precipitating silver with copper

[kurtak]

Trying to devise a set up where my copper sits fully submerged in solution while not touching bottom of beaker,

Drill a hole in the copper sheet or plate, and hang it from an insulated copper wire, bend the insulated wire back above liquid level. you can bend it around the vessel edge and you're done.

What Martijn said don't have to post a real answer right not but these pics should provide the general idea

Kurt

 

[Shark]

I like to use plastic zip ties and hang them from the wooden sticks used for cooking. I have also used heat guns to bend plastic “sticks” to suspend the copper from. I like to lean towards the reusable things as much as possible.

 

[BGDOCK]

That is clever

 

[Hartbar]

Trying my first cementstion, silver out of nitrate using copper.
Seems to be going well. Been 15 hrs now and still have some silver in solution it seems, (took small sample of solution and got reaction with HCL)
Copper bar is deteriorating quite a bit.
I used 1.2 grams of copper bar for every 3.4 grams of expected silver yield.
About how long should the cementing process take?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Trying my first cementstion, silver out of nitrate using copper.
Seems to be going well. Been 15 hrs now and still have some silver in solution it seems, (took small sample of solution and got reaction with HCL)
Copper bar is deteriorating quite a bit.
I used 1.2 grams of copper bar for every 3.4 grams of expected silver yield.
About how long should the cementing process take?

We usually use a Copper bar and some kind of stirring, no need to measured how much as long as rhe Copper bar is solid and in excess.
Make sure the whole bar is submerged, so you don't get flaking from the surface.

 

[Hartbar]

Bar is hanging from wooden skewers with insulated copper wires, fully submerged.
Still going this morning, slowed overnite while I slept and not awake to agitate the skewers and beaker as a poor mans stirring.
Looks like I’ll have a greasy surface with some trace silver cement floating?
Thinking of chilling beaker in ice bath before rinsing, any other thoughts on this or how to start the rinse process?

 

[BGDOCK]

distilled hot water
Cover 1-2 inches stir a few times
Pour off into a container
Until rinse water is clear

 

[Hartbar]

When I’m at this stage on the salt/lye/sugar method, I carefully pour or pipette off top liquid, use hot distilled water, but periodically put a drop of HCL in the hot distilled water. It makes the cement drop very quickly.
Rinse till clear and PH is neutral. That gives me a .999 Silver when melted.
Assume that works ok w cementsion as well.

 

[BGDOCK]

I’m confused are you cementing out the silver using copper or are you using salt to make silver chloride then using sugar lye to convert your silver?

 

[Hartbar]

To be clear, this batch I’m cementing off copper.
Before I’ve only done the salt/lye/sugar method, which I believe gets you to the same place as cementing off copper. The silver cement that you melt.
My question was about the rinsing, is it same procedure for both methods?

 

[Martijn]

To be clear, this batch I’m cementing off copper.
Before I’ve only done the salt/lye/sugar method, which I believe gets you to the same place as cementing off copper. The silver cement that you melt.
My question was about the rinsing, is it same procedure for both methods?

You need to rinse the silver chloride free of salts, and test the rinse water with some drops of lye to see if any hydroxides form. If so, keep rinsing.
Then you can get 99.9% and even purer gold (edited: silver) from the lye and sugar process.
The same goes for cemented silver: rinsing and testing the rinse water.
With cementing you will have some traces of copper metal in the silver cement.
You can further refine it with a silver nitrate cell.