Refining Sterling Silver Into .99 - .999 Fine Silver (minus silver cell)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ค. 2020
- Refining Sterling Silver Into .990 to .999 Fine Silver. This video is for entertainment purposes only and not meant to be an instructional video. It's not recommended that you try this refining process at home or without the proper equipment, as the gases and fumes that are produced can cause serious illness or death.
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WOW! Awesome job on this! Your video is the most informative, entertaining and easy to understand of the silver refining process that I have seen! I also love your clean and neat set-up in the garage there! Looking forward to the smelting process you have.
Thank you! I have a number of smelting videos if you didn't see them already! 👍
I enjoyed that! Much better video than the previous videos I have watched so far. I just started melting my own sterling and have a lot to learn. I’m not ready to start refining it yet but it won’t be long. This video gave me confidence. Thank you!👌
Thank you very much for the feedback! It's all fun to do isn't it!? And it can be a little profitable on top of it!
Extremely entertaining. I’ve borderline gotten addicted 🤣 I scarf up sterling every chance I get now. Just keep telling myself it’s an investment lol.
*Very informative and relaxing video. Thanks mate. :)*
Thank you very much!
Joshua
One of the better videos using the nitric acid method of refining to .999 silver. Well explained and with a great outcome. I want to pour a solid silver 3" mercury dime. I have a good copy made of either nickel or zinc to use for my mold. Just haven't decided which method to use, sand or pla from a 3d printer.
Use a good quality sand or Petrobond to make your mold 👍
Reminds me of teenager years in the chemistry basement, Montreal. Very well done, Thank You.
I'm jealous of your setup and glassware
Thank you! I got lucky finding the fume hood locally at a good price, and found most of the glassware at good prices on Amazon.
Incredible.
What a superb solution of silver nitrate. Good work that man.
I remeber you posting a video on one of the silver and gold Facebook pages, kinda cool that you were recommend to me, I wish I could have a set up so some of my silver can be refined, it would be nice to see it in a bar or silver shot rather than junky beat up 925
Such a divine, beautifully, blue color.
Yes - quite remarkable - which is why both of us remarked on it.
@@six-gun indeed
Copper nitrate is a beautiful blue color. Copper chemistry in general has great colors.
@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 agree!
This was great! New sub!
Thank you!
I have lived under a rock for 40 plus years . solid silver liquid
Very Nice brother Good Information
Thank you!
Fixin to give this a shot. I majored in chemistry in college so i feel like i should be able to do it. That was also 20 years ago and i didn't graduate so i guess itll be a toss up
It's not real difficult.... Just make sure you get good nitric acid.
hi watching here in philippines, new subscribe to you tha ks for sharing this..
Thank you very much!! Sorry I just got the TH-cam analytics app and now seeing so many comments I never knew I had ☹️.
You can dissolve silver and copper in a mix of salt and vinegar, it makes a blue-green crystalline powder that can be melted. I learned this but I have no idea how to purify the silver from the copper. Is it technically an electrolytic solution?
👍
You need one more step to get 999. An electrolytic cell. This powder will range from .991 to .997 maybe .998
And... ( I'm not trying to berate you)
I think for safety you should mention you used diluted nitric acid.
How much water to nitric acid would you use ?
Your silver nitrate solution does of course contain other metals including copper.
Regarding 7:40, the sterling silver dissolved by nitric acid becomes 92.5% silver nitrate + 7.5% copper nitrate. Then by inserting copper metal into the solution this produces a Redox reaction which reduces the silver nitrate into metallic silver powder. However the copper nitrate still remains in solution. Then by inserting zinc metal into the copper nitrate solution this produces a Redox reaction which would reduce the copper nitrate into metallic copper powder.
You can skip the zinc and just use iron, a lot less expensive. I find rebar works well.
Cool thanks that's what I was wondering...
So what would u say purity is
He said that sterling s. is .925 which was the first red flag
@@trollmcclure1884 ?? Sterling silver is also called 925 and is 92.5% pure and when refined it become much more pure but without a silver cell it doesn't get to 999 so I'm curious what it average is comin outta the nitric solution
alright man nice video,very clean shop you have there,I watch all of sreetips videos on TH-cam and really enjoyed yours as well so now is some of the pure silver going to be available to purchase ??
