Non-Chemical Grelko's silver mylar process (plastic crystals?)

[Grelko]

I thought of a way to process silver mylars from keyboards, microwaves or other items "without using acids" over the last few days. (if you want 999 pure silver, you will need to refine it) This is for recovery only.

This is another one of my "strange" ideas. :lol: This is the fourth time I've done this. It actually seems to work pretty well.

This is the least expensive way I could think of so far (unless I use a wood fire instead of electric).
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This is basically the same as using a pressure cooker.

If you use a pressure cooker to try this, DO NOT use it to cook food afterwards.

I started with a regular hotplate that you can buy at many stores, a small stainless steel crucible and a mason jar lid.


I decided to use a few silver mylars from old keyboards this time. I have already cut a few of them into pieces.


I put them into the crucible and turned the hotplate on high.


After a couple minutes, the mylars melt and start turning into a brown tar. If you mix them around, they melt a bit quicker. There is a little smoke and the smell of plastic, but not that much, since it's not actually burning, just melting.


The crucible is the same size as a mason jar lid, so I turned the lid upside-down and placed it on top, so that it blocks most of the smoke and fumes that are produced. Don't try this at home. (I've tried doing this in my basement once, with the window open and a fan blowing. There's was no smoke and just barely any smell after the lid is on. ) You can put something on top to keep the lid on tighter.

 

[Grelko]

After letting it cook for a few hours, I turned the hotplate off and let it cool down. You can place most of the crucible in water to cool it down fast, but if you let water get inside, the plastic is harder to get back out.

I havent tried letting it cook for a long time, so not all of it turned into white ash. It doesn't really matter, since everything has hardened up like a piece of toasted bread.


I had to take a couple pictures of the white ash. It turned into "plastic crystals", which was really neat to look at. :mrgreen:


This was on the lid after I removed it. It looked like a bunch of tiny black trees with white leaves.


Under a magnifying glass.
View attachment 1

Under a microscope at 75x

 

[Grelko]

Under a microscope at 75x again.


Let's get back to the show shall we. :lol:

I've chiseled the plastic out of the crucible and placed it into my gold pan.


Next I grind the pieces into powder. (I didn't completely grind it up this time, so that you can see pieces of silver in it.)


Here's the part I think is really funny. I'm using a small balloon to recover the pieces of silver. 8)


Isn't static electricity amazing :shock: Silver isn't normally magnetic. I rubbed the balloon on my pants or shirt, to create a static charge, which I then use to collect the silver.

It collects a small amount of black powder also, but I'm guessing that it most likely contains silver. There are pieces left in the gold pan that it will not pick up. You will need to do this a few times to get most of the silver out. You can bump the balloon to knock most of the particles off, but some like to cling to it, so just rinse it off into a container when you are finished.

 

[Grelko]

Here is some of the silver that I have recovered with a balloon :lol: 8) All I need to do now is melt it into a bead.


The first time I tried this, I didn't use a balloon and just melted everything with a blowtorch. It took forever and really wasn't worth all of the mapp gas I had to use to completely burn everything. The balloon helps alot.

I haven't tested the left over ashes to see if any of it still contains silver, but it looks as though I get most of it using static electricity.

This has been one of Grelko's "strange" experiments, I hope you enjoyed the show. :mrgreen:

Do not try this at home

Edit - I don't care about trying to get a patent or copyright anything, this is just a gift to everyone, but if you happen to like my strange ideas and want to use one at your refinery in the future, I do accept donations or even just a simple thank you.

Don't forget about me when you're famous.

 

[Grelko]

I finally remembered to finish this thread.

At the begining, I used approximately 2 mylars from a regular keyboard. When I got an XRF done on the bead, it was almost 99% (98.92). This was just for recovery, no acids. This hasn't been refined. I only used a hotplate, small stainless crucible, mason jar lid and a balloon.

I didn't clean the borax off of the bead, so it might be 99%+ afterwards.

There could be silver trapped in the black ash, so it would be better to let it go until it's completely white, which would also clean up the melt.