# newbie, and plated silver refining..!



## Anonymous (Jun 7, 2008)

Hi there all...

I have some silver plated copper tube and copper parts.
Since they are bulky material weigh a lot. I have 100 kgs of this material and also can get more...

So what I wonder is, are there any practical calculations for the gained amount of silver from these parts ? I should say like that 
ex : for the every inch squares .03 grams of silver...

Secondly , how can I refine silver, I read some techniques for the silver plated copper wires... When i do that ; wouldnt it be like ,lots of precipitated materials in container and few metalic silver , which leads to another problem to gain the metalic silver from that ? ( the method which you precipitate silver nitrates with copper )

any help appreciated...


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 7, 2008)

Average silver plated items run about 1% silver. Your guess is .03 grams/sq". That's an excellent guess. That's equal to about 200 micro", which is a reasonable thickness for silver, but maybe a little on the high side. 

Silver plated copper isn't worth much except for the copper value. There's just no good method for stripping off the silver without eating the copper. Even cyanide wants to eat both metals. The sulfuric cell will remove the silver selectively but, so far, I haven't seen a good method for recovering it from the sulfuric. There's an old plater's method for stripping the silver with a solution made with 95% sulfuric and 5% nitric. Very dangerous solution, especially if you have to heat it. And, here again, how do you get the silver out of the solution?

No matter what you do, don't dissolve the copper. You've probably got more copper value than you have silver value.

Maybe you can sell it on Ebay. Maybe you can find an electronics refiner that will give you a little premium for it. Look for one that incinerates the material and then cast bars for sale to a smelter. These guys are always looking for extra copper to add to the melt in order to lower the melting point. They get paid back for the copper, silver, gold, etc. from the smelter


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## Lino1406 (Jun 12, 2008)

If you think that's profitable, which I suspect
you can try these:
1. A/P will give you silver chloride
2. H2SO4/Persulphate/P will probably
give you silver + silver sulphate in solution
In both cases don't continue well over
after the majority of silver is stripped.
Silver from solution you cement with Zn
or Al powder


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## markqf1 (Jun 14, 2008)

That zn powder is some good stuff.
It has a way.

Mark


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## Shecker (Jun 15, 2008)

Try a 15% solution of nitric acid at room temperature. It will do silver first. When the solution starts to turn green filter, wash, and process the silver first to silver chloride then to silver. Use table salt to reduce the silver and there should be very little reaction with copper. You now have a lot of silver with a little copper.

Randy in Gunnison


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