Mirrors from Photocopier

rusty · Mar 14, 2011

I have taken some mirrors from a large photocopier which are surface plated on onto ground glass.

1. Nitric acid had no effect on the plating.
2. Cold AR slowly etches the plating
3. To do - heat Ar
4. To do - test with stannous

From test number one I have determined that the plating is not Silver, Palladium or Rhodium.

Primus camp stove is screwed up and will not light, left it outside in the snow over winter, in the meantime another observation with the AR sitting in direct sunlight the plating for the mirrors is flaking off like foils. More like thin slivers.

Regards
Rusty

Anonymous · Mar 14, 2011

I had a friend bring me some large round concave mirrors last week to etch,and a soak in AR for a week didn't do it.He just took them back last night so I can do no further testing.

rusty · Mar 14, 2011

All the plating came of the glass in fine slivers, the AR after boiling turned green just before the coffee craft broke.

I managed to salvage enough AR to do a stannous test, no color change but I did get a black precipitate. Even with boiling AR the slivers did not want to digest.

So we still don't have a clue what the plating is, and I'm not going to spend anymore time with it, so you guys are on your own with this one.

If I were a gambling man, I would place a bet on rhodium..

Regards
Rusty

rusty · Mar 15, 2011

Anyone care to venture a guess as to what the black precipitate is that came down after throwing in the remainder of my stannous solution.

lunker · Mar 18, 2011

I read somewhere that selenium is used. Not sure of it's chemical properties but would be a place to start.

qst42know · Mar 19, 2011

Read the section on iridium.

http://books.google.com/books?id=WDll8hA006AC&pg=SA4-PA16&lpg=SA4-PA16&dq=iridium+mirror+aqua+regia&source=bl&ots=UZhB-PLYIu&sig=hZhY1gUzSN_fDPwbTOG9pYAGcAY&hl=en&ei=fiWFTfnEMdS2twfC7YmxBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=iridium%20mirror%20aqua%20regia&f=false