FigiMon
Active member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2011
- Messages
- 30
Background
I have a fair amount of 0.925 and 0.830 silver that I have accumulated over the past year and now started to refine. Living where I do, nitric acid is very hard to buy and tedious to make in the quantities required. Inspired by the "Processing Sterling Silver without nitric acid" thread I decided to try that procedure out.
Problem 1 - Regeneration of nitric from copper nitrate
With an electrolyte of Cu(NO3)2 (uncertain conc. but dark blue colour), graphite anode and copper plate as cathode the cell (1L glass beaker) was left for a few hours running at 0.5 A. Coming back the electolyte seemed unchanged apart from eroded graphite. Thinking that the deposited copper did not adhere to the cathode plate but simply fell off and dissolved, the cathode was replaced with a stainless bowl. The idea was that as the copper formed it would be protected by being in contact with the cathode. This time there was a copper deposit on the side of the bowl but I could see it being continually dissolved.
Am I running this on too low a current? I tried raising the current to 1 A but could not spot any difference.
Problem 2 - Crystal growth in silver cell stops
This is a related but separate problem. The setup is a stainless 1.5 L bowl as cathode, and a plastic anode basket with ~40 cm2 bottom surface area. No matter what I try as electrolyte (weak nitric, dilute silver nitrate, conc silver nitrate) after a few hours the silver crystals stop growing on the bowl's interior surface. Instead a mat that looks like dirty gray moss starts to grow and floats around in the electrolyte. I have tried with current from 0.2 A up to 2 A.
Does anyone have any idea where I am screwing this up?
Thanks
I have a fair amount of 0.925 and 0.830 silver that I have accumulated over the past year and now started to refine. Living where I do, nitric acid is very hard to buy and tedious to make in the quantities required. Inspired by the "Processing Sterling Silver without nitric acid" thread I decided to try that procedure out.
Problem 1 - Regeneration of nitric from copper nitrate
With an electrolyte of Cu(NO3)2 (uncertain conc. but dark blue colour), graphite anode and copper plate as cathode the cell (1L glass beaker) was left for a few hours running at 0.5 A. Coming back the electolyte seemed unchanged apart from eroded graphite. Thinking that the deposited copper did not adhere to the cathode plate but simply fell off and dissolved, the cathode was replaced with a stainless bowl. The idea was that as the copper formed it would be protected by being in contact with the cathode. This time there was a copper deposit on the side of the bowl but I could see it being continually dissolved.
Am I running this on too low a current? I tried raising the current to 1 A but could not spot any difference.
Problem 2 - Crystal growth in silver cell stops
This is a related but separate problem. The setup is a stainless 1.5 L bowl as cathode, and a plastic anode basket with ~40 cm2 bottom surface area. No matter what I try as electrolyte (weak nitric, dilute silver nitrate, conc silver nitrate) after a few hours the silver crystals stop growing on the bowl's interior surface. Instead a mat that looks like dirty gray moss starts to grow and floats around in the electrolyte. I have tried with current from 0.2 A up to 2 A.
Does anyone have any idea where I am screwing this up?
Thanks