# Silver Metal from Silver Chloride Overview- Updated



## lazersteve

I've decided to post a new tutorial on recovering silver metal from silver chloride. I posted the segment on how to separate silver from gold with dilute nitric acid which yielded silver chloride. You can view that post here:

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=887&highlight=#887

I'll be posting two parts to this topic one for the electolytic method and the other for the purely chemical method.

The quick overview is as folows:

1. Electrolytic Precipitation of Silver from Silver Chloride

Cathode: Graphite
Anode: Platinum Wire
Electrolyte: Ammonium Hydroxide and Silver Chloride
Product Retrival: Vaccuum Filtration of Powder Residue
Clean Up: Distilled water wash.
Smelting: Use borax flux
Product Purity: 99%+

2. Hydroxide Precipitation of Silver from Silver Chloride

*UPDATE This tutorial is now available at :*


http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=1208#1208

Chemicals: Dry Sodium Hydroxide
Corn Syrup
Distilled Water
Silver Chloride 
Product Retrival: Filtration of Powder Residue
Clean Up: Distilled water wash.
Smelting: Use borax flux
Product Purity: 98%+

I'll begin these videos when I finish up with the last filtering video.

Please post your suggestions and comments.


Steve


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## PRECIOUS METALS

hey steve can you help here i just finished doing p-1 cpus mmx 

now im ready to participate i tested for gold and it terned blue 

any ideas what blu is


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## lazersteve

Are you sure it's not just a light purple? If so it means you have some gold. Remember the darker the color the more gold. The lighter (light purple) the color the less gold there is.


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## ThePierCer

Steve, I'm really looking forward to this one, keep up the great work!


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## PRECIOUS METALS

hey steve what can you do if the gold wont participate 
using aqua regia tested for gold and lots of it 
as i add s,bisulfite gold wont come down ,heated to a boil a bowl of hot water add the participant then add the acid with gold ,and still nothing

any ideas

precious metals


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## lazersteve

Did you add urea until the fizz was gone?


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## PRECIOUS METALS

yes plus added a little extra just to make shore


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## lazersteve

Here's a snapshot of the silver chloride after it has dried. Tomorrow I'll attempt to turn this back into silver metal powder on video. Notice how the light has changed the color of the Silver Chloride.







Steve

P.S. I've posted an update to the previous post on Filtering in the Tutorial Questions Section.


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## PRECIOUS METALS

wow yea i got lots of that ,i filter my aqua regia before participating to get the silver cloride out ,would love to see the video how to tern it into silver .


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## goldsilverpro

I watched your AgCl to Ag conversion video, with interest, and would like to make a few comments. Please don't take offence, but I feel that your technique will not usually convert all of the chloride to metal. It might work sometimes but othertimes it won't. I think that most of the problem lies in the understanding of what is really happening. Have you tried melting any of this metal? Have you noticed a tenacious, milky, iridescent layer on top of the cooled metal. If so, this is unconverted silver chloride. Probably the best way to prove your process would be to dissolve a weighed amount of silver in nitric, salt it out, convert it, melt it, remove any coating, reweigh it, and compare the weights. You will probably lose a little silver in a torch melt but it shouldn't exceed 1 or 2%.

About 30 years ago, I spent some time in a lab determining exactly how much Karo syrup and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, lye) it would take to convert a known quantity of silver chloride to silver. Since then, I have processed at least 10,000 ozs of silver using this method. This is what I found:

1) If you don't crush all of the dried silver chloride to a very fine powder, you won't get complete conversion. I noticed a few chunks in the video. When you try to convert these chunks, a layer of silver oxide or silver metal forms on the surface and blocks the chemicals from penetrating to the center of the chunk. I would suggest grinding in a mortar and pestle. Actually, the best way is to never dry the silver chloride. Keep it submerged in water, cover it when in storage to keep the light out, and stir it good before adding and while adding the chemicals. You're going to need water, anyway, in the process. 

