I like to give a detailed explanation so.. here goes.
I bought some silver plated silverware dirt cheap to try my hand at refining some silver. I ran it through a reverse electroplating cell and scraped off all of the silver, easy. Since I knew there was copper mixed in with the silver (Because the metal under was brass) I boiled the scrapings in HCL after washing the electrolyte off very well. After removing the copper I washed that very well too (No blue/green residue in the wash water when I was done - I used distilled water). So now I am left with a grayish kind of silvery material, it's kind of chalky. I was under the impression that this was elemental silver, and now I'd just dissolve it in Nitric/water and drop it out with some copper.
That's the problem - It's not happening. I've added water/Nitric and boiled it, it does nothing. Is this material a dirty AgCl? I thought it would be almost white if it was AgCl, but since it was gray/silvery that I assumed it was just Ag.
So my guess is that it's a chloride and I need to convert it to elemental silver, and then use nitric to refine it? It's not cottage cheesy though.. it's like a smooth chalky substance.
I'm kind of confused.
If it is AgCl, what would be the best way to convert it to elemental silver?
I bought some silver plated silverware dirt cheap to try my hand at refining some silver. I ran it through a reverse electroplating cell and scraped off all of the silver, easy. Since I knew there was copper mixed in with the silver (Because the metal under was brass) I boiled the scrapings in HCL after washing the electrolyte off very well. After removing the copper I washed that very well too (No blue/green residue in the wash water when I was done - I used distilled water). So now I am left with a grayish kind of silvery material, it's kind of chalky. I was under the impression that this was elemental silver, and now I'd just dissolve it in Nitric/water and drop it out with some copper.
That's the problem - It's not happening. I've added water/Nitric and boiled it, it does nothing. Is this material a dirty AgCl? I thought it would be almost white if it was AgCl, but since it was gray/silvery that I assumed it was just Ag.
So my guess is that it's a chloride and I need to convert it to elemental silver, and then use nitric to refine it? It's not cottage cheesy though.. it's like a smooth chalky substance.
I'm kind of confused.
If it is AgCl, what would be the best way to convert it to elemental silver?