Silver Cell Help

[MTNM4N]

Hello everyone, I'm MTNM4N and have just started my first cell.

I followed Sreetips example to the letter, I've got my volts set at 3.5, as of now I've got a total of 7 ounces of pure and impure silver in my anode basket. However, my amps/current flow is very low. Currently at 0.31. I'm sitting at about 36 hours of run time at the moment. This morning I had 4 ounces of silver in my basket and my amps were at 0.18. I added 3 more ounces and it's now up to 0.31 amps.

I've got silver growing in my Cathode, but nowhere near the amount Sreetips had at 36 hours and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the amps up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Mtnm4n, welcome to the forum. Please don't double post. It's against our Forum Rules.

I'll delete your other post.

Without knowing more, like the size of your cell, how you made your electrolyte, the size and type of your anodes, temperature, etc., it's hard to say.

Dave

 

[MTNM4N]

Mtnm4n, welcome to the forum. Please don't double post. It's against our Forum Rules.

I'll delete your other post.

Without knowing more, like the size of your cell, how you made your electrolyte, the size and type of your anodes, temperature, etc., it's hard to say.

Dave

My apologies Dave, didn't know that was against the rules.

As for my cell, it's a 5 liter stainless steel bowl.

The anode basket is the same .5 little Tupperware cup Sreetips used.

The electrolyte was made with 1.0M Silver Nitrate. I purchased 4 100ml bottles as that's what I could afford. I remember seeing him add 500ml in one of his videos and figured that 100ml less for me would just end up with a little less silver crystal in the end. Topped it off with distilled water.

Crystals started forming instantly and my bowl is lined with them at the moment, but it's not as much as he had at this time and my amps are still very low 0.19-0.30

I was thinking I needed more silver in my basket, but I'm just not sure.

 

[goldshark]

Did your electro lite consist of Silver Nitrate, made by saturating the Nitric with silver? If your anode basket consists of really dirty Ag, maybe it is slimed up too much. Check all electrical connections, especially where the wire enters your anode basket. What are you using to transmit current into the basket with?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Did your electro lite consist of Silver Nitrate, made by saturating the Nitric with silver? If your anode basket consists of really dirty Ag, maybe it is slimed up too much. Check all electrical connections, especially where the wire enters your anode basket. What are you using to transmit current into the basket with?

If you bought 1M Silver Nitrate, the electrolyte may be too dilute.
Dissolve some real Silver in Nitric until it is saturated.

 

[MTNM4N]

Did your electro lite consist of Silver Nitrate, made by saturating the Nitric with silver? If your anode basket consists of really dirty Ag, maybe it is slimed up too much. Check all electrical connections, especially where the wire enters your anode basket. What are you using to transmit current into the basket with?

No slime in the basket yet, it's only been a little over 36 hours and with the low amps the silver in the anode basket hasn't broken down a lot yet.

The silver used in the anode basket was 7oz of a 50/50 split half was .999 fine and the other half added this morning was .925 sterling.

The wire going into the anode basket is a 10 gauge solid copper wire that I molded into a 2oz silver bar made of.999 fine.

My electrolyte solution i purchased because I didn't have enough silver to make my own. It's 400ml of 1.0M silver nitrate. My Cathode is a 5L stainless steel bowl. I filled the rest of the bowl with distilled water.

 

[Martijn]

No slime in the basket yet, it's only been a little over 36 hours and with the low amps the silver in the anode basket hasn't broken down a lot yet.

The silver used in the anode basket was 7oz of a 50/50 split half was .999 fine and the other half added this morning was .925 sterling.

The wire going into the anode basket is a 10 gauge solid copper wire that I molded into a 2oz silver bar made of.999 fine.

My electrolyte solution i purchased because I didn't have enough silver to make my own. It's 400ml of 1.0M silver nitrate. My Cathode is a 5L stainless steel bowl. I filled the rest of the bowl with distilled water.

You now have a 0.08M electrolyte. It needs about 250grams of silver(or was is silver nitrate?) per liter. That is somewhere around a 2M solution I guesstimate.
A bit of free nitric also helps.

 

[Martijn]

Some very useful information:

 

[MTNM4N]

You now have a 0.08M electrolyte. It needs about 250grams of silver(or was is silver nitrate?) per liter. That is somewhere around a 2M solution I guesstimate.
A bit of free nitric also helps.

So you're saying that my 400ml of 1M silver nitrate is now at 0.08M as my electrolyte since it's been deluded down with distilled water? Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.

Is it possible that having a lower percentage of silver in my electrolyte solution is what could be keeping my amps so low?

Just trying to figure out what I should do from here moving forward. I'm completely new to all of this.

Thinking I'll just finish this run out as is and see what happens, but for the next batch I need to know how to proceed. Buying the silver nitrate 1M solution worked for this round and does help with my particular situation as I'm not quite set up yet to make my own at the moment, but it is a costly investment.

If I stick with the 1M silver nitrate solution how much more should I add on top of the 400ml that went into this batch?

 

[Yggdrasil]

So you're saying that my 400ml of 1M silver nitrate is now at 0.08M as my electrolyte since it's been deluded down with distilled water? Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.

