[Jewelry making - Article 00326] - Re: [Orchid] Reclaimed silver

[Thomas Janstrom]

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    The silver solution should be filtered and then dried (so you have
    silver nitrate crystals, wash these with ethanol (anhydrous is best,
    but 96% denatured/methylated spirits will work quite well) on filter
    paper so you don't loose any crystals, all this should be done with
    care and in dim light as silver nitrate is somewhat unstable (on
    where near as unstable/sensitive as silver halides). 

    Dissolve the silver nitrate in distilled water until you have a
    saturated solution at room temperature. To precipitate the silver add
    metallic copper (pure copper wire/strips what ever), the silver will
    come out of solution as metallic crystals on the copper, as this
    happens the solution will turn blue. 

    When the solution is free of silver crystals will stop forming.
    Drain the spent solution of the copper/silver mass wash and dry the
    silver. You now have PURE 99.99% silver (if you were even just
    reasonably careful the purity will be 99.9%). You could push the
    purity a bit further by repeating the process, but unless you need
    five nines silver don't bother. You are now ready to add the alloying
    metals to make some new sterling (or what ever) silver. 

    I did this for fun when I was 14 or 15 years old, there is on way
    that a kid that old could get the acid required today. Oh well. 

Thomas.
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