silver chloride added soda ash..

[ssharktu17]

Was doing a little test run on 2oz of sterling dissolved to silver nitrate then mixed with the table salt till all precipitated out into the white curds. But I accidentally used soda ash for the next step... and stirred for a while then I started to siphon some off and rinse a few times to try and remove the soda ash... Any help here? Im not even sure what I have now just a solid white powder that is very fine.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Was doing a little test run on 2oz of sterling dissolved to silver nitrate then mixed with the table salt till all precipitated out into the white curds. But I accidentally used soda ash for the next step... and stirred for a while then I started to siphon some off and rinse a few times to try and remove the soda ash... Any help here? Im not even sure what I have now just a solid white powder that is very fine.

Clean it well and start over.

 

[4metals]

To be clear, you did not filter and rinse the Silver Chloride before adding soda ash, you added soda ash to the nitrate liquid while the Silver Chloride was still in there?

 

[ssharktu17]

To be clear, you did not filter and rinse the Silver Chloride before adding soda ash, you added soda ash to the nitrate liquid while the Silver Chloride was still in there?

Yes the silver chloride was rinsed well. Then added soda ash.

 

[ssharktu17]

Clean it well and start over.

I have cleaned it well. You mean just add nitric acid again? Im guessing I have a solid precipitate of silver carbonate not sure if there is a way to go forward and refine it further or better to just start over with adding nitric. Guesssing it will be much easier to just start over since its not too much anyways. Thanks.

 

[4metals]

At this point I would say going back is difficult so I would mix up a flux designed for Silver Chloride and melt it.

Melting Silver Chloride.
Mix up a flux blend of 7 parts soda ash
4 parts borax
1 part carbon

White flour, like you make bread with is a good substitute for carbon.

Mix the chlorides with the flux and mix it well, this method depends on the flux (or carbon) touching for the reduction.

Mix an equal volume of blended flux with the silver chloride material and bring it up to the melting point of the flux and let it dwell there for a bit. Then slowly raise the temperature to the mp of Silver. The longer the dwell time, the more efficient the conversion and less smoke.

I would mix the flux as stated above and mix in the Silver Chloride you have and melt it. The last option with Silver Chloride is melting but in this case it may be the easiest way out. Melt with exhaust or outdoors downwind.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have cleaned it well. You mean just add nitric acid again? Im guessing I have a solid precipitate of silver carbonate not sure if there is a way to go forward and refine it further or better to just start over with adding nitric. Guesssing it will be much easier to just start over since its not too much anyways. Thanks.

No you have Silver Chloride and it will not dissolve in Nitric.
Bu treat it with Lye/Sugar as you intended.

 

[ssharktu17]

No you have Silver Chloride and it will not dissolve in Nitric.
Bu treat it with Lye/Sugar as you intended.

Ok so you are saying that putting a bunch of soda ash in the silver chloride had no effect? It definitely smells strongly of baking soda after many many rinses. So it is will be silver chloride still and not Silver carbonate?

 

[ssharktu17]

At this point I would say going back is difficult so I would mix up a flux designed for Silver Chloride and melt it.

Melting Silver Chloride.
Mix up a flux blend of 7 parts soda ash
4 parts borax
1 part carbon

White flour, like you make bread with is a good substitute for carbon.

Mix the chlorides with the flux and mix it well, this method depends on the flux (or carbon) touching for the reduction.

Mix an equal volume of blended flux with the silver chloride material and bring it up to the melting point of the flux and let it dwell there for a bit. Then slowly raise the temperature to the mp of Silver. The longer the dwell time, the more efficient the conversion and less smoke.

I would mix the flux as stated above and mix in the Silver Chloride you have and melt it. The last option with Silver Chloride is melting but in this case it may be the easiest way out. Melt with exhaust or outdoors downwind.

I think that is a little too advanced for me and I dont want to mess with any chances of chloride gas but thank you.

 

[4metals]

You probably still have Silver Chloride unless there was still silver nitrate in poorly rinsed Silver Chloride. If you add the caustic and the majority of it turns black, you have formed silver oxide and are good to go with the corn syrup as planned.

 

[ssharktu17]

You probably still have Silver Chloride unless there was still silver nitrate in poorly rinsed Silver Chloride. If you add the caustic and the majority of it turns black, you have formed silver oxide and are good to go with the corn syrup as planned.

Ok I added some lye and does turn black and gray. Ran out of lye though so of to the hardware store. I will say that soda ash step seemed to do a great job of cleaning the silver chloride at least. after 10 washes of the silver chloride when the water was clear, I added the soda ash and there was a lot of blue released into the supernate.

 

[ssharktu17]

You probably still have Silver Chloride unless there was still silver nitrate in poorly rinsed Silver Chloride. If you add the caustic and the majority of it turns black, you have formed silver oxide and are good to go with the corn syrup as planned.

Ok it went well seems to take a lot of lye and hard to get that smear test to have no white. But it got there eventually then added the sugar and washed like 10 more times. This method is definitely a lot of work.

 

[4metals]

This method is definitely a lot of work.

And it generates a lot of liquid waste.

 

[ssharktu17]

And it generates a lot of liquid waste.

Well I can tell you my drain is really clean now LOL.