Electrochemistry Silver cell question

[Shark]

Looks pretty good. I would still be curious as to the cloudiness of your initial electrolyte though.

 

[fivel_976]

Should be ok as long as I rinse the crystals of really well right?

 

[Shark]

What was your source of water? If you used tap water, the cloudiness could be silver chloride.

As for the quality, rinsing very well is about all you can do at this time. At a minimum I would try and find someone trusted with an XRF and have it tested. A good test will do a lot for your confidence as well as give you a better understanding of where you may or may not be going wrong.

 

[fivel_976]

I used distilled water from Walmart. There's a coin shop I stop by once in a while where I get my Sterling at he's got a nice machine to test metals on and he's also curious about how pure I can get my silver. If I melt and pour the crystals will that affect the purity?

 

[Shark]

I have never melted my silver crystals. I have also never sold any and still have all the crystals I have made. I am not hording them, just haven't had enough to make it worth selling yet. I need to melt at least some and get them tested as well. I have all my gold tested prior to selling and it makes me feel better knowing it is high grade material. I just don't do as much silver money wise as I do gold and that keeps me from pursuing it more.

From what I have read melting silver can be a bigger pain than gold, so I would read up more about it before I try it. Being extra sure of all the steps before hand saves lots of problems later on.

 

[Lou]

I used distilled water from Walmart. There's a coin shop I stop by once in a while where I get my Sterling at he's got a nice machine to test metals on and he's also curious about how pure I can get my silver. If I melt and pour the crystals will that affect the purity?

Depends what you melt them in, as it’s yours to ruin.

Generally crystal from sterling or jewelry in a well run cell (like most on this forum) is min 3N5, usually better. I lazily buy silver crystal, from members here as 3N. Some members here, and they know who they are, are making

I see a lot of people say they are selling silver ran through a cell as less than a 99% product. Unless that person is not using an anode bag and is melting the silver in a polluted tin can, I just don’t understand how their purity is that off.

Really the issues with impure crystal I ran into were from Se/Te from other refiners from mine silver. From sterling, many tens of thousands of ounces with no problem aside from shorts freeing slimes, inadvertent Pt/Pd getting in, and the usual Cu buildup.

 

[fivel_976]

I don't plan on selling my silver anytime soon I'm really just stacking as a savings for my daughter to sell someday. I'll be melting this in an electronic furnace in a graphite crucible I'm also planning to pour the crystal in a custom milled graphite mold hopefully a nice 10oz coffin shaped bar stamped like my copper brass and aluminum onces

 

[fivel_976]

Little over 48 hours of groth I think there looking beautiful

 

[SilverMac18]

My silver nitrate is very cloudy after I dump in the distilled water from Walmart as well. The first 4 cells I ran were crystal clear using the same water. Also use the same water to dissolve the sterling in and it’s crystal clear after filtering it. Soon as I use the exact same water it clouds up exactly like the pic above. Very strange. Has me scratching my head. Just can’t figure out how it’s doing this since I’m using the same water as I use to dissolve the sterling in the first place. I’m at a loss

 

[FrugalRefiner]

My silver nitrate is very cloudy after I dump in the distilled water from Walmart as well. The first 4 cells I ran were crystal clear using the same water. Also use the same water to dissolve the sterling in and it’s crystal clear after filtering it. Soon as I use the exact same water it clouds up exactly like the pic above. Very strange. Has me scratching my head. Just can’t figure out how it’s doing this since I’m using the same water as I use to dissolve the sterling in the first place. I’m at a loss

When you filter your silver nitrate, is there anything undissolved that is left in the filter?

I may be chasing a windmill, but if there is just a tiny bit of Cl^- in your water, it could just form a bit of silver chloride at the beginning of the dissolve until it's consumed. It could just show up as a bit of AgCl in your filter. After the dissolve and filtering, when you add more water, you may be adding just a wee bit more Cl^-. That's just a pure guess.

Maybe Walmart started getting their water from a new source. Things change.

You can test it. Dissolve some silver and filter as you usually do. Take a quantity of the "distilled" water. Add a bit of the filtered silver nitrate. Does if form a cloud? If so, continue adding silver nitrate till no more cloud forms. Allow to settle, decant/filter the now clarified water and add that to your silver nitrate. Does it still form a cloud?

Dave

 

[SilverMac18]

I actually filtered the water into the silver nitrate and no cloud formed. So I got stupid and finished off the cell with some of the water straight from the jig. Big mistake. Should have just kept filtering it I guess. I’ll let it all settle for a couple days and decant it off and see if it clears up. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m gonna try and post a pic of it how it is now and later on

 

[Tylerhasquestions]

How do I keep gold from plating out in my silver cell?

 

[Martijn]

Does it? It's supposed to stay in the anode bag.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

How do I keep gold from plating out in my silver cell?

Since the electrolyte in a silver cell is silver nitrate with a bit of free nitric acid, gold will not dissolve into the electrolyte. With no gold in the electrolyte, it will not deposit on the cathode.

Dave