2) The purpose of the sodium hydroxide is to convert the silver chloride to silver oxide. The silver oxide is then converted to silver metal by the Karo syrup (corn sugar). The purpose of the Karo syrup is not to act as a flocculating agent. It is actually what produces the silver metal. Theoretically, you don't really need the syrup. You could easily flux melt the silver oxide directly to convert it to metal. However, it is a bear to filter silver oxide and it is, therefore, best to use the syrup.

3) When I did the lab experiments, I used 31.1 grams of silver chloride, which contains 23.4 grams of silver metal. This took 15 grams of sodium hydroxide, 10 mL (cc's) of light Karo syrup, and 100mL of water for complete conversion. In practice, I use about 10% extra chemicals.

4) If the process is being used to semi-purify items of known silver content, such as sterling silver, keep track of how much silver you have so you'll know the amount of needed chemicals. If the silver amount is unknown, such as in aqua regia residues, you'll have to make a guess. Just make sure you add enough. A little extra won't hurt.

5) To test for complete conversion: Put a small sample, about a half gram, of the converted solids into a beaker and cover with distilled water. Stir and then allow the solids to settle. Carefully pour out the rinse water without disturbing the solids. Repeat several times until the rinse water runs perfectly clear. Add a small amount of good nitric acid and an equal amount of distilled water. This will dissolve the silver metal. When the silver has dissolved, add distilled water to about an inch depth. If a white cloud (silver chloride) forms, the conversion is not complete and, either you need more chemicals or, the chunks weren't completely broken up.


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## lazersteve

Thank you for the great suggestions. I had previously made note of the chunks problem in the follow up text. You are correct the chunks did not fully convert as expected and had to be rerun. I did those the day after the video was made. 

I have posted the theorectical calculations for the amount of NaOH to use when prompted by another poster for the information. It worked out to right at 12 grams and I used 17 for good measure.

I had no clue about the exact amount of karo to use and will incorporate your figures into my future work.

Thank you again,

Great post. It's always nice to get things right working as a team. Your vast experience with silver will come in handy to the forum in future posts I'm sure.

Steve


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## Harold_V

My choice for converting silver chloride to elemental silver required almost no effort on my part aside from washing the chloride well before the conversion. I kept a jar of chloride at the ready, to which I'd add more as it accumulated. When I had enough to convert, usually about a quart, I washed it well a few times with tap water, to eliminate any traces of copper, then once or twice with hot water, to remove any lead nitrate that may have been carried to the pot. Instead of pouring off solutions, I used a small hose and did all my transferring by that method. It avoids stirring up the chloride, which tends to go all at once when you pour. 

Once well washed, the chloride was placed in a large Pyrex handled vessel, where it was covered with a 10% solution of HCL and tap water. Pieces of scrap aluminum were then introduced to the chloride, and stirred occasionally. Given enough time, there's a complete conversion of chloride to elemental silver. After the conversion is complete, pieces of aluminum are removed, and a wash with HCL and water cleans the silver. Wash and decant, then filter with a Buchner funnel. This silver is ready * to be melted, then run in the parting cell. 

Harold

An added note: It makes no sense to dry silver chloride. It does not handle well, and serves no real purpose. Keep it wet at all times by leaving the last solution poured in until you need to add more. Decant when you need more room, always keeping the chloride covered with solution. 

Edit: * removed the word "for" which made no sense.


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## lazersteve

Harold,

Your hands on experience is the best in the land! Thank you. I'll try it your way and post a video for everyone to see how you do it! Check your PM's.

Great Stuff,

Steve


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## lazersteve

Hello Again,

I tried my first shot at inquarting and cornflaking my percipitated silver with the gold from my electrolytic cell. The melted gold weighed 11.5 g and the assumed silver powder weighed 29.5 g.

When I began melting the silver powder, I ran into the exact situation that Chris pointed out in his comment on my silver percipitation tutorial... a translucent milky film. There was a lot more than I expected, so as he said, my silver did not fully convert from the chloride. I went ahead with the inquarting and ended up with this after cornflaking the mix:






The cornflakes weigh 28.5 grams total so I figure I had quite a bit of unconverted silver chloride ( 12.5 grams!!!  ). I guess this shows I need a little more practice myself when it comes to converting silver chloride to silver.

