Electrochemistry Copper cell for silver contacts - possible?

[snoman701]

I'm probably up to 40 lbs of silver cadmium contacts on copper bus. The thought of sweating off all of those just doesn't sound like fun.

I'm wondering what would happen if I hung them in a copper sulfate bath as the anode. Would the bare copper be dissolved away, leaving the silver contact to passivate and fall in to the bag? Of course some copper would still be attached, but nitric isn't THAT expensive.

I think it would work, but the cadmium is what I would expect to cause a problem by forming a sulfate and fouling the electrolyte. Correct?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[butcher]

You can bag them in an old sock to recover silver, and copper.