Dental silver

[ModernAlchemy]

Hi forum members ,
Is there a way to process dental silver? My fiancés dad is a dentist and has copious amount of this. We spoke about refining it at dinner this evening and he told me that there is mercury in it. I am wondering how this can be processed to get the silver out of it. Please advise. I would like to know the process and work involved, precautionary measures etc. Thanks in advance

-Modern Alchemy

 

[4metals]

Build a retort and distill off the mercury. But refined or distilled mercury itself is costly to get rid of.

 

[snoman701]

depending on the amount, it can be best just to send it off to bethelem and get the silver back. then the mercury is appropriately disposed of.

 

[4metals]

The making and using the retort is not difficult, getting rid of the mercury legally is expensive. Bethlehem is worth at least a call. Bethlehem Apparatus

 

[snoman701]

Bethlehem does not pay well on it, but you will get silver back without any concerns of making toxic waste.

 

[4metals]

Even if you distill the mercury out Bethlehem has one way dewars to ship in which holds 76 pounds of mercury which cost $2500. Dealing with mercury is a costly proposition.

edited to add; 76 pounds is about 2.5 liters of mercury.

 

[4metals]

The numbers on the internet vary with Silver as low as 29% and as high as 65%. Unfortunately this gives refiners wiggle room to make a bigger profit. If your future father in law made the amalgam he may know better. So do the math and see if a retort works even with the expense of disposal. I guess it all comes down to your definition of copious.

 

[snoman701]

Even if you distill the mercury out Bethlehem has one way dewars to ship in which holds 76 pounds of mercury which cost $2500. Dealing with mercury is a costly proposition.

edited to add; 76 pounds is about 2.5 liters of mercury.

Yeah, the refiner I worked with refined anything. He was big enough to be doing ok, but small enough to stay under the radar with the environmental agencies...and even then, the amalgam got shipped out.

 

[tmj883]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5349747/
Hope you find this link helpful.

 

[Darkthirty]

China spot Hg 82.69 Lb/USD

 

[ModernAlchemy]

The numbers on the internet vary with Silver as low as 29% and as high as 65%. Unfortunately this gives refiners wiggle room to make a bigger profit. If your future father in law made the amalgam he may know better. So do the math and see if a retort works even with the expense of disposal. I guess it all comes down to your definition of copious.

Thanks again for all the guidance on this. I’ll have to see how much he actually has and if it’s even worth it to do anything. I appreciate all the input. Definitely was a good education on this topic.