Smelting Pure Silver From Industrial Scrap

[@JimNichols]

I loved the chemistry lessons here and the way things interact with heat applied. Thanks for the time and effort these videos take and sharing your interests with us!

[@johnnys7292]

Dude you are wicked smart , I learn so much from your channel from smelting to mining and crushing random items and showing the full process ... thanks for all the educational information you provide

[@jasonwilliam2125]

You do all this stuff so we do not have to. I have used some of your techniques that i would not have experimented with normally. Because you do the work i have literally reaped benefits . SO thanks.

[@------country-boy-------]

your gonna make a fortune!!! i was thinking of doing this for a few years now. I have a few large graphite blocks i got from ebay. They have a copper colored tinge to them so i know they are the brush type graphite for use in motors. I just never knew the silver content was so high! Regular graphite blocks are just dull black. Also don't forget the copper commutators on large motors and generators have a high percentage of silver as well !!!

[@billsmathers7787]

I'm guessing those brushes are primarily silver-tungsten alloy, from past experience. You can separate the silver using the method you set out with in the beginning, but you need a strongly alkaline oxidizing flux (a lot of sodium nitrate and lye). Under the conditions the tungsten oxidizes and dissolves into the slag, and your silver separates out nicely. Should be a pretty clean lead-free method for those brushes

[@DavidSmith-zr3nd]

I always enjoy your experiments. Thank for taking us with you.

[@MOEFCO]

Re: opting for bismuth vs lead - i love metal recovery videos, much better than seeing it just go into a landfill, but it would be awesome to see a nearly non-emission based operation. Maybe an organic digester to make combustable gas, a solar installation with batteries (made from recycled lead?) for an electric furnace, wastewater capture and settlement tank, etc. Nice work!

[@GeoffBosco]

"When you getting that new collector metal?" "None of your bismuth."

[@adventuresinmetals7636]

Underrated comment.

[@GeoffBosco]

@@adventuresinmetals7636 You would say that.

[@canaan5337]

When he does he might say "alright lets get down to bismuth"

[@pauliewalnuts5241]

HA!

[@deelunbeck5647]

@@pauliewalnuts5241 okay wise guy looks like you led me in the wrong direction dammit

[@snarky_user]

I don't think you need to crush those things at all. There was a lot of silver blowing around in the wind. If you just melt them as they are, you should see the same segregation in your melt that you saw here - carbon floating on top. Putting charcoal (carbon) on top of melts is an ancient method of working metals. It acts as an oxygen barrier because it floats and reacts with the oxygen, forming CO2 "insulation" as the melt is completed. You should be able to do 99% of the job without any fluxes or admixture.

[@silverraider2688]

Thats what I was scrolling through the comments for, was curious if that was a necessary step.

[@donwatts6588]

Totally agree with that

[@metatechnologist]

Just chanced upon your video. One way silver recovery was done on a large scale with photography materials (I worked for a film developer briefly back in the day) was with electrolysis. Likely cleaner and more efficient i.e. a bit more material was recovered.

[@josephpecoul6532]

Even though I probably won't even do this its fascinating to see.

[@davidjohnlees]

Bismuth makes really cool cubic shaped crystals. Might be worth a really short video by itself.

[@wefukthenwo]

So many comments, but not too many thumbs up! Thanks for sharing this video.

[@michiganprospectors]

I love your videos because you share every detail, even mistakes. Its great to learn from. I wish you would share the cost overall at the end of each video.

[@ltgood]

You’re furnace is just a fire blanket. This is awesome.

[@jonathansonnier3078]

World pretty good if yiu make a funnel out of the cement with 45 degree walls. You literally just use a funnel as a mold and it eliminates all the extra needing because gravity helps with the silver collection

[@nnyz3819]

I found this channel a week ago, and I’m hooked

[@2010invent]

The carbon will keep much of the silver with in the microscopic form within the carbon it self. Grind all the brushes super fine, burn all the powder to a white ash "very important for it to be white ash" than smelt it all with some borax. you will get all your silver.

[@seanb3516]

When I worked in a Gold Assay lab they had large furnaces cooking lead 24/7. The lead fumes and particles were handled completely by Electrostatic Precipitators and a Bag House. That sounds complex but it's not as bad as you think. I'm sure a Welding Fume Collector with filtration could be employed near the source. Since you have welding eqpt it might be worthwhile.

[@profjekanadler-collins6414]

Total amazed with your knowledge and your ability to risk the experiment .

[@williamedwards6519]

Thank you for the video, and more importantly.. the education! You certainly know smelting and refining. One question :was the effort performed, from obtaining the brushes to weighing the 91 grams of yield worth, in your opinion, the approximate $76 cash value? You have far more experience than I. If i were recycling and reclaiming on the regular, I have my answer. Thank you.

[@pneumatic00]

Excellent demo of your thought processes and procedures. Always interesting!

[@unitedstatesdale]

I had no idea about the process of recovering silver. Very very fascinating. Thank you

[@stevesoanes9937]

Your vids are the best. Very clear and understandable.

[@darrenbenson2606]

Very cool stuff! I’ve been saving gold coated connector from medical battery packs. I’m going to try to recover it this summer. Wish me luck.

[@rickb5946]

More amazing and instructional than usual. Keep up the good work !.

[@josephcormier5974]

Cool is that all brushes? This is the second video of yours that I have had the pleasure to view thank you

[@yoopermann7942]

thank you for the information, i now know who to send these to if i run across some in my scraping! just to see you preform the "magic" of taking some thing that some one was willing to throw away and get some metals out of it! GREAT VIDEO

[@rogerhaag9069]

I am wondering if this is profitable after calculating in all the expenses...especially the gas fuel cost, but also the other costs?

[@gslope1]

Roger Haag that is what I am interested in also. Not a criticism of this video or the like. I like to figure that out with many different things on KZbin. Unless you are doing it as a hobby where it really doesn't matter. In this case, the 90 grams of silver would be around $70. On the surface the ROI seems very low to a loss. I realize that quantity plays a big role too.

[@Michael-rg7mx]

I can go through a thousand in equipment. Hundreds in gas driving around. Buying ,digging, scrounging lead. Melt it down and weigh it. Order the alloy to bring it to spec and make bars of alloy. Melt small quantities to cast into my free bullets. It's a hobby. He occupies the mind and exercises the body. Great fun.

[@JB-Was-Here]

Just found your channel and been going through all you vids. Great content! Recovery and refining is so interesting to me, Cheers!!!

[@pauliewalnuts5241]

Same here!

[@RalphReagan]

Sure wish I paid more attention to this stuff we did at the mine.

[@swatbaer]

Change your Flux ingredients. You could have used saltpeter to help oxidize the carbon and the soda ash/borax needs another ingredient to help it be more fluid. This can be done on a large or small scale. Copper would have been a good collector in this event that way you know what your yield is. Many ways to skin the cat in this area. Many fluxes out there im not seeing in your "toolbox". Just friendly help from someone who does this which contains almost all of the main precious metals in a dor'e bar or button.

[@waynoswaynos]

Can you elaborate, friend? A lot of learners picking up breadcrumbs here in the comments

[@Sylvain_lx]

Nice video. I prefer chemical method. For this material you are lucky to be able crush it. i would use Poor man's aqua regia (HCL+nitrate) to form silver chloride with your grind. Clean with water and you can separate silver chloride and carbon with decantation. When the silver chloride collected you can transform it in silver. ( i'm french sorry if i made language mistakes)

[@PHUCKyoutube689]

Or he could have just dissolved it in nitric then cemented the silver with copper.

[@OG_Wakanobi]

Why not do a Nitric solution? You can pretty much do that all day long too and with less time and with greater purity in the end.

[@jam2190]

That was amazing, to see the silver pour out of the crucible, kinda separate from the slag

[@Red9GearHead]

I love your videos jason. You have inspired me to set up and run some of my sulfides and concentrates from my high banking sessions. I get lots of heavy Magnetic and non magnetic black sands so maybe they will have something in em? Fingers crossed.

