Method for Recovering Silver From Silver Plated Items

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[@frankzahn7773]

There is a much cheaper way of doing silver plate. The formula is 19 parts sulfuric acid to one part nitric acid. Heat but only to about 140 F. The silver plate will turn white as it dissolves in the solution. When the white is gone, that piece is done. I use three buckets and a plastic colander. I let one batch drain while the next batch is working in the solution. After a batch is drained, I rinse in bucket number one, still in the colander, then bucket number two, then dumped in an empty bucket. Buckets one and two have two gallons of tap water in them. When the solution is spent, it will be very dark and will not take any more silver. I let the solution cool down to ambient temperature. I pour half the solution in each of the water buckets and add a saturated solution of un-iodized saltwater to turn the silver into silver chloride. Work it into silver metal as you wish. You might want to try it in one of your great videos. You do a great job. I enjoy them very much.

[@sreetips]

Frank, I printed this comment for future reference. I may try this later on. Thank you for the suggestion.

[@143timbo]

Same as sree I have over 30 plates cups bowls ectect collecting

[@grovejack9580]

I would love to see the process used.

[@joshuabuttles3104]

Hi frank zahn, my name is Joshua. I processed some e-waste a decent amount of it for gold and I have a lot of the waist but I know there must be silver in. Personally, I think there’s a lot of silver, but I can’t figure out why it won’t precipitate. I don’t know if I neutralized the solution or not so I’m going to try that one more time, but can you give me any advice? I really need help on this because I could use the silver right now. Do you have the time please answer me back. Thank you.

[@joshuabuttles3104]

@@sreetips hello sir, my name is Joshua. I asked the same question to the gentleman above. You seem like someone who is busy so I didn’t think to even ask you first. I processed some e-waste a while back, and the waste made a very deep, dark green solution. I know there’s a lot of silver in it but I can’t figure out how to precipitate it out. I have added hydrochloric acid to it. I’ve put copper in the solution hoping to cement it out. Can you please help me?

[@AndyGraceMedia]

The little symbol A is a good guide as to the quality of the silver plate. There are tons of different systems and no standard but a century or so ago, many British makers used followed the gradings ... A1 = Superior, A = Standard and then lower and lower grades below that B, C, D, E based on how many pennyweight was plated on. A1 was usually a troy ounce of silver per 12 tablespoons or forks. Also don't get confused with stamped in Old English font which looks like a hallmark. That's electroplated nickel silver and usually pretty thin.

[@dawncawthra3519]

Thanks, really good to know :)!

[@helengren9349]

There is also Extra 1a NS, 1a NS & Alpaca markings in Europe..

[@d.pierce.6820]

My local thrift stores all have piles of old silverplate-no one wants it anymore, and no one wants to polish it,either. I'm always on the hunt for Sterling, and I've found that Sterling items are ALWAYS marked "Sterling" -especially things made in the US. If you are serious about finding Sterling "in the wild", you have to know foreign hallmarks also-they won't say "Sterling" on them, but maybe just a stamped ".925" or something similar. British hallmarks are more involved, but you are always looking for the lion with the raised paw. At every thrift store, I always go through all the silverplate and old silverware-I've found an amazing amount of overlooked Sterling. My most common find are "weighted Sterling" candleholders-I've found dozens of them in the past two years. They are all just a thin skin of silver around a heavy cement or plaster base, but it all adds up.

[@gw10758]

Your videos have gotten much better over the last several years........ This one is new to me, but important for me to learn how much effort I should put into plated vs. sterling pieces.... Thanks

[@matthewlawrence7570]

You are the Superman of recovering precious metal videos. Always worth watching and thanks Superman.

[@d.pierce.6820]

I think of him as the Walter White of home refining....LOL!

[@erikbrandy816]

Mr Sreetips there is a very easy way to de-plate silver. A tub of salt water with a piece of stainless steel for the negative contact and hook the positive contact to the piece of plated silver. Run a current through it for 10-15 min and the silver will flake off

[@lifeindetale]

Then what?

[@ArizonaAdam]

Glad to see you back on!!!

[@frankz1125]

I started buying junk silver from my area. I cant wait to try to do some refining.

