Here's the MSDS for the solvent that's in it. Sounds fairly nasty. I never liked toluene and 2 of the other ingredients might be worse. The isopropanol is rubbing alcohol.
http://www.laddresearch.com/wsmsds/60845S1msds.pdf
The only way I can think of that the copper powder could possibly be plated is by using an immersion silver bath. No current is used. Immersion silver is exactly the same as the cement silver we have covered in detail on the forum, except there are ingredients in the bath that make it stick tightly to the copper, rather than falling off. The nature of immersion plating is that, when the particle of copper is fully covered with silver, it stops plating This is because, in order to cement the silver, some copper must dissolve. If the copper is totally covered with silver, the solution can't penetrate through the silver in order to dissolve copper. Therefore, the plating reaction stops. You can't cement silver on silver. You must have exposed copper.
Due to all this, the thickness of the silver is limited to about 5 to 10 millionths of an inch thick, at most. Although this is very thin, the total silver could be appreciable if the particle size of the copper is quite small. The smaller the particle size, the larger the total surface area of all the particles. The more surface area, the greater the total amount of silver.
As far as processing, I would have to experiment with it, were it mine. The solvent is nasty and I would think it would have to be removed before the metals could be dissolved in nitric. Burning or evaporation are options, although both could be dangerous. Also, I don't think evaporation would work, since the organic binder in it that makes it stick to a surface would still be there after it dries. You might be able to rinse out all the solvent ingredients with strong alcohol (with little or no water in it) and then dry it, but it would probably take several gallons.
Anyone else have any ideas?