:idea: I learned that Chris and Harold are right on the money when it comes to silver chloride:
Never dry the chloride out, leave it submerged in water after dropping it from the nitric solution. Rinse it well and always convert the chloride wet. 

Thanks for all the great tips guys, don't give up hope on me yet, I'll get the hang of the purification steps soon enough.

Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated (like how do I get the melted silver chloride out of the melting dish ).
Steve


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## Harold_V

lazersteve said:


> Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated (like how do I get the melted silver chloride out of the melting dish ).
> Steve



Here's a good case for using soda ash. While I don't recommend you reduce silver chloride with a torch, especially in a dish, if your dish is so contaminated, get everything molten, then introduce soda ash and get it in the mix. You'll see silver prills form before your very eyes. 

Remember how I told you to clean melting dishes? Soda ash is a *reducer*, which will convert the silver chloride to elemental silver, the only problems being it's not exactly a fast conversion, and it dissolves your melting dish as it works. If you save your flux and dishes, and eventually end up with a ball mill and furnace, you'll recover the values when you can allow the flux mix to "cook" for the prescribed amount of time. That tilting furnace I posted some time ago was used in that capacity. Truth be told, if you'll follow my advice and store this stuff instead of converting it to ready cash, you'll have one of the best retirement funds you could imagine. You can't spend it the way it is, and it adds up quite quickly. Were it not for my waste materials, which I stored for about 20 years, I'd not have been able to retire at age 54. 

Harold


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## lazersteve

Good News,

Luckily I poured the molten silver chloride off into a second dish and it didn't stick to the second dish! I went out to the garage after making the above post and the cooled silver chloride flaked right off the dish all in one big piece... no problems.

Thanks for the repeat on the soda ash tip. I used the advice once already and it worked pretty well. I'll keep it in mind for future snafus!

Steve


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## lazersteve

Harold,

I processed the once molten left over silver chloride as you described with the soda ash. I got another 6 grams of silver out of it, but that still leaves me 6.5 grams shy. There is still a lot of very free flowing liquid that has to be poured off when the dish is hot. Is this stuff still silver chloride? How much soda ash does it take to convert this stuff back to silver. I worked on it for nearly half an hour to get the 6 grams back. How do I know when there is no more silver in the molten residues? When I heat the dish intensely I get white smoke and a free flowing liquid. If I add soda ash to this I get a gray-green crusty substance that melts and becomes free flowing again.

Steve


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## Harold_V

Steve,

I wish I had answers for you. I never processed silver chloride by that method, although I reduced quite a bit of it from my waste materials in similar fashion, which was by design. Unfortunately, I had no idea of the amount of chloride in the mix. The source was from filters after filtering gold chloride, and any filters that may have been used in processing silver by other means. My purpose in this case was to use silver as a collector of greater values. For that, it was exceedingly successful, with my final flux being of such low value that it wasn't acceptable at a refinery that goes after trace values with litharge. Based on that, I was more than comfortable that I was extracting the values to a point where any further effort would have been wasteful of not only my time, but of resources as well. Cooking reducing charges such as those I used were very hard on furnace lining, necessitating frequent patching and quite often a complete reline. They would be worse, by far, on melting dishes due to their makeup. My furnace lining was 94% alumina. 

While I appreciate your scientific approach to your learning curve, you may just have to get used to losing trace amounts. Some of the previous handling could very well have been the source of some of your loss, which, in reality, is quite small. Not withstanding, I'm sure it irritates you no end that you can't account for the missing metal. 

I've always had a saying. As long as you don't toss anything, it's not lost, although it may be tied up in something. That, of course, would have to include filters from a fume hood. For all I know, when you heat silver chloride with an open flame, some of it may volatize and be lost. I simply don't know! Perhaps Sue can lend his thoughts in this instance. He claims to be a chief metallurgist, where I have no training aside from hands-on refining. 

As a last resort, it wouldn't hurt to introduce more soda ash to the dish to see if more metal forms. If so, that may provide you with some guidelines on how much is required to reduce the chloride. 

Also, if you'd be interested, I can provide the recipe I used for flux in the tilting furnace when I reduced my waste materials. It was of my own design after considerable research----with a requirement of reducing silver chloride being of uppermost importance to the operation. 

