Is There Silver in Breakers?

Yes, there is silver in some circuit breakers, especially older or high-voltage industrial models. Silver is commonly used in electrical contacts due to its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. While the amount of silver in a typical residential breaker is quite small—usually just a fraction of a gram—industrial breakers can contain more, sometimes up to a few grams depending on the size and type. Scrappers often extract silver contacts from breakers as part of e-waste recycling, but the overall silver content may not be worth the effort unless dealing with large quantities or commercial-grade units.


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

Absolutely silver in circuit breakers and so much more to be found in so many other items.

If your selling the contacts your taking a big financial loss on your hard work.

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Originally Posted by Scrap-Metal-Forum

Yes, there is silver in some circuit breakers, especially older or high-voltage industrial models. Silver is commonly used in electrical contacts due to its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. While the amount of silver in a typical residential breaker is quite small—usually just a fraction of a gram—industrial breakers can contain more, sometimes up to a few grams depending on the size and type. Scrappers often extract silver contacts from breakers as part of e-waste recycling, but the overall silver content may not be worth the effort unless dealing with large quantities or commercial-grade units.


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

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Electrical Panels and Circuit Breakers: Some older electrical panels and circuit breakers contained asbestos-based components, including paper or boards, for insulation and fireproofing. Fuse Boxes: Asbestos was sometimes used in fuse boxes and panels for its fire-resistant properties.

I think you have to ask yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. Scrapping is production work. The end goal is to make profit. You have to hustle up and bang the work out to make that happen.

If you allow yourself to get bogged down in all the little details ... you may never see any return for all the time and hard work you have invested.

Turn-n-burn !

Make it happening !

Get it done !

I agree with hills on this one, i actually never found these worth while to take apart. yes there is some copper and brass bits, but it aint much.

I also heard that the contacts are actually tungsten or some sort of mixed silver alloy.

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Originally Posted by greytruck

I agree with hills on this one, i actually never found these worth while to take apart. yes there is some copper and brass bits, but it aint much.

I also heard that the contacts are actually tungsten or some sort of mixed silver alloy.

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Cadmium alloyed in Silver contacts, then you have barium copper.

The silver in breaker contacts is clad, a thin layer of silver compressed onto a base metal.

Heavy duty silver contacts used in electric forklift relays, silver impregnated into sintered tungsten.

None of the above worth the time, chemicals or the energy to recover.

Carbon brush's from wind turbines, welder generators and starters contain as much as 70% silver. No chemicals required to recover the silver which comes out 100% pure.