Dry Silver chloride-- Now What??

[Juan Manuel Arcos Frank]

Platdigger:

Yes,Sir...sodium sulphide will precipitate gold too,but...How did you get the gold into the thiosulfate solution?.....mmmmm.... Are you working with the gold thiosulfate process without saying a word to us?...Come on,Platdigger...share your experience with the nice guys of this wonderful Forum.

Kindest Regards.

Manuel

 

[saadat68]

NH4OH
Karo. Fast and easy. This is how I would do it. Grind it up to face powder. A blender would probably work well. I would then weigh some out and add, for each troy ounce (31.1 grams) of AgCl, 100 ml of water, 16.5 grams of sodium hydroxide, and 11 ml of light Karo syrup. Add the powdered AgCl and stir for a long time until you have a uniform gray cement-like powder. This is best done with a motorized stirrer, preferably one that will chop up the material. You could use some form of 5 gallon paint stirrer chucked in a drill. A big blender might work great for the conversion, also. Blenders also provide heat, which would speed things up. In any case, the solution will turn a dark red/brown color.

Start small.

Hi I couldn't understand!
Does this method work for dry AgCl powder ?

 

[Topher_osAUrus]

Hi I couldn't understand!
Does this method work for dry AgCl powder ?

Well, he did reply in the thread entitled "dry silver chloride" so, it would be a safe bet to assume so.

Could also try any other methods for silver chloride, may just be a pain since drying out changes the structure of the AgCl and it clumps together so it iss hard to reach every molecule for conversion.

One method I found very interesting, that I am going to be trying with my accidentally dried AgCl is either melting it and pouring anodes, or getting it damp again and compressing it.
Then hanging them in a dilute solution of zinc chloride connected to bars of iron that will also be hanging in the solution.
Allegedly, this will convert all of the AgCl to metallic silver (with the silver keeping the same shape) and the iron will be sacrificial.

I read that in an old book, havent really seen it anywhere else, so there has to be a reason why it has fallen out of favor. Im guessing because melting AgCl is dangerous and foolish. And letting your AgCl dry out is troublesome.

 

[saadat68]

Thanks Topher
I had a mistake in my first experience and produce some AgCl. I didn't know they are AgCl and let them dry. Don't worth to melt with flux because some of them are wet. I want to mix dried powder with wet powder and add caustic and then refine with nitric acid again

In this post I found I can use NaOH for dried AgCl
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=7305#p66322