precipitating silver with copper

[Joseph83]

When cementing on copper metal a slab is best because as it thins out you notice it and you can stop using it by the time little bits of coper break off and mix with your Silver metal. Copper pipe, being thinner, does not last as long. The copper in with your Silver metal doesn't hurt the cell but as it builds up it has to be removed or it will co-deposit and lower the purity of your Silver from the cell. A little copper in the cell actually helps the crystal structure grow. But since most cells today run on sterling Silver there is never a shortage of copper, so why let sloppy technique increase the copper content of your cement Silver when it doesn't have to?

Thank you for the accurate explanation, I am very impressed, I feel that I am learning a lot , I want thank all of you for taking the time to answer my amateur question

 

[Joseph83]

Joseph, are you under the impression that "cementing silver from copper" means that you're somehow converting the copper to silver, or extracting silver from within the copper?

When we cement silver with copper it means we start with a solution containing silver in solution. We add a bar of copper. The copper dissolves into the solution, and the silver that is already in solution is reduced to metallic silver. The only silver that cements out is the silver that was already in the solution.

So by starting with your silver nitrate, the only silver you can cement out is the bit of silver in the silver nitrate. If you want silver bars, it would be cheaper and much simpler to just buy them.

Dave

Thank you Dave , yes I had the impression that I could extract silver out of copper , what about from a silver cell ?? Is there any profit from doing that ?

 

[Joseph83]

Thank you Dave , yes I had the impression that I could extract silver out of copper , what about from a silver cell ?? Is there any profit from doing that ?

Why ppl would melt silver into the nitric acid to make silver nitrate to then extract the same silver from a copper bar ? From there the cementation they make silver shot , to feed the silver cell , is there any profit ?

 

[Martijn]

Silver is not very expensive compared to gold. to make a profit on the refining, you must have unmarked silver of some kind to purify. refining marked silver is not worth the time for the hobbyist. imo. You can sell it for the silver value.
So this question remains for you to answer: do you have impure silver to refine? we are speculating about what might be the issue, if only you answer some questions, we can give you a proper answer.

do you have any impure silver to refine? what is your goal?

 

[Martijn]

Why ppl would melt silver into the nitric acid to make silver nitrate to then extract the same silver from a copper bar ? From there the cementation they make silver shot , to feed the silver cell , is there any profit ?

you are making assumptions about a process intended for other things , i'm assuming

For the record: you don't melt silver into nitric it is called dissolving. Melting implies a temperature being increased to cause the shift in matter state.
copper bars do not contain silver.

a silver cell is to refine impure silver into pure silver. A copper cell to refine impure copper into pure copper, etc. etc. making silver from copper is called alchemy, which does not exist.

 

[Joseph83]

Silver is not very expensive compared to gold. to make a profit on the refining, you must have unmarked silver of some kind to purify. refining marked silver is not worth the time for the hobbyist. imo. You can sell it for the silver value.
So this question remains for you to answer: do you have impure silver to refine? we are speculating about what might be the issue, if only you answer some questions, we can give you a proper answer.

do you have any impure silver to refine? what is your goal?

No I don’t have any impure silver to refine , I just saw a few videos on YouTube regarding cementing silver out of a copper bar and I had the impression that that would be profitable , than I saw a video of a silver cell that produce pure silver crystal and all started by converting cement silver ( extracted from copper ) into silver shot ( after melting the cement ) and also use the same silver to make electrolyte for the silver cell , did I misunderstood everything??? I thought at some point there must to be some profit , otherwise why in the world doing all of this ? I am starting from zero , I just want to know what are the steps for a profitable path

 

[Joseph83]

you are making assumptions about a process intended for other things , i'm assuming

For the record: you don't melt silver into nitric it is called dissolving. Melting implies a temperature being increased to cause the shift in matter state.
copper bars do not contain silver.

a silver cell is to refine impure silver into pure silver. A copper cell to refine impure copper into pure copper, etc. etc. making silver from copper is called alchemy, which does not exist.

Thank you for the answer ,yes this is definitely a total new world

 

[Yggdrasil]

Why ppl would melt silver into the nitric acid to make silver nitrate to then extract the same silver from a copper bar ? From there the cementation they make silver shot , to feed the silver cell , is there any profit ?

As Martijn already has said you do not get more Silver/Gold out of a process than you put in.
Actually slightly less, some always kind of strays off or separates out in the process.
We do Chemistry and science not Alchemy and other mumbo jumbo.
And people (not ppl) do not do that, you are the only one here suggesting something like this.

