Silver crystal refining

[Yggdrasil]

What I was thinking was dropping out the copper from my electrolyte so that I could keep using it, instead of having to make it over each run and save on acid.

I was rinsing the silver crystals with distilled water over and over until the rinse water showed no color and nothing when treated with HCL.

You can't get the Copper out without taking the Silver first.

 

[Master Nater]

i do not know of a way to simply take out the copper, to free it up for re-use on silver. at least, not with out a lot of effort and cost. the only way i am capable of recovering the copper on my own, is to drop it out with a metal of higher reactivity. but even then, your nitric is just tied up with another metal in solution, and will not help you any more with silver refining.

4metals posted a video above of recovering your copper using fractional distillation. it is a very long and tedious and not as easy as the video shows. i'll also mention it is a very dangerous method. hot sulfuric acid is not a joke, and i do not recommend playing with it.

for all sensible solutions until you're a master chemist far beyond my ability, once the solution turns too blue (and you'll learn when that is after trial and error), you'll know it's time to swap out the solution for a fresh batch of silver nitrate, and resetting your silver cell. if the last run was perhaps contaminated, you can just run it through again. after a while, you'll realize you're really only using up the silver nitrate by loading it with impurities from the silver, and those impurities lead to using up your silver nitrate. and it's the pure that is being left behind. so the more pure silver you feed into it, the longer it will last.

good luck, and happy refining!

 

[rolltstide]

You can't get the Copper out without taking the Silver first.

I need to change my electrolyte in my silver cell. Do I dilute it before cementing out the silver, or don't worry about diluting it, just add copper?

 

[FrugalRefiner]

No need to dilute it. Cement with copper.

Dave

 

[rolltstide]

No need to dilute it. Cement with copper.

Dave

Thank you

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

What I was thinking was dropping out the copper from my electrolyte so that I could keep using it, instead of having to make it over each run and save on acid.

I was rinsing the silver crystals with distilled water over and over until the rinse water showed no color and nothing when treated with HCL.

Unfortunately, copper is higher on the reactivity series, which means that anything that drops your copper will also drop the silver. That’s just considering the simplest possible methods. There might be other ways to do it, but I’ll bet real money they’re all far more complicated and expensive than just recovering your silver and making new electrolyte.

 

[kurtak]

i do not know of a way to simply take out the copper,

Electrowinning

Kurt

 

[command2001]

i do not know of a way to simply take out the copper, to free it up for re-use on silver. at least, not with out a lot of effort and cost. the only way i am capable of recovering the copper on my own, is to drop it out with a metal of higher reactivity. but even then, your nitric is just tied up with another metal in solution, and will not help you any more with silver refining.

4metals posted a video above of recovering your copper using fractional distillation. it is a very long and tedious and not as easy as the video shows. i'll also mention it is a very dangerous method. hot sulfuric acid is not a joke, and i do not recommend playing with it.

for all sensible solutions until you're a master chemist far beyond my ability, once the solution turns too blue (and you'll learn when that is after trial and error), you'll know it's time to swap out the solution for a fresh batch of silver nitrate, and resetting your silver cell. if the last run was perhaps contaminated, you can just run it through again. after a while, you'll realize you're really only using up the silver nitrate by loading it with impurities from the silver, and those impurities lead to using up your silver nitrate. and it's the pure that is being left behind. so the more pure silver you feed into it, the longer it will last.

good luck, and happy refining!

You said that you will learn when to change your electrolyte when it turns too blue. How do you know when it is too blue? What I have done in the past to test the purity of the silver crystal is to dissolve a few crystals in Nitric/DH2O and if the solution shows any blue tint then the crystals are not pure and I run them thru the silver cell again.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I created a series of samples of copper nitrate solution. I started my making a 50 grams per liter solution (just 5 grams of copper in a 100 ml. volumetric flask) , removed a sample into a small vial with a cap. I then made dilutions for 40, 30, 20, and 10 grams per liter, saving samples in the same size vials. When the electrolyte starts getting dark, I take a sample of the electrolyte and put it into another of the same vials and compare it to my standards. When it reaches the same color as the 50 gram/liter sample, it's time to change some or all of it out. It has another benefit. If the color isn't the same pure blue as my standards, I know there is something else building up. A brownish tint makes me happy because it means there's probably palladium in solution.

Dave