Please help.. I've got some real basic procedures of gold recovery and refining down pretty good now, to the point where I'm actually producing gold. So I have no idea how I got it in my head that learning how to produce silver was going to be a cinch.. Cuz it's not lol.
I HAVE had success producing a couple of ounces of silver from circuit breakers and relay contacts using aqua regia. It's kind of hard to go wrong there. But I have failed repeatedly at turning AgCl into elemental silver. It's been disaster after disaster, and I've traced it down to the washing of the AgCl. Everywhere I look, the instructions simply tell me to wash it... OK.. I've tried washing it using my own methods based on my own mental projections, but I've obviously been doing it all wrong. I've got buckets and buckets of attempts gone a wry.
So now, I've gotten as far as I always get before things go south, and I've stopped to consult the forum. I don't know why I didn't just ask in the first place rather than pour through a vast sea of videos and text, none of which has done me any good. So a teacher will be needed to move me through this hurdle. And I thank the kind soul in advance for being just that for me, whoever it may be.
The current solution is made up of probably 500 g of silver plated sscrap, mainly the plated bits out of breakers and contractors. Right now, I have a gallon pickle jar, about 35% full of AgCl, with about 4 cm of Distilled water on top. The AgCl isn't white though. It's kind of a turquoise or a teal.. Hell, might even call it baby blue. I can't just call it blue, or just green, because it's neither. But the consistency is about what u think it should be, kinda like cottage cheese. Although, I DID wash it a few times with water, by filling the jar, giving it a swirl, letting it settle, then decanting. I've done that 3 or 4 times, and the color hasn't changed a bit, and now, it's lost the cottage cheese consistency and has taken on a thick slushy appearance . So can someone please walk me through the process to wash this.. Or if the color is my problem, how do I get it to be white. The procedure I've been using has came straight out of this forum, although the exact posts escape me for the moment. I just know I'm doing something wrong in this washing step tho. I really appreciate the wisdom that yall impart on me. Because of yall, I'm producing gold, so I know yall can set me straight here. Thanks.
I HAVE had success producing a couple of ounces of silver from circuit breakers and relay contacts using aqua regia. It's kind of hard to go wrong there. But I have failed repeatedly at turning AgCl into elemental silver. It's been disaster after disaster, and I've traced it down to the washing of the AgCl. Everywhere I look, the instructions simply tell me to wash it... OK.. I've tried washing it using my own methods based on my own mental projections, but I've obviously been doing it all wrong. I've got buckets and buckets of attempts gone a wry.
So now, I've gotten as far as I always get before things go south, and I've stopped to consult the forum. I don't know why I didn't just ask in the first place rather than pour through a vast sea of videos and text, none of which has done me any good. So a teacher will be needed to move me through this hurdle. And I thank the kind soul in advance for being just that for me, whoever it may be.
The current solution is made up of probably 500 g of silver plated sscrap, mainly the plated bits out of breakers and contractors. Right now, I have a gallon pickle jar, about 35% full of AgCl, with about 4 cm of Distilled water on top. The AgCl isn't white though. It's kind of a turquoise or a teal.. Hell, might even call it baby blue. I can't just call it blue, or just green, because it's neither. But the consistency is about what u think it should be, kinda like cottage cheese. Although, I DID wash it a few times with water, by filling the jar, giving it a swirl, letting it settle, then decanting. I've done that 3 or 4 times, and the color hasn't changed a bit, and now, it's lost the cottage cheese consistency and has taken on a thick slushy appearance . So can someone please walk me through the process to wash this.. Or if the color is my problem, how do I get it to be white. The procedure I've been using has came straight out of this forum, although the exact posts escape me for the moment. I just know I'm doing something wrong in this washing step tho. I really appreciate the wisdom that yall impart on me. Because of yall, I'm producing gold, so I know yall can set me straight here. Thanks.