You may recall that when reducing silver chloride for the sake of recovering the silver (not when needed as a collector), my method was to reduce it with scrap aluminum. I don't recall ever having any problems with less than total recovery, although if I did, the slag from melting it would have been further processed in my tilting furnace, at which time I'd extract any values that may have slipped past me. 

Unlike GSP, I was never enamored with silver, although I processed a large quantity of it and appreciated having it as a savings account. In truth, were it not a necessity in processing gold, I wouldn't have processed silver at all. When it was put in terms of dollar value, I handled, easily, twenty times more in gold, and my reserves reflected that very thing, considering I did all my refining on a percentage basis. I could process one hundred ounces of gold much faster than I could 100 ounces of silver, with very little difference in chemical costs, if any. As they say-----do the math!

Harold


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## lazersteve

Harold,

Thank you for the reply. I tried more soda ash and still no results. The main thing I notice is that if I increase the torch heat I get a white smoke. The residue which produced the additional 6 gms of silver is now a greenish white color and turns into a very flowing liquid with minimal heat. The missing weight exactly equals the remaining substance. It cools into a hard greenish white smooth mass that doesn't stick to whatever you dump it on when it's molten. It's not glassy like borax, but is brittle. The melting dish is very clean now. 8) 

I've tried another batch of silver following the modified directions given by you and Chris and this batch had little if any of the flowing substance after melting. I did notice something different about the second batch. As the button cooled for a second or two it began discharging a gas which formed a rough nugget like appearance on the top of the silver button. Do you know what that may have been? I figured it was some flux trapped under the button venting thru the silver as it cooled. Here's what it looks like:






I'm interested in your flux recipie if you wish to share it with me, either publicly here or privately via PM.

Thanks Again,

Steve


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## Harold_V

lazersteve said:


> As the button cooled for a second or two it began discharging a gas which formed a rough nugget like appearance on the top of the silver button. Do you know what that may have been?



Most assuredly, it's nothing more than oxygen. As you study silver, you'll come to understand that it has a tremendous affinity for oxygen, which it will absorb at the rate of nine times its own volume, but expels as the metal solidifies. Silver and oxygen do not readily mix with one another. When the oxygen is expelled a crabby surface with tiny "volcanoes" is not uncommon. The presence of other elements in the metal (copper, for example) seriously interfere with the absorption of oxygen, so you don't see that characteristic when melting dirty silver, or alloyed silver. You can use that as a measure, of sorts, to determine if your silver is near being pure. 



> I'm interested in your flux recipie if you wish to share it with me, either publiclly here or privately via PM.



I'll go to the file where I have it stored and copy the information and post it here. Mean time, please check your PM's. 

Harold


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## Harold_V

(3) parts waste material (in this case, that would be your silver chloride)
(1 ½) parts silica sand
(3 ½) parts soda ash
(1/2) part fluorspar
(2) parts borax 
Tap water to make a batter much like a cake when poured in a pan.

You'll have to experiment to determine how much water is required for your particular setup. 

Dry mix the material briefly then add the water. Mix fast as the material stiffens up. The mix should be wet enough to go into a slurry. If it isn’t, add a little more water. Too much doesn’t hurt, it just makes a mess. It isn’t necessary to mix very well. Once again, the mixing of the furnace will do the job nicely when the charge is molten. (That may not be true when melting in a crucible. My tilting furnace was a modified reverberatory of my own design----with the flame impinging directly on the charge.)

Pour this mix into some disposable forms, such as lids from sour cream containers, or the sour cream containers themselves. Just don't make them very thick, so they can be broken easily if necessary, and they can dry readily. They set up rapidly into a solid. Allow a day, then remove them from the forms and allow to dry completely before melting. Once set, the plastic forms release them easily. They can be melted while wet, but require a lot more time and energy. The resulting material can be heated without losing any of the constituents. Keep in mind, I introduced these to a furnace, they were not torch melted. That may or may not work well. Dunno!

