Jakes.vdv
Active member
Hello Everyone.
I have a question.
I’ve been studying how to recover Silver from electroplated plated items and also from electrical contacts. My success has been inconsistent thus far.
Recently, as an experiment I added a small silver electroplated plated cup and a very small sterling silver item to 30% concentrated nitric acid (it’s all I can get in my area), which I then placed in a fume hood on a hotplate which heats the solution to about 100 degrees Celsius. I left it on for the whole day (the hot plate runs off solar power), and I then let the solution settle over night.
In the morning I filtered the clear liquid into a beaker and added a sodium chloride solution. I got a fairly nice precipitation of silver chloride considering the quantity of the material.
I noticed that the sterling silver item hadn’t dissolved much, and the silver plated cup had a film coming loose on it, which most likely is the coating of silver.
But now the nickel silver underneath that film was exposed.
So, I then added fresh dilute nitric acid (the same 30% concentrate), and repeated the process.
This time, upon adding the sodium chloride solution there was no precipitation.
I noticed that the film on the cup was largely untouched, the nickel silver base metal wasted away some more, and the sterling silver item seemed as it were before.
I repeated the process with for a third time with fresh diluted nitric acid, and got roughly the same effect, with no precipitation.
Now am I correct in saying that the dilute nitric acid first dissolves the more reactive nickel silver (composed of zinc, copper, nickel as I understand it), and only then will it dissolve the less reactive Silver?
And the reason that I got successful precipitation on the first round was because of the outer layer of silver on the electroplated item, and obviously the small sterling silver item in the solution?
And the reason I didn’t get a successful precipitation on the other rounds is because the nitric was too busy with the base metal to do much to the silver?
And that once the base metal has been dissolved fully, I can expect Silver to dissolve, and precipitation of silver chloride to be successful?
Thanks everyone. I appreciate your response.
Kind regards.
Jacques.
I have a question.
I’ve been studying how to recover Silver from electroplated plated items and also from electrical contacts. My success has been inconsistent thus far.
Recently, as an experiment I added a small silver electroplated plated cup and a very small sterling silver item to 30% concentrated nitric acid (it’s all I can get in my area), which I then placed in a fume hood on a hotplate which heats the solution to about 100 degrees Celsius. I left it on for the whole day (the hot plate runs off solar power), and I then let the solution settle over night.
In the morning I filtered the clear liquid into a beaker and added a sodium chloride solution. I got a fairly nice precipitation of silver chloride considering the quantity of the material.
I noticed that the sterling silver item hadn’t dissolved much, and the silver plated cup had a film coming loose on it, which most likely is the coating of silver.
But now the nickel silver underneath that film was exposed.
So, I then added fresh dilute nitric acid (the same 30% concentrate), and repeated the process.
This time, upon adding the sodium chloride solution there was no precipitation.
I noticed that the film on the cup was largely untouched, the nickel silver base metal wasted away some more, and the sterling silver item seemed as it were before.
I repeated the process with for a third time with fresh diluted nitric acid, and got roughly the same effect, with no precipitation.
Now am I correct in saying that the dilute nitric acid first dissolves the more reactive nickel silver (composed of zinc, copper, nickel as I understand it), and only then will it dissolve the less reactive Silver?
And the reason that I got successful precipitation on the first round was because of the outer layer of silver on the electroplated item, and obviously the small sterling silver item in the solution?
And the reason I didn’t get a successful precipitation on the other rounds is because the nitric was too busy with the base metal to do much to the silver?
And that once the base metal has been dissolved fully, I can expect Silver to dissolve, and precipitation of silver chloride to be successful?
Thanks everyone. I appreciate your response.
Kind regards.
Jacques.
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