Separating gold & Silver

[JMP]

I have a band comprised of gold & silver. I want to separate the two. I've read that boiling it in nitric acid will separate them by dissolving the silver as silver nitrate liquid leaving the gold to be filtered off. Then the silver is brought out of the solution with ferrous sulfate. But looking at ferrous sulfate I'm confused because I see people saying that when silver is mixed with ferrous sulfate the is no reaction. I am new to the idea of working with metal & this will be my first attempt. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Even raw basics like what kind of vessels should be used etc. I literally know nothing on the subject of metallurgy.

 

[Martijn]

I have a band comprised of gold & silver. I want to separate the two. I've read that boiling it in nitric acid will separate them by dissolving the silver as silver nitrate liquid leaving the gold to be filtered off. Then the silver is brought out of the solution with ferrous sulfate. But looking at ferrous sulfate I'm confused because I see people saying that when silver is mixed with ferrous sulfate the is no reaction. I am new to the idea of working with metal & this will be my first attempt. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Even raw basics like what kind of vessels should be used etc. I literally know nothing on the subject of metallurgy.

Welcome to the forum.

There are some things you have wrong and a lot to learn before you proceed.

Hot 50/50 nitric/ water will dissolve the silver from karat gold if it's 6 Karat or lower. So max. 25% gold and min. 75% silver.
You will need to inquart(melt) the gold with enough silver to end up at or below 25%.

Ferrous sulfate is used to precipitate dissolved gold from solution. It is not used for silver. Other reagents can be used for selective precipitation of gold or other pm's.

Any chloride like HCl or table salt is used to convert silver nitrate into silver chloride. Silver nitrate can also be cemented out on solid copper.
You have a lot to study.

Wait for Yggdrasil's welcome with links.

Martijn.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have a band comprised of gold & silver. I want to separate the two. I've read that boiling it in nitric acid will separate them by dissolving the silver as silver nitrate liquid leaving the gold to be filtered off. Then the silver is brought out of the solution with ferrous sulfate. But looking at ferrous sulfate I'm confused because I see people saying that when silver is mixed with ferrous sulfate the is no reaction. I am new to the idea of working with metal & this will be my first attempt. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Even raw basics like what kind of vessels should be used etc. I literally know nothing on the subject of metallurgy.

Welcome.
As requested, here the links come.
First a few things, do you mean that Silver and Gold are already separate or that they are alloyed like in karat Gold?
And as Martijn said Ferrous Sulfate drops Gold not Silver.

Here are for your studies.

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: Screen Readable Copy of Hoke's Book
2. Then read the safety section of the forum: Safety
3. And then read about "Dealing with waste" in the forum: Dealing with Waste

Suggested reading: The Library

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