Impure silver from silver cell?

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Plain, unbleached muslin cloth will work fine. A fine mesh would work better, but you can double it up and still work great. Price is pretty reasonable by the yard as well.
 
Shark said:
Plain, unbleached muslin cloth will work fine. A fine mesh would work better, but you can double it up and still work great. Price is pretty reasonable by the yard as well.
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Can I ask what is the significance of these different type of filters. What changes in the cell with the different filters?
 
bes8718 said:
Can I ask what is the significance of these different type of filters. What changes in the cell with the different filters?
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The "filter" collect the slimes so it do not foul the electrolyte and keep the deposited metal pure.
The slimes are also where what ever Gold and PGMs are it they are there from the beginning.
So it has to be fine enough to not let the slimes through
but coarse enough to let the Silver Nitrate and current migrate through.

You do not use different filters just the one that does the job for you.
And as Shark say, muslin cloth seem to be the go to for most.
 
To tight of weave and it slows or may stop the flow of the metal ions through the filter material. To loose and the sludges from the contaminant in the silver will settle through it as well leaving the sludges in your silver crystal. These sludges will appear as black powders in the bright, almost white looking silver crystals.

I think a 600 weave muslin is the better one, but I can’t recall for sure. I bought a large piece several years ago and still have plenty left over. A search of the forum for silver cells and filters may show the thread where they were discussed a few years back, look for posts on silver cells from Kurtak as well.

I see Yggdrasil already posted but I will post this anyway.
 
bes8718 said:
Very good to know! Should the muslin cloth be folded over or would it be fine as is?
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That will depend on the cloth and the cell design.
What cell design are you using and so on.
If the cloth is fine enough it will not need folding if it is not fine enough it might need folding or other design changes.
 
Yggdrasil said:
That will depend on the cloth and the cell design.
What cell design are you using and so on.
If the cloth is fine enough it will not need folding if it is not fine enough it might need folding or other design changes.
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Do you know if anyone has ever done a slimes screen analysis, to determine what mesh size is optimal for slime containment?
 
Interesting idea, but the slimes from a silver cell are exceedingly fine. It's why they're called slimes. I'm not sure how fine a screen it would take to capture any of them, let alone the finest of them, which is what you really need to capture.

Dave
 
goldshark said:
Do you know if anyone has ever done a slimes screen analysis, to determine what mesh size is optimal for slime containment?
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Kurtak would be the one that came close to this. I just cannot recall for sure the weave count (the same as the count on fancy bed sheets) as for other type materials I have no idea.
 
Just my input I have used :
Blue polyester filter media ( clogged after a week)
Old socks (worked ok )
The famous Dacron filter ( expensive )
I like muslin cloth for the price to material aspect
Maybe a combination of muslin and sock or muslin Dacron .
I think an important part is once the cell set up don’t disturb the Anode basket .
https://a.co/d/7RFLVx3
 
Hello, All. May I suggest a simple, mechanical experiment for initial analysis? Why not try a filtration test with the various types of materials used for silver cell anode baskets? Make an anode slime slurry with used electrolyte and filter it through the various test materials, documenting which ones filter the best, while still allowing filtrate through. This won't be any kind of a quantifiable indicator of eletronegativity across the material, but will definitely determine which materials are best for keeping slimes out of the cell. Just a thought.

-Mike T.
Silver Spur Refining (private)
 
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I would like to see more experimentation on this subject, to determine what is best. Does anybody know what the big refiners use? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. IE, let somebody else figure it out, then copy them. I have some 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, used for rags now, but my thoughts were that they would either get consumed by excess acid, or I would nitrate them.
 
goldshark said:
I would like to see more experimentation on this subject, to determine what is best. Does anybody know what the big refiners use? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. IE, let somebody else figure it out, then copy them. I have some 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, used for rags now, but my thoughts were that they would either get consumed by excess acid, or I would nitrate them.
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This is what I am looking at using. I have a sample coming from Australia. I will let you know if it is sucessful.

Screenshot 2024-02-22 at 7.42.09 AM.png
 
richard_1 said:
This is what I am looking at using. I have a sample coming from Australia. I will let you know if it is sucessful.

View attachment 61722
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Just to qualify the remark, we are a refinery in Auckland New Zealand. Our silver cells run 20 Kg per day at between 4-5 Volts at 180 to 220 amps depending on the state of the electrolyte. We have used polyester cloth for 5 decades however they have stopped production of that cloth recently. We have been testing new types and the latest sample looks promising.
 

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