Thank you! Yes I sell a lot on FB.
In reality, purity:
9600/1000 min
9985 /1000 max
You need to pass by electrolyse.
Take generator 3,5v
Electrolyse liquide
Ag (silver shoot+hno3+h20)
1) 400gr ag in beaker+ h20
2) use hno3 (50-60%) small dose by small dose, after total dilution of Ag, ad water.(acide in water).
[ Cm ] = 100grAg /1000 ml solution is good ( fast)
Put the liquid in a stainless steel receptacle, your electrolytic liquid is made. Then you take the money to refine in 99.% (silver shoote you want to pass in 9999) you put it in the solution made in a small plastic box hole, so that the money does not leave, puts a filter between the money and the holes. All you have to do is pass the generator current on the silver (the electrode advising silver) and the - on the stainless steel receptacle.
Bye
Dry using a double boiler to dry to avoid that splatter and loss of metals.
Thanks for the video, rewatching everyday. What is the brand of vacuum pump? I’m trying hard to keep price down. Also, how many bars/kPa of pressure is the max and minimum. I'm brand new to all this. Thanks.
Pretty much any inexpensive filtration pump should work. I got a pretty cheap one from Amazon. Here is the one I got, but I'm not sure it's available anymore: Filtr8 Lab Filtration Pump
@@JoshuaAndersonLife Thanks, that helps a lot!
Awesome dude! You should do a short video of making the shot.
Thank you! I have actually made a video of making shot, but I never did post it. I'll have to look at doing that again.
Joshua Anderson oh cool man that’s awesome! Good thing you shared your channel link in the silver groups on FB or I wouldn’t have seen these cool videos. I could watch videos like this all day long 😂
Thanks man, I really appreciate that!!
Nice that you can do this in an comfortable environment. I do this under a bridge.
😆 that's dedication!
Did you dilute the silver nitrate solution prior to putting the copper in, or did you just leave it full strength from the filtering process?
Hi, yes I did dilute the silver nitrate with distilled water prior to inserting the copper.
That's awesome, you live in Denver! So do I! Do you do gold as well?
Nice! No I haven't but I'm interested in it. Do you do both? Do you pour as well?
great job i congratulate you
I have a query, my friend.
Is there a way to recover evaporated copper?
Thank you
the copper nitrate can be retrieved by simply tossing iron in like the copper for silver. Noble metals don't follow the hierarchy that base metals do, so in sequence you could retrieve any and all metals separately down to the lowest (though iron is the cheapest to sacrifice). however if you do this, your acids are toast... because your solution can be refreshed over and over or simply reused many times after taking the noble metals. but yeah iron would be a cheaper loss in doing that. In smelting you can retrieve copper as well with potassium chlorides i do believe from the slag. I don't reccomend smelting silver chloride either like he did, turn it back to a oxide first for highest yield, silver can volatize off with the chlorides. oh an be sure to use some borax on your ceramic melt dish otherwise it will absorb into the dish (man i screwed up big there once). Definitely cover your noble metals with borax! I usually mix the silver oxide with the borax pre-hand as it covers the silver preventing volatizing off under the high heat torches i use (i melt tungsten at times)
I don't believe there's really much of a way to recover any of the copper in this process as it's ions are virtually used up to create the silver cement.
How much heat is on the burner when u put in the nitric acid and when your solidifying the silver oxide
On my particular burner it was set in the middle at 3 (out of 6), and it's turned off during the process when the copper is inserted and the silver cement is forming, I just happen to have it sitting on there. During the drying of the silver cement it can be set at a temperature of your choice, usually I just like it so that it does not bubble when there's still a fair amount of moisture in it. Sorry I just got the TH-cam analytics app and now seeing so many comments I never knew I had ☹️.
Have you noticed that your silver cement weight and your melted silver weight are off by a certain amount? I never get my cement weight in actual silver after being melted. I think im gonna do a video on it because I see a lot of people saying they got 10 or so ounces in silver cement but its more like 8 after melt.
2oz seems like a lot to lose. Maybe the cement isn't dry enough and still has some moisture/water weight to it?
