That patent is quite old, from the 1970’s. It never seemed to catch on in production. If it has, it’s a well kept secret.
Very interesting idea. one concern I have is that the electrolyte would have a kerosine odor associated with it. I do this in my garage and would not want the smell. On the other hand some type of vented hood above the cell would eliminate this problem. It seems to me one could monitor the progress of this extraction by measuring the curpic nitrate in the electrolyte (the blue color intensity should go down) and the selectivity of the extraction by measuring the silver concentration in the cell using the Volhard titration ( which works really well). Got the seeds of an experiment here for sure. I would like to see some data, however.
I do NOT recommend adding nitric acid to the silver cell. Streetips said it would dissolve the paladium in the slimes and generate a green solution. I added HNO3 and I got greenish-yellow crystals. This makes sense because we go to great pains to ensure all of the nitric acid in our silver nitrate electrolyte solution is consumed. Why would we add nitric acid then? Live and learn.Okay, really like the idea of adding nitric acid to the silver cell to replenish the silver concentration in the cell. All kinds of benefits of doing it this way. 1) you don't spend the time isolating pure crystals and washing them, etc, 2) you don't have to redissolve silver and make sure there is excess silver around (plenty of excess silver in the silver cell). The downside as I see it would be the formation of NOx but that can be handeled with a fan. I really like combining this with the silver titration method. These two methods would allow one to keep the [Ag] at the right amount. I think using cupric nitrate standard solutions is a better way to approximate the [Cu] in the silver cell. Any other downsides to this method of maintaining you silver concentration in the silver cell? What concentraton of silver do you use in a silver cell?
This is why I support this forum. In my opinion, this is an outstanding contribution to my project. Thank you very much,
Jim
ps time to buy some chemicals, buret, lab stand, pipets etc for the silver titration. what fun!
It all depends on your feedstock. If you were processing high purity Silver to start (>99%Ag) the Silver would dissolve at the anode and deposit at the cathode and your net consumption of nitric would be negligible. This makes it easy to control. And in a solution with lower free nitric acid and 60g/l Silver, lower concentrations of Palladium tend to accumulate in the anode slimes.Why would we add nitric acid then? Live and learn.
yes the Palladium Dimethylglyoxime molecule is very large relatively speaking, that is why it is used to determine small quantities of Palladium in solution. It also drops Palladium as the salt in the presence of nitric acid which makes this easy. Simply filter out the yellow Palladium Dimethylglyoxime and reduce it to the metal when you have accumulated enough.Good idea. I assume you would add it to the blue silver nitrate solution and then filter it out before Cu cementation. Correct?
This substitute is sodium nitrate. It would need to be made in to nitric acid, search poormans nitric on the forum.Is Jsp nitric acid substitute good? Would it work for dissolving silver for silver nitrate electrolyte
I found a place called alchemie labs. They have 950ml bottles of nitric for $30 and free shipping. They said anything a liter or more needs hazmat fees but you can have multiple 950ml bottles of nitric in the same box without paying those hazmat fees. I just ordered a bottle so I’ll update on how it isI have tried most of them. I haven’t tried the Lab Alley brand, but have used it from Greenway Chemicals, now under new ownership and name change. They are out of Knoxville, Tn. My go to for smaller volumes has been Duda Diesel, out of Decatur, Al. And they are within a comfortable drive for me.
I have also used sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate to make both Poormans AR and nitric acid. My preference would be
1- real nitric, distilled or bought from a quality supply house.
2 - sodium nitrate in AR form.
Potassium nitrate then calcium nitrate. In that order, just based on ease of access.
I have never distilled nitric although have the equipment to do it. It was easier to gain access to good nitric than keep making it in quantities I could use. Since I am slowing down more these days, I may try distilling some at some point in time just for the experience.
I can understand dissolving a weighted sample of copper wire, but then how do you determine the various concentrations, and what did you diluted the copper nitric with, distilled H2O?That's exactly the technique I use. The only difference is that I dissolved a weighed sample of copper wire with nitric acid, then diluted samples down to the various concentrations. It's a quick and dirty method, but it has served me well. Yes, I use the same vial for my sample of electrolyte as the vials containing the standard solutions.
You can also detect when other metals contaminate the electrolyte, particularly palladium. It lends a brownish tint along with the blue. It's a nice contaminant to find.
Dave
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