How Far to Refine Your Silver?

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
xelexo
Advertise with us
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I've been avoiding the blender. There's something about lye and hi speed motion that I don't like! I'll give it a try tomorrow when I pick up the old blender from work. Maybe I can put a clear bag over the whole thing in case something splashes out. I'll report back.

Thanks!
 
OK, I've completed a couple of batches with the blender and it works great! It pulverizes the AgCl down into a powder. I'm using GSP's recipe, but I find that if I add some NaOH crystals to the wet AgO, it turns near black from greyish. Does this mean the conversion hasn't completed, or there isn't enough NaOH, or does it mean something else? In the blender, it seems to convert quickly. How long should I wait before adding syrup? As an example, I just made a 3x batch, which is about 90 g AgCl. I blended the AgCl in water for about 30 seconds, then added the lye and blended for another 60 seconds. Should I expect the conversion to be complete this quickly?

Thanks!
 
I'm not sure if I'm getting 100% conversion to AgO. The second pic shows a batch of silver. I don't know if it shows on the pic, but it does look like there are some small whitish specs that might be AgCl. I took a scoop out of the silver, and added some lye crystals (first pic). I have to assume that the dark color indicates formation of AgO, which means the silver is not fully converted. Pure silver would not turn black like this, correct?

As mentioned in my last post, the dark color is confusing me. It seems like the very dark color of AgO doesn't last. If I sprinkle lye on AgCl in solution, it turns black wherever it touches. However, if I add an excess of lye (like double the recipe from GSP), the whole batch of AgCl does not turn that dark grey/black. Is there an equilibrium between the AgCl on one side and AgO on the other, or is the conversion to AgO considered irreversible (or let's say to completion)?

Just a bit confused here.
 

Attachments

  • Silver 002 (1024x768).jpg
    Silver 002 (1024x768).jpg
    450.8 KB
  • Silver 001 (800x600).jpg
    Silver 001 (800x600).jpg
    235.8 KB
Bushka said:
I'm not sure if I'm getting 100% conversion to AgO. The second pic shows a batch of silver. I don't know if it shows on the pic, but it does look like there are some small whitish specs that might be AgCl. I took a scoop out of the silver, and added some lye crystals (first pic). I have to assume that the dark color indicates formation of AgO, which means the silver is not fully converted. Pure silver would not turn black like this, correct?

As mentioned in my last post, the dark color is confusing me. It seems like the very dark color of AgO doesn't last. If I sprinkle lye on AgCl in solution, it turns black wherever it touches. However, if I add an excess of lye (like double the recipe from GSP), the whole batch of AgCl does not turn that dark grey/black. Is there an equilibrium between the AgCl on one side and AgO on the other, or is the conversion to AgO considered irreversible (or let's say to completion)?

Just a bit confused here.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if it's the case with you too, but I've processed keyboard mylars, and from which I've read, it's just silver, with no other metals mixed in, for the most part. But, as I even processed my mylars, I noticed that after dropping the silver and doing a filtration, I ended up with some dark grey/blackish power in the filter.

The grey/blackish powder seem to stay in the filter after doing a rinse of the silver. I read that it may be carbon, which won't react to Nitric Acid. I'm still learning, but it might be carbon in whatever you've been processing.

If it's not that much, put it to the side and after rinsing it good, let it dry out, then try to melt it.

Kevin
 
GSP: Thanks for the advice to ignore color and go with the test results.

testerman: Could the black fines be silver as GSP mentions? He says metal powders tend to be darker when they are finer pieces. I highly doubt there is that much carbon in my AgCl. The AgCl was originally a lab experiment for students, so I don't see any reason there would be carbon in the AgCl.

Thanks!

Dan
 
Dan, I also doubt it is carbon, probably just fine silver of some sort, silver chloride in sunlight will darken to a violet to black color silver metal (photography), even if this was some type of carbon it would not hurt any thing.

testerman, Actually nitric acid will react with carbon it can make carbon burn violently (like in gunpowder).
 
It would be very hard to tell what something is by looking at it or by the color, sometimes we can get a good idea of what it maybe, when we know what went in to obtaining a substance, but this is just speculation mostly, a white powder can be many things, a black powder can also be many things, the same with solutions colors give us clues but can also fool us if we go strictly by color, a yellow solution can be gold chloride, but a yellow solution of iron chloride can look just gold chloride.

Colors can be helpful indicators, but also cannot be relied on.

Further testing many times is the only way to know for sure what you have.

