Copper and silver cell

[Jimbriese]

I think your original feedstock can be much more than simply copper over plated with Silver. The addition of unknown metals is what I think is gumming up the process. You are not making copper sulfate by dissolving electroplated copper in sulfuric acid. This would be the preferred method. There is a video in our video section by NurdRage on distilling the nitric and recovering the copper metal. Is this the process you used or was your process a shortcut of some sort?

Yes NurdRage is the process I was trying to work with. And in the process was trying to free up some of the silver to be used for a silver cell at a later time. My thoughts actually was working as expected most of the plating had come off the base metal and was cemented out. A small sample in test tube added some salt water showed a small amount of silver was still in solution. When I weighed up what was left after the first round I figured with the amount of silver that was cemented out I was going to be short on the amount of copper sulfate needed to setup the copper cell so I added the rest of my nitric acid and a couple of the what I thought was COPPER( bronze) bars back in at that time my solution was a bright vivid blue as I was expecting when I got up the next day and checked is when I found the wrong color solution. And the slight mess. But I think I have gotten lucky and am good on the copper sulfate portion just have the silver and tin mess to deal with at a later time. Will dry, roast and store labeled as such. And after rereading hokes book on the part about tin and how to deal will decide whether to melt and scrap or try to separate

 

[4metals]

The extra step of electrolytically recovering the copper from the converted copper nitrate solution (after adding sulfuric) will allow you to leave the other base metals in solution and selectively deposit copper to assure your copper cell will have pure copper sulfate with low impurities.

 

[Jimbriese]

The extra step of electrolytically recovering the copper from the converted copper nitrate solution (after adding sulfuric) will allow you to leave the other base metals in solution and selectively deposit copper to assure your copper cell will have pure copper sulfate with low impurities.

Would it be wise after distilling using this batch of copper sulfate for the first test run of the copper cell and run the rest of the bronze bars I have as my feed or is running bronze asking for more trouble.
This is my first time setting up an electrolytic cell I’m starting very small and using this to learn with I fully expect some mistakes.
It’s going to be small using a 5.7l tote and the power supply is 0-30 volts 0-10amps.