# Melting silver oxide?



## arie_pk (Jan 26, 2009)

Hi to my favorite forum again

As i understood from reading this forum, when heating silver oxide to 400+ degrees, it turns in to silver. Cosdidering that, is there another reason why not go directly from silver oxide to the melting torcch and skip the part where i turn the silver oxide to silver by adding the corn syrop? I find that up to the silver oxide stage, all is running smoothly and easily. The most time consuming part for me is the perticipation stage and washing stages after going from oxide to pure silver.

Thanx

Arie


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## arie_pk (Jan 26, 2009)

I forgot to add that the silver is intended for a silver cell - hence i think it is no big deal if i get a very slight lower purity by skipping this stage.
Of course i might be wrong, and if so i hope someone will corect me


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## peter i (Jan 26, 2009)

If you have pure silver oxide, there is absolutely no reason not to go directly from silver oxide to molten silver.

If you have a lot of other metal hydroxides co-precipitating with your silver oxide, then the method might not be the best.

Could you please describe your procedure a little more in detail?


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## arie_pk (Jan 26, 2009)

Hi and thanks for your help

Ok, the process is as follows:
I use scrap silver from 80% worst to sterling at best. I dissolve in nitric, then use salt to get the Chloride. I wash the cloride around 10 times, and then i use lye to get the oxide. Again i wash it a lot of times, and then i use grape fruit sugar (dextol) to go to silver cement. The cement i get, in some of the batches sinks fast, so it is not so bad to wash it a few times, but in other batches for some reason siks much slower, which makes washing it a few times a very long process.
As I said, the final product is intended for a silver cel for final refining.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Jan 26, 2009)

Arie:

The washing process is too long because you did not use a little bit of hydrocloric acid between washes...if you do that you will see the silver go down in 30 seconds...then pour off the liquid,dry the silver,melt it into an ingot and put it in the cathode of your cell.

Regards

Manuel


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## SilverNitrate (Jan 26, 2009)

Whynot put the sterling scraps into the cell directly. *I have tried this only once* by placing scraps at one end of the tub using it as the anode, a cathode of stainless steel and the electrolyte of very dilute nitric and sulfuric acid. The purified silver sponge will collect and the copper stays blue in the solution. Salt (NaCl) out the silver from that blue sol'n then process that tiny amount of silver too. I would say a good 90% of the copper will be eliminated with minimal loss. Where as some silver is loss in the rinsing of that chloride and oxide. 
Then purify by repeating the process.


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## peter i (Jan 27, 2009)

arie_pk said:


> Hi and thanks for your help
> 
> Ok, the process is as follows:
> I use scrap silver from 80% worst to sterling at best. I dissolve in nitric, then use salt to get the Chloride. I wash the cloride around 10 times, and then i use lye to get the oxide. Again i wash it a lot of times, and then i use grape fruit sugar (dextol) to go to silver cement. The cement i get, in some of the batches sinks fast, so it is not so bad to wash it a few times, but in other batches for some reason siks much slower, which makes washing it a few times a very long process.
> As I said, the final product is intended for a silver cel for final refining.



That is far too laborious!

*Either* dissolve, precipitate as chloride, wash the chloride and reduce with zinc. Then wash the reduced silver with hot dilute hydrochloric, dry and cast into ingots for the cell.

*Or* dissolve*, cement with copper, wash the silver powder, dry and cast into ingots.

*make sure to saturate the acid with silver, it will save acid in this, and copper in the next step.


I used to use the first method but was converted to the second.
It is much easier and requires far less work on your part.


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## arie_pk (Jan 27, 2009)

Thanks guys for all the answers. I really appreciate it and hope to be able to contribute also once I gain some experience

Arie


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