The fluorspar in the flux makes it very thin, almost like water, and it's very aggressive in dissolving everything in its path. The thin flux allows prills to agglomerate easier---and makes pouring off the charge easier as well. A cone mold makes separating the flux from values no chore. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro

Steve, although I have great respect for you, some of the things you do worries me. It's obvious that you fear nothing but, in this field, that could sometimes get you, and others, in trouble. One reason I am probably attracted to this chemistry is the inherent dangers. I haven't done much pyrotechnics but, I'm sure it produces a similar thrill. I have played around with thermite and thermate, using magnesium fuses.

The thing that really worried me was when you were converting the silver chloride to metal with a torch. I would never use a torch for silver because it's very easy to get things too hot. Silver chloride melts at a low 850 deg F (the flow you saw) and starts evaporating at less than 1560 deg F., along with the NaCl that is produced in the conversion. This was the white smoke you saw. The silver losses you experienced probably went into the air. I hope you were wearing your SCBA gear. The extremely rough button produced, in the photo, is not only an indication of high purity but, also, of way too much heat. I had a friend that died from breathing these fumes. He always had his head over the furnace because, he liked watching the AgCl convert. Some years back, a man named Kunda came up with a much lower temp. furnace method for conversion. This method is used widely today.


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## lazersteve

Chris, 

You've put the fear of God in me now! :shock: I wasn't wearing scba, but the 16 ft wide garage door and side door were wide open and a nice breeze was blowing thru. I guess someone upstairs likes me! 

Do you recommend a furnace for this type of smelting?

Thanks for keeping an eye on me!

Steve


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## goldsilverpro

I would use a chemical method, such as Karo/lye or aluminum, as Harold suggested. You can also use powered zinc or mix it with slugs of iron and dilute sulfuric. Before melting, I would test for complete conversion using the simple method covered here in my post - item #5. When the conversion is complete you can melt it quickly with a cool torch or in a furnace. 

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=120

Silver metal will also evaporate, if you get it too hot for too long. Several times I have forgotten and left a pure silver bead in a cupel in about a 1700 deg F. furnace. When I found it, after 5 or 6 hours, it had evaporated to almost nothing.

A friend of mine blends the silver chloride with enough soda ash for conversion, puts it in a crucible and covers it with borax. He then puts it in a hot pot furnace and allows it to get up to temperature. When it's hot, he turns the furnace off allows it to cool overnight. He claims good conversion.

In the last 150 years, or so, refiners have practiced what is called "chloride aversion or avoidance". In other words, they don't produce silver chloride unless they have to. I do the same. About the only AgCl I HAVE to produce is the residues from aqua regia. I really don't have to do that but, I do. It takes less work in the long run. I could inquart and get the silver out with nitric. It's really easy and tempting to make AgCl - you just add some HCl or salt water. Getting the silver out of the chloride is another story. Even with silver nitrate solutions, I don't form AgCl. Instead, I cement out the silver on copper buss bar.

I'll check on the Kunda low temp furnace process if you want but, I don't think you need it.


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## lazersteve

Thanks for the tip. I think I'll go with the copper buss bars from here on out and drop the silver directly. 

I'm also picking up a SCBA and full Tevek body suit to sleep in for the next few nights so I feel safe again!! :lol: Just kidding, but I am ordering the SCBA breather for future use.

Steve


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## Harold_V

goldsilverpro said:


> In the last 150 years, or so, refiners have practiced what is called "chloride aversion or avoidance". In other words, they don't produce silver chloride unless they have to.



Funny you should mention that, Chris. I came to that conclusion as well, so the only time I converted to chloride was when the solution was so contaminated with other substances that the resulting silver came down way too dirty. On rare occasions, when my solution contained values in the platinum group and the silver was recovered as chloride, I'd decant the solution afterwards and place it in my stock pot, where everything that would precipitate on iron was recovered*. I guess the bottom line is once you've worked with chloride a little, you come to realize it's not the best way to go, so you learn to avoid it, even when you had no idea the "big boys" had a policy of doing so. It just made sense at the time. 

