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
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Copper and silver cell
- Thread starter Jimbriese
- Start date
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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.
Update the nitric acid and copper sulfate have been distilled ended up with 864 grams of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid. Unable to relocate where I seen the recipe for the electrolyte on here I started the copper cell using nurdrage’s video of double the water to copper slurry. This worked good for about 15-20 minutes gave a nice copper plating that would scrap off the stainless steel cathode then stopped. After some more searching found the recipe and the 2.5L of solution was way to concentrated so now I have almost 5 gallon of copper sulfate and water. Used 2.5l in my small cell and added 100ml sulfuric intentional error on the short side of the 250ml per recipe as I figured there to be around 200ml of excess sulfuric in the total solution. Started the cell and 12 hour later it was still going good except when I pulled the cathode the copper looked good but would fall off if shaken
Just added the rest of the sulfuric to the batch and scraped the loose copper off will see the results after work tonight.
The cell has about 14 in2 of cathode so I have the current set at 2.5 amps which has the voltage running between .6-.8 volts before the addition of sulfuric acid now or at least when I left it the voltage was .8-.9 volts at the same amps. Photo of the soft spongy copper
Just added the rest of the sulfuric to the batch and scraped the loose copper off will see the results after work tonight.
The cell has about 14 in2 of cathode so I have the current set at 2.5 amps which has the voltage running between .6-.8 volts before the addition of sulfuric acid now or at least when I left it the voltage was .8-.9 volts at the same amps. Photo of the soft spongy copper
Here is the recipe for the electrolyte from one of 4metals post
