# Needle like crystals in silver nitrate



## mjgraham (Mar 4, 2015)

Hello everyone been a while since I have done any refining on here. What I have started with is about 1Kg of sterling material, as far as I have been told from old jewelry. I have melted and poured into cornflakes put in 500ml water and about 200 ml nitric acid, heated and when it cooled I got these crystals. I am trying to determine what they may be, I am thinking maybe lead but I am not sure. They dissolve with very little heat and I am sure they can be filtered easily just any thoughts would be helpful. The solution is actually more green than blue.
thanks


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 4, 2015)

I agree, it sounds and looks like lead nitrate.

Dave


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 4, 2015)

> Hello everyone been a while since I have done any refining on here. What I have started with is about 1Kg of sterling material, as far as I have been told from old jewelry. I have melted and poured into cornflakes put in 500ml water and about 200 ml nitric acid, heated and when it cooled I got these crystals. I am trying to determine what they may be, I am thinking maybe lead but I am not sure. They dissolve with very little heat and I am sure they can be filtered easily just any thoughts would be helpful. The solution is actually more green than blue.


According to my calculations, it would take close to 1490ml of 70% nitric acid plus 1490ml of distilled water to dissolve 1000g of sterling silver.

If the sterling is 90% and it takes 1.2ml of nitric to dissolve a gram of silver and 4.1g per gram of copper, it will take 1000 x .9 x 1.2 = 1,080ml for the silver and 1000 x .1 x 4.1 = 410ml for the copper - total of 1490ml of 70% nitric.

I assume that everything is not dissolved. If it did, you either made a mistake on the amounts you used or it wasn't sterling


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## mjgraham (Mar 4, 2015)

No your math is right on, not all of it is dissolved by a long shot, what I am curious about is how to clean it up, what I was thinking was to just carry on and then when everything is gone but what will not dissolve, filter it off when it is cold and separate the crystals off , drop with copper I am going to guess there should be some amount of lead there the the silver cell should clean that up. My first batch of silver I did not have these crystals but also I had a much poorer system (or so I thought) and ended up with about 8L of solution so I might have had some lead but had a lot more solution to hide in. This round trying to keep it concentrated, my nitric is about 63% still doing the 50/50 distilled water going 500ml each at a time then pour it off.
Thanks


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## nickvc (Mar 5, 2015)

Cold saturated silver nitrate solutions will form crystals in my experience, dissolve all your material and add more water and see if those crystals disappear.


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## kurtak (Mar 5, 2015)

nickvc said:


> Cold saturated silver nitrate solutions will form crystals in my experience, dissolve all your material and add more water and see if those crystals disappear.



I agree with Dave - they look more like lead nitrate crystals then silver nitrate crystals --- silver nitrate crystals are more cubic

Kurt


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 5, 2015)

I go with lead nitrate also.


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## Palladium (Mar 5, 2015)

Silver nitrate crystals


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## Lino1406 (Mar 5, 2015)

Use distilled water to dissolve


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## Palladium (Apr 18, 2015)

More crystal fun! This time the saturated silver has cemented out on the undigested materials to look like flat fern patterns.


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## Palladium (Aug 19, 2015)

I found it sort of just hanging around. :mrgreen:


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## Palladium (Aug 20, 2015)

Look!!! It brought a friend.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Aug 20, 2015)

Where are the candles to go on top?


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## mjgraham (Aug 28, 2015)

That is crazy looking, I no where near that level of material sadly, do have some in a cell making upside down trees, slowly


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## MarcoP (Aug 29, 2015)

Experiences like this makes studying and holding the material harder :lol: ... sweet!


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