[@allenjester3228]

Why? The junk silver is worth more than the silver you claim is pure. How can you prove that purity? I know the silver dime is 90% silver and I have a good idea of its weight and value.

[@frankz1125]

@@allenjester3228 not when you call it just. Its worth less. Our testing things as humans have evolved over time. It was once used as currency. You don't think our means of testing is accurate? Do your thing . Do what makes you happy. Life is short.

[@allenjester3228]

We’re headed for an economic catastrophe. I’d rather have the constitutional / junk silver than take someone’s word for the value of an item that I don’t recognize. Junk silver has recognizable value. Practice with silver plate or obscure foreign coins and save the junk for us stackers.

[@frankz1125]

@@allenjester3228 I get bars from my bank. Its all good.

[@freddyp8429]

@@frankz1125 What bank do you bank with ?

[@GMCLabs]

If you undershoot a little bit with the HCl, so you leave just a little silver nitrate in solution. You can filter out your silver chloride, and save the filtrate. You can then use the filtrate to dissolve more silver items, because when you add the HCl you also create nitric acid. You just want to undershoot with the HCl, because if some is left over it will react with the silver and form a AgCl coating keeping the nitric from dissolving it. That way you can save some money on buying more nitric. I actually just did this, it worked out pretty well.

[@candicedownard9939]

Love your videos my husband done his first gold recovery from scrap fingers. Thanks for the videos please keep them coming!!!

[@sreetips]

I'm trying to get my wife to make her own videos on how she finds the scrap for me to process. Without her I wouldn't be able to do this.

[@tracymcknight8978]

@@sreetips not sure if you will get to see my question to you but thought i would try to catch you here. I have some silver electronic wire pieces that dont dissolve in a hour of the acid. Will not turn blue niether in the dissolve state. Only in the copper bath does it turn blue. Any thoughts?

[@Shad0wBoxxer]

@@tracymcknight8978 some silver looking wire may be aluminum…

[@Supernova_sapiens]

Glad you're back, thanks for the vid!

[@njanderson4342]

Yay you're back! I was worried about your wrists at times with that platinum.

[@glOckcOma]

I really enjoyed the calculation of the worth at the end there. Would love it if you did that in every video where you yield some precious metal.

[@jonathonmallory2864]

C. M Mmmm?m K

[@chosen1one930]

some companies call it Ultraplate, some call it Extraplate. I only found about it awhile back because my grandma had a bunch of it, than I started looking into it. It is very common, mostly older pieces but some newer ones can be found. Yes you can find several pieces with with very thin plating but thick plating isn't rare

[@TechneMoira]

Hello and welcome back :) I'd wish you a happy New Year, but I think it would be nicer to wish you a BETTER year than last year :) And don't think what happened with your stockpot was a disaster...it'll be really exciting and interesting to see how you manage to get all the platinum back. Personally I can't wait to see how you're going to do it :) I'm sure a lot of viewers will agree with me. Thanks for another entertaining video

[@sreetips]

I'll me getting to it starting Friday

[@zmcfarling]

glad your back, was concerned you stopped doing videos or something, keep up the good work!

[@sreetips]

Thanks Zach

[@glockumollie1230]

Just as plating I would never have imagined you could get that much silver off of that lid. Understand I dont doubt you a bit as I have learned how sharp you really are at this stuff. Im also extremely jealous at how productive you are and could only hope that I could ever do anything like what you do. I dont like toxic chemicals or agents. I would never work in a trade or plant that would put me anywhere near dangerous lab work. I worked in a production machineshop for just under 28yrs but I would bolt when they had painters painting the floor with very toxic paint. Whenever they painted in that building I bolted to get away. One of the painters never wore a mask I couldnt believe it. You would get a headache right away if you were anywhere near it. Im not exagerating. But you I have learned know exactly what you are doing. Do you have a chemistry degree because you work like a Scientist, I do really enjoy watching what you do and most of all when you end up with an incredible bar of Gold and Silver too. I always wonder if you really should be wearing a good mask or ventilator but I think you know what your doing.

[@sreetips]

My degree is in Aviation. I’m a retired Naval Engineer. I get whiffs of fumes every now and then. SO2 gas is the worst for me.

