1st try ever w/ nitric...is blue good?

[jamthe3]

I've been scrapping Cu wire for a while and found some silver looking stuff that seemed different than Al or SS wire; so, I decided to give it a whirl in my 1st ever attempt @ a homebrew weak nitric acid mix from (I believe LazerSteve's) an E-book I bought the other day on E-bay.

I dropped about 5 grams of the bare, balled up wire in approximately 200 ml of the mild solution. After about 20 hours, I have a really pretty, blue liquid and after reading numerous threads for the last 5 hours or so am lost in thought...(or rather lost without any more presence of thought...)LOL! I thought I read a ways back I should be looking for red. Then I found something that says blue (sure hope it wasn't wishful searching.)

Anyway, what should I do now? Should I add more wire slowly to make sure the acid is used up, I have no Urea presently; excitedly jumped the gun probably in search of learning...so far this is a blast! Do I need to dilute w/ distilled water? Or just hang a piece of copper wire?

Thanks for any response,

John

 

[Platdigger]

Sounds like you could have copper with maybe some nickel with it.
Randy

 

[jamthe3]

it's the same color as the liquid in LazerSteve's silver video before he precipitates. But whatever's in it is fine w/ me. I'm in the "this seems like a neat & fun hobby" stage and I'm tickled pink w/ any reaction and the learning curve! What would you suggest I do next?

ps- thanks for responding

John

 

[Platdigger]

Well, if you really did have silver, a little comon table salt
(sodium chloride), added to some of your nitric sol., or a bit of muratic acid (HCL) would cause a curdy white substance to settle out.....(silver chloride)

The test for nickel would be to take a bit of the nitric solution you have and add a bit of ammonia and then DMG (Dimethyl Gloximne).

Nickel would be rose red.

Thing is, I am not even sure were you would get the DMG.
Randy

 

[jamthe3]

Thanks Randy. Probably sitting on the shelf next to the Urea I didn't buy...LOL. If it is Nickel, would the DMG precipitate it or would something else be needed?

John

 

[Harold_V]

I dropped about 5 grams of the bare, balled up wire in approximately 200 ml of the mild solution. After about 20 hours, I have a really pretty, blue liquid

Is the wire completely dissolved?

If any of the wire remains, there is NO silver in solution. Once the acid level declines, the silver will precipitate on the remaining copper.

I dare say that you dissolved, or attempted to dissolve, plated wire. It will contain little silver, if any at all. Silver, when in solution with copper, will generally be a blue/green color. If the solution is just blue, the amount of silver is likely to be quite low. A drop taken from the lot, tested with some salt or HCl will indicate the presence of silver by displaying the white stuff that Randy described. It's very reliable, although it can be confused with lead. Lead nitrate will readily dissolve in hot water. Silver chloride will not. Silver chloride will dissolve in ammonium hydroxide. Lead nitrate will not.

I thought I read a ways back I should be looking for red.

You get a red reaction by testing silver with Schwerters testing solution. It's made from nitric acid, distilled water and potassium dichromate. You do not test the nitrate solution, but solid pieces of metal. Only silver will display the red reaction.

Anyway, what should I do now? Should I add more wire slowly to make sure the acid is used up

If you are adding silver plated wire, I'd advise doing nothing. It isn't worth messing with unless you'd like to use it as a learning experience. You'd die of starvation if you relied on it for making money. The chemicals you'll consume will have greater value than the recovered silver, because so little is there.

If the solution in question tests positive for silver, precipitate what little it contains and save if for the future. It won't be worth messing with. That's assuming the wire is plated. If it is a silver alloy, that may not be true.

One thing to consider is that you dissolved the silver, and almost all of the copper. If that be the case, you should find what looks like Portland cement at the bottom of your container. The solution would test barren, assuming you had any copper wire remaining, meaning it didn't all dissolve. The stuff you'd find would be silver of high quality. Do not expect much if the wire is plated, barely enough to identify, if that.

I have no Urea presently; excitedly jumped the gun probably in search of learning...so far this is a blast! Do I need to dilute w/ distilled water? Or just hang a piece of copper wire?

I don't know that urea would be helpful. I refined silver for more than 20 years and never used urea----not even for gold. Sorry, I have no opinion. A test with a piece of copper wire could prove the presence of silver. Should you have any in solution, you'd see a gray substance form immediately when you submerged the wire. That would be silver (cement silver), the same material I described above. It's the common way to recover silver from a nitrate solution.

A word of caution. The objective when recovering silver is to achieve a high level of purity. You can help assure that by NOT using small pieces of copper. As they degrade, they become difficult to recover from the cement silver, assuming they are not totally consumed. Try to use large pieces of copper when recovering silver, for they can be easily found and retrieved when all the silver has been precipitated. You likely understand that the copper slowly is consumed by the silver as it is precipitated.

Harold

 

[jamthe3]

Thankyou, the wire completely dissolved. At first last night when I started, it fizzed slowly and the solution was a kinda bluish green w/ the wire no longer looking silver but a kind of dull brick red. In the morning when the sun came up, it started fizzing like crazy and was almost gone by noon when I had to leave. When I came home around 8:00, wire gone and color was blue and no fizzing although there looked like a tiny, thin, white, aura like thread barely visible in the middle of the solution.

At least right now, I'm not looking to earn a living at this; but, I've got to tell you, I'm having a blast reading post after post and wondering what all this stuff means. I'm in learn and try to conquer mode I guess. As an example, I spent the last hour trying to find everything I could on what you've said about incineration because it seemed to me there might be no difference really between Fire Assaying/Smelting ores or the computer boards that seem to be such a nightmare apparently for so many.

Thanks for getting back to me...I really appreciate it!

John

 

[jamthe3]

ok, i'm back w/ more ignorant questions to drive the already knowledgeable nuts!

there's a bunch of blue (with ribbons of white) sediment in the bottom of a slightly greenish/blue solution. is it possible this is excess potassium nitrate from the nitric acid mix?

also i read a post by someone from last month i believe where they showed the first 2 lbs of a large batch of silver and in the header of the pic said something to the effect that he had to dilute the solution w/ distilled water to dissolve the nitrate before dropping precipitate w/ copper wire coil. could someone shed some light on that for me please.

also, I could have sworn i read wire wasn't a good media to use for this.
too funny! I just traded 2 lbs of #1 bright nodules for a significantly lighter pair of thick pipe elbows to cut in half on the premise that sometime in this lifetime I'll be the proud parent of a brand new baby Ag BB...lol