*The precipitated elements were processed, along with other waste materials, in the tilting furnace. The resulting metal was then parted according to conventional acid methods. By this method, traces of the PG metals got concentrated to the point of being able to be recovered. Interestingly, by nature of the methods I employed, enough silver chloride accumulated in my wastes that the silver acted as a great collector, and was in proportions that allowed parting without inquartation. 

Harold


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## goldsilverpro

I've been thinking of how the Karo syrup method could be used to get 100% conversion. When I did this on a large scale, in an open top 55 gallon plastic drum, I had the best luck when using a Lightnin' mixer to stir the mix. This type mixer tends to chop up the AgCl, which allows the chemicals to penetrate and completely convert it to Ag metal. 

On a smaller scale, I think a dedicated blender (garage sale) would work great. It would really chop up the silver chloride. It would probably work even if the AgCl was dried out. Of course, the AgCl would have to be very well rinsed before doing this, to remove any nitric and dissolved metals. The seal in the blender might be attacked by the sodium hydroxide but, if no excess is used, this may not happen. With the blender action, the conversion wouldn't take long. After removing everything from the blender, one might rinse the blender with a little vinegar to remove any traces of sodium hydroxide. Then, rinse it well with hot water.

For 1 tr.oz. of silver metal, about 41.5 grams of silver chloride, it takes about 20 grams of sodium hydroxide, 13.3 mL of light Karo syrup, and 133 mL of water.

Just an idea. I think it would work great. The only problem might be the seal.

On a medium large scale - bucket size - one of those stainless paint mixers chucked in a drill might work well. They also have a good chopping action.


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## lazersteve

Chris,

Great post!

I added your figures to the Reactions List.

Steve


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## Toobigfortx

Im Sorry for asking a really stupid question but, Is it possible to just dry the Silver Chloride and put it in a crucible then torch it? wont the heat break the bonds between the Chlorine and silver atoms, Leaving you with Chlorine gas and Silver metal? or am I way off base?


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## element47

All I can say is that this is one incredibly interesting and informative thread for us silver devotees! I feel like I'm getting the benefit of about 40 years of silver refining/processing experience.


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## goldsilverpro

Toobigfortx said:


> Im Sorry for asking a really stupid question but, Is it possible to just dry the Silver Chloride and put it in a crucible then torch it? wont the heat break the bonds between the Chlorine and silver atoms, Leaving you with Chlorine gas and Silver metal? or am I way off base?



I can't find any specific data to back me up, but I know from experience that that won't work and to attempt it could be dangerous. Silver chloride melts at a fairly low 850F and, when this gets a little hotter, I know you evolve white toxic AgCl fumes. I did find this reference that states that silver chloride is not decomposed by heat (#24).

http://chestofbooks.com/science/mining/Leaching-Gold-And-Silver-Ores/Roasting-Continued.html



> All I can say is that this is one incredibly interesting and informative thread for us silver devotees! I feel like I'm getting the benefit of about 40 years of silver refining/processing experience.



If you're talking about just Harold and me, figure about 70-80 years total.


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## Toobigfortx

WOW really That toxic....Hell Im glad I didnt try it!!! thanks for the info


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## saadat68

goldsilverpro said:


