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.

 

[Joseph83]

I found out the best way to use copper cementing to get the silver out of silver nitrate by doing it right at first by chance, then the wrong way when I started fiddling with the evolution; small rods instead of large bits of Cu or powdered copper.
The silver mostly falls away from the copper and the rod, usually hollow, vanishes from the bottom up, minimizing copper contamination as after the acid holds all the copper it can.
Large pieces of copper will get a coat of silver that will fall away but, with visible discoloring from peeling away a tiny layer of half dissolved copper. Powdered copper works fine except at the end when you are likely to end up with a last dose of copper powder undissolved in the silver powder.

hello there , I have question , I bought a pure silver nitrate powder 25gr , I would like to make it in a liquid solution to start cementing silver out of a copper bar ,I am bit confuse about the measure , I saw on google that for every 1.7 grams of pure silver nitrate I have to add 100 ml of distilled water ,is it a good ratio ?

 

[Yggdrasil]

hello there , I have question , I bought a pure silver nitrate powder 25gr , I would like to make it in a liquid solution to start cementing silver out of a copper bar ,I am bit confuse about the measure , I saw on google that for every 1.7 grams of pure silver nitrate I have to add 100 ml of distilled water ,is it a good ratio ?

Welcome.
Can you please explain?
Why do you want to cement pure Silver Nitrate on Copper?
It is far more valuable as Silver Nitrate.

 

[Joseph83]

what I would like is to make a liquid silver nitrate solution ( but I bought a silver nitrate 99.99% 25gr powder , and I don’t know how much water I need to add to make it a liquid solution , with the liquid solution I would like to put inside a copper bar and obtain silver cement powder , with the cement powder I would like to melt it into a bar or make a silver shot to start a silver cell

 

[Joseph83]

I didn’t want to make the silver nitrate from scratch by melting a silver bar into nitric acid because I am just to knew and the yellow fume scared me an little

 

[Joseph83]

 

[BGDOCK]

what I would like is to make a liquid silver nitrate solution ( but I bought a silver nitrate 99.99% 25gr powder , and I don’t know how much water I need to add to make it a liquid solution , with the liquid solution I would like to put inside a copper bar and obtain silver cement powder , with the cement powder I would like to melt it into a bar or make a silver shot to start a silver cell

I think you are making it a little hard on yourself , to me this not practical, You don’t want to make silver nitrate but buy it for cementation and for your silver cell. You goal is to make silver bars or shot

Things needed
Silver nitrate for cementation
Torches to melt the Impure silver
Melt dishes to cast shot or bars
Mold to make bar
Silver feed stock for cell
Silver nitrate for cell
Hand tools
Power supply

Why not just buy silver bars ?

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.

 

[Joseph83]

I was looking for the silver nitrate powder to liquid ratio but I guess it’s way to hard to get this answer , thanks anyway , sorry I didn’t know that was difficult

 

[BGDOCK]

Depends on what you want the concentration of solution to be

Silver nitrate is very soluble in water

Let me try this guys

Molecular wt of silver nitrate = 169 grams

silver atomic wt = 107

silver nitrate contains silver = 107/169 x 25 grams =15.828 grams

Ok do you want 15 grams of silver in solution one liter , 500 ml , 250 ml

 

[Joseph83]

Depends on what you want the concentration of solution to be

Silver nitrate is very soluble in water

Let me try this guys

Molecular wt of silver nitrate = 169 grams

silver atomic wt = 107

silver nitrate contains silver = 107/169 x 25 grams =15.828 grams

Ok do you want 15 grams of silver in solution one liter , 500 ml , 250 ml

thank you for the answer , what do you think will work if I want a solution to start silver cementation from a copper bar ? Considering that I only have 25grams of pure silver nitrate in powder , how much water do I need ?