[@GreenblookUK1]

Always fun to watch. Keep the videos coming.

[@dbomber69]

Old Buus fuses for homes used to have pure silver end caps. I'm talking about the main house fuses, the ones used in the box with the lever to disconnect power.

[@ericprater4017]

Wow, I love these vids! Keep on doing this!

[@RobinhoodCoins]

Thanks for the video. I’ve been trying to use a cupel and lead to oxidize the copper out of a 40% silver half dollar. How much lead should I use per gram of base metals Ike trying to remove? And how do you know when it’s done in the cupel?

[@sledgenwedge]

I just looked at the video and it's got 88 downvotes what the hell? Now I really have to watch it all the way through

[@mawi1172]

Are you like a modern day alchemist? 🤣🤣🤣

[@Cryton12345]

He turned lead into silver lol

[@velceaiulian6439]

@@Cryton12345 You also got in like the OB;)

[@Lollomius]

Thats what recycling really is...

[@csachevauxsansabri2612]

I think the chemical way is a muche cleaner way. It's with almost certainty environmentally cleaner and from a financial point of view more profitable in the long run. Because you get a muche more pure result in the end. Offcaus it all depent on what you are planning to do with it. But it's interesting waching someone taking a different approach. I recommend taking a look at Sreetips to see it done the other way.

[@mithrilsilver575]

Extremely interesting! Good video man!

[@philbartoli2011]

Nice Slowmo shot !!

[@hydrostaticshocker3048]

Just drop your piece of silver in cold water after recovering it from the mold. That borax will bust right off.

[@kevinsteve9453]

Appreciate all your instruction, keep em coming

[@travismiller5548]

Look out for cadmium- I heard contactor and switch silver bits are sometimes alloyed with it. Perhaps if there's a litmus test indicator solution... Would be good to check

[@Killswitch22022]

Good idea but these are brushes and not contacts. Just pure silver in those brushes.

[@waynoswaynos]

He has one of those XRF Guns so he could easily scan and see if that was the case.

[@mikemckenzie3078]

Hi Jase, any chance you could do a video upscaling the size of your sulphide / black sand con smelts but still within the resources of a professional miner ... we’re getting about 5 tonne/week . I caught part of one of your melts using a large crucible and small overhead crane (2 people ) but can,t find it again ? I think a lot of the operators would benefit from your insight and keep up the great ideas they are really inspirational

[@ngantnier]

That's really neat about the bismuth!

[@markmumm4177]

How would you suggest extracting the silver out of 40% silver clad coins? I would love to see that video.

[@mh5764]

What it cost to smelt this silver, he could have just bought a new silver coin. But the video was curiosity educational to demonstrate the process of refinery.

[@lonjohnson5161]

1) I would like to see the entire bismuth cycle in action as described at the end in a single video. 2) It would be nice to have some comparison of cost/availability of lead vs. bismuth and maybe a comparison of the relative toxicities. Unrelated to the content of this video: Are the tailings from the shaker table toxic in any way? Can they just be dumped (I'm talking both legally and ethically) or do they require some special handling?

[@chrisc1158]

9:05 if the metal sweats out of the matrix, could you just suspend the brushes over a catch crucible and skip a lot of steps?

[@williamickes3143]

👍👍👌🙉🙈🙊 I'd love to have one of your buttons of silver. Do you sell any. Is there a list I can get on? Love the show!

[@seanparchim9165]

Hey Jason I have a question, when your doing your flux and using borax & soda,what exactly is the soda part or it's full name,thanks for the videos peace

[@roosterman8911]

Yes i would like to know that also

[@Killswitch22022]

Just soda ash or baking soda stuck in a oven

[@bobhoward6676]

For your time, Gas, electricity, cost of equipment & materials hardly worth it as a business but hobbies are what we do for fun at any cost. Plus I hope you made more for the video than the $100 of silver.

[@macguru9999]

In this case I think nitric acid would get all the silver, then add muriatic to ppt the agcl , then use the lye and sugar method to get silver powder.

