Silver refining

[littlebitsick]

i have some old surface mount solder paste, containing 3% silver, the rest is made up with Tin, bismuth and some flux to aid flowing. Do you think this method would work on the paste i have? im thinking of doing a little experiment

[Squish120]

Your a legend for showing this! I'm in the GRF too, but what you've presented is an incredibly practical small method for silver cell - I made one very similar and worked great. Finished with 12.665 grams 99.9% silver. This makes the most beautiful bars when cast, and leaves not a trace of oxides in the melting dish.

To answer the q's below, I reuse my copper tube as its very difficult to get all traces of silver off it, so I use it again and it'll fall off when more silver builds up.

[fedaikn]

@Squish120 thank you for answering some questions over here at the comments page.

i made this video and others mainly to share knowledge with other people who are interested. back when i was searching for info i found little, so i want to contribute to improvement of that.

i did not post videos lately mainly because of lack of time, but i still have some thing coockin', which will come out when i find the time for it.

[chessmaster001]

Two questions, one - can you reuse the same copper tube? and two - does this work with gold?

[Squish120]

@chessmaster001 Yes it'll work with gold but not a practical method of refining - search for the activity series of metals to explain it

[NytingGayle]

I see in comments that you say copper nitrate is unwanted. But is there a way to refine copper?

[Squish120]

@NytingGayle Not much point refining the copper due to its value, but it can be done the same way. With your spent solution of copper nitrate, add a clean piece of steel and copper will plate out. Then you can use the same electrolysis method with copper - usually as copper sulfate because its cheaper and plate pure copper, very difficult to melt though without creating oxides

[Aranwulfr]

can the silver nitrate be re-used?

[krisptreats]

whats the concentration of the nitric acid in the beginning steps when dissolving the silver particles?

[demnlordd666]

cool vid, watching the crystals grow is fasinating. I have some I will try to refine like this. If ya do it in larger batches does the crystal structure come out larger or is it stll small and fern like? would be nice to get some meaty sized crystals to display

[jaws99099]

How do you get the rest of the silver out of the nitric/silver/copper solution? You mentioned to keep the material because it still contains silver.

[666Pockets666]

I have a 17 pound boulder containing mostly native silver. If I get it broken up is there a way to refine it using electrolisis?

[lexichronicle2]

@666Pockets666 You could smash it up, preferably to dust (but lumps will do), dump it into a bucket, pour over a lot of cheap concentrated hydrochloric acid (sold for brick cleaning etc) and it will likely dissolve most of the rock. The silver won't dissolve however, so you can pour the solution off and save the small amount of solid. Then use the ideas in the videos up on here to refine that blob. I have seen 205l drums of hydrochloric sell for only a few pounds, because it's hazardous waste

[lexichronicle2]

@666Pockets666 It'd be interesting to watch you smash it up and dissolve it, make a video if you do. There is a chemistry guy from a forum I'm on also posting on here, called 'ReactionFactory'. If you do a search for 'Isolation of Uranium Yellowcake from Ore' up in the toob search bar, you'll find him using the same dissolving method to score some uranium from a big lump of rock.

[fedaikn]

@666Pockets666 smash it up, really fine. separate the silver out of the crushed rock by panning in water (like the gold diggers do). melt the silver that you collect. the lump of silver can the be refined through the same principle, using the same steps as explained in this video

[snapsalot]

@coultas6913 silver plate has such a miniscule ammount of silver you are wasting your time.

[shaysarig10]

*Those the electrolyte system that you show on the movie is suitable for all amount of refined silver (for exampale 10kilo) ???

*In the last part of the process you are doing the silver electrolysis with silver nitrate solution,can it be done with the silver nitrate that we creat in the first part of process???

[fedaikn]

@shaysarig10

*no, it is not suitable for 10 kg

*no, you cannot use the silver nitrate from the first step since it is much too contaminated . you need to prepare a new batch of silver nitrate....how? -search the comments below

[shaysarig10]

@fedaikn *So where can I find an instructions for this amount of silver ???(10kg)

[doinen]

ok, so I heated up the jar with the nitric acid and the sterling silver and now it`s almost completely dissolved. I may have to add a little more acid. But around the sides of the jar there`s white and blue crystalls. I presume the white crystals are silver nitrate, and the blue crystals are copper nitrate. Should I scrape this off back into the solution? Should I filter when I pour the solution into a clean glass and add distilled water?

