# Disitilled water question???????



## Absolutsecurity (Jan 5, 2008)

Has anyone had a problem with arrowhead distilled water - I think my ARROWHEAD DISTILLED WATER is as crappy as their drinking water - I keep getting white fuzzy type percipitates when I add ARROWHEAD DISTILLED water I bought from the store.

G


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## skyline27 (Jan 5, 2008)

The general consensus seems to be that tap water works as well as distilled water, unless you have exceptionally crappy tap water.


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## Harold_V (Jan 6, 2008)

What are you doing when you get the fuzzy type precipitates?

If you're working with silver, there's no question the water isn't as represented. 

It may make no difference to your outcome----unless you're making standard solutions or silver nitrate electrolyte. The small amount of silver that is precipitated (assuming that's what you're seeing) isn't enough to be of concern. Economically, you're better off using tap water instead, especially if you recycle your waste materials. Eventually you recover the silver. 

Harold


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

Well any time I added water to any mix I ended up with white suspended and percipitating stuff - I kinda figured it was a chloride but im using Arrowhead distilled so it confussed me - the media is most likely full of silver as well as gold nickle and copper - so I am going to have to learn how to extract the different metals at different stages instead of just going after gold or silver exclusively - RIGHT!! This happened in AR as well as nitric and hybid nitric made with sodium nitrate soaked of full strength sulfuric acid drain cleaner ( I really dont like that stuff so I am going to get electrolyte grade and boil off the water and try again)

Thanks for your response to my newbie question on both of my posts!!

Glynn


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## Harold_V (Jan 6, 2008)

Absolutsecurity said:


> Well any time I added water to any mix I ended up with white suspended and percipitating stuff - I kinda figured it was a chloride but im using Arrowhead distilled so it confussed me - the media is most likely full of silver as well as gold nickle and copper - so I am going to have to learn how to extract the different metals at different stages instead of just going after gold or silver exclusively - RIGHT!! This happened in AR as well as nitric and hybid nitric made with sodium nitrate soaked of full strength sulfuric acid drain cleaner ( I really dont like that stuff so I am going to get electrolyte grade and boil off the water and try again)
> 
> Thanks for your response to my newbie question on both of my posts!!
> 
> Glynn



My background in refining is one from the position of a non-chemist. I used only acids from chemical supply houses, so you may well be creating something with which I'm not familiar. There are others on this forum that have far greater chemical knowledge, so they may be forthcoming of information that might be contrary to that which I've provided. I mention this because it's entirely possible you're introducing something to the process that is encouraging the reaction you're getting, and I'm wrong. 

On the subject of refining-----none of us can get rid of all the base metals before dissolving the values, but if you're dissolving everything with the values, you really need to address your process. For best results, you should either be stripping values, then processing with AR, or you should be dissolving base metals with nitric, or equivalent substitute, then processing the residues with AR. 

Steve keeps saying "garbage in, garbage out", and it's the truth. The cleaner the metal is when you dissolve it, the cleaner you can expect it to be when you precipitate. Dragdown is a fact of life, and it doesn't always wash out well. 

I concentrated my efforts, for years, to produce the best possible quality gold without going to a parting cell. I refined all of my gold a second time before dispensing to customers. Even after very carefully washing the first precipitation, rarely did the re-refining not yield noticeable traces of base metals. Keep in mind, I did all I could to eliminate base metals. 

Good luck!

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 6, 2008)

When I made colloidal silver for human consumption, I wanted the purest distilled water I could find. I read that Walgreen's water was the purest and proved this by comparing other brands with a meter. It, and some other brands are steam-distilled.

I seem to remember that certain organic materials, on electronic components, slightly dissolved in strong acid and then precipitated (sort of a fuzzy material) upon addition of water. Silver chloride is somewhat soluble in strong acids and precipitates out with dilution. Lead chloride does the same thing. All 3 of these precipitates are white.


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

I was thinking that when I added the distilled water that it was diluting the acid and causing a percipitate also - thats what is happening right??

The distilled water could be allright then?

I also noticed when some of my concoctions cool I get percip's - is that because the acid is stuff with disolved metals and the silver drops out when the acid cools?

What do I do with the percipitate that drops to get the silver back?

ALOT of questions from the new guy huh!!

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 6, 2008)

Glynn,

If a precipitate forms when adding water, then the precipitate is most likely not soluble in water. There are very few salts that meet this criteria. You can check the solubility chart on my website under the documents section to find posssible canidates.

The other possibility is that the nitric contains some sort of contamination that is being precipitated upon the addition of water. 

Silver dissolved in nitric acid forms the water soluble silver nitrate.