[@waynoswaynos]

I wonder if that would be akin to an inquartation

[@MrAllan9]

My go to place for top notch info👌

[@grantsmith6052]

I would like to see rhodium recovery as it’s 24k an ounce.

[@johnlockesghost5592]

@Badger we don't talk about that.

[@dont.ripfuller6587]

Id like to see economic recovery but I think we all know that rhodiums not going to be seen

[@db5202]

How much propane does it cost you to reap the value of silver?

[@gefginn3699]

Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed the video.

[@chriswhite4678]

Really cool video 😎 hope to see more in the future!

[@mikeknutson415]

Jason you're an animal ...very extremely interesting I have been collecting contact points out of circuit breakers switches miscellaneous odds and ends for years and brushes I have accumulated quite the little stash of silver impregnated contact points...

[@travismiller5548]

Look out, sometimes alloyed with cadmium- suuuuper narsty stuff

[@orixxboy]

Absolutely fascinating and very fluky but based on a good well of knowledge. I wish you'd of left it on the cement it remenisced of something celestial and made a great art piece.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Oxidize the graphite first silver will absorb the oxygen but not really oxidize. Had lots of that brush material that ended up being recycled with copper graphite scrap bought lots of it to make brushes for tools alternators and starters. Was pleasantly surprized when i found out the silvery ones literally were silver graphite composite. You can put a chunk of this material in an electromagnetic pulsed coin crusher and make small diamonds in a silver matrix. Good times.

[@jefferycrawford9194]

Where can I find some brushes like that? Is there a specific brand?

[@waynelacroix8870]

So why did you not use zinc for your collector metal and then copel the leftover zinc mix?

[@texasslingleadsomtingwong8751]

Lead , mercury ... the joys of plumbing . Want some of either?

[@israelburkett8575]

You might try using a mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide on the initial crushed material in order to convert a significant amount of the carbon into carbon dioxide.

[@stevea5282]

Great shot at 14:35

[@jonny555ive]

Subscribed, supporting a local 👍👍 I live in Bellingham

[@autisticamateur1198]

Do yall make a smaller shaker table? Like 1/8 scale? - There's a plastic one that's $5k...

[@salvita64]

I got silver scrapping from small pieces found in the street , will be able to smelting them with a small butane blowtorch ? It suppose to be pure silver.

[@lion9419]

Can u described what kind of brusheh u had some model number or something like that

[@jetuilnousvousils2093]

Ou l gaz mata khalas gaz had l hmar l akhour 😂😂😂😂

[@jacobyocom9598]

I’ve started using an electric furnace to melt silver from various sources. Around 1000c it starts to strobe and flare and form a white powder around furnace. Please tell me what is happening and what I should do.

[@boydbros.3659]

That’s ZINC burning off

[@5roundsrapid263]

I never realized the brushes had so much silver in them. Interesting. You can slow it down to .25x at 15:47 and hear what he says.

[@pauliewalnuts5241]

What he say?

[@lawfuldefenseofnaturalrigh9790]

Can you do a comparison between bismuth and copper powder as the collector metal? ....and then removing each collector metal?

[@warrior4christ777]

How much it cost you in propane in borax and sodium

[@nathanielgarcia7768]

Good job on that

[@ProspectorTripp]

Good work Jason.. thanks buddy ✌️PT

[@greatlakesmetal8605]

What are the brushes from

[@ProspectorTripp]

@@greatlakesmetal8605 generator brushes Jason said.

