Converting .925 Scrap Silver to shot for my Anode Basket

[ModernAlchemy]

I have 582 grams of .925 Scrap Silver and I would like to transform it into shot for my anode basket. I am curious what the best route would be.

1. Melt it in a propane furnace pour off the hot liquid into ice water and use that for the shot. Or when melted make right into anode bars, There was a post talking about this the other day.
2. Make an electrolyte out of it with Nitric and then cement it with copper. ( I know and have done this with .999) I am not sure about .925 and if this is the proper route. Can you just let the Nirtric dissolve it of course with distilled water, heat , etc. Then take that electrolyte solution and add copper tubing to cement off silver, then Melt for shot?

I did watch a video where a gentleman reduced the .925 scrap in Nitric and then converted it to Silver Chloride, followed by Lye and Sugar..to get the silver. He did get what he was looking for but his process was very unsafe and haphazard. Definitely not attempting.

If anyone can guide me on the safest way for the newbie to do this, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have 582 grams of .925 Scrap Silver and I would like to transform it into shot for my anode basket. I am curious what the best route would be.

1. Melt it in a propane furnace pour off the hot liquid into ice water and use that for the shot. Or when melted make right into anode bars, There was a post talking about this the other day.
2. Make an electrolyte out of it with Nitric and then cement it with copper. ( I know and have done this with .999) I am not sure about .925 and if this is the proper route. Can you just let the Nirtric dissolve it of course with distilled water, heat , etc. Then take that electrolyte solution and add copper tubing to cement off silver, then Melt for shot?

I did watch a video where a gentleman reduced the .925 scrap in Nitric and then converted it to Silver Chloride, followed by Lye and Sugar..to get the silver. He did get what he was looking for but his process was very unsafe and haphazard. Definitely not attempting.

If anyone can guide me on the safest way for the newbie to do this, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

So you need to make the electrolyte too?
For the cell a bar may be better than shots due to contact and design of cell.
One can dissolve sterling and cement it out, but I'm not sure itvis necessary when all you have is around 500grams.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

So you need to make the electrolyte too?
For the cell a bar may be better than shots due to contact and design of cell.
One can dissolve sterling and cement it out, but I'm not sure itvis necessary when all you have is around 500grams.

Make an electrolyte out of the .925 scrap silver so that I can cement it with copper.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Make an electrolyte out of the .925 scrap silver so that I can cement it with copper.

I might be mistanken but I think you can run as is.
Search the many Silver cell threads in her for Sterling.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

I might be mistanken but I think you can run as is.
Search the many Silver cell threads in her for Sterling.

Will do thank you

 

[4metals]

I think you can run as is.
Search the many Silver cell threads in here for Sterling.

You can dissolve the sterling to make start up electrolyte. The Silver needles benefit from some copper in the electrolyte.

 

[BGDOCK]

Why not use some for for electrolyte
Pour a bar for your anodes, I have come to the conclusion that bars are easier . When you finished the run just pull it out . The shot sticks to the anode bag.( my opinion) use the
Cement out your 1/2 electrolyte when finished , use the other 1/2 of electrolyte convert to silver chloride to practice sugar lye method

 

[4metals]

There are many alternative routes one can take. Read about them all, ask questions if necessary, and when your options are clear in your head, adapt what your setup can handle the best. As in the old proverb, "all roads lead to Rome".

 

[ModernAlchemy]

Why not use some for for electrolyte
Pour a bar for your anodes, I have come to the conclusion that bars are easier . When you finished the run just pull it out . The shot sticks to the anode bag.( my opinion) use the
Cement out your 1/2 electrolyte when finished , use the other 1/2 of electrolyte convert to silver chloride to practice sugar lye method

Thank so much! Are there some good resources for the conversion to Silver Chloride sugar lye method?

 

[ModernAlchemy]

There are many alternative routes one can take. Read about them all, ask questions if necessary, and when your options are clear in your head, adapt what your setup can handle the best. As in the old proverb, "all roads lead to Rome".

Thank you so much... Yes, I am definitely seeing this proverb unfold on my journey!!!

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

Don’t bother converting to silver chloride. You’ll just have to convert it back to the same mud you get from cementing on copper, but with 3 added steps and quite a bit more waste to deal with. Now don’t be offended, but you really don’t have enough Sterling to run an electrolytic cell. Unless you’re just experimenting to see how it works on a very reduced scale. 500 grams is barely enough to make the electrolyte. Not nearly enough for electrolyte, anode bar and feedstock. What you can do is dissolve your Sterling in distilled water and Nitric acid with a little heat and then cement it out on copper and THOROUGHLY RINSE it to remove all of the copper nitrate. You can test to see when rinsing is complete by taking a small sample of the rinse water and adding a few drops of HCl acid to see if silver chloride forms. When I say a small sample, I mean less than a shot glass. When the rinse water remains clear, rinse it 1 more time. Understand that at this point you still haven’t removed all of the copper. You’ve just removed all you can without an electrolytic cell. But this is a very important 1st step in the process. The quality of your eventual finished product depends a lot on how well you do this part of the process. At this point you can either melt some shot or make an anode bar, but you’ll probably be best off to just save your nice clean mud until you can accumulate more Sterling.