Dilution with water typically makes for better water solubility, unless the previously dissolved compounds are only soluble in strong acids (ie: copper (I) chloride and silver chloride.

If you get precipitation upon cooling, the solution is saturated with a soluble compound and adding water should dissolve the precipitant.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

Thanks Steve - so if I add water to the blue green acid with percipitate it should go back up into solution and the I would use salt to drop silver chloride out?

G


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

or should I filter off the percipitate and address the crystal percip another way and the blue/green acid with salt?

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 6, 2008)

The first step is to filter or siphon off the liquid. The rinse the crystals to see if they are soluble or not.

The color could just be due to the liquid and not the color of the crystals themselves.

Any dissolved silver can be best separated by cementing with solid copper. 

You shouldn't use salt to separate silver from solutions unless you are trying to selectively separate silver from PGMs that may have co-dissolved with the silver. Hoke mentions this separation technique using HCl instead of NaCl if you have dissolved silver inquarted PGMs and used nitric to affect the dissolution (pg. 141) . She does not advise this method, but instead suggests using Sulfuric acid to affect the dissolution in this situation.

GSP has previously pointed out what's known as the silver chloride aversion principle, which generally means to avoid producing silver chloride where possible. 

If I produce silver chloride I immediately convert it to elemental silver using H2SO4 and iron. I have a video of this process I'll post soon. You should never let your silver chloride dry out (I learned this one the hard way).

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

So silver chloride BAD!!

What happens to dry silver chloride?

So filter then just add water and filter to catch any gold flakes and then stick a copper rod in the solution and silver will cement to the rod and then you can scrape off and its silver metal??

sounds easy!!

So the green blue fluid and the crystals I have are spent nitric with nickel and copper in solution that forced the silver nitrate out that is water soluble and will go back into solution with more water and then form silver metal on copper - RIGHT!

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 6, 2008)

Dry silver chloride is just a real pain to fully convert to silver metal.

The hard outer shell stops the conversion process.

No scraping is necessary, the silver will fall off as it cements out. You can watch the video on my website http://www.goldrecovery.us in the silver videos section.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 6, 2008)

THANKS AGAIN STEVE!!!!!!

I GOT MY BALLS DOWN TO THE MIDDLE! IM GONNA POST A PIC ON THE OTHER TOPIC!!!

YAHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE LITTLE BALLS NOW WITHOUT ANY THING ON THEM!

But they are rusty balls!

G


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 7, 2008)

I DID IT!!!!!

MY FIRST SILVER!!!!!!!!


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 7, 2008)

HAD TO CHANGE VESSELS - TOO MUCH SILVER FLASK TOO SMALL - I know for next batch!!!

I dryied what I filter off and have 36 grams of silver metal!

THANKS TOO ALL THAT HELPED ME GET THIS FAR!!!!!!!!!!

Glynn


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## lazersteve (Jan 7, 2008)

Glynn,

That is actually silver chloride. It would be wise to keep it under a layer of water until you are ready to convert it to elemental silver metal. 

I'll try to get my video of the sulfuric acid and iron conversion procedure posted tonight for you. It's really simple and I filmed it last week. It's almost magical the way it works.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 7, 2008)

I thought the copper cemented out the silver as metal - RIGHT - SILVER NITRATE WITH COPPER CEMENTS OUT. 

THE SILVER NITRATE AND COPPER MAKES COPPER NITRATE SOLUTION AND SILVER POWDER!

I watched your video and thats what told me this method - PLEASE tell me if I am wrong!

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 7, 2008)

Glynn,

If you used copper to drop the silver you're right on track. It looks very white in the photo.

Sorry about the scare, it's the photo, the spongy silver looks very white like silver chloride.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 7, 2008)

My appologies for my poor photos!!! I will have to bust out the Canon SLR digi next time and take real pics huh!

I WAS REALLY SCARED! I TOUCHED THAT STUFF! LOL!!!!

Well I filtered the silver and washed it several times so I should be ok - that was 30+ g's and I have alot more in the flask and the copper isnt doing any more action and it is still hanging from the string - safe to assume its done cementing????


TOPIC: torching sample
I was scared to try and fry one of the balls with a torch thinking that the gold is so thin and what with all the base metal being steel or stainless that the gold would go up in smoke with that kind of heat and I would have red smoke from the burning gold????????

Let me know what you come up with?

PM me when you get a chance PLEASE!

G


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## lazersteve (Jan 7, 2008)

Glynn,

Those photos are great, the color of the silver appears very white is why I made the mistake.

I sent you a PM.

Steve


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## Absolutsecurity (Jan 7, 2008)

THANKS STEVE!

I gotta make some meatballs so I will be back in a bit!

G


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