Silver removing from copper.

[Elektrikis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udTfxnh90Os

Solution is concentrated sulfuric acid and 65% nitric acid. In various mixtures. 4:1 and 20:1

After silver stripping. Copper items need place in stainless plastic mesh and spray with cold water. To eliminate silver cementing on copper.Silver precipitate like silver chloride and use sodium chloride.

 

[everything]

I like collecting silver so for fun I was able to collect some fine industrial wire that is electroplated and I have just under 10 oz. of silver connected to fine pieces of copper wire. I found a video on it, and the yield is 2% so plenty of copper wire to deal with, and it's such fine pieces of wire. It seems cost-prohibitive to just go after silver like this. What happens to such fine pieces of copper wire when they get the nitric acid? I'd have to dissolve this stuff to separate it to start with?

Can people just melt this stuff down with a larger crucible, make a big block of it now, and deal with separating it all later?

This is assuming I could ever go through the process of getting the wire out it's sheathing which I'll never get around to doing. This is a good lesson in the difficulty of refining base metals. I enjoy scrapping copper, it's kind of a side hobby, I live in a city so I find it everywhere. I even became lazy and walked away from some nic easy to make bare stuff the other day. I can work a torch for taking metal apart, bending or breaking lose and rig pieces of metal together, I can wire a muffler up pretty fast!, but am far from metal master of anything.

Metal from a commodity standpoint is good to get to know as well, Alcoa stock went from 6 dollars to 18 dollar s a share this year, guessing aluminum prices went up, yeah well I hate recycling aluminum, they never give you anything for it.

 

[kjavanb123]

Hi
I have used the following formula with great results.

1000ml concentrate sulfuric acid
20ml nitric acid

Temp 60-70c

It dissolves silver and leave copper

 

[Martijn]

Hi. To get the wire out of its sheeting, just cut the end along the wire on a flat surface with a knife, just enough to get the sheeting and the wire apart. You can then probably just pull them apart.
You could try electro deplating with plain tap water to get the silver off. Filter the water and melt the silver. It's been discussed here on the forum.

Or melt it in with your copper anodes and run it through a electrolytic copper sulfate cell. The latter method is often used to get precious metals out of copper.
Using it for silver plating may be too coslty and too much work if you don't have a copper cell already running.

Martijn.

 

[niks neims]

Hi
I have used the following formula with great results.

1000ml concentrate sulfuric acid
20ml nitric acid

Temp 60-70c

It dissolves silver and leave copper

To get the silver out, do you convert it to silver chloride, since you can't cement it on copper anymore?

 

[kjavanb123]

Hi
I have used the following formula with great results.

1000ml concentrate sulfuric acid
20ml nitric acid

Temp 60-70c

It dissolves silver and leave copper

To get the silver out, do you convert it to silver chloride, since you can't cement it on copper anymore?

Yes you add hcl or salty water to sulfuric solution it forms silver chloride

 

[Martijn]

How do you get the silver chloride out of the concentrated acid? Filtering is not an option, i guess? Dilute the sulphuric?
Martijn.

 

[kjavanb123]

Sorry forgot to add once sulfuric solution is cool pour it to water to make it dilute.


Then filter and drop the goodies.

 

[Matt “Ducky”]

Has anyone ever experimented with the idea of separating silver from copper by using their differing melting points? Silver melts at approximately 962°C, while copper requires a higher temperature of about 1083°C to melt. The concept is to carefully control the temperature to just exceed 962°C, ideally around 980°C. At this temperature, silver will enter a molten state while copper remains solid.

To carry out this process, the first step involves heating a mixture of silver and copper in a crucible, ensuring the thermometer reads consistently above 962°C but below 1083°C. Once the silver has fully melted, it should be possible to skim off the liquid silver, leaving the solid copper behind in the crucible. This operation can be performed multiple times to maximize silver extraction, repeating the heating and skimming process until no more silver can be separated from the copper.

After completing the separation, continue to heat the molten silver until it reaches a suitable temperature for pouring. With the molten silver ready, the next step is to pour it into a prepared mold, allowing it to cool and solidify into the desired shape.

I’m not entirely sure if this method has been explored by others before, but I’m planning to give it a try today. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on the results of my experiment!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Has anyone ever experimented with the idea of separating silver from copper by using their differing melting points? Silver melts at approximately 962°C, while copper requires a higher temperature of about 1083°C to melt. The concept is to carefully control the temperature to just exceed 962°C, ideally around 980°C. At this temperature, silver will enter a molten state while copper remains solid.

To carry out this process, the first step involves heating a mixture of silver and copper in a crucible, ensuring the thermometer reads consistently above 962°C but below 1083°C. Once the silver has fully melted, it should be possible to skim off the liquid silver, leaving the solid copper behind in the crucible. This operation can be performed multiple times to maximize silver extraction, repeating the heating and skimming process until no more silver can be separated from the copper.

After completing the separation, continue to heat the molten silver until it reaches a suitable temperature for pouring. With the molten silver ready, the next step is to pour it into a prepared mold, allowing it to cool and solidify into the desired shape.

I’m not entirely sure if this method has been explored by others before, but I’m planning to give it a try today. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on the results of my experiment!

Not possible.
It becomes an alloy with a lower melting point than the two.
Silver and Copper are quite good at alloying too.

 

[galenrog]

Yggdrasil is 100% correct. Allow me to be a bit more blunt. If you try to separate a silver/copper alloy in this manner, you will fail. Every time.

Time for more coffee.

Edited for spelling.

 

[Thomas M Joseph]

All the alloys of silver and copper will melt between 800 - 900 degrees C. Higher amount of copper, higher melting point of alloy but still well below that of silver.

 

[Martijn]

To visualize:

 

[Dreamer]

Along those lines (smelt vs. hydro), I was attempting to come-up with a flux recipe to oxidize the copper and consolidate the silver from ingots made from silver plate. It looked like it could be done but the cost of the flux was far greater than any value of silver.

Obviously there are far better ways to process plate but I find this discussion interesting because I've been trying to find a way to consolidate Ag from ingots using pyrometallurgy before going to an electrochemical process.

Happy Holidays and a Big Thanks to all the Moderators out there for making this forum better year after year !

 

[Martijn]

In the old days they added salt to the smelt to create AgCl, that does not alloy with the copper.
However, the low yield of silver plating does not justify these efforts in my opinion. If you can get the silver off and leave the copper base untouched, it could be profitable...?