[doinen]

ok so noww, now I put the acid thing in the bottle along with some silwer. but i didnt heat it. only put the jar with the acid and silver in a pot thingy with hot water witch is now cold and I am drunk. because i know I fucked up but there was a party so i just left it because i didn`t know what else I cold do my girlfriend just left me so what the hell. dont worry i was sober when i did this and wore gasmask . tomorrow i will check the jar and heat it if there are no objections here.

[doinen]

@fedaikn hey, thanks for great vid! I`m going to try this very soon but I have a few questions first.

1. Is silver nitrate the blueish solution you get when dissolving sterling silver in nitric acid?

2. Can the solution be left in a jar over time or do you have to perform the electrochemical bit immediately?

[fedaikn]

@doinen silver nitrate is a white salt, silver nitrate solution is colorless.

the bluish thing is the copper nitrate, which is unwanted.

yes, you can store the solution, in glass jars for example.

[doinen]

@fedaikn ok, thanks. just to check if I got this right. first dissolve sterling silver in nitric acid. solution becomes muddy blue. add distilled water. put a copper pipe into the solution and leave it overnight (can this be done indoors, maybe with a lid on?). filter out the cemented silver. the clear blue solution is just waste now and has no purpose. the silver cement can be fire molded into a 98% ingot or added to nitric acid to make silver nitrate solution. have I got it right?

[doinen]

@fedaikn sorry I`m a noob in chemistry =/ thanks for the help =)

[Hannibal222222]

Hi nice work.

Does it work with silverbutton batteries,too? I mean the silveroxid in it.

[fedaikn]

@Hannibal222222 should work too. i have't got any to try it out.

still, you need to have quite a few to get some silver out of them

[Hannibal222222]

@fedaikn thank you for your answer. somebody has told me that out of one Kilo silverbuttonbatteries you can get 350 gramms of pure silver. Now I try it. (soory my english is bad i`m from germany) :D

[achmachat]

beautiful video.

I have a question: as an electrolyte you use silver nitrate, and even indicate the needed concentration.

When I look at the chemical equation, I don't see where the silver nitrate comes into play. ( I'm not a chemist, but an architect ;-) ) What happens if you do the cristal growing in a NaCl solution? would it simply not work?

[fedaikn]

@achmachat

you need some serious explanations...

1)Cl in contact with silver will form a salt that is not soluble in water. therefore we absolutely don't want any chlorine near the silver

2)no, NaCl is not going to work. NaNO3 will work for example, but you risk contamination of the silver.

Best to use ise a silver salt, like silver nitrate......because it is silver you want to isolate. do not introduce any other metal or ion that could eventually get plated out at the electrochemical step

[abingabanger20]

the nitric acid ur using is 10%?btw ur info s really interesting.

[fedaikn]

@abingabanger20

the nitric acid is around 20% .

doesen't really matter if it is a bit higher or lower. i guess that 10% does also work acceptable. don't use any higher than 40%

[abingabanger20]

@fedaikn thank you!

[jdat747]

can't you recycle the acid when it turns blue/green by electroplating out the copper?

Also, if you do it that way, then you don't end up with hazardous chems to dispose of.

[fedaikn]

@jdat747 perhaps there is a solution but i was not interested in finding out. recovering the copper with cheap iron seems the quickest way and since iron nitrate is not so harmful as copper...for the moment i'll keep doing it this way

[spacebrdcst]

on the Cathode that sterling silver wire is crimped onto a fine silver sheet, where can I find the the FINE SILVER SHEET? Does it have to be 99.99 % silver?

Thanks

[fedaikn]

@spacebrdcst actually it does not need to be fine silver, sterling works as well. but...just in case you need some fine silver, use the cemented silver, melt it down and it will be close enough to fine silver to do the job.

still, sterling is also good for this.

[kalaliakas]

Great vid man. All your vids are big help for the amateur caster. I have a question. Can I use a maap/air or propane/air torch to melt such an amount of silver or I need oxygen too?

[fedaikn]

@kalaliakas the amount is small enough, you don't necessarily need oxygen. if you find it hard to find oxygen-fuel torches, maybe you want to consider building a small charcoal furnace and melt it in crucibles.