[@getprobed838]

maybe you can work with sreetips to purify the metals you recover

[@velceaiulian6439]

Silver is too expensive for this method and not for the one that involves dissolving it in nitric acid. It is good, however, that you show this method in the sense that it gives good knowledge in general for the passionate man. But, for those who master chemistry quite well and do not set their hair on fire and are not suckers enough to work without protective gloves and a protective visor, I remind them that the method of dissolving in nitric acid followed by precipitation with copper gives surprising results in terms of the final purity of the silver obtained. If the method of attack with nitric acid is preferred, the metal losses are the lowest, considering its price. The silver passes completely into the solution (colorless) while the graphite remains on the bottom of the container. After relative decantation, the solution is passed to another container through the filter paper in a funnel, after which it is ready to be treated with simple metallic copper. Silver has a lower deposition potential than copper. The silver is deposited on the copper wire / bar, in the form of a black powder, which is very chemically pure. Copper gradually passes into solution, replacing silver, the solution becoming more and more blue. The black silver powder is collected, washed with distilled or rain water, and passed to the crucible for melting, along with a little borax. The result is silver in an advanced state of purity. In this way you get rid of Bismuth and Lead which are two horrors for human health and not only for humans but also for animals. Be very careful where you hand over the remaining waste, do not throw it anywhere in nature or in the trash, because if you have a clear conscience, you will not sleep well at night due to possible consequences. : D An additional clarification: For good efficiency and speed of dissolution, the first condition is that the motor brushes must be ground very well, until the powder state, and during the reaction with the acid, it must be spun with a glass rod or polyethylene. The container must be made of glass. Nitric acid is extremely corrosive, so do not play with utensils made of anything other than glass, preferably laboratory. For what I chopped here, I insist on a digital beer in a silver mug ! ;)

[@victoryfirst2878]

How did you get the crushers that you use. Real cool stuff.

[@shazamshazamski]

What about electrolysis? Plate out silver on to a cathode. AgNO3 electrolyte?

[@skoitch]

Very cool! I’d love to buy that silver off of you!

[@VitoDRF]

I’m new to this, what is the purpose of adding the soda to the borax?

[@BGTech1]

1:05 what kid of Machine is that? I was thinking it could be a mini hammer mill or something similar.

[@Killswitch22022]

It is just a crushing machine. it has a plate turning in a circle that grinds the pieces smaller and smaller till they are small enough to exit. He has a good video on it. If you go back through his videos and look for it.

[@tracywebber4906]

Is there any true/good silver in stainless steel bowls, teasets, silverware etc.

[@dionbritten]

Awesome video man

[@hardstylelife5749]

Beautiful video, very interesting :) May I ask if all the carbon brushes contain silver?

[@WanderingStil]

The answer is no. If the brushes look black they are almost pure carbon with no silver. Depends on motor size and quality. Industrial motors use a lot of electric and the brushes would not last long, plus failure rates must be low because shut down of production to repair is very costly. For example the brushes in my drill motor are pure carbon and cheap to replace. Changed them once in ten years.

[@hardstylelife5749]

@@WanderingStil much appreciated pal, thanks ! It was very informative

[@PoorMiners321]

wow i like your furnace sir..

[@tri-forceblades3123]

What size generator do these brushes come from?

[@alexbrewer4570]

Where did you find these brushes and how much did you pay for them?

[@matthewclavette6302]

Would using saw dust make a good flux with the borax and soda ash?

[@sidneyosborne947]

I like that small thrift shop oven you have.....

[@micheleshaw4280]

mee too how do you think he made it i know what the fabric is but do you think he as firebrick wrapped around the inside of to fabric or just the fabric

[@Killswitch22022]

@@micheleshaw4280 It is just plan Kalwhool with a piece of wire wrapped around it, and some fire bricks underneath it.

[@micheleshaw4280]

@@Killswitch22022 awesome thanks i was wondering if he had a video on it

[@micheleshaw4280]

@@Killswitch22022 where do i find kalwhool internet said it didn't know what iwas talking about

[@wisconsinfarmer4742]

Kaowool

[@josephbragg6388]

I take it you can use motor brushes as well. Very interesting.

[@kalfaxplays7899]

that's an amazing amount of slag for so little silver.

[@RGCbaseace]

Would that method work if the silver is mixed with stainless steel???

[@McMillanScottish]

At today's prices (2-26-21), I'm guessing that 91g chunk (purified and verified) could sell for over $100. Worth the effort? Probably....

[@danc2014]

How much energy cost to melt the silver..