Silver chloride Karo syrup reduction

[jsargent]

Been using the Karo method and it works beautifully... except for one small thing. The bulk of the reduced silver settles nicely, but the rest is black colloidal soup. Well maybe not entirely colloidal, but enough to make the suspended solids take days to settle, if at all. Any suggestions?

 

[goldsilverpro]

Been using the Karo method and it works beautifully... except for one small thing. The bulk of the reduced silver settles nicely, but the rest is black colloidal soup. Well maybe not entirely colloidal, but enough to make the suspended solids take days to settle, if at all. Any suggestions?

What type of material did the silver chloride come from? What are it's possible contaminants? Are you melting the silver afterward? If so, has all the silver chloride been converted?

I've run 1000s of oz. through Karo syrup and I've never had that problem. My solution always turned dark but I got all the silver. I seem to remember that the solution was so red, it was black. It takes about 20 grams of sodium hydroxide, 13.5 ml of light karo syrup, and 140 ml of water to do 1 tr.oz. of silver - I usually use 10% extra.. I also seem to remember that an large excess of one or both chemicals and/or the presence of certain other metals can create superfine black silver.

If the bulk of the silver drops fast, why not pour off the black stuff into another bucket, to settle, work on what you've got, and eliminate the bottleneck? Every once in awhile, you'll get a little bonus. You may find out that most of the black stuff isn't even silver. It may be carbon from the sugar.

 

[Juan Manuel Arcos Frank]

Jsargent:
GSP is right...Karo syrup method works lovely...sometimes colloidal silver is formed in the reduction process so I recomend you to use a little bit of hydrochloric acid,just add it to the silver,mix and you will see all the silver settle down pretty soon.Another alternative is boiling the solution for a few minutes and all the silver goes down.
Regards
Manuel

 

[jsargent]

You may even find out that most of the black stuff isn't even silver. It may be carbon from the sugar.

That was it. Residual carbon had coated the bucket and just made it look black. Water poured off nicely and now have several pounds of metallic mud. Thanks for the help GSP!