[spacebrdcst]

How do you get a 10% Silver Nitrate Solution?

Thanks

[fedaikn]

@spacebrdcst 10% means that in 100gram of solution, there are 10 grams of silver nitrate.....so to make a 10% solution all you need is to add 10g of silver nitrate to 90g of distilled water.

how to get silver nitrate.....redissolve some of the cemented silver in nitric acid, and you get the silver nitrate.

read some older comments, i think i have explained this in the past to someone else.

[spacebrdcst]

@fedaikn Thank you for replying, the thing is that silver nitrate forms crystals...so I don't know exactly how much silver I should add to the nitric acid:)

Thanks again

[fedaikn]

@spacebrdcst interesting fact....the silver nitrate that forms crystals indicates one thing ! too high concetration of your acid or already too much silver dissolved

how strong is is your acid?

you may solve the problem by adding a distilled water

[spacebrdcst]

@fedaikn To be honest, I let my solution to dry first... then I added water, small portions at a time until I could see no more crystals in the container....

Thanks for the your Help...

[eyeswideopennimrod]

Could it not be done without the initial dissolving stage. Just take your sterling silver and do the last stage, basically suspend the piece in a fabric bag attached to the - probe within a silver nitrate solution, this would then only dissolve and translate the silver across to the + probe. I could be very wrong, but i would be interested in your thoughts.

[fedaikn]

@eyeswideopennimrod theoretically there is nothing wrong yo your suggestion, yes it can be done that way. however, you will soon deplete the silver nitrate electrolyte and get it polluted with copper which in turn affects the purity of the 999 silver. you have to be able somehow to get rid of the copper in the initial alloy.

to do this, we first separate the silver by chemical cementing and only after by the fine electrochemical process.

[eyeswideopennimrod]

@fedaikn Ok i see, so it is the impurities that depletes the silver nitrate, and is there any way to see that it has become depleted (does it turn blue like in the initial dissolving). I would like to try this at the weekend, but as i was never very good at chemistry i want to be sure before i start and thought if there is a halfway house to start at. I have learned that Sulfuric acid (drain cleaner) and Sodium or Potassium nitrate (fertilizer) will create Nitric acid. Any other ideas. Thanks

[fedaikn]

@eyeswideopennimrod sorry, unless you can separate the nitric acid from potassium sulphate and other ingredients, your home brew will not work well. you need real nitric acid. you may also try the sulphuric acid, it should also work but much slower.

you will see when it is depleted, the initial colorless solution of silver nitrate will turn to an emerald green color. eventually at some point copper starts to plate out, which is really bad for your fine silver.

[eyeswideopennimrod]

@fedaikn I decided on Thursday to order some 70% nitric acid, so i could try it out without the added complication of home brew. It was delivered Monday, so it is now sat in the garage slowly dissolving some scrap sterling silver, i will be home on Friday to do the next step. What do you mean by copper starts to plate out, as i work away and am not able to do anything until Friday, so am a little worried. Is there anything my wife could reluctantly do to prevent problems. She hates the stuff

[umeshji888]

Great video! Can you refer me to a book or site that explains the Moebius method in more detail?

[fedaikn]

@umeshji888 unfortunately not, i have gathered the information from the internet, from sites, forums and inventor's patents.

i can however recommend joining the goldrefiningforum

[pktran9999]

awsome, love the music and enjoy the method, so simple and easy to do, this is the one, I've been looking for...thanks 4 sharing and posting. love it.

[scnokc77]

Just a question to make sure I follow...isn't silver nitrate the resultant liquid after the cemented silver is removed after the first refining step (the blue liquid)? If so can it be used for the second step, or does it need to be fresh?

[bluesa1t]

If one used the electrolytic technique to strip silver off a "nickel silver" base, would the nickel silver be dissolved as well? Would that adversely affect they electrolyte?

[salitica]

You don't want to refine "Nickel Silver" which on average is 79& copper and the rest is nickel and tin. Nickel is not a good metal to refine silver.As an impurity, it reacts by consuming all of the acid. The best bet for removing the silver from nickel silver plate is to take the plate and smelt 3-5 times more copper and use a copper electrolysis refining technique. The anode slime from this will contain the silver, some gold and platinum group metals. Then dry the slime and use a magnet

[salitica]

@bluesa1t cont. Take the magnet and use it to remove the nickel from the anode slime (dried) then smelt the remains with an added equal amount of 99.99% silver and proceed with the thumb cell refining. The anode slime from this process contains mostly platinum group metals and gold.

