what is the formula to get ag from nickel zinc alloy ?
- Thread starter r mason
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r mason said:
Dissolve it in 50/50 nitric and cement the silver out with copper bus bar. Same formula. It will take about 2.7 ml of 70% nitric (plus 2.7 ml of distilled water) to dissolve 1 g of that alloy.
I assume you are asking if nickel and zinc use about the same concentration of nitric to dissolve them, they would, although zinc is so much more reactive, I would tend to add a little more water at first, then after initial reaction calmed down slowly raise the heat which would concentrate the solution somewhat.
Cu(NO3)2
Ni(NO3)2
Zn(NO3)2
Notice in the formulas above the metals use about the same amount of nitric to form nitrate salts of the metals.
But if we look at the reactivity series of metals we see zinc is above hydrogen, actually a very reactive metal, nickel is also a fairly reactive metal above hydrogen in the series, copper is less reactive (but when dissolved in nitric can do so with a violent reaction), and zinc would be much more violent, the reaction can get hot enough to break glassware, metals above hydrogen in the reactivity series of metals will give off hydrogen gas when dissolved in acids, copper would not give off hydrogen, also look at the formulas below it fairly well explains why you want a dilute acid to dissolve zinc in:
Zinc dissolved in dilute nitric acid acid:
Zn + 2HNO3 --> Zn(NO3)2 + H2 (gas)
Zinc dissolved in more concentrated nitric acid:
4Zn + 10HNO3 --> 4Zn(NO3)2 + NH4NO3 + 3H2O
so in the concentrated acid we also form ammonium nitrate out of some of our nitric acid.
Reaction for for copper dissolved in HNO3:
Cu + 4HNO3 --> Cu(NO3)2 + 2NO2 (gas) + 2H2O
Cu(NO3)2
Ni(NO3)2
Zn(NO3)2
Notice in the formulas above the metals use about the same amount of nitric to form nitrate salts of the metals.
But if we look at the reactivity series of metals we see zinc is above hydrogen, actually a very reactive metal, nickel is also a fairly reactive metal above hydrogen in the series, copper is less reactive (but when dissolved in nitric can do so with a violent reaction), and zinc would be much more violent, the reaction can get hot enough to break glassware, metals above hydrogen in the reactivity series of metals will give off hydrogen gas when dissolved in acids, copper would not give off hydrogen, also look at the formulas below it fairly well explains why you want a dilute acid to dissolve zinc in:
Zinc dissolved in dilute nitric acid acid:
Zn + 2HNO3 --> Zn(NO3)2 + H2 (gas)
Zinc dissolved in more concentrated nitric acid:
4Zn + 10HNO3 --> 4Zn(NO3)2 + NH4NO3 + 3H2O
so in the concentrated acid we also form ammonium nitrate out of some of our nitric acid.
Reaction for for copper dissolved in HNO3:
Cu + 4HNO3 --> Cu(NO3)2 + 2NO2 (gas) + 2H2O
Alentia
Well-known member
r mason said:
I hope you are not referring to "German Silver" which is made out of Cu, Ni and Zn and does not contain any silver.
Another name for "german silver" is "nickel silver". Here again, it contains no silver.Alentia said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_silver
Speaking of zinc today at the Bimart store in the fishing gear section of the store I found pure electrolytic zinc, they were round about 3" Diameter and 1/4" thick, they also already have a hole in the center so I can put a bolt through the center and run them in a lath to make zinc shavings.
Alentia
Well-known member
butcher said:
Don't give ideas to people how to extract silver from zinc :twisted:
