't mess around with silver but I was just offered around 5000 lbs of powder containing
> Ag – 7.21%
> Mo – 1.18%
> Zr – 0.07%
> ...



Good luck!! Sounds like you have a white elephant, as it is called in the scrap metal trade. It's something huge that looks neat and profitable, but what do you really do with it? What is the source of this stuff, anyway. Is the silver *ON* it, as in your title, or is it *IN* it. This could make a big difference

HCl will dissolve 73% Ni, but, I think it would have to be hot and concentrated. Even then, it's slow, especially when the powder is not very fine. The fumes coming off of hot conc. HCl are very intense, there are a lot of them, and they will rust anything even slightly close - cars, tools, buildings, etc. 

Peroxide and diluted sulfuric might work and would produce very little fumes - the mix must be right, however, or it could be dangerous. Experimentation in small quantities is required. 

Nitric would certainly work and then you could cement the silver with copper. Nitric also produces lots of corrosive fumes and it would take about a gallon to dissolve 2 pounds of material. Two pounds of your material is worth about $80 in silver. Unless you can buy nitric in drum quantities, it could chew up any profits especially when you consider waste disposal.

If the powder is fine enough, you may be able to oxidize the surface of the particles and then leach the base metal oxides with weak sulfuric. This may take several cycles. 

That's a lot of material to dissolve. If you can somehow use weak sulfuric, it would be safer and less expensive. Lots of waste solution, however.

If you dissolve it with any acid, figure that you'll need about 50 to 75 drums, depending on the acid used. After dilutions, etc., you would generate from 2 to 5 times this volume in waste.

With that much weight, I would approach the nickel smelters. Maybe, they don't want it, though.


----------



## nickvc (Apr 6, 2011)

Looking at the assays I'd suggest taking the silver out with nitric as there's only 164 kilos but you have 1659 kilos of nickel. The nitric might remove some of the other base metals and as the nickel is worth $43,500 at present it might be a nice bonus if you can recover it and the silver will require far less acid as it's a tenth of the total of the nickel and can be cemented out with copper, if it's worth it :lol:


----------



## Rickthenewb (Apr 6, 2011)

I get customers because I opened up a small shop next to a scrap dealer who told me he gets a lot of gold bearing material, we have been doing business together for about 6 months. He gives me material and I recover it for 20% so far its working. I am not sure where this stuff is coming from GSP, a broker called me with it and said he would send me a sample. I haven't received it yet but I thought before it comes in I should ask if any of you have encountered it. I will send in a picture when I get some. This would be my biggest job so far if I can get it right. The nitric is out as it costs too much. I have a fume hood with acid resistant fans so I could go the HCl route. I have a waste company thats pretty affordable, I would have to do some math on that many drums or try to shop some barrels of nickel sulfate  Also I meant silver in powder. GSP what if i drop it in a cyanide solution, will the cyanide bond to the nickel or just the copper and silver.


----------



## goldsilverpro (Apr 6, 2011)

You didn't answer my question. Is the silver *ON* the surface of the particles or is it *IN* the alloy? If it's *IN* the alloy, the cyanide would only superficially attack the Hi-Ni alloy surface and you wouldn't get the Ag. If the silver is *ON* the surface, the cyanide would work. Also, if the Ag is *ON* the surface, there may be some things besides cyanide that will selectively dissolve it.

I don't know of any silver alloy with that makeup (that doesn't mean they don't exist), so maybe it is on the surface. Could be silver plated monel (kinda sounds like monel). I have immersion plated (actually, a cementation process) base metal powder before. Very simple. Although, by it's nature, the silver immersion plating thickness is limited to a very thin 0.000010", or so, it could be worth 7%, if the particles were small enough and/or very irregular in shape or spongy. As the particle size decreases, the surface area increases geometrically. If you had 1000 mesh powder with very irregular shaped particles, the Ag percentage could be very high.


----------



## Rickthenewb (Apr 7, 2011)

The silver is IN powder, I will send a pic when I get my first sample.


----------



## butcher (Apr 22, 2011)

Without using a selective leach, seems the acids and waste may cost you more than values,


----------