[darcyryan99]

when adding the Nitric acid, put a balloon over the flask or jar. free laughing gas! or noss for your car haha

[dynomania]

That's really excellent. Looks like the silver from the melt was pretty pure to start with as the surface crazed when it cooled down.

[RICHDALY51]

That was Awesome Thanks

[jonnymaclincoln]

Also what type of syringe are you using to apply the asid?

[fedaikn]

@jonnymaclincoln just go to a pharmacy and ask for medical syringe , the disposable type. they are very cheap and almost every type you find is good. still i prefer the ones with rubber pistons

[jonnymaclincoln]

I have a few questions on the steps.

At .54 it says keep the solution. Then nothing else is mentioned.

Last is the solution electrolyte solution. I was wondering if you could explain on how to make it?

Thanks for your time in advance.

[fedaikn]

@jonnymaclincoln i kept some copper tube in the solution, for two weeks or so to get even the smallest amount of silver out. then i did precipitate the silver with some hydrochloric acid and i still have the precipitate today.

the electrolyte solution is a 10% silver nitrate solution. to make silver nitrate you need to dissolve some of the cemented silver in nitric acid. it doesen't even need to be 10%, just roughly estimate it

[washnon]

@fedaikn How much cement to 2000 ml?

[fedaikn]

@washnon you have got something wrong....

the amount of silver cemented out is dependent on the amount of silver in your alloy, not on the volume of solution.

[thebibleisfiction]

man im really digging this music! awesome video man really interesting stuff1

[old138]

I have read about electrolytic refining, but this video bas been a big help in understanding what is going on!

What kind of fabric do you recomend for an anode bag? Thanks!

[DBomb43]

For those refining silver by making AgCl, I advise you not to. True, AgCl can be made into silver using dextrose and NaOH. But, AgCl will cause precipitation of contaminates like lead, tin, copper, etc... that may be present. You can remove these with acid washes, but it's expensive, and makes lots of waste. The video method is better since copper is just above silver in the activity series, so it displaces silver but leaves all contaminates in solution.  Great video fedaikn, thanks!

[Heathenheart1979]

Hi there, just a clarification. Is silver working as anode or cathode? At 2:42 you write " silver anode" (positive) then at 4:40 you said "silver negative". And then, instead of silver,what can I use? I've got so much plenty of AgCl to be recovered in Ag. First pass, I dissolve it in NH3. At this moment, can I recover by electrochemistry pure Ag? Anyway, a great video!

[fedaikn]

@Heathenheart1979 the thing is, there is two times silver. one that will be consumed (anode +) and one that will attract the 999 silver crystals to it (cathode -).

cathode is athe bottom, the plate thing you see (made out of fine silver) , the wire going to it is black--meaning negative. this cathode can also be stainless steel, a spoon for example should work.

i do not know how to convert AgCl into Ag. browse the goldrefiningforum for more info

[FreeSpinsAgain]

Hi what do you do with the crystals at the end? do ya just melt them into one lump?

[fedaikn]

@FreeSpinsAgain yes, they have been melted down and re-alloyed with a calculated amount of coin silver to whon i know the composition. that way i can make 925 silver, more or less accurately.

[FreeSpinsAgain]

@fedaikn Oh ok...Those crystals at the end of the video, is it 999 silver?...if so, just wondering why you'd want to lower it to 925 (sterling?)...myself, im just wanting to know how to refine to 999 silver. THanks =)

[bluesa1t]

@FreeSpinsAgain

Sterling is a harder alloy, and easier to make things out of without scratching.

[JohnChristianLien]

One user posted this comment: "Scrape the Ag mud off the copper rod is quite annoying, it keeps falling off the rod and dive back into the acid."

But when the silver (Ag) mud has been formed after putting in the copper rod, cant you just filter the blue'ish solution to get the "pure" cemented silver?

And one more thing, at 0:54 you write in the video "keep the solution, there is still silver inside". How do you extract that silver? by putting the copper rod in again or??..