Fun vid! Although I dare say, to get 3nines fine... dropping the Ag out with Cu isn't going to be enough to quite get you there. Are you running a cell too?! :)
Hey can you list every single tool and equipment name that you used in the video
What was the concentration of the nitric acid you used ? Or what is recommend for this process ? And what ratio of water to nitric acid do you use ? I have a little over 70 ounces of sterling silver I want to use.
The nitric acid I buy is 70% concentrate. During the refining process when I dilute it I always dilute 50% nitric acid with 50% distilled water. At times to speed up the reaction more quickly I will add the 70% nitric acid without any additional dilution.
Awesome video, very informative. So once everything is dried out you just put it in a crucible and melt it with some borax?
I melt it in a furnace first and pour usually into shot.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife thank you, I’ve got it down pretty good now, then I run the shot through my silver cell and make crystals
I have over 70 ounces of sterling silver would love some more knowledge on this.
Hey Joshua, how long does your filter last and how much is a replacement filter cost? Thanks in advance
Sorry, I'll come to answer a question and see questions I had missed so long ago. To be honest, I am not entirely sure how long these carbon filters last, and I could not find any solid information on this particular model. I have only done a few full refining processes with my current filter. But they are pretty heavy duty, weigh about 45 lb, and are over 6 inches thick. Considering the nitric dioxide is pretty toxic I probably would not want to do more than about 10 refining processes with one filter.
Love the videos! How long do your filters last in your fume hood? I assume carbon?
Thank you! Yes they are carbon filters. I've only done 3 processes of silver refining so it hasn't gotten that much use. I bought the fume hood with a new filter but the seller didn't know how long they last and at the time I didn't find much good info online either.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife Ok great I appreciate. Looking into fume hoods now but you are right I'm not finding great info on this. Keep up the great videos!
@MN11197 If you do find anything out please pass along the info. Thank you! 👍
@@JoshuaAndersonLife Will do.
Decided to try chat GPT and here's what it told me:
Carbon filters in fume hoods typically need to be replaced every 1 to 3 years, depending on the type of chemicals they are filtering, the frequency of hood use, and the concentration of fumes.
I know this was done awhile ago.But wanted to see if the nitric acid toy been pouring was diluted with distilled water from when you first added it.and is the mix of acid-distilled water 3-1 mix.with 3 parts nitric acid to 1 part water.any information and help be greatly appreciated
Yes I started off with nitric acid diluted with distilled water 1:1, that's what's used most of the time. However, once you get used to the reaction you'll start using more 100% nitric acid, this will also prevent using too much liquid in general as well.
I should add, I also use/buy highly concentrated ~70% nitric acid.
Hi, where did you source your fume hood and are they expensive? Cheers
Hi, I was able to buy this fume hood from somebody locally, but you can buy them online and they start at around $1,000.
If you melt your final powder into a cupel, could you eliminate the copper and further refine the silver that way?
Not likely enough for it to make any significant difference. To further refine from this point you would really want to use a silver cell.
Did you make another video of taking the .999 filne silver nitrate in silver bars.
Yes, the Lego minifig and the lion head pour videos are both using the refined silver from the video.
Is the green leftover liquid in the end copper nitrate? How do you solidify it?
Yes, that's copper nitrate. I don't bother trying to extract anything from it, and just take it to my local hazardous waste disposal facility.
Awesome what equipment do you use and where can you get it?
I found the fume hood on a local sales post. Most everything else I bought off of Amazon.
What about silver plated items, how would you strip that off of items?
No, there's not actually enough silver in plated jewelry or silverware etc to make it worth 'stripping off'. Same even goes with gold plated, profit ratio isn't there.
Hey man thanks for the video - great! I have a few questions I hope you won’t mind helping me with
A) in the final nitric acid solution what’s your ratio of water to acid
B) can you re-use that same copper wire in the next batch?
C) what did you use to filter the final product? The same vacuum filter as the first filter stage?
Thanks in advance
Yeah im also curious about questions b and c. Could you maybe do a video on the final filter?
A) I always either use 100% nitric acid or 50% diluted. If there's little reaction happening, I'll likely add 100%. If I'm just keeping an active reaction going I'll add 50%. When adding 100% just add smaller amounts until you get your desired reaction.
