# Copper in my silver cement



## tensecondsdown (Apr 14, 2018)

Hi, I refined some gold by inquartation and that worked fine. I put a copper plate in the silver nitrate to cement the silver out. I think there was still some nitric acid in it but I read that it would not matter as it would just re dissolve the silver until it was used up then cement out fully. I rinsed the powder a bunch of times and dried it and the powder has a blue tinge to it so I don't thin I got all the copper out. Should I just rinse it some more or is there something I can use to dissolve just the copper? Thanks.


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## Palladium (Apr 14, 2018)

If your going to use it for inquarting it won't matter that it has some copper mixed in. 
What are you going to use it for?


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## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 14, 2018)

Blue tinge eh?

I like to use dilute sulfuric acid as a rinse (it has a liking for copper oxide [blue tinge] not silver) The blue tinge will be solvated, and leave pure silver. The blue rinse can be evaporated down and used as a copper cell electrolyte. When i do this, i only use 10 to 20% concentration of sulfuric acid.


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## tensecondsdown (Apr 15, 2018)

Palladium said:


> If your going to use it for inquarting it won't matter that it has some copper mixed in.
> What are you going to use it for?



I wanted to melt it back down to .999


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## Palladium (Apr 15, 2018)

You won't get .999 by the cementation method. You need to melt it and run it through a silver cell.


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## tensecondsdown (Apr 17, 2018)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> Blue tinge eh?
> 
> I like to use dilute sulfuric acid as a rinse (it has a liking for copper oxide [blue tinge] not silver) The blue tinge will be solvated, and leave pure silver. The blue rinse can be evaporated down and used as a copper cell electrolyte. When i do this, i only use 10 to 20% concentration of sulfuric acid.



Awesome thanks, the sulfuric acid did the trick.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Apr 24, 2018)

tensecondsdown said:


> Awesome thanks, the sulfuric acid did the trick.



How did it look after the melt?

If the only copper that made it into the cement was oxidized and then eaten up by the sulfuric acid, i bet it was pretty darn pure and shined like a new dime.

But, palladium is right, for triple 9 plus, you need a silver cell.
Even if you dont needneed it, it is fascinating to watch


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