[fedaikn]

@JohnChristianLien

you can filter out the cemented silver, you can and have to wash it with DISTILLED water only. it is fairly pure silver, but no 99,99%. that's why we do the next step, electrochemical, to get it to be fine silver

you can recover the silver from the copper nitrate waste by adding muriatic acid, known also as hidrochloric acid or simply HCL . that will precipitate the silver and you can filter it out. however, converting silver chloride to silver is complicated. just keep it

[vellajoe1]

Hi, Great clip. Everything is explained clearly. The only thing I'm a bit lost is about the elocrolyte solution. How is that made? let's say i need 1 litre of solution will i put 100 grms of silver, 10grms copper, 300 ml of nitric and and 700ml water? Thanks again

[fedaikn]

@vellajoe1 hello

actually, you need not have any copper. you need only silver nitrate, 10% concentration should do fine. so....prepare your silver nitrate by dissolving either fine silver or the cemented silver in nitric acid. you need not calculate amounts, but if you wish and have the means, do it. basically you keep adding nitric acid to the silver until it gets dissolved. than you add a little more silver to be sure all the acid is consumed and that's it.

[vellajoe1]

@fedaikn

Thanks a lot. I refined a kilo of silver succesfully. Everything went as planed. The only issue i had was the silver i attached to the anode. It kept being dissolved in the nitrate solution. Do you know what metal can be used that silver nitrate doesn't attack in electrolyses for future reference. I was thinking of stainless steel grade 316. Thanks again.

[fedaikn]

@vellajoe1 1 kg is a large amount. congratulations. i can only imagine the efforts made for establishing the setup for this purpose.

i am not sure i understand your question, i assume you mean the little hook that you need to attach to the silver piece to be refined. don't use stainless. i can think olny of gold and platinum but that is no option.

the solution is to shape or positiobn your piece in such a way as to not have the hook touch the electrolyte solution until the last moment

[RenkoTrader]

Sorry, Im new to all this, when you heat the Silver at the end, isnt that silver nitrate? i.e. You can not handle the ingot

[fedaikn]

@RenkoTrader since you are new, i advise you to be more specific on your inquiries like: when you heat the silver at 1:59

i did not heat any silver nitrate, all that is being heated, actually melted, is metallic silver.

if you heat silver nitrate you may end up with molten silver nitrate but most often this salt decomposes so it is not advisable to do such a thing.

[modee31700]

HI,what about if the scrap silver containe other metal such as nickel it will be disloved with the silver and copper wouldn't replace it ,isn't it i am not expert so please correct me if i am wrong,the other question is the Electrolytic can you please advice what is the soluation mix exactly is,would the remaining solution from the refining process work which include 30% copper ,thanks

[fedaikn]

@modee31700 you are right, if there is any nickel in the solution than copper can not cement it out. you can get the nickel out, along with the copper, by adding iron to the solution, AFTER you have already separated the silver. You do not want to contaminate the silver!

NO, the initial solution is not suited. It has to be fairly pure. Make silver nitrate by dissolving the washed cemented silver in nitric acid.

In the electrolytic process you need to regenerate the nitrate when contaminated.

[hahanex]

how do you dispose the liquid afterwards? and what is the correct chemical name for that liquid?

[fedaikn]

@hahanex the corect term would be aqueous solution or just solution.

the solution contains mainly copper nitrate but in small quantities it can contain some silver nitrate as well

for disposing i would stick some nails inside until all the copper gets cemented out and then i flush it down the toilet. iron nitrate is not as harmful as copper nitrate is

[FreeSpinsAgain]

@fedaikn So do you mean the electrolyte can be just copper nitrate?. Or does it need other chemicals in it to work?. (Also can the electrolyte be made of anything else completely different?... thanks)

[fedaikn]

@FreeSpinsAgain under no circumstances should it be copper. the electrolyte has to be silver nitrate. sorry, silver nitrate solution works best, i do not know of replacements for it. but it is easy to make if you have some cemented silver and nitric acid.

read the comments on the page to get further info.

[BeanCalGuy]

If I were to dissolve a good amount of silver plated copper (i.e. plated copper wire/shielding) into nitric acid would you agree that the best way to precipitate the silver out would be to add salt, filter, and torch? And then be left with copper nitrate. In my situation i'd be dealing with more copper than silver.