Is it possible that having a lower percentage of silver in my electrolyte solution is what could be keeping my amps so low?

Just trying to figure out what I should do from here moving forward. I'm completely new to all of this.

Thinking I'll just finish this run out as is and see what happens, but for the next batch I need to know how to proceed. Buying the silver nitrate 1M solution worked for this round and does help with my particular situation as I'm not quite set up yet to make my own at the moment, but it is a costly investment.

If I stick with the 1M silver nitrate solution how much more should I add on top of the 400ml that went into this batch?

Due to low conductivity the Amps are low.
You need a relatively strong electrolyte.
Read what Martijn gave you.

 

[Martijn]

So you're saying that my 400ml of 1M silver nitrate is now at 0.08M as my electrolyte since it's been deluded down with distilled water? Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.

Is it possible that having a lower percentage of silver in my electrolyte solution is what could be keeping my amps so low?

Yes and yes.

If I stick with the 1M silver nitrate solution how much more should I add on top of the 400ml that went into this batch?

In time you will reach close to 1M solution.
Lets try doubling the 5L of 0.08M solution with 5L of 1M solution:
That will be 10L holding 5.4M of silver nitrate.
Resulting in a solution of 0.54M.
Double that again and you get 20L of 0.75M strength.

Conlusion: lots of solution that will never reach even 1M. And you need 250 grams of Ag per liter. Not AgNO3.

You need 107.8 (1M) grams of silver for 169.9 grams (1M) of AgNO3.

So 250 gram Ag per liter equals a 250/107.8 = 2.3Molar solution.

The only way you will get there with this electrolyte is by slow evaporation.
May i suggest you start small with a 1L cell to get familiar with this process before scaling up? It needs a lot of silver in the cell and that needs a large put through of silver to justify.
A 5 liter cell needs 1250 grams of silver before you can refine one gram.

A glass beaker with a stainless steel cathode works fine. Like this to play with and get thicker crystal growth:


Here is that pot with the two electrodes i tried to play with:
The cut up and twisted one was used in the video to have more edges for crystals to form.

I used electric insulation tape to cover the long thin strip going down. They're both cut out of a 1mm thick stainless sheet.
The advantage of this is you can change out electrodes and have the cel running while cleaning the crystals.
Use the first distilled water rinse to refill the cel. It evaporates a bit in time.

Martijn.

 

[Shark]

My original silver cell used a stainless steel bowl (.5L) and a prescription pill bottle as a basket suspended by two wooden skewers. Some where on the forum is a short write up about it, but here is an old picture of it. By doing it this way I could learn and practice using less nitric and less silver. This half liter cell ended up running right at a pound of silver before breaking it completely down and starting over. Besides that, it was just fun to work with.

 

[geowizard]

Hello everyone, I'm MTNM4N and have just started my first cell.

I followed Sreetips example to the letter, I've got my volts set at 3.5, as of now I've got a total of 7 ounces of pure and impure silver in my anode basket. However, my amps/current flow is very low. Currently at 0.31. I'm sitting at about 36 hours of run time at the moment. This morning I had 4 ounces of silver in my basket and my amps were at 0.18. I added 3 more ounces and it's now up to 0.31 amps.

I've got silver growing in my Cathode, but nowhere near the amount Sreetips had at 36 hours and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the amps up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

MTNM4N,​

Sreetips ran into the same issue. I advised him as did others on issues with terminal contact resistance. The circuit is a series electric circuit. The current is controlled by voltage and resistance. Loose connections, corrosion on terminals are the source of added resistance in your circuit. They require regular maintenance. The circuit includes the electrolyte too! With use, the electrolyte can become weak and not conduct current. Increasing the concentration of the acid in the electrolyte accelerates the electron flow, and directly increases silver production.

Hope this helps

Geowizard

 

[Martijn]

MTNM4N,​

Sreetips ran into the same issue. I advised him as did others on issues with terminal contact resistance. The circuit is a series electric circuit. The current is controlled by voltage and resistance. Loose connections, corrosion on terminals are the source of added resistance in your circuit. They require regular maintenance. The circuit includes the electrolyte too! With use, the electrolyte can become weak and not conduct current. Increasing the concentration of the acid in the electrolyte accelerates the electron flow, and directly increases silver production.

Hope this helps

Geowizard

To add to that: The surface ratio of the anode and cathode should be equal. This helps preventing depletion of the electrolyte strength, formation of gasbubbles at one of the electrodes.
And keep the voltage low enough and conductivity high.
Lazersteve has devised a way to get copper nitrate out and revive the electrolyte when it's too fouled with copper. Or you can even start with copper nitrate to make silver nitrate.

 

[MTNM4N]

I greatly appreciate the info!

By chance, does anyone know how the cell can be affected by temperature? Will the cell run weaker in colder temperatures?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I greatly appreciate the info!

By chance, does anyone know how the cell can be affected by temperature? Will the cell run weaker in colder temperatures?

Yes, virtually all chemical reactions happen faster in warmer temperatures, and slower at colder temperatures.

Dave