GSP, you are reading the wrong line in the printout. I did the same thing at first. The first line of numbers are detection limits. The samples are the last two lines.
I'm surprised to find calcium as a contaminant in your silver. Calcium reacts quickly with water to form calcium hydroxide so even if it could be deposited in a silver cell it should go into solution immediately.
So the calcium should be present as a compound and probably not in the metal. What do you use for rinsing? If your water supply is contaminated with calcium (dust particles? Any limestone in your area?) then it might get concentrated and mechanically trapped in the silver crystals.
I might have missed it, going back over the thread, but do you wash the silver on a filter or in a beaker? What do you use, tap water or distilled water?
Silver crystals have a huge surface area compared to it's mass and if you are drying quite moist silver anything contained in that water will dry out and form a crust. By the same process, slow rinsing and letting the silver dry out in between might deposit more contaminants with each rinse - dry - rinse cycle.
Take some of the water you use for rinsing and let it dry in a glass. Then you will find out how much contaminants that comes from the water.
I wonder if you melt the silver crystals with a bit of flux if the contamination goes away. My gut feeling is that most calcium would combine with the slag and be captured by the flux.
I hope you will find the culprit and report back. Good luck!
Göran
I'm surprised to find calcium as a contaminant in your silver. Calcium reacts quickly with water to form calcium hydroxide so even if it could be deposited in a silver cell it should go into solution immediately.
So the calcium should be present as a compound and probably not in the metal. What do you use for rinsing? If your water supply is contaminated with calcium (dust particles? Any limestone in your area?) then it might get concentrated and mechanically trapped in the silver crystals.
I might have missed it, going back over the thread, but do you wash the silver on a filter or in a beaker? What do you use, tap water or distilled water?
Silver crystals have a huge surface area compared to it's mass and if you are drying quite moist silver anything contained in that water will dry out and form a crust. By the same process, slow rinsing and letting the silver dry out in between might deposit more contaminants with each rinse - dry - rinse cycle.
Take some of the water you use for rinsing and let it dry in a glass. Then you will find out how much contaminants that comes from the water.
I wonder if you melt the silver crystals with a bit of flux if the contamination goes away. My gut feeling is that most calcium would combine with the slag and be captured by the flux.
I hope you will find the culprit and report back. Good luck!
Göran