Keyboard mylar and poor mans nitric acid

[mtntrekr2]

Before I try and find myself in trouble. I have seen others use a 5% solution of nitric acid for the recovery of silver from the mylar.

My question is can I use poor mans nitric for this? And what would the solution be.
Has anyone had any success?
I am not worried if it would take longer. Things can sit for months if needed.
I currently have a 14 lb. pile of mylars for sale on facebook mkt. but if they do not sell I was thinking of trying my luck. But the only acid I have is poor mans.
TY Joe
by the way the 14 lb. lot is listed by Tess Trueheart.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Before I try and find myself in trouble. I have seen others use a 5% solution of nitric acid for the recovery of silver from the mylar.

My question is can I use poor mans nitric for this? And what would the solution be.
Has anyone had any success?
I am not worried if it would take longer. Things can sit for months if needed.
I currently have a 14 lb. pile of mylars for sale on facebook mkt. but if they do not sell I was thinking of trying my luck. But the only acid I have is poor mans.
TY Joe
by the way the 14 lb. lot is listed by Tess Trueheart.

If I do remember correctly, with a strong Lye solution you will separate the traces from the Mylars.
But the mylars has to be open and the Silver exposed.
I might be wrong here though.

 

[orvi]

Before I try and find myself in trouble. I have seen others use a 5% solution of nitric acid for the recovery of silver from the mylar.

My question is can I use poor mans nitric for this? And what would the solution be.
Has anyone had any success?
I am not worried if it would take longer. Things can sit for months if needed.
I currently have a 14 lb. pile of mylars for sale on facebook mkt. but if they do not sell I was thinking of trying my luck. But the only acid I have is poor mans.
TY Joe
by the way the 14 lb. lot is listed by Tess Trueheart.

Aqueous chemistry would work, but I don´t want to imagine how much dilute liquid you would need to process afterwards... Mylars, even cut into pieces, stick together very well. Some kind of tumbling or stirring motion would be neccessary to achive good leaching. Certainly doable, of course. But I personally don´t like working with volumes of dilute solutions.

In the mylars, there usually aren´t many other metals than silver (maybe some copper/nickel, overall not too much), so I won´t bother with chemistry here at all and incinerate the whole lot. In a good furnance, with good afterburner, this will probably be the most straightforward way how to reduce material down to just metallic/ash residue. Then smelt it.

 

[Christian333]

If I do remember correctly, with a strong Lye solution you will separate the traces from the Mylars.
But the mylars has to be open and the Silver exposed.
I might be wrong here though.

GEO teaches this method on his Facebook group.

Janie

 

[mtntrekr2]

TY for the replies I will have to rethink my method choices.
Joe

 

[Återpenning]

GEO teaches this method on his Facebook group.

Janie

Janie, I am trying to join your group about organ recycling.
My name is Von Lindberg.
Please accept me, i will do some AR testing and whatnot.
Thanks from scandinavia

 

[Återpenning]

Janie, I am trying to join your group about organ recycling.
My name is Von Lindberg.
Please accept me, i will do some AR testing and whatnot.
Thanks from scandinavia

I have read Hokes, and about safety

 

[Christian333]

Please ask to join again. You must answer the question (Why do you want to join?) and agree to group rules.

See you there ☺

Janie

 

[GuyGuyGuythe1st]

Here is a video I made of keyboards mylar. I processed over 50 sheets. I got 7 grams of .999 silver, after the process was done.

I would recommend not leaching at all. Incineration is the way to go. Then process the ash with nitric.

 

[kurtak]

Then smelt it.

orvi nailed it - after incineration smelting is the way to go = no real "chemical" waste created which then needs to be cleaned up & made safe for disposal after leaching

That said - due to the very low metal (silver) content in a large amount of ash you will likely need to add collector metal to the smelt to get good settling of all the silver to the bottom of the cone mold when you poor the smelt to the cone mold

I would use silver cemented from silver nitrate from "other" silver refining projects (such as processing silver contact points or sterling etc.) as my collector metal to insure full collection of the silver when smelting the incinerated mylars

Kurt

 

[the leprechaun]

Aqueous chemistry would work, but I don´t want to imagine how much dilute liquid you would need to process afterwards... Mylars, even cut into pieces, stick together very well. Some kind of tumbling or stirring motion would be neccessary to achive good leaching. Certainly doable, of course. But I personally don´t like working with volumes of dilute solutions.

In the mylars, there usually aren´t many other metals than silver (maybe some copper/nickel, overall not too much), so I won´t bother with chemistry here at all and incinerate the whole lot. In a good furnance, with good afterburner, this will probably be the most straightforward way how to reduce material down to just metallic/ash residue. Then smelt it.

Orvi,
I was wondering would the same procedure work on gold plated flexi like in the photo? I should have added the incineration part only.

 

[rickbb]

If I do remember correctly, with a strong Lye solution you will separate the traces from the Mylars.
But the mylars has to be open and the Silver exposed.
I might be wrong here though.

This is correct, I ran mine through a paper shredder which also bent them up to keep the bits separated while in the lye solution. 10% lye, hot, around 125F works well. Too much lye will start to break down the mylar and then you have the extra step of burning that off before melting the silver.

 

[orvi]

Orvi,
I was wondering would the same procedure work on gold plated flexi like in the photo? I should have added the incineration part only.

It should work. But there are some "if´s". Of course, you have more base metals in there, solder and other stuff... But if you will incinerate thoroughly, you will most probably oxidize most of the solder away.
Because the solder will cause problems later at refining stages. Silver alloys aren´t tolerated in AR refining (silver chloride crust formation and reaction stalls). And opposite, in nitric pathway, tin will cause the issues (metastannic acid formation).

Then, you will need to cautiously choose the pathway for processing. Or remove majority of tin at the start to prevent this unfortunate alloy formation in the first place.