Buildeddie97
Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2021
- Messages
- 9
Hello All!
Brand new to this site and silver working in general. I tried to find some posts that answered this question but couldn't so I'll make my first post.
I am doing silver recovery from a nitric acid solution. I have a dirty nitric acid and silver solution (it is used for silver stripping mostly on stainless steel parts but other some contaminants definitely get in). I pour sodium chloride (table salt) to acquire the silver chloride. I rinse this solution many times with tap water and then distilled water. I now do one of two things.
1. I add the silver chloride to a mixture of water, sulfuric acid, and I stir with an iron rod. This yields silver at the bottom. I then wash the silver with tap water, hydrochloric acid, and then finally distilled water. I finally take the silver and smelt it to a small ingot. I ran an analysis on this ingot and found that it is 99.6% silver and .4% iron. I figured the iron rod may have been the culprit so I cut out the middle step and tried solution 2:
2. I take the silver chloride and put in the crucible. I heat it and the chlorine burns away (I'm in a very well ventilated area, but I do want to know if this is safe regardless) and then continue to heat it until I can pour the silver and get an ingot. The same analysis was done and same results! 99.6% silver and .4% iron.
My guess is that in the nitric acid solution, some of the stainless steel that's dissolved leaves some trace amounts of iron which then react with the nitric acid to form mostly iron nitrate and apparently a trace amount of Fe2O3. Turns out that this Fe2O3 also reacts with table salt and forms a precipitate. This is my guess as to where the extra iron is coming from.
I did do some reading that the sulfuric acid method should have taken care of the iron issue so maybe it's just a coincidence and I should try again, but please let me know what you all think! I'm excited to be here and doing this so any help and thoughts are greatly appreciated!!
Buildeddie97
Edward
Brand new to this site and silver working in general. I tried to find some posts that answered this question but couldn't so I'll make my first post.
I am doing silver recovery from a nitric acid solution. I have a dirty nitric acid and silver solution (it is used for silver stripping mostly on stainless steel parts but other some contaminants definitely get in). I pour sodium chloride (table salt) to acquire the silver chloride. I rinse this solution many times with tap water and then distilled water. I now do one of two things.
1. I add the silver chloride to a mixture of water, sulfuric acid, and I stir with an iron rod. This yields silver at the bottom. I then wash the silver with tap water, hydrochloric acid, and then finally distilled water. I finally take the silver and smelt it to a small ingot. I ran an analysis on this ingot and found that it is 99.6% silver and .4% iron. I figured the iron rod may have been the culprit so I cut out the middle step and tried solution 2:
2. I take the silver chloride and put in the crucible. I heat it and the chlorine burns away (I'm in a very well ventilated area, but I do want to know if this is safe regardless) and then continue to heat it until I can pour the silver and get an ingot. The same analysis was done and same results! 99.6% silver and .4% iron.
My guess is that in the nitric acid solution, some of the stainless steel that's dissolved leaves some trace amounts of iron which then react with the nitric acid to form mostly iron nitrate and apparently a trace amount of Fe2O3. Turns out that this Fe2O3 also reacts with table salt and forms a precipitate. This is my guess as to where the extra iron is coming from.
I did do some reading that the sulfuric acid method should have taken care of the iron issue so maybe it's just a coincidence and I should try again, but please let me know what you all think! I'm excited to be here and doing this so any help and thoughts are greatly appreciated!!
Buildeddie97
Edward