[fedaikn]

@BeanCalGuy if you add salt to silver nitrate you get silver chloride. you can try to torch it but you'll find out that it melts. it's rather hard to decompose silver chloride so it makes little sense to do it that way.

you can only get the silver from your plated items dissolved, WHEN all the copper is dissolved as well.

best method would be to strip the silver through an electrochemical process.

check the goldrefiningforum for more info

[BeanCalGuy]

Nice video. Does this process work if I dropped in silver plated copper? It looked like you used pieces that were mostly silver and very little copper if any. After retreiving the silver, do you know how to precipitate the copper back out of the solution?

[fedaikn]

@BeanCalGuy any copper object will be corroded by silver nitrate. that's why you have to use mostly pure silver. you could use other metals as well, but they have to be inert towards silver nitrate

how to cement the copper out.... simply stick a object made from IRON into the copper nitrate solution.

in my experiment there was no point in recovering the small amount of copper

[fedaikn]

@GoldenRing1989 well, yes. it is not worth much but the purpose is not to recover tons of silver to make a lot of cheese, it is only to show the basics of the process and point out the working principles.

[Robbob9933]

@fedaikn the process you demonstrate is used at the industrial level

[Robbob9933]

Is the electromotive reaction the reason steel wool is used in photographic silver recovery?

[fedaikn]

@Robbob9933 i do not know what the process looks like for recovering photographic silver, i could make a guess but then again...i do not know

[Robbob9933]

@fedaikn Jus tto follow up, I got ahold of some used phoitographic fixer chemicals and put in a a piece of copper sheet and I got silver. Quite a bit actually. I also had access to come microfiche originals that were going to be shred and soaked them in a 50/50 bleach (uncscented) and distilled water and got about 10 grams of what you refer to as silver cement in this video from 150 sheets of microfiche masters.

[fedaikn]

@Robbob9933 i do not know what the process looks like for recovering photographic silver, i could make a guess but then again...i do not know

[Robbob9933]

@fedaikn I know there are 2 devices out there one is a controlled seep through steel wool and the other is low voltage electrolitic. The folks who haul these spent chemicals are charging a fortune to take away and keep the silver or money from the silver. Was thinking about carting away for free and keeping the silver and money from silver for myself. I know bleach removes siilver from exposed negatives.

[9DragonMaster]

silver is fucking awesome!

[buggymak]

very nice vid---i live in canada and i don't know wrere to buy nitric acid i made a lot of research and find any---can someone help me with this dilema thanx.

[fedaikn]

@buggymak i can not buy nitric acid either in my country. i got it when i was on a trip to germany.

if you consider producing your own nitric through a method described on the channel of nurdrage , you have to remember that the cheapest nitric is still the one you can buy.

[gasdorf]

how much propane to you waste in the process ? not the mention the chemicals ?

[fedaikn]

@gasdorf the experiment is now one year ago, kinda hard to say what quantity it was. i guess i used some 20 ml of 53% nitric acid that was later diluted to around 20%. of course i can calculate the theoretical amount but it is irrelevant. the butane consumption is not that bad. the price for one butane refill tube is 2 eur and i guess i can melt this amount of silver at least 13 times with it .

anyhow it was only a demonstration, it did not need to be economical.

[bigcoolviking]

Very Interesting...ok so you showed 2 very different ,methods for extracing the silver is one any better ie scavenging more silver out than the other, or is it just a question on one being quicker than the other?

2. what happens to the copper or nicklt 7.5% that is mixed with the sterling, does it just turn to sludge? would these methods work of a 50% silver coin? Cheers Graeme

[fedaikn]

@bigcoolviking as a rule of thumb, for silver that is 97-99% pure you can use the eletrolitic process, whereas for silver that is 40-97% pure you have to go with the dissolution process using nitric acid.

hydrochloric acid will not dissolve silver, it actually prevents it from dissolving. sulphuric acid is weak at dissolving silver but more importantly it will not dissolve copper

you may have problems dissolving gold-silver alloys in nitric acid that have a silver content less than 40%.

[fedaikn]

@bigcoolviking

2. all other alloying metals that can be attacked by the acid will go into the aqueous solution. at 0:50 you can see that all the metals above copper will stay in solution in their nitric salt form, whereas all metals below copper will get cemented out in a metallic form.

so, to cut it short, the 30% copper from the alloy is the blue water you see in the jar.