 

[Yggdrasil]

No I don’t have any impure silver to refine , I just saw a few videos on YouTube regarding cementing silver out of a copper bar and I had the impression that that would be profitable , than I saw a video of a silver cell that produce pure silver crystal and all started by converting cement silver ( extracted from copper ) into silver shot ( after melting the cement ) and also use the same silver to make electrolyte for the silver cell , did I misunderstood everything??? I thought at some point there must to be some profit , otherwise why in the world doing all of this ? I am starting from zero , I just want to know what are the steps for a profitable path

You have misread the whole process, the Silver comes from the dissolved Silver in the Silver Nitrate, not from the Copper.
The Copper is simply used to take the place of the Silver in The Silver Nitrate and this creates Silver metal and Copper Nitrate.
The profit is from being able to sell pure Silver in stead of impure Silver.
Additionally the other metals in the anode is collected in the anode bag and can be further refined and can contain Gold, Palladium and other metals.
I suggest you stop viewing Youtube videos and start reading in stead.
I you insist on watching stuff on youtube watch only serious videos.

Here are some links to known good videos:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/a-video-section-for-some-of-our-visual-learning-members.35185/

 

[Joseph83]

As Martijn already has said you do not get more Silver/Gold out of a process than you put in.
Actually slightly less, some always kind of strays off or separates out in the process.
We do Chemistry and science not Alchemy and other mumbo jumbo.
And people (not ppl) do not do that, you are the only one here suggesting something like this.

Well first of all , I already specified multiple time that this is my first rodeo , I am not suggesting any thing, I was looking for explanations and answer ,I founded a lots of good one , but you are all about your ego and you want humiliate , please don’t reply if you have to judge in this way , instead read between the line and try to understand that when some one said that is totally new to tis field , that means be patient or just don’t be

 

[Martijn]

Well first of all , I already specified multiple time that this is my first rodeo , I am not suggesting any thing, I was looking for explanations and answer ,I founded a lots of good one , but you are all about your ego and you want humiliate , please don’t reply if you have to judge in this way , instead read between the line and try to understand that when some one said that is totally new to tis field , that means be patient or just don’t be

Yggdrasil did not offend you, please keep it civilized. don't take it personal, we are here to help.
you can not know what you never learned, so we will teach you. i bet you have some thing we can learn from.
he only replied to your question: "why people do?" ....etc.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Well first of all , I already specified multiple time that this is my first rodeo , I am not suggesting any thing, I was looking for explanations and answer ,I founded a lots of good one , but you are all about your ego and you want humiliate , please don’t reply if you have to judge in this way , instead read between the line and try to understand that when some one said that is totally new to tis field , that means be patient or just don’t be

You need to be more specific, I have asked direct questions and hinted but you have not provided much information before these few last posts.
And what you are revealing is on the magic side of things. Hint, we do not do magic.

And I suggested that you need to read much more and less videos.
We deal with science here and if you ask questions they will be answered truthfully and scientific correctly.
Science does its own things and do not tolerate mistakes, it always do what it is supposed to do, even if you want it to so something else.

I have already given you the links to the video section, but I still recommend reading over videos.

So what I suggest to most people is to read these links:
We ask our new members to do 3 things.
1. Read C.M. Hokes book on refining jewelers scrap, it gives an easy introduction to the most important chemistry regarding refining.
It is free here on the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=19798
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/safety.47/
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/dealing-with-waste.10539/

Suggested reading:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/forums/the-library.101/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/when-in-doubt-cement-it-out.30236/
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threa...le-read-this-before-you-post-about-ore.33333/


Forum rules is here.
https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/gold-refining-forum-rules.31182/

 

[Martijn]

To answer your question: people refine precious metals to get it purer than before. silver is sometimes used to refine karat gold, then it needs to be alloyed with lots of silver first.
some times you have silver in E-waste that you want to collect and then refine to high purity, to sell or use in jewelry. lots of different purposes.
You tube is not a good source for information, as 90% of the trade secrets are not explained and shiny things are clickbait.

 

[4metals]

You tube is not a good source for information, as 90% of the trade secrets are not explained and shiny things are clickbait.

Not totally true. There are some decent video's you can learn from on Youtube and we have a new section HERE where we list video's that we have viewed and approve for our members to view. The section is locked but if you watch a specific video and have questions we invite you to open a thread in the discussions section referencing the video in question and start a discussion. As I see those discussions develop I will link to them from the locked thread.

