What to do with the Copper Nitrate

[ModernAlchemy]

Hi Gentlemen,
I just wanted to ask your thoughts on what to do with this very dark beautiful blue Copper nitrate, from the first filtering, after I cement silvered and got back 503g cement silver from 540g Sterling I had melted.

1.Would it be a waste of time to try to extract silver chorlide with HCL and then LYE sugar?
- I took a baby beaker and filled it with Copper nitrate and put in some HCL and sure enough I did see some small white cheese form, nothing to spectacular.

2. Put some fresh copper back in the Copper Nitrate, ( will it react more?) but I think its all reacted. Can it be energized?

3. Neutralize it? Can you use Magnesium Hydroxide alkali to Neutralize? I was reading that you can use Ammonium hydroxide.

Thank you for your wisdom and advice. You’ve probably covered this at nauseum in other posts. I honestly was checking around, but couldn’t specifically get this answered.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

You can electrowin the copper out of the solution, leaving nitric acid and more dilute copper nitrate.

Dave

 

[Golddigger76]

If you added hydrochloric acid to it and seen a white cheese looking stuff it's most likely silver chloride.
If the cementing was not complete you can get a little bit of silver chloride by adding a little hydrochloric acid or saturated(table salt) salt water to get the rest if you would like to do a small practice experiment with converting the silver chloride to silver metal with sodium hydroxide/sugar or sulfuric/iron.

Without seeing how much white precipitate you got and how much was in the beaker it may or may not have much silver in solution to mess with.

 

[BGDOCK]

May I take a stab at this Lazer Steve ?

Reduce solution to 6 moles of copper nitrate per liter .
Non reactive anode ( graphite ,stainless steel,etc
Cathode Copper mesh/ titanium coated work well
Leave power on the cathode dunk in a container with water then turn off the copper will collect here ( dunk tank )
Return the cathode and repeat
Solution will become clearer
Than you can use this to “cement “ Sterling
By using the Sterling as an anode and a graphite cathode
Below is my second run the Sterling is disolved and cemented out in one step ( I love this )
I haven’t perfected using sulfuric acid to revive solution when spent .
I think it’s like this
Take 100 ml sample cement out copper weight / by molar mass of copper to figure out the amount of HSo4 needed ? ( could use some clarification here guys on this step )

 

[ModernAlchemy]

If you added hydrochloric acid to it and seen a white cheese looking stuff it's most likely silver chloride.
If the cementing was not complete you can get a little bit of silver chloride by adding a little hydrochloric acid or saturated(table salt) salt water to get the rest if you would like to do a small practice experiment with converting the silver chloride to silver metal with sodium hydroxide/sugar or sulfuric/iron.

Without seeing how much white precipitate you got and how much was in the beaker it may or may not have much silver in solution to mess with.

I definitely will add some HCL to it and hopfully some Silver Chloride will appear, I’m hoping if will be enough to work with.. LOL washing and washing.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

th

May I take a stab at this Lazer Steve ?

Reduce solution to 6 moles of copper nitrate per liter .
Non reactive anode ( graphite ,stainless steel,etc
Cathode Copper mesh/ titanium coated work well
Leave power on the cathode dunk in a container with water then turn off the copper will collect here ( dunk tank )
Return the cathode and repeat
Solution will become clearer
Than you can use this to “cement “ Sterling
By using the Sterling as an anode and a graphite cathode
Below is my second run the Sterling is disolved and cemented out in one step ( I love this )
I haven’t perfected using sulfuric acid to revive solution when spent .
I think it’s like this
Take 100 ml sample cement out copper weight / by molar mass of copper to figure out the amount of HSo4 needed ? ( could use some clarification here guys on this step

This sounds interesting but possibly a bit advanced for me to try to attempt. I would need to see the whole setup. Thank you BGDOCK for sharing

 

[Alondro]

If you have an apparatus set up to catch gasses and bubble them through hydrogen peroxide, heating hydrated copper nitrate to a temperature a bit over 180C will decompose the copper nitrate into NO2 and solid black copper oxide (CuO).

Bubbling the NO2 through 20% H2O2 will result in regeneration of nitric acid. It can be bubbled into water alone, but some of the nitrogen ends up as NO by that process. With peroxide, nearly all nitrogen oxides formed are nitrate ions.

You could also drop copper by cementing on iron, and then heat the iron nitrate solution to near boiling. This will liberate nitric acid directly as the iron nitrate decomposes. In that case, you would want to use a distillation set up to cool and condense the nitric acid vapor as it's released.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

I was able to get some silver chloride using HCL. Not much but will save it for later.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I was able to get some silver chloride using HCL. Not much but will save it for later. View attachment 60775

Make sure to keep it wet.

 

[Golddigger76]

That is a perfect amount for you to get familiar with converting it into metallic silver.
Good job !!

 

[Martijn]

Take 100 ml sample cement out copper weight / by molar mass of copper to figure out the amount of HSo4 needed ? ( could use some clarification here guys on this step )

You can also take an amount (100ml or so) and add bits of H2SO4 until a drop of the solution turns white when drying. This is the point where all copper nitrate is converted to sulfate and there is a little bit of excess sulfuric. Keep track of how much you added and multiply to calculate the volume needed for the whole batch. Use a bit less if you don't want free sulfuric in the nitric.

