Need some advice on silver - Page 2

Originally Posted by Starmex

how about silver contacts anybody know what to do with them?

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Do not under any circumstances melt them without proper equipment.

Those look like silver cadmium oxide contacts. The larger contacts are alloyed with cadmium so prevent scoring if they arc electricity. If you see burn marks on them, it might not be alloyed with cadmium, but you cannot assume anything. When Cadmium is heated above a certain point, it gives off gases. When you breath it in, if in small enough amounts, it might only increase your risk of cancer by 25%, in large amounts it can kill you. Not only that but it has a half life of 25 years, and even if you drink a ton of water, and pee constantly, you are only going to expel about .01% of the total amount you accumulate in your body.

Cadmium is commonly found in all kinds of silver alloys. It's another reason why you should be melting silver anything, unless you know the material does not have cadmium. It's also part of the reason why certain types of silver jewelry from certain countries cause people to break out in green, because the silver is alloyed with nickel, cadmium or both.

Are the silver contacts yours, and are you looking to sell them?

Do you know what they came off of? What type of connecters they are? The silver percentage can vary. However, if you have a silver testing solution, you can generally tell the purity by the color the solution turns to on the silver when first you apply it, and then later when it changes it's color.

Scott

Originally Posted by 79corvett

I can help with the chemical part of needed of refining part

What part of Gus's post did you not read?? One of our forum's experts giving you good advice, you might do well to heed it.

This is a topic that belongs on the gold forum where the experts can baby sit you from doing something foolish.

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Originally Posted by 79corvett

For a tip for removing silver plate first silver plate can be removed with nitric acid you can make your self to make silver nitrate and drop it out using copper but it's best to use #1 copper other copper could ruin your silver or hot sulfuric acid what is hard to heat up with out boiling but you could you a old coffee maker that will heat up close to the right temp to use be safe and and use all pecaution do not do unless you know how to handle chemicals involved

That is a fairly common misconception. You cannot just throw silver in nitric acid to recover silver plating. I'm sorry but it doesn't work that way. Look at the reactivity table for metals. Ntric acid attacks the copper before the silver, once silver enough is removed for the copper to be attacked by the acid, the acid will attack the copper and leave the silver until the copper is extenuated. You may be able to trick or tease other results, but that takes being an expert in this type of thing, and understanding/knowing how to manipulate the reaction. It takes 7 times more nitric acid to dissolve copper than it does to dissolve silver. It takes 2 grams about of nitric acid to dissolve 1 gram of silver, that means it takes 14 grams of nitric acid to dissolve 1 gram of copper. A case of Nitric Acid usually costs around $250 depending on where in the US you live.

Without getting into specifics, it's not really worth the time, effort and energy to recover silver plating, not unless you have a lot of it, the correct equipment, a copper electrolytic cell, are able to process the slimes for values, etc and on and on and on.

Silver, of all the metals, is the most expensive and most difficult to recover and refine. Platinum and Palladium are converted from chloride to metal by heat, Rhodium is usually just retained as metallic powder, as well as the other PGMs because of what it takes to melt them. Silver however involves more aspects of the refining processes, than the other precious metals.

I wouldn't suggest anyone who is attempting to learn about refining to start with silver. Gold is the easiest and most straight forward. I would start with gold before attempting any other precious metal, even before suggesting copper.

Scott

Originally Posted by gustavus

For a silver cell the anode of course would be silver along with a few impurity's.

This is a topic that belongs on the gold forum where the experts can baby sit you from doing something foolish.

If you want to make a silver electrolytic solution, you have to dissolve both copper and silver. And so much silver that it can be expensive. Imagine dissolving 250 ounces of silver and 50 ounces of copper into a vat of acid, then using a rectifier at around 300 amps, at 4.5 volts in order to be able to refine 600+ ounces of silver a day.

No if I were you, I wouldn't even entertain the idea of starting with refining silver, no way. Gold is far easier. And you shouldn't be asking those questions here. All the processes to refine precious metals can be incredibly dangerous. You have a lot of work to do before you even attempt to start refining anything, and even before silver, you should learn how to refine gold. Gold is the easiest in my opinion.

If you want the Hoke book on refining precious metals, message me. I have a brand spanking new one I will sell to you for $99.00. If you go to the Gold Refining Forum, everyone is going to tell you to read Hoke before attempting anything.

Scott