Sreetips, on the first page of the thread I linked above, has some very good and informative silver cell video's where you can watch and learn, and, if you want start a thread to ask questions or to clarify what you saw.

 

[Joseph83]

I

Yggdrasil did not offend you, please keep it civilized. don't take it personal, we are here to help.
you can not know what you never learned, so we will teach you. i bet you have some thing we can learn from.
he only replied to your question: "why people do?" ....etc.

I agree with you , we are all here to learn , of course let’s keep it civilized with polite manner , thanks Martijn for make in it clear

 

[Joseph83]

Not totally true. There are some decent video's you can learn from on Youtube and we have a new section HERE where we list video's that we have viewed and approve for our members to view. The section is locked but if you watch a specific video and have questions we invite you to open a thread in the discussions section referencing the video in question and start a discussion. As I see those discussions develop I will link to them from the locked thread.

Sreetips, on the first page of the thread I linked above, has some very good and informative silver cell video's where you can watch and learn, and, if you want start a thread to ask questions or to clarify what you saw.

 

[Joseph83]

Thank you for taking the time to answer, I will definitely search for the informative video, I know YouTube can be confusing and illusionary , some of the answer that I received by the participants of this vlog where full of questions bcs I basically misunderstood chemistry with alchemy , I want ask you a question regarding this all process , where is the profit in starting a silver cell ? Is it at the very base ? I mean is this profit all start by creating a silver nitrate solution from scratch using non pure silver for example 800 or 925 Then with the help of a copper bar in solution we will cement a much pure silver and the same quantity that we dissolved into the nitric acid for the solution ? Then we melt the cement creating silver shot , And what about the silver cell , will the cell produce more silver ( pure crystal) than the amount that we put into the basket , that get in contact with the silver electrolytes , in a few words if I feed the silver cell 1 pound of silver shot , will the cell produce a pound of silver crystal or more ?

 

[4metals]

We humble earthlings are governed by some basic laws of physics. One particularly stingy law is the law of conservation of mass. That simply says that mass is neither created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. That means if you put in a pound of sterling silver into a silver cell, all you can expect out of the cell is 92.5% of the pound as pure Silver. The 7.5% is copper and will not come out of the cell with your pure Silver.

The profit in starting a silver cell can be realized by purchasing impure Silver under spot price and selling the refined Silver for more than you paid for it. If you do gold refining by inquartation as sreetips often does, there is an excess of cement Silver that he accumulates. Seeing that he is not infinitely wealthy (at least I think not) he has to recover that Silver and refine it to sell to recoup his expenses. A Silver cell allows any other valuable metals to accumulate in a way they too can be recovered, refined, and sold as well.

Often Silver is refined because there is a need for higher purity Silver in a process. For example I have taught many assayers how to set up small Silver cells because a fire assay uses high purity gold free silver to determine the gold in an alloy or scrap bar. To buy that high purity certified Silver is not inexpensive. Since the silver is always recycled, never lost, there comes a time where making your own high purity Silver in house is cost effective. (not to mention fun.......sorry that's the nerd in me talking!)

You will have to determine why you need to set up a Silver cell for your own purposes. Every refiner or hobby refiners goals are different. Enjoy the journey!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Thank you for taking the time to answer, I will definitely search for the informative video, I know YouTube can be confusing and illusionary , some of the answer that I received by the participants of this vlog where full of questions bcs I basically misunderstood chemistry with alchemy , I want ask you a question regarding this all process , where is the profit in starting a silver cell ? Is it at the very base ? I mean is this profit all start by creating a silver nitrate solution from scratch using non pure silver for example 800 or 925 Then with the help of a copper bar in solution we will cement a much pure silver and the same quantity that we dissolved into the nitric acid for the solution ? Then we melt the cement creating silver shot , And what about the silver cell , will the cell produce more silver ( pure crystal) than the amount that we put into the basket , that get in contact with the silver electrolytes , in a few words if I feed the silver cell 1 pound of silver shot , will the cell produce a pound of silver crystal or more ?

To explain a tad simpler than 4metals.
We humans can not create or destroy an element.
So you will not get out more material be it Silver or other than you put in.
It is simply impossible outside a Supernova.

What you are describing asking for is similar to the filosofers stone in Alchemy/Harry Potter.

If anyone has told otherwise, they are either, lying, pulling your leg or someone has pulled their leg.

 

[4metals]

To explain a tad simpler than 4metals.

Thanks a lot!!! As the law of conservation of mass comes crashing down to earth!!!!!!!!