Notice where GSP said he rarely paid attention to color, many time I would say he used color to judge what may have been happening, or what he may have had, but then again, He knew that solutions and powders can vary widely in color, and that He could not count on just color to be sure what he had.

Colors of a substance can also be influenced by many factors also, contamination, concentration, temperature, light, dissolved gases, and many other things.

I guess I am trying to say colors are helpful but they in reality do not tell you much.

This is hard to explain.
 
Butcher.... it's not hard for you to explain, or, at least I understand what you're saying. I can see what you're talking about, and you're right. I would need to further test the substance and determine what I have according to the results of the test(s).

You've made an excellent point. Since I've been getting small amounts of the black substance during my refining, I'll put all of batches in the same jar until I run out of the material I'm working with.

Thanks for the info

Kevin
 
Well, I've converted all my silver chloride to silver cement with the blender and have found that I still have large amounts (maybe 10%???) of silver chloride that didn't convert. I don't know if it is because of chunks or if I didn't give the reaction enough time before adding syrup. It seemed like the blender did a good job of breaking up the small chunks.

I'm soaking the silver in ammonia and then pouring off the ammonia the next day. Just to experiment, I hydrolyzed one batch of ammonia and then tested for completion with a copper bar, and I added lye and syrup to the other one.

My real issue is that I guess because of the blender I have a lot of very fine silver that goes right through my coffee filters (even 5 of them). Not having a real lab setup with sintered vacuum filters and so on, are there any tricks to dealing with such fine silver other than waiting 3 days for it to settle? I'm thinking of putting the silver back in the blender but I can imagine creating even smaller particles. It's impossible to wash such fine silver.

Thanks!
 
DON'T LET YOUR AMMONIA AND SILVER SOLUTION DRY IT WILL CREATE AN EXPLOZIVE COMPOUND IF MOVED

just an FYI

Eric
 
Thank you, Eric. I'm aware of the hazards, and should probably say so anytime I mention ammonia. For the record, I don' think it is as easy to make the explosive compound as some think. Awhile back, over a year ago, I did process some silver with ammonia unaware of the hazards. I let some of the solutions I made dry up and never had any issues, luckily.
 
Several plating businesses have blown up, these were professionals who knew the dangers.

Sometimes accidents happen from the things we least expect or become complacent with.

We may get by with making gun powder several times with very little reaction from our powder, but we may make a batch that will react just like it is supposed to, if we get complacent thinking we don’t have to wet it to grind the ingredients separately, because we made it so many times with little reaction, or done it this way with no problems before, we may just find ourselves in a situation we could regret, having trouble opening doors with the hook where our hand used to be.

This, and the fact we have some people who really do not know the dangers or possibility of these dangers, they also may not follow strict procedures when dealing with chemicals or reactions, sometimes getting very creative, thinking what would it hurt to put a little of this in the mix, I can skip that step, it would be easier to mix all of the powders and grind them, lets see what happens when I put some of this...

For these reasons it is good to always stress the dangers, and also always keep them in mind ourselves, when working.
 
I knew you understood that Bushka, I just felt I needed to point it out.

As far as washing silver I would follow GSP's instructions, he also give's ways to test your wash to tell if it has copper.
 
I'll look for his instructions. It's just that the fines/powder can take several days to settle. Unless I find a way to filter it, I'm at a loss.

Thanks.
 
I normally do not have much trouble with silver settling, unless it is silver chloride.

Most any time I can let a substance settle, so I can decant it, I prefer that to filtering, and will then just filter the more clear liquid.

There are several tricks I use when filtering, depending on what I am working with, this necessarily does not apply to your particular problem here, but may give you some ideas.

If a fine powder goes through a filter, you can wait till the filter begins to clog with material then re-filtering the fines that passed through the first time.

Shredded filter papers, or toilet paper, add this to the filter, to catch the fine particles.

Filter the bulk with a fast filter, and then re-filter liquid again with a coarser paper.

Decant the solution from the bulk of your material to be processed let the fines settle in a jar and get them at a later date.

For hard to filter stuff,
Concentrating or sometimes dilution, settle decanting, some time’s screening out the larger malarial, sometimes using the material in the screen to help capture the bulk, then using the bulk material in the screen to capture the finer material when pouring the previously filtered material back over the bulk of the material in the screen.

Using the fiberglass insulation, Charmin plug, re filtering through finer filters as needed.

Using the shredded filter or toilet paper and screening or filtering dry and incinerate.

There are many other tricks you can pick up along the way to help.
But even then sometimes it is still just a pain.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top