How to melt silver chloride

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Texas

Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
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Location
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How to melt silver chloride
1-remove the water excess of the silver chloride with a vacuum ( with a bottle to make vacuum)
2- put the wet silver chloride in a crock pot
3-bake at medium heat for 4 hours, until the chloride dry and form a mass of dried mud
4-grinding the dry mass, mix it at 100 percent with sodium bicarbonate, and melt it in a ceramic crucible
 
It still makes a horrible mess. I'd use even more bicarbonate and throw in a good weight of charcoal.

I do my very best to avoid AgCl. I hate dealing with it.
 
Lou, is true, when is liquid the sodium bicarbonate, add a pinch of borax and a little sodium bicarbonate, borax down more silver, then pour everything into a mold, broke cover flux and, if necessary, to melt for shot, add a piece of charcoal.
how are you, my friend Juan Manuel?
 
When silver chloride is freshly formed(looking as cotagge cheese) the process to melt it it is pretty easy...problems began when silver chloride is dried or melted...I think that its cristaline structure changes to another form because it will not dissolve in thiosulphate,cyanide or any other liquid...it will not react with NaOH...neither cememtation with Fe,Cu or Al,besides it losts its light sensible power so we do not have any other way that crush that black powder(likely flour) and melt it with its same weight of sodium carbonate,temperature must be controled under 400 C,a solid chemical reaction takes place on the surface of the powder.
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Texas,my friend,I am OK...working hard to pay lawyers´bills,alimonies,big cigars and whisky.I send you a big hug.

Regards.

Manuel
 
thanks for the explanation Juan Manuel, still working hard, because lawyers are insatiable.
I'm glad that you continue helping me
you're well, greetings
 
My method works well to:
1. take the sort of damp AgCl and mix with beads of NaOH(3:1+ ratio) and stir really well (until arm aches and hands fall off!) (or use and old bread dough maxer) This stuff should be very lightly moist, the reaction would have driven off much steam.
2. add in some dry sugar after it has cooled some, then mix well again (until arm aches and hands fall off!)
3. Place the mix in a pot, go outside throw in a lighted match and get back.
After a few minutes you'll have prills of melted silver. You may want to crush up this stuff and place in a crucible with a much smaller amount of NaHCO3 and melt it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Yg0gCOlXA 8)
 
What you add to start fire?
your silver is not contaminated with use of stainless steel pot?
What flux do you use to melt silver?
with my method, I get .999 silver, without tiring, but I find it interesting your system, except the smoke, would come the fire dept!!! :shock: Hey you, what are you doing?!!
the kitchen blender is a good solution too.
Texas.
 
sorry the poor quality, but my camera doesn't work well
 

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The burning in the pot does not melt the silver to molten. The silver prills or more of a silver wool will be melted again in crucible and flux.
My main objective is to get the silver to metal and uncombined state. Don't even care if there is iron or copper because I will dissolve in nitric and again and get the silver ultra pure.
The silver oxide is the oxidizer and the sugar is the accelerant so the both together is considered a low level explosive-thermite. there is quite some moisture so the reaction is not so vigorous.
 
Hi I have small scal of gold lab in iran. I use salt to recover silver form silver nitrate. After getting cement I wash well and melt them but I don't recover silver only black sluge.It about 150g silver .Now whar should I do to get my silver back please.Waiting for ur reply .
 

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Talalstuvs:

Great Heavens!!!!!...What have you done?...the material in the picture seems melted silver chloride.Please,tell us exactly,step by step ,all what you have done.

First of all, do not throw away anything (solid or liquid),second,you have to mill the black material just like the consistency of flour,then you have two ways for recover your silver:iron cementation or sodium carbonate melting process.

I refuse to continue telling you more until you tell us what you have done.

Kindest regards.

Manuel
 
Juan Manuel Arcos Frank said:
Talalstuvs:

Great Heavens!!!!!...What have you done?...the material in the picture seems melted silver chloride.Please,tell us exactly,step by step ,all what you have done.

First of all, do not throw away anything (solid or liquid),second,you have to mill the black material just like the consistency of flour,then you have two ways for recover your silver:iron cementation or sodium carbonate melting process.

I refuse to continue telling you more until you tell us what you have done.

Kindest regards.

