Copper busbars yield

[kjavanb123]

Hi

I did a 45kg (almost 90 lb) of copper busbars plated with silver.




I used concentrated sulfuric acid and added in small increments of nitric acid. It dissolved the silver and leave the copper.


So after dropping silver as silver chloride and converted it to metallic silver got this 20g of dirty silver bead


Thanks and regards
KJ

 

[stella polaris]

Did you feel it was worth it? The copper should give you a better price now.

 

[kjavanb123]

The main objective was to remove silver so copper can be sold. But doing this only for silver is not worth it.

 

[Shark]

Thanks. The last time I looked for bus bars at a scrap yard they ask $6 a pound for the silver plated ones. Then I over hear them discussing that they only paid 75% of copper prices for them because the silver made it harder for them to sell. I had wondered since then just how much silver they contained.

 

[kjavanb123]

Thanks. The last time I looked for bus bars at a scrap yard they ask $6 a pound for the silver plated ones. Then I over hear them discussing that they only paid 75% of copper prices for them because the silver made it harder for them to sell. I had wondered since then just how much silver they contained.

Sure. If there are a lot of those busbars available, maybe you can make an agreement to recover silver and return the copper so you keep the silver.

 

[kurtak]

Some bus bars will be silver plated - some will be tin plated

The main objective was to remove silver so copper can be sold.

There are two grades of (scrap) copper (at least here in the USA) #1 copper which is "clean" copper & #2 copper which is plated copper or copper that has "heavy" oxidation on the surface or copper with solder on it (like pipe solder joints)

most if not all scrap yards I have ever dealt with only pay a 10 cents per pound difference between #1 & #2 copper

IMO removing/recovering the silver plating in order to up grade #2 copper to #1 copper just is not worth the time/effort/chemicals for 10 cents

In other words the 10 cents copper up grade & the silver recovered doesn't pay for the process IMO

On the other hand - if there is a big difference between #1 & #2 copper then it might could be worth it

That said - interesting experiment & thanks for posting your results

 

[acpeacemaker]

Some bus bars will be silver plated - some will be tin plated

The main objective was to remove silver so copper can be sold.

There are two grades of (scrap) copper (at least here in the USA) #1 copper which is "clean" copper & #2 copper which is plated copper or copper that has "heavy" oxidation on the surface or copper with solder on it (like pipe solder joints)

most if not all scrap yards I have ever dealt with only pay a 10 cents per pound difference between #1 & #2 copper

IMO removing/recovering the silver plating in order to up grade #2 copper to #1 copper just is not worth the time/effort/chemicals for 10 cents

In other words the 10 cents copper up grade & the silver recovered doesn't pay for the process IMO

On the other hand - if there is a big difference between #1 & #2 copper then it might could be worth it

That said - interesting experiment & thanks for posting your results

The yards that I always dealt with when they referred to
#1 & #2 was usually just determined by thickness. Anything thicker than pencil lead was considered #1 clean. But if you ever made the mistake and throwing it altogether. They will always give the lowest price as #2. I only dealt with one yard I remembered that wouldn't take plated as clean. They tried to give me brass prices. :/

 

[kjavanb123]

My client who brought me these, said due to silver plating it was difficult to sell them as copper scrap, now that silver is removed they pay top dollars for copper.