[Sergey946]

Смотрю уже несколько раз и как зачарованный не могу оторваться !

Видеоролик КЛАСС!!!!!!!

[drewpro81]

I was wondering what percentage(concentrate) of nitric acid do you need to do this process? Thanks in advance.

[fedaikn]

@drewpro81 usually works with whatever you can get. note that lower concentrations than 40% make the process more efficient because the nitrogen monoxide produced is being dissolved into the water to produce nitric acid... which improves the yield.

use 30% nitric acid and perform the reaction at room temperature...if you have time. if not, perform with hot nitric acid, watch?v=d6hPgGV_qAg

[tempoeagle]

Hi, Thank you for sharing your knowledge!! I have a quesion for you. Is this process suitable & maximized the silver yeild for refining silver which recovered from photographic film processor? Please advise me. Thank you!!

[fedaikn]

@tempoeagle i have not tried anything like recovering silver from photographic film processed silver. still, i guess it will work as well. the method described in my video should be quite efficient but you need good equipment to ensure this (like a plating rectifier as current source). try it out if you have time/resources and let us know.

[tempoeagle]

@fedaikn Thank you!!

I am trying to put a proper production equipment together in order to create a mini production process.

And there is lot of things to think about it. From safety to local law and finding reasonable supplies.

If I may, I like to communicant with you for sharing what I am doing as well as have your opinion/suggestion.

[93FordGt]

That was very interesting.

[t8283287]

Hi, Great video friend, but I have a question, once you have dissolved your sterling silver in the nitric acid, what happens to the other tin/nickel or other metals, also I have just ordered 1 litre of 70% nitric acid, how much silver will this process, its quite expensive, thanks again

[fedaikn]

@t8283287 i have no need for the other metals, anyhow, besides silver and copper there are hardly any other metals present in silver coins and jewelry except for some cadmium and zinc. other metals go down the drain. your nitric acid will dissolve about 1680 g of fine silver, but obviously you deal with silver containing alloys so i guess it is anywhere between 1100 g and 1600 g of metal. all dependent on the amount of copper in your alloy.

[boochieboy814]

Very nice informational video. I'm planning on doing the same thing with a bunch of scrap 925 jewelry as you described in the first demonstration. Did you buy your Nitric Acid, or did you make it?

[Dannster9]

how do you do that with gold from cpu units

[fedaikn]

@Dannster9 this video is not about gold refining

search the goldrefiningforum for answers

[27simber]

hi can use crystals silver nitrate and what do you mix it with?

[27simber]

how do you cemented silver in nitric acid.work can you help. thanks

[27simber]

and can you make silver nitrate with sturling silver

[fedaikn]

@27simber you can make silver nitrate from sterling, but it will be impure because of the copper nitrate. you can make a better quality silver nitrate by dissolving some cemented silver in nitric acid.

[27simber]

for the fine silver sheet can i use sterling

[fedaikn]

@27simber yes you can use sterling as a substitute for the fine silver. though you can make high purity silver by melting some of the cemented silver you get at 0:45

[27simber]

can you use sturling silver

[fedaikn]

@27simber if you want to make 999 silver out of sterling, yes you can.

i used the method to make sterling out of a bunch of scraps and coins.

[goku569]

I've been able to get a few waste cells from a rather large (40lbs) silver zinc battery. Each cell weighs a little over a pound each. The specs on the battery say the anode is made of silver oxide. Is there a way to recover this metal? I opened the cell and the anode doesn't resemble silver in any way. It actually looks like a mesh with a whiteish-grey paste coating it.

[fedaikn]

@goku569 sounds interesting. there are more options for you but you need nitric acid. take a small sample of the white paste and take a sample of the grid as well. dissolve in nitric acid and then add a drop of table salt after dissolving. if a white precipitate appears than you may have some silver, you may also have lead. anyhow, if only the paste shows presence of silver, take only the paste and try the method in this video. else melt down anything and follow the method.