B) Yes, I do reuse the copper wire from prior refining processes. But, I like to start each one with new copper and then add the used copper about half or ¾ the way through.
C) I used the same vacuum filter and about 2½ - 3 gallons of distilled water, then switch to tap water.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife do you lose much with this method? I heard a lot of different methods but not many people discuss yield.
@@SoSo-li6dn
• Total yield = 873.4 g (28.08 oz.)
• Starting Sterling Silver = 971 g
• % Fine Silver .999 refined from the Sterling Silver = 89.948%
@@JoshuaAndersonLife thanks sorry, I did watch until the end - so sterling is £7.75 impure so the total loss is only 2.5% contaminating your copper sulphate? Pretty good when you consider that the scrap man pays about 80% of the spot price for sterling, and 88% for pure - and thats only if you have over 5kg - They say they buy bars at 100% but im assuming they would only accept certified stuff.
Will this method work to the same purity if there is copper in some of the metal mixes? The outer Internet says it won’t. This inside net feels safe.
Yes, in fact copper is what predominantly makes up the other 7.5% of Sterling silver.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife Thanks Joshua, I really appreciate the reply. I've Melted sterling bars and then I've an 800 (ish) bar melted also (turns brown with acid test).
If I stick all in at the same time and use your set up almost identically, should I get a .999 result? I think what I mean is "Is there anything the 70% solution won't dissolve into vapour?''
@@jackryan261 Yes the nitric acid will take care of virtually everything in the refining process. Technically this process is only getting closer to a .995 and you need to do a second phase with a silver cell to get to .999+.
@@JoshuaAndersonLifeThank you. Step by step, the crawl begins.
@jackryan261 Post your progress 👍
Absolutely fascinating! I have been stacking for around a decade and have acquired a lot of sterling silverware from estate sales & such. I'm sure it would cost a lot to make it worth trying & I did not pay enough attention in chemistry class. I'd wind up screwing it up. If you know of places that will "melt" your sterling down for a fee or a cut, I'd love to know of them. I live in western NC. I wish there was an exchange for .999 silver bar(s) for your sterling, obviously giving up some weight for their efforts. If anyone knows of anything like this, please respond. Great video, interesting enough for me to subscribe. 👏👏💯
Video is 2 yrs old but I am getting into smelting, if you’ve still got your silver I’d be willing to do this and return pure silver
I live right in your area
The hood, that's what I'm interested . Where can I get that hood man? Thanks...
I got lucky and found this one locally, but you can order them online. If you don't get one that vents to outside, just make sure it uses a good quality carbon filter. The carbon filter on this one is massive and weighs about 40 lbs. Still be sure you're in a well ventilated area.
I'm gonna guess you can do this for plated silverware as well?
Not exactly... There's not enough silver plating to make it worth it.
Is this alchemy?
Can u reuse the copper wire to do it again?
If you go too far, the copper wire will begin to fall apart and you'll have copper "splinters" in the silver sponge. It can be a real pain to find and remove all of it. If you use wire, use very thick wire and keep a close eye on it so you can remove it before it contaminates your batch. A lot of people prefer a few thick lengths of bus bar. Or even heavy copper pipe. What you want is a lot of surface area for the reaction.
why not boil the nitrate acid and evaporate it after it has dissolved the silver? srry for the dumb question
The nitric acid is used up during the process leaving the remaining solution which is silver nitrate. The silver nitrate then exchanges ions with the copper yielding the silver cement and copper nitrate solution.
Excuse me sir but i did the same process and when i put the copper in the solution i left the copper all night next day my silver powder come out grey and a little bit green this is normal or i did something wrong i you can please help me out thank you
Sorry I just got the TH-cam analytics app and now seeing so many comments I never knew I had ☹️. Sounds like you probably came out fine you just needed to rinse thoroughly with distilled water.
Would concentrated nitric acid be faster and if I was able to do it outside with a good breeze
Yes, you can use more concentrated nitric acid to speed up the process, but you'll still want to use some diluted acid for better volume and control. Start with diluted, then add more concentrated throughout the process.