Manuel

I have a small scal of gold lab in iran. I took my nitric and silver solution in 120L tank then mix about 3 kilo of sample salt with water and rise then in the tank after one day I get a white color of cement ground of tank. I take then out wash with water filter the. Water and put the cement on heat when they dry I melt them now I don't know wht to do with these black rock. There was about 150g silver and nitric solution .
Waiting for ur reply.
 
Talalstuvs:

Ok,I know what happened:You have melted the white mud(called silver chloride),silver chloride does not decompose to metallic silver by metling,the result is that black rock which is an allotropic form of silver chloride,I mean,it remains as silver chloride but with different properties,just exactly like graphite and diamonds,both are carbon but with very different properties(and costs,of course).

To convert that black rock to metallic silver you have to mill it very fine,just exactly as flour,then weight it and add the same weight of sodium carbonate,mix well and rise temperature to 500 C,you will see that the surface of the powder changes color(sometimes from gray to yellow,other from gray to green) and a crust is formed,brake the crust and mix well because the reaction only takes place in the surface.Continue doing the same until all the powder has changed to a crust,then raise temperature to 1100 C and you will see that liquid metallic silver is formed.

The easy way to treat silver chloride is cementation with iron,zinc or aluminium...now you know the melting process with sodium carbonate or you can use the sugar-sodium hydroxide process(better known as Karo syrup process).All these processes are available here in the Forum.

Where do you live in Iran?

Keep us posted about your progress.

بارك الله فيك

Manuel
 
If I understood correctly, he started from silver nitrate so a simple cementation on copper would have worked.
 
Hye guys...seriously need a piece of advice on Silver Chloride....I just recovered Silver in the form of Silver Chloride two days back..and its still wet..now..i wanna know whether I can straight away melt these Silver Chloride to Silver..or i need to add on any other process before melting it...??pls help me guys...badly need to know about it.TQ
 
kesavan said:
Hye guys...seriously need a piece of advice on Silver Chloride....I just recovered Silver in the form of Silver Chloride two days back..and its still wet..now..i wanna know whether I can straight away melt these Silver Chloride to Silver..or i need to add on any other process before melting it...??pls help me guys...badly need to know about it.TQ

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8147&p=76056&hilit=+convert+silver+chloride+Karo+syrup#p75964


For each troy ounce of silver, as silver chloride, well rinsed, just cover with water and add to this 20 grams of sodium hydroxide, dissolved previously, in water, plus about 13.3 ml of Karo light syrup. Stir for about 15 minutes. A power stirrer is the best, since it will chop things up and you will have a better yield. The solution will turn reddish-black but all the silver chloride will be converted to a gray, granular silver powder. Rinse very well and melt the silver.

The sodium hydroxide converts the silver chloride to silver oxide. The silver oxide is converted to silver metal by simply heating and melting it. Also, as HAuCl4 said, you can use H2O2 to convert it to metal. I would imagine the amount of NaOH needed would be about the same - about 20 grams per troy ounce of silver contained in the silver chloride.

It's not easy to get 100% conversion of AgCl to silver metal. If you have unconverted AgCl, it will end up in a layer in between the silver and the slag after melting and cooling. This solid AgCl is very difficult to convert to metal. Also, when molten, AgCl puts off dangerous fumes. It's best to get it all converted before melting it. All of your efforts should be towards this goal.

When the AgCl is chunky, the NaOH or NaOH/Karo solutions only tend to convert the AgCl on the surface of the chunk. The center is still AgCl. When AgCl dries out, it crystallizes and forms hard chunks. Never let the AgCl dry out - keep it wet. To get near 100% conversion, you must pulverize the AgCl. I would do this even if it's been kept wet. This can be easily done by adding water and putting it in a blender for awhile. If the seals will stand up to the NaOH, it would be best to also perform the chemical reactions in the blender - whether you're using NaOH alone or both NaOH and Karo syrup. If you don't have a blender, a flour sieve might work on dry material, but not as well as a blender.

If using NaOH and Karo (corn syrup) or other sugar to get a complete conversion to metal, you are always told to add the NaOH first and, only when it has been converted to the oxide do you add the syrup. I has found that this isn't necessary. You can add both at once, with the same results. I always calculate or estimate how much silver I have and use 10% extra chemicals.

Chris
 
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