PhillipJ said:
Harold. As always I try to read what yoHomes e to say. You explain things very well. For a month or so now, I have been thinking that YOU should write a book.
Chuckle! Well, if I thought I could find a dozen people weak enough in the head to buy a book I'd written, maybe I'd go for it. :lol:
Actually, I don't know that I'd be able. I've never lost sight of the fact that I don't understand why things work as they do--not having an education in chemistry. Mind you, it's not that I can't do a good job of refining----I can, and a damned good one at that, but I am nothing more than a trained monkey, very reliant on the things I learned by studying Hoke, plus a few other sources. When things go south, if it's not something I've experienced, I'm often at a loss to explain the problem. I don't think I'd feel any too good about having information published that was questionable, but I sure don't mind helping others achieve a level of performance that I achieved. That's why you see me here on this forum.
I was thinking about the sheet of aluminum that you are converting the silver chloride with. How would it work to put it in a dedicated aluminum frypan or aluminum pot, add the HCL & stir untill done? Also, I was thinking about that aluminum seal on the coffee cans would be good to use as a sheet of aluminum.
You'd be inviting a bunch of grief if you went the pan route, although I see nothing wrong with using a pan as a source of aluminum. Same goes with any aluminum, right down to aluminum cans if you can eliminate the printing. Just make sure you don't end up with a lot of tiny bits in the silver when it's fully converted.
The problem with using a pan?
Remember me saying that the aluminum gets dissolved in the process? That's exactly why it's not a good idea. The pan, in all likelihood, would have one thin spot and spring a leak when you least expected it to happen. Otherwise I see nothing wrong with the idea, so if you happen to have a few on hand (clean, no Teflon), or can pick them up cheaply at a second hand store, use them accordingly. You could even start out using the pan as you suggested, but make sure you have it sitting in something that will catch the solution and silver when it springs a leak.
I,m reading in Hoke about the cell used to purify silver, but so far I see nothing about the electrolyte that they use in it, and am having trouble finding the recipe here.
The electrolyte is made of silver, dissolved in nitric acid and distilled water. I don't have the information at hand, but there's a book by, I think, Butts & Coxe, that covers silver refining extensively. If I have the name of the authors wrong, I know GSP knows the book of which I speak and he can make corrections to my information.
My cell was used on a batch basis, running an anode that weighed about 200 ounces (troy). By the time I had refined that amount of silver, the copper content of the electrolyte had climbed to the point where it could start co-depositing copper along with the silver. That doesn't happen as long as the percentage of copper is low enough. You can tell when there's a change because the silver crystals tend to grow differently, long and hairy. I'd stop the cell when I approached that threshold and remove the electrolyte entirely, recover the silver within, and make new electrolyte from some of the pure crystal that came from the cell. That was an excellent test of the quality of the silver, for if it had any copper within, it showed in the electrolyte. On rare occasion when that was the case, I'd simply place the silver crystal back in the basket, place a new anode on top of the crystals, and go back to work after replacing the electrolyte. The silver came out beautifully that way, and I was assured of purity.
Running a cell is far more involved than the simple description, but I'm more than happy to give you guidance if you get that far along, including making your electrolyte.
On the subject of electrolyte, I think you'll read that the big boys don't do what I did, likely because their cells are ongoing, never shut down. Instead of replacing their electrolyte, they are constantly replacing a portion of it with new, keeping the copper/silver ratio at a desirable level. I've read that they actually rely on some copper for conductivity, although I'm having one hell of a hard time believing that's true considering there's a huge amount of silver in solution as compared to copper, and it's a far better conductor.
Harold