12:00s - it's just like game levels from noita
👍🙂
@@JoshuaAndersonLife And It's greatly spectacular example of such magical chemical reaction! :D
glad I have found it XD
Make a video only about that, youtube algorhitm would be crazy about it :3
Whats the copper to sn ratio? Or does it matter?
Hi, no the exact ratio doesn't matter. I used about 450g in copper wire, and the silver nitrate was comprised from ~950g of sterling silver. I believe copper can refine around 3x it's weight to sterling silver.
How can you recover the initial copper removed?
Sorry, I am not sure how you would recover the initial copper that is removed from the Sterling silver. However, it would not have much value.
If you add iron to copper nitrate the copper will plate out on it. But it will need to be further refined.
If you add zinc metal or iron metal into the copper nitrate solution, then the Redox reaction will produce metallic copper powder as the zinc metal or iron metal dissolves.
How hot are u heating the solution in the beginning
I keep the heat top on 'medium' or 3 out of 5.
What do you do with the silver skulls?
Gifts or post them now and then.
About how much nitric acid did you use total?
I used right about 1 L of nitric acid.
Hello friend
Why do you burn silver at first?
Thank you
Hi, that's just too burn off any dirt, wax, grease etc before breaking it down in the acid. It's not totally necessary but it helps when you're filtering it out later.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife That's good, my dear friend. 😊👌
Coolaid
Would it just be better to melt it down?
No, melting it down will not actually change the percentage of silver to copper ratio. It needs to go through some form of a chemical refining process such as this.
Actually that cement is NOT .999 FINE it's probably .97-.98 but def not 3 9's fine. I refine Ag all the time and even after being refined a 2nd time then running through electrolysis there is still copper and PGM still present. I know this because my electrolyte turns blue and there is black sluge left in the andoe basket, though the electrolyte doesnt start to change hue until at least 200 g had been ran through. My process is to cement Ag out then redissolve cement in HNO3, precip with HCL then run through Ag cell. Then I am left with .9999 fine. I haven't yet reran the silver crystals from the cell back through. I plan to just to see if there are any trace of other metals present.
Can you put up a good video of the electrolysis stage
@@jameshuse8573 sure when I get home if I have time ill show my silver cell
What if u take it and pour it in tap water to make the chlorides? Then would it be 3 nines?
I mean if it’s been refined once with distilled water. I can clean it with tap to get the nitric off and melt?
My understanding is you're supposed to use distilled water because tap water can cause a reaction resulting in decreased purity.
how much nitric acid is needed for 1 kilo of 835 silver?
Right around 1000 mL of nitric acid.
@@JoshuaAndersonLife thanks
@@francesc517 👍👍
Where does your hood vent out?
It uses a carbon filter...
@@JoshuaAndersonLife ok I never knew you could filter out toxic fumes. I need one of those!
@@meanboycoins6250 Good quality fume hoods will use a very large nearly ~50 lb carbon filter. In addition I use it in a well-ventilated area.
Dude. It would be nice if you gave my brother some credit instead of acting like your the pro silver refiner. You even used 2 grams of sterling more than Phils video. He used 1011 grams, you used 1013. Phillip Bender is his name.
Good reproduction and you're coming along, well!.
Wait you skipped over explaining how to filter the copper from silver?!?!?!
You don't. You use copper to drop the silver out and filter that from the remaining copper nitrate. His final product is not .999 more like .985. He needs to further refine it with a cell to separate the remaining copper and any other metals from the pure silver.
I'm going to make another video, and I'll cover that.
sorry bro but if you using spectrometer you will see 97% 98 99% maximum you need to go on electrolyse systeme
WALTER WHITE
😆
@@JoshuaAndersonLife DO YOU OFFER A SERVICE LIKE THIS? I HAVE A BUNCH OF RANDOM SILVERWARE SALT SHAKERS ECT T HAT I WOULD LOVE TO REFINE AND KEEP.
misleading title. Dried cement silver is not three 9s fine
Is this a hobby or can you actually make a little money. If you go to garage sales and people get you tarnished 925 they don't care about?
It's really more of a hobby... You have to get really good deals on sterling silver to make it worth it. If you pour quality silver pieces however people will pay a good premium for those.