[aviyeshurun]

if i just want to deposit silver on the electrode from agno3 solution without the silver anode which other anode should i use instead? will it cause formation of undesired ions (OH- and such...)?

if i want bigger silver crystals should i use a less concentrated solution of agno3 or lower voltage?

tnx

[fedaikn]

@aviyeshurun you need the silver anode in order to plate out silver at the cathode. if you just want to get silver out of a nitrate solution, stick a piece of copper inside and it will get cemented out.

i do not know how to grow large crystals, i have read something about it on the net, stating that normal plating voltage, low current and little nitrate concentrations yield large crystals....but i cannot confirm that

[mich65ek2]

Thank you Fedaikn for such well-explained video and guidance.

So I tried the first process and I realized that:

1. handling nitric acid is absolutely fucking dangerous, one little mistake could cause serious injury.

2. Scrape the Ag mud off the copper rod is quite annoying, it keeps falling off the rod and dive back into the acid.

3. Melting Ag cement takes ages to have it formed a chunk. (You make it look way too easy, it's unbelievable)

BTW, what should I do with the used acid? Re-use?

[mich65ek2]

Which is the best refine method? I quite like the first one, plain and simle. But I don't quite get the second one, it seems a bit more complicated than the 1st process.

Anyway, what and how can we do to acheive the 99.99% purity?

I got a big handful of silver pins from the old electronic waste and I am thinking about refine them. Is it worth the effort? What is the best method, any idea?

[fedaikn]

@mich65ek2 don't think it's worth, how much silver can there be in your pins? to get the silver you can use the processes described in this video. dissolve it, cement it and you have 98-99% pure silver. if you have access to nitric acid just do the first process, that will give you a idea about the silver you actually have. to get the 99,9%purity you'd have to go through electrorefining like i did.

[artdeco101010]

That was amazing !

[mich65ek2]

What is this music called? It's cool.

By the way, show us how to refine gold why don't you

[fedaikn]

@mich65ek2 sorry mate, i don't deal with gold. you can however read a lot about gold refining on the goldrefiningforum . c o m

the song name is in the video description

[JesExaVid]

What happed to the 30% of other metals that was in the silver ?

[fedaikn]

@JesExaVid they stay in the solution. the 30% is mostly copper, it turns to copper nitrate in this process. hydrated copper nitrate is blue, hence the blue colour of the solution

[RainstormGB]

@fedaikn how do u get the copper back? from the solution

[fedaikn]

@RainstormGB why want to get the copper back when you have almost pure copper in wires and tubing? ....anyhow, you can get it back from it's salts by putting iron objects into the solution. the copper will be cemented out and the iron will go into solution

[RainstormGB]

@fedaikn if i wanted to dissolve a 50% silver 50% copper coins

i wanted to get the copper back and make some copper bullion and silver bullion

would this method work thanks

[fedaikn]

@RainstormGB it will work only for the silver part, the copper electrochemical refining setup is different. i really see no point in getting the copper back. after cementing out the silver with copper, you can cement the copper out of the copper nitrate solution with iron, use iron nails for example.

[metalicmario]

the silver cell is very macgyver-ish lol. nice vid!

[fedaikn]

@metalicmario thank you

[gpooleii]

Awesome work. Very informative. Thanks for taking the time to produce this video and share with us.

[1971texas]

Thank you this saves a lot of time converting silver chloride to silver metal this is one of the most useful videos on utube

[metaltect]

Very good; awesome. Just one thing. How is it best to remove all the sludge from the coffee filter once rinsed? Thanks.

[fedaikn]

@metaltect basically you leave it to dry out. once dry it can be removed, only almost completely. there will always be a small bit left thus one does not throw away the filter.

keep the filter paper and burn it with the torch, or burn more of them as they accumulate. the paper burns to ash and what is left over is mostly precious metal, it can be redissolved in nitric acid and put back into the cycle.

[joyisaware]

That is awesome! thanks for sharing

[SuperMiner49r]

why does the nitric acid turn blue

[fedaikn]

@SuperMiner49r it is because the scrap silver had copper alloyed within. the blue color is given by copper nitrate

[dukehehe]

our mad-scientist-friend it's back......jesus dude took u quite long to upload another1.and yes, ur awesome like always, keep up the good work, nice1, kudos.

[Silversmyth]

Very cool video... should have paid more attention in chemistry class.

[fedaikn]

@Silversmyth thanks for commenting.

you might find the improvised liver of sulphur interesting as well

[metalicmario]

yep tarnishing. you should check out my video on making nitric acid. its 50% so it wont be able to dissolve silver but can do most anything else.