Silver nitrate

[adamcato1]

What is the best way to fire all my silver nitrate ive collected,I have already been adding salt to the solution,have fired it in the past but cannot remeber what all I put in the flux????

 

[fireguy]

What is the best way to fire all my silver nitrate i've collected,I have already been adding salt to the solution,have fired it in the past but cannot remember what all I put in the flux????

Hi Adam:
Firing your silver nitrate should not be difficult. You can either use a lead collection like a regular fire assay with a litharge based flux, and then cupel. Or you can try a refining type flux- either straight borax or perhaps a more complex refining flux with some other components like the "Chapman":
www.lmine.com/product/1720061-50.html

You may have to experiment a bit with the ratio of AgNO3 to flux.

 

[Cnbarr]

There are several methods one could use to recover Ag from AgNO3, the first would be to do as Adam has already done and precipitate AgCl from your solution with non iodized salt or HCl. Then you could fire it with 2:1 soda ash and borax flux to reduce it elemental Ag.

Or you could take it through the refining process with and convert the AgCl to Ag2O with NaOH and reduce it to Ag with sugar. I won't walk through the entire process because this method could be very dangerous to those who do not have a basic understanding of the chemistry involved. The reaction is very exothermic, and proper safety should practiced at all times, a little bit of silver isn't worth a trip To the hospital.

But if necessary I Can detail the process if someone would like to know more!

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Erik]

There are several methods one could use to recover Ag from AgNO3, the first would be to do as Adam has already done and precipitate AgCl from your solution with non iodized salt or HCl. Then you could fire it with 2:1 soda ash and borax flux to reduce it elemental Ag.

Or you could take it through the refining process with and convert the AgCl to Ag2O with NaOH and reduce it to Ag with sugar. I won't walk through the entire process because this method could be very dangerous to those who do not have a basic understanding of the chemistry involved. The reaction is very exothermic, and proper safety should practiced at all times, a little bit of silver isn't worth a trip To the hospital.

But if necessary I Can detail the process if someone would like to know more!

Thanks,
Chris

I would be interested in knowing the detail on the process. I process quite a bit of silver but have quite a bit of variance in the consistency after adding the sugar. Sometimes it is nice crystals that melt nicely, other times it is basically a mud that when dried has a blueish tint and lots of slag. I believe it is because it has not been cleaned up enough but am not sure because after adding the NaOH is where the issues begin when it has that muddy type texture. Still am hitting 99+% purity but it is very hard on the crucibles when melting...

 

[wotavidone]

Hi, new member here, reading through all the old threads.
I was a fire assayer in an earlier life.
There is another way to recover silver from silver nitrate solution.
Don't put any salt in it. Filter the solution, then evaporate it in a standard laboratory glazed ceramic dish. Silver nitrate rather rapidly decomposes to silver and NOx fumes at about 444C be prepared to deal with lots of NOx fumes.
Regards,
Mick