Silver plate refining

[Mac1969]

Here is my question. I have recovered some silver plated items using reverse electrolysis. Now I want to refine it to a higher purity than the 800 that it is. Does anyone know of a way to do this? I have read the book page 179 to be exact and it talks about disolving in acid from the get go which I am trying to avoid so that I don’t have too many buckets of solution laying around. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Shark]

There isn't really a way to refine silver without acid. The best way would be to deal with your waste before it piles up. That also makes it easier to work with in smaller quantities. You can also learn to clean up your nitric acid from dissolving the silver and reuse much of it again. It really depends on how much you want to learn and the amount of effort you want to apply to it.

 

[Mac1969]

There isn't really a way to refine silver without acid. The best way would be to deal with your waste before it piles up. That also makes it easier to work with in smaller quantities. You can also learn to clean up your nitric acid from dissolving the silver and reuse much of it again. It really depends on how much you want to learn and the amount of effort you want to apply to it.

So if I want to refine the recovered silver plate that I have can it be done? If so how.

 

[Shark]

Yes, it can be done. But it needs acid, nitric acid would be my first choice. Heat it to a low red heat, let cool, and dissolve it in nitric acid. Once dissolved, cement the silver out using copper. Rinse with water well and, when done right, can give 98 + pure silver.

Long way around, dry it, weight it. Add copper until your silver is 5% or less of the weight. Melt it into a bar or bars and run it in a copper cell. The dark slimes left will hold your silver and a good cell will leave high purity copper as well. The slimes will need further refining and more acids.

This why the nitric route is most often chosen to refine silver. Both work, both take time, and both can give decent quality silver. The entire "how to's" are posted in the forum but it takes time and study to get them down really well.

These are just brief outlines of how to do it. It will take more study to get it all down.

 

[Shark]

There are other ways posted on the forum as well.

 

[Mac1969]

Yes, it can be done. But it needs acid, nitric acid would be my first choice. Heat it to a low red heat, let cool, and dissolve it in nitric acid. Once dissolved, cement the silver out using copper. Rinse with water well and, when done right, can give 98 + pure silver.

Long way around, dry it, weight it. Add copper until your silver is 5% or less of the weight. Melt it into a bar or bars and run it in a copper cell. The dark slimes left will hold your silver and a good cell will leave high purity copper as well. The slimes will need further refining and more acids.

This why the nitric route is most often chosen to refine silver. Both work, both take time, and both can give decent quality silver. The entire "how to's" are posted in the forum but it takes time and study to get them down really well.

These are just brief outlines of how to do it. It will take more study to get it all down.

What about using AR? Would that purify it? I don’t mind using the acids it more if there is a household chemical way it’s easier to get.

 

[Shark]

AR won't work on silver. Although it may convert some of the silver metal to silver chloride, which then needs converting back to silver metal, and could purify to some extent.