# Need some advice on refining silver in this form



## kmann1969 (Jan 14, 2015)

Hello all, I need some advice on refining this. I have refined and cemented silver in a few different forms but this is a new one to me. I have 8lbs of a powder that came from a commercial electronics plating company that went out of business about 30 years ago. the guy I bought it fron says it is .999 silver powder that was used to plate some kind electronics ceramic many years ago. he said it was soaked in toluene to keep it like a paste for use. it does have a bad solvent odor. I have a xrf gun and it tested at 92.8 ag. it also tested for about 7.8% pb. I took 20 grams and melted it in my fume hood and it melted down fine and I retested it , it came out at 98% ag and 1% pb. my question is how would you guys go about refining it further? how would you remove the pb safely?


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## kmann1969 (Jan 14, 2015)

silver in the powder form, other pic is when I melted some


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## justinhcase (Jan 14, 2015)

If you get on with studying Hoke.
You can look up how to build a silver cell to give you a practical project to be getting along with.
A good introduction to P.M. processing which can be achieved with out acid if you buy a little silver nitrate.
If you are a little more able you can make your own .


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## philddreamer (Jan 14, 2015)

What was the weight after melting the 20g of powder?


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## kmann1969 (Jan 14, 2015)

16grams


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## metatp (Jan 14, 2015)

I had a similar situation and had similar questions. I was also concerned about the rate of the reaction of a powder vs solid metal. Don't know if I had lead, but I did have a little tin. Reaction rate was fast. Below is an old thread that may help.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=4767

Tom


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## etack (Jan 14, 2015)

melt into bars and sell it. 96% spot on silver does not warrant refining.

Eric


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## justinhcase (Jan 14, 2015)

£5.60 or the learning experience of seeing silver crystals grow.
just enough to run a small test cell.
But it is a slippery road to go down.once you have made it run well you will want to run more.


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## kmann1969 (Jan 15, 2015)

thanks guys, im just going to melt it into bars and sell as-is


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