> I watched your AgCl to Ag conversion video, with interest, and would like to make a few comments. Please don't take offence, but I feel that your technique will not usually convert all of the chloride to metal. It might work sometimes but othertimes it won't. I think that most of the problem lies in the understanding of what is really happening. Have you tried melting any of this metal? Have you noticed a tenacious, milky, iridescent layer on top of the cooled metal. If so, this is unconverted silver chloride. Probably the best way to prove your process would be to dissolve a weighed amount of silver in nitric, salt it out, convert it, melt it, remove any coating, reweigh it, and compare the weights. You will probably lose a little silver in a torch melt but it shouldn't exceed 1 or 2%.
> 
> About 30 years ago, I spent some time in a lab determining exactly how much Karo syrup and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, lye) it would take to convert a known quantity of silver chloride to silver. Since then, I have processed at least 10,000 ozs of silver using this method. This is what I found:
> 
> 1) If you don't crush all of the dried silver chloride to a very fine powder, you won't get complete conversion. I noticed a few chunks in the video. When you try to convert these chunks, a layer of silver oxide or silver metal forms on the surface and blocks the chemicals from penetrating to the center of the chunk. I would suggest grinding in a mortar and pestle. Actually, the best way is to never dry the silver chloride. Keep it submerged in water, cover it when in storage to keep the light out, and stir it good before adding and while adding the chemicals. You're going to need water, anyway, in the process.
> 
> 2) The purpose of the sodium hydroxide is to convert the silver chloride to silver oxide. The silver oxide is then converted to silver metal by the Karo syrup (corn sugar). The purpose of the Karo syrup is not to act as a flocculating agent. It is actually what produces the silver metal. Theoretically, you don't really need the syrup. *You could easily flux melt the silver oxide directly to convert it to metal. However, it is a bear to filter silver oxide and it is, therefore, best to use the syrup*.
> 
> 3) When I did the lab experiments, I used 31.1 grams of silver chloride, which contains 23.4 grams of silver metal. This took 15 grams of sodium hydroxide, 10 mL (cc's) of light Karo syrup, and 100mL of water for complete conversion. In practice, I use about 10% extra chemicals.
> 
> 4) If the process is being used to semi-purify items of known silver content, such as sterling silver, keep track of how much silver you have so you'll know the amount of needed chemicals. If the silver amount is unknown, such as in aqua regia residues, you'll have to make a guess. Just make sure you add enough. A little extra won't hurt.
> 
> 5) To test for complete conversion: Put a small sample, about a half gram, of the converted solids into a beaker and cover with distilled water. Stir and then allow the solids to settle. Carefully pour out the rinse water without disturbing the solids. Repeat several times until the rinse water runs perfectly clear. Add a small amount of good nitric acid and an equal amount of distilled water. This will dissolve the silver metal. When the silver has dissolved, add distilled water to about an inch depth. If a white cloud (silver chloride) forms, the conversion is not complete and, either you need more chemicals or, the chunks weren't completely broken up.


Hi
I have some questions
1- What happen if we add 20 or 30 percent extra chemicals (NaOH or Syrup)?
2- I want to add just NaOH to convert silver chloride and then decompose it to silver metal by melting. As I can't find Karo syrup here I think it is better for me. You said it's problem is filtering. Is there another problem in don't using Karo syrup ?

Thank You


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## goldandsilver123

saadat68 said:


> 1- What happen if we add 20 or 30 percent extra chemicals (NaOH or Syrup)?
> 2- I want to add just NaOH to convert silver chloride and then decompose it to silver metal by melting. As I can't find Karo syrup here I think it is better for me. You said it's problem is filtering. Is there another problem in don't using Karo syrup ?



2- I use sugar instead of karo syrup, I just dissolve it first, never had any problem with it. 

1- Excess sugar/syrup never made difference to me, too large excess of NaOH produces a fine powder that doesn't settle.


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## saadat68

goldandsilver123 said:


> saadat68 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 1- What happen if we add 20 or 30 percent extra chemicals (NaOH or Syrup)?
> 2- I want to add just NaOH to convert silver chloride and then decompose it to silver metal by melting. As I can't find Karo syrup here I think it is better for me. You said it's problem is filtering. Is there another problem in don't using Karo syrup ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2- I use sugar instead of karo syrup, I just dissolve it first, never had any problem with it.
> 
> 1- Excess sugar/syrup never made difference to me, too large excess of NaOH produces a fine powder that doesn't settle.
Click to expand...

Thanks

Can you say how much sugar I must use for 31.1 grams of silver chloride according to this post :


> When I did the lab experiments, I used 31.1 grams of silver chloride, which contains 23.4 grams of silver metal. This took 15 grams of sodium hydroxide, 10 mL (cc's) of light Karo syrup, and 100mL of water for complete conversion



20% excess of NaOH is too large ? I really can not exactly estimate how much silver I have in solution


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## goldandsilver123

Around 300 g of refined sugar per kilo of silver, I use excess, even if you use 1kg of sugar per kilo of silver it's fine.

20% excess NaOH is OK


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## silver1

1 gram of sugar = 3ml of Kayro syrup
65-70 grams of sugar per lb of silver metal.
.


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