# My first cell



## mikeinkaty (Jan 21, 2013)

Quoting from GSP:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8942&p=99496&hilit=electrolysis#p99736

If I understand this correctly and want to make a 1 liter cell I would put 111 ml of 62% nitric into a beaker having 72 ml of distilled water and 63.5 grams of cemented silver powder. After this has dissolved and exhausted all the nitric then I add enough h2o to bring the volume up to 1 Liter.

Does this sound about right? Maybe 65 grams of powder as I expect it is about .980 purity. The alloy is probably all copper as the powder was cemented from sterling. Would the 2% copper help or hinder the electrolysis? Some posts seem to think it would help.

My cathode will be SS and the anode will be one of my 4oz bars made from the cemeted silver.

Any help appreciated! Also, a XRF reading on two of my bars showed 98-99% with copper as being the primary 'contaminant'.

Mike (ps - I now have 42 bars poured!) 3 of them are probably 99+ as I redisolved and re-cemented them. All 3 have 'pipes' in the top if that means anything.


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## mikeinkaty (Jan 23, 2013)

Well, I guess I'll just plow ahead and see what happens.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 23, 2013)

Yes, having a percentage of copper dissolved in your electrolyte solution, as in a Blalbach Thum cell for example will help create well separated and formed silver crystals that are fluffy and easier to filter, scrape, clump, etc etc.

It takes a bit of playing around to get in a groove, specially if you are building your own cell. But once you have it dialed in, you can produce some really nice silver crystal.

Scott


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## mikeinkaty (Jan 27, 2013)

SBrown said:


> Yes, having a percentage of copper dissolved in your electrolyte solution, as in a Blalbach Thum cell for example will help create well separated and formed silver crystals that are fluffy and easier to filter, scrape, clump, etc etc.
> 
> It takes a bit of playing around to get in a groove, specially if you are building your own cell. But once you have it dialed in, you can produce some really nice silver crystal.
> 
> Scott



Thanks Scott. I have 763 grams of crystal now. All pretty and shiny! Got about 4500 + grams yet to go! I had a couple of bars that had a lot of black residue in the catch bag. I was watching one when a black cloud starting coming out of the catch bag so I shut that cell down and cleaned it up. I made some electrolyte yesterday for the 2nd cell that also had the black cloudiness. I filtered it then dryed the black powder and melted a small BB. See "Mystery Metal" here. 

I like the larger nodgules made with lesser amperage but I like the speed of high amperage better. Cleaning out the crystals is easy and they way I'm using mine now keeps the crystals from growing into the bag. My bars are 98-99% so I have no idea how many I can do per electrolyte batch. The 1st batch is starting to get light blue and cloudy now.

Mike


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