Silver Waste Solution - My Approach To It - Advice Welcome!

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MrMylar

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
98
Location
U.S.A.
Hello members,

I have a 5gal bucket of waste solution that was only used to pour left over/exhausted diluted nitric acid from refining keyboard mylars. The recovery process has not been a problem, nor is there a problem with the waste solution that I have, but I want to make sure I'm doing everything correct and at the same time collect any, if there is any, remaining silver from it.

1) After adding silver from mylars to the diluted nitric I let it cook on low heat. After all the silver have been dissolved, I filtered the solution and put it in a beaker to drop the silver with copper.

2) After all the silver have been dropped, I then filtered the solution and put the waste into a 5gal bucket. I even put the waste filers in there too.

3) After letting the bucket get almost full, I would notice that if I took a plastic rod (from old vertical blinds) the solution would create a white cloud, almost looking like milk. But, if I let the solution settle for a day or so and then decant from the top and let the solution go into a beaker and stick a piece of copper in it, and then leave it there for a few days, nothing happens. No solution gets darker and no silver drops from the copper at all.


Here is the question(s) I have and hopefully someone can advise me on what I should be doing if I'm doing something wrong.

4) I plan to take out all the filters and pieces of plastic with plastic tongs and put them in a plastic bowl or similar to rinse them off. Then...
5) I plan to let the solution settle all the carbon and white cloud to the bottom of the buck for at least 2 days. Then...
6) I plan to filter the solution and capture the carbon and any other solids that won't go through the filter. Then...
7) I plan to let the solution settle for a day or so, and then "decant" the solution and once I've decanted everything, pour the remaining white cloud/mud into a glass beaker.

From there I am thinking about adding more water, letting the cloud settle, and then decanting the solution until it's all clear and then from there, let it dry out and melt... or...

After performing no# 7, add some dilute nitric to the solution and add copper to drop out the silver.

Any suggestions or recommendations are welcome. Pictures are posted. The solution is not contaminated with other chemicals or metals, except copper, which I'll drop the copper out of it with some steel once I get all the silver, and then neutralize the solution.

silver-waste-solution.jpg

Thanks for your input!

[EDIT] I don't have any question marks on my post, so I actually didn't ask any questions... sorry... but your input is still appreciated!
 
Two questions for you--

1. Did you at anytime test your solutions with stannous prior to putti g it all in the bucket?
2. Why did you put filter papers in your waste bucket? They probably have silver or others metals in them. You should be keeping them in a bag for incineration at a later date to recover traces of precious metals.
 
yar said:
Two questions for you--

1. Did you at anytime test your solutions with stannous prior to putti g it all in the bucket?
2. Why did you put filter papers in your waste bucket? They probably have silver or others metals in them. You should be keeping them in a bag for incineration at a later date to recover traces of precious metals.
Answer to no# 1. No. Because I never knew that stannous would test for silver. I'll have to do some research on that one.

Answer to no# 2. The reason for putting the filters in the bucket was that if there was any "free/active" nitric acid it would dissolve the silver that had dried on the filters.

Besides, nothing is lost and in the worst case scenario, I either have no silver in the solution or I'll have to do as I mentioned and drop what's left with copper. I could have incinerated the filters, but I figured that since one product was used for the refining, I can simply add the filters to the waste basket. Also, for the amount of filters used, I'd rather add them to this bucket than to incinerate a pile of filters just to get 2-5g silver.


butcher said:
Is there a possibility of chlorides? Even from water?
The white milky could possibly be silver chloride.

Answer to no# 1.
I'm not sure. Even from the water. But I test my tap water straight from the tap with pH strips and it's always neutral, even though you can smell chlorine. I'm still learning and this will teach me something too.

Answer to no# 2.
Right now I have no idea and that's why I asked for any advice or recommendations.

I'll do as I posted in my initial post and see what happens. I have to get rid of this waste and I want any silver that may be trapped in it.

Thanks for the input.

MrMylar
 
If you can smell chlorine then there is chloride in the water, pH has nothing to do with it.

Göran
 
Well the chances are pretty good that butcher was spot on as usual, you have silver chlorides in the solution.
If so allow to settle, decant and filter solution and finally add any powders from the bottom of your container to the filter. If its silver chloride it should change colour in the light and if it is silver chloride there are several ways to convert it back to silver metal posted in full here on the forum.
 
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