Per the bold print - nitric acid does not react with stainless steel - that is why on a commercial/industrial scale nitric is shipped & stored in stainless steel drums - when I was refining on a large scale I got my 67% nitric which came in 15 gallon SS kegs (drums) or 52% nitric which came in 55 gallon drums
Keep in mind that you will be charged a HIGH deposit on the drums - but you get that deposit back when you return the drum (or goes to the next drum of acid if you exchange the empty drum for another new drum of acid)
Also - you need to check with the company you get your acid from as they may have a time limit on how long the deposit is good for - if you go beyond that time limit (for retuning the drum) the deposit become a purchase & the drum becomes yours
The bottom line being - yes a large SS pot will work just fine for dissolving your sterling - large SS pots are what I used for processing my silver as well as processing large batches of fingers, pins &/or gold filled to dissolve the copper/brass to recover the gold foils
Again - SS works just fine as long as you are using nitric
ONLY - it will not work with AR or HCl reactions as AR & HCl both react with SS
Keep in mind that it takes "
about" 1 gallon of 67 - 70% nitric (plus 1 gallon distilled water) to dissolve "
about" 8 pounds of silver but it will only dissolve "
about" 2 pounds of copper/brass
Due to "heavy" foaming at the peak of your reaction you only want to fill your reaction vessel "
about" 1/3 full with the acid/water (to be safe from having a foam over)
I keep saying "
about" because how much foaming you have & how much acid it will take to dissolve a given amount of metal will depend "
a lot" on the conditions when dissolving that metal
So using rough figures (& using 67 - 70% nitic) ---------
A 90 liter pot = about 23 gallons - divided by 3 (you only want to fill 1/3 full - to start with) = about 7.8 gallons (call it 8 gallons) --- so 50/50 acid/water = 4 gallons acid --- which will dissolve "
about" 32 pounds of silver
A pound of silver is "about" 14.5 ozt - so - 32 X 14.5 = 464 ozt
In reality - IF (the BIG IF) you control the conditions you use to dissolve your sterling - you should be able to dissolve (plus/minus) about 500 ozt sterling --- so about 1/2 the size batches you are wanting to do
So here is another large pot you may want to consider if you are wanting to do 1000 ozt batches as it is double the size I posted yesterday (180 liters or 45 gallons) for $230
https://www.vevor.com/products/180q...l-stock-pot-w-lid?_pos=8&_sid=3a89f14f2&_ss=r
You can use a propane turkey fryer burner for you heat source - you will want to put a 5/16 inch thick steel plate on top the turkey fryer burner & then put the pot on that
This set up is going to be very top heavy so you need to weld up a frame/base to the turkey fryer burner to stabilize it & keep it from tipping over
Kurt