 

[kurtak]

Don’t bother converting to silver chloride. You’ll just have to convert it back to the same mud you get from cementing on copper

I am sorry but that simply just is not true

Going with the silver chloride - lye - sugar method there should be absolutely no reason why you can't turn out 999 &/or even 9999 silver at the end of the process --- it is just a matter of VERY COMPLETELY washing the acid out of chloride - as well as doing a very good job washing out the lye - & then washing out the sugar

It is all this washing that makes going the salt (or HCl) - lye - sugar method less desirable then cementing & then going to the silver cell (after melting/pouring cement silver to anodes for the cell)

Make no mistake about it - the salt/lye/sugar method can turn out very pure silver - at the end - it is just that all the washing is a pain in the butt - so is not well suited for LARGE batch processing - it however is not a bad option for "small" batch processing (a kilo or less) as the end result should be very pure (999 & even 9999) silver

On the other hand - the reason cement silver needs to go to the silver cell - is that there will always be "some" other metal contamination in the cement silver (primarily copper - maybe some Pd &/or Pt) & therefore needs to go to the cell for further refining

Cement silver should run - at the very least 98% silver to as good as 99.5% silver - depending on how you go about the cementing process in the first place & then of course how good of a job you do in washing the cement silver

The fact is that sterling (925 silver) can be run direct in the silver cell - the problem with that is that due to the high copper in the sterling causes the electrolyte to become corrupted with copper fairly quickly which then leads to co-depositing of copper with the silver - which is why some refiners choose to dissolve the sterling - then cement the silver - in order to up grade the silver from 925 to 98 or better - so that the electrolyte does not become corrupted as quickly & less chance of copper co-depositing with the silver

My point being - that in fact - you can turn out very pure silver with the salt/lye/sugar process - it is just that the 3 step process & all the washing makes it a not well suited process for LARGE batches - but is most certainly "an option" for small batches

Which is why LARGE batch processors choose to go the cement/cell process - or - run a two cell system - running sterling direct in the first cell - expecting "some" copper co-depositing (resulting in an up graded silver of 98% or better) which is then run in a second cell for purification

Kurt

 

[kurtak]

There are many alternative routes one can take. Read about them all, ask questions if necessary, and when your options are clear in your head, adapt what your setup can handle the best. As in the old proverb, "all roads lead to Rome".

So very VERY true

As in the old proverb, "all roads lead to Rome".

Or as another old proverb goes - "there is more then one way to skin a cat"

Kurt

 

[BGDOCK]

Don’t bother converting to silver chloride. You’ll just have to convert it back to the same mud you get from cementing on copper, but with 3 added steps and quite a bit more waste to deal with. Now don’t be offended, but you really don’t have enough Sterling to run an electrolytic cell. Unless you’re just experimenting to see how it works on a very reduced scale. 500 grams is barely enough to make the electrolyte. Not nearly enough for electrolyte, anode bar and feedstock. What you can do is dissolve your Sterling in distilled water and Nitric acid with a little heat and then cement it out on copper and THOROUGHLY RINSE it to remove all of the copper nitrate. You can test to see when rinsing is complete by taking a small sample of the rinse water and adding a few drops of HCl acid to see if silver chloride forms. When I say a small sample, I mean less than a shot glass. When the rinse water remains clear, rinse it 1 more time. Understand that at this point you still haven’t removed all of the copper. You’ve just removed all you can without an electrolytic cell. But this is a very important 1st step in the process. The quality of your eventual finished product depends a lot on how well you do this part of the process. At this point you can either melt some shot or make an anode bar, but you’ll probably be best off to just save your nice clean mud until you can accumulate more Sterling.

500 g = half a kilogram you can certainly run a small cell in a 500 ml or 1 liter Beaker . With a small one cup Tupperware anode basket ( holes drilled into ) . That is ever so popular .
125 grams of shot dissolved in nitric is enough for electrolyte especially for a smaller cell.
The remainder can be used as feedstock.
Eventually you are going to have to learn how to identify and process silver
chloride
Start small perfect the techniques

Cheers

 

[Shark]

Another option for silver chloride is the sulfuric and iron method. As for a small silver cell, yes small ones work here is a picture of my first cell. It held just under half a liter of electrolyte.

 

[4metals]

here is a picture of my first cell. It held just under half a liter of electrolyte.

I like the $10 bill in the photo, was that pre payment for your first ingot? And the beautiful blue electrolyte over the shiny Silver needles growing on the cathode always excites my refiners genes! Nice photo.

 

[Shark]

My second cell was a one liter bowl. I did make a few changes but most were for convenience only.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

Thank you all for all the support and suggestions on this thread. Such a wealth of good commentary and suggestions especially for one such as myself that's new to this field. There are definitely so many ways to skin the cat.

Since I am new to this and thus far have been able to complete many of these steps to creating electrolyte from .999 silver, setting up the Silver cell, and getting back 38oz of .999 but I had to stop the process because I ran out of stock for my anode basket.
I still have 4.5L of clear Silver Nitrate that I know is still pretty loaded with silver, so that is why I got some sterling to process as feed for the basket (it puts the silver in the basket) LOL. I probably do need to get more before I run the cell again.

As many of you have stated before there are many ways to do this and the silver chloride way i would like to try on a small scale just to get familiar with the process.

If any of you can forward a thread on the process of taking the electrolyte Solution( sterling+ Nitric) how much HCL to add? and then once the thick silver chloride has formed.. How much lye? and Sugar. this is going to be done on a small scale just to work through the process. Thanks so much, everyone....

 

[4metals]

Here is a link to a thread about converting the chlorides. It contains a spreadsheet I posted to give quantities of caustic and karo syrup
Thread about conversions

Your quantities may be too small for those quantities, for smaller amounts of Silver Chloride I prefer the frying pan method which Shark referred to above.

Another option for silver chloride is the sulfuric and iron method.

It is also discussed in the thread linked above.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

Here is a link to a thread about converting the chlorides. It contains a spreadsheet I posted to give quantities of caustic and karo syrup
Thread about conversions

Your quantities may be too small for those quantities, for smaller amounts of Silver Chloride I prefer the frying pan method which Shark referred to above.

It is also discussed in the thread linked above.

Noted thank you! I will review the process..