I use a small 50ml beaker and a hot air gun to heat the drop in the beaker from the outside. Note you will evaporate all the nitric out of that drop, and you must try not to breathe it.
To evaporate copper nitrate: it decomposes above 80 degrees C, so keep it under that and you can evaporate to the point where crystals start forming, then test how much sulfuric is needed and convert it all. This will yield a more concentrated nitric solution.

To get the nitric out: put it in a freezer and pour off the nitric acid with a bit of copper sulfate to reuse.

Martijn.

 

[BGDOCK]

You can also take an amount (100ml or so) and add bits of H2SO4 until a drop of the solution turns white when drying. This is the point where all copper nitrate is converted to sulfate and there is a little bit of excess sulfuric. Keep track of how much you added and multiply to calculate the volume needed for the whole batch. Use a bit less if you don't want free sulfuric in the nitric.

I use a small 50ml beaker and a hot air gun to heat the drop in the beaker from the outside. Note you will evaporate all the nitric out of that drop, and you must try not to breathe it.
To evaporate copper nitrate: it decomposes above 80 degrees C, so keep it under that and you can evaporate to the point where crystals start forming, then test how much sulfuric is needed and convert it all. This will yield a more concentrated nitric solution.

To get the nitric out: put it in a freezer and pour off the nitric acid with a bit of copper sulfate to reuse.

Martijn.

Thanks Martijn

 

[ModernAlchemy]

You can also take an amount (100ml or so) and add bits of H2SO4 until a drop of the solution turns white when drying. This is the point where all copper nitrate is converted to sulfate and there is a little bit of excess sulfuric. Keep track of how much you added and multiply to calculate the volume needed for the whole batch. Use a bit less if you don't want free sulfuric in the nitric.

I use a small 50ml beaker and a hot air gun to heat the drop in the beaker from the outside. Note you will evaporate all the nitric out of that drop, and you must try not to breathe it.
To evaporate copper nitrate: it decomposes above 80 degrees C, so keep it under that and you can evaporate to the point where crystals start forming, then test how much sulfuric is needed and convert it all. This will yield a more concentrated nitric solution.

To get the nitric out: put it in a freezer and pour off the nitric acid with a bit of copper sulfate to reuse.

Martijn.

Thanks so much Martijn I will try this.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

That is a perfect amount for you to get familiar with converting it into metallic silver.
Good job !!

Thank you!! Yes it’s a nice small amount to go though the process!!!

 

[ModernAlchemy]

That is a perfect amount for you to get familiar with converting it into metallic silver.
Good job !!

So I tried again with the LYE and got this



So then I add the sugar… and now I have this concoction that you can see it reflecting but a murky grey soup that doesn’t settle, do I need to add more sugar ?? I’ve added so much and stirred for an hour.



Do I need to add more sugar?? please advise, thank you

 

[BGDOCK]

Did you rinse the lye solution out with water
Then add sugar ?
If all else fails when in doubt cement it out ( with a sheet of copper / copper wire or pipe)

 

[ModernAlchemy]

Did you rinse the lye solution out with water
Then add sugar ?
If all else fails when in doubt cement it out ( with a sheet of copper / copper wire or pipe)

Yes, about 4 times with hot water there wasn’t much in there to begin with but now it seems like I have gray water/ mirrorish. Not sure how to get it into something of consistency .

 

[Martijn]

Yes, about 4 times with hot water there wasn’t much in there to begin with but now it seems like I have gray water/ mirrorish. Not sure how to get it into something of consistency .

Try adding some lye. I tried this process once and it was messy. For me. But i think the solution has to be basic to convert the silver oxide to silver with sugar. If you rinsed the lye out, it may not work.

 

[ModernAlchemy]

Try adding some lye. I tried this process once and it was messy. For me. But i think the solution has to be basic to convert the silver oxide to silver with sugar. If you rinsed the lye out, it may not work.

It’s just seemed to get more messy. I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong. I had the black silver oxide. Did I not wash it enough? Maybe some excess lye reacted with the sugar and make the grey/mirrorish/blackish water?
I used lots of sugar. Should of even needed that much. Talking 2 cups plus.

I will try it again at some point. I need to figure it out. Thanks for your help.

 

[Golddigger76]

Try adding some lye. I tried this process once and it was messy. For me. But i think the solution has to be basic to convert the silver oxide to silver with sugar. If you rinsed the lye out, it may not work.

I have always covered my silver chloride with water, add sodium hydroxide, stir it well so there's no clumps of silver chloride so it can react with the sodium hydroxide, then let it react for a while until it's all converted to silver oxide, then I add Karo syrup directly into this without washing and it has always converted into metallic silver.

I never wash the silver oxide because it is easily washed into the waste bucket and I do believe that it needs to be basic for the sugar to make the conversion to metallic silver.

I can't comment on using regular sugar because I have always used Karo syrup but there's no reason for granulated sugar not to work just fine.

I have used quick lime once when I ran out of sodium hydroxide and it was messy but worked good to converte the silver chloride to silver oxide.
I'm wondering if you don't have fine silver oxide suspended in your solution.
I would evaporate it down to around 20 ml and then try the conversion with lye and sugar again without washing your silver oxide.
It looks like there is some copper in your solution but it can be washed out once you have metallic silver.