[@adammonahan687]

He uses respirators and fume hoods when needed. Chemicals are perfectly safe when handed with safety and respect. No need to " bolt away " just be smart and safe. You sound kind of childish actually

[@TenmaFN]

Great video +Sreetips, enjoyed this as always!

[@countryboyc130]

Great to see you back again! I was hoping that the stock pot refining disaster did not take the wind out of your sails for continuing your videos.

[@sreetips]

Mike. I'm going to process all the paper from the mess I made. Should be several hundred dollars worth of metal.

[@mikewhitfield8425]

I'm thrilled that you are making videos again. I was happy to make a small contribution to help continue this awesome content.

[@sreetips]

Mike, I am grateful to you, thank you! More videos are coming.

[@jeffreyfelton8887]

Thank you for taking the time and using your chemicals and shop to show us how to do what you do & now we know to just turn it into a recycling center as the base metal under the silver. ❤❤

[@zombieprinting2670]

I'd say it is a profitable venture seeing where the bidding is, at current time. Quite Profitable if I do say so myself. Great video. Once again you don't disappoint.

[@SMOBY44]

Glad to see you back. Was worried that the little fiasco sapped your will to make videos. Keep them coming.

[@OwlTech333]

what little fiasco?

[@authorunknown7262]

@@OwlTech333 In the video of refining the stock pot. One of the beakers spilled all over the floor.

[@OwlTech333]

@@authorunknown7262 Thanks

[@SMOBY44]

@@OwlTech333 the platinum recovery spill from his last series.

[@ewastegold6619]

This bar sold for $53.00 because it was a Sreetips Original!

[@ThePhillipnielsen]

No commercials, I subscribed. love your videos!

[@mhcraft4335]

Welcome back sreetips! I have been waiting for new video... Also looking forward to see new videos in future. Especially platinum refining.

[@sreetips]

Coming very soon, thank you

[@marysalinas3961]

We are now in 2023 : and It looks like that value is going up. There are three tangible items that will be worth so much after the dollar collapse. Everything else will be digital currency if we get lucky. Thank you for your demonstration it works for me.

[@sreetips]

Gold, silver, period.

[@lifeindetale]

Digital a good thing? Crazy thought.Must say at least you can physically hold paper bills..

[@sreetips]

Long after Apple, Amazon, bitcoin, and U.S. dollar are gone and forgotten, gold and silver will still be here. And they will still be valuable.

[@lifeindetale]

@@sreetips great to think that civilization may possibly be trending towards a 2nd bronze age! 😅

[@sreetips]

Hopefully not.

[@bygdaddy6143]

Good to see you back!

[@MundusTransit]

Happy New Year to you too!

[@swbyrd]

Thanks for the video. It was very informative and I enjoyed it. 👍🏻

[@Matt-re8bt]

Welcome back. You've bee missed, @Sreetips. I like the addition of the cost vs return calculation in the vids. It's interesting to see the return on investment.

[@sreetips]

I'll try to give a brief overview of the roi in my videos from now on. I don't track expenses for each batch so it will be crude.

[@riverrat1431]

Great video . glad your still active

[@schabj3]

In your experience, what is the range of silver to total metal? It was 4.6% here but what is the general range? Thanks!

[@drinventions9742]

Glad to see ya back Kadriver ,, some of us were going through with draws 🥴

[@sreetips]

Sreetips withdrawal, cold turkey.

[@urbanprospecting]

Great video... I have learned so much from your vids...

[@intothecalm420]

Glad to see you back. That last video was devastating.

[@sreetips]

I'm going to get some metal from that paper and cardboard. Watch for the video.

[@intothecalm420]

@@sreetips We are all looking forward to seeing that. This is absolutely one of the best science channels on KZbin.

[@Gainn]

Watching this now shows how much your processes have changed in the last few years.

[@kpatton-ir9oc]

Alright, here we go again. When you get to the end, please be careful and don't spill it all. Thanks for coming back to teach us

[@michaeldenison7339]

I am glad that you recharged and are back at it.

[@rrodefeld1]

This was fun to watch but from a personal point of view, I believe the dish was more valuable as an attractive silver plate. Thanks.

[@sreetips]

It was a good looking dish, with an unusually thick coating of silver.

[@universebecomingltd]

EDIT!!! EDIT!! EDIT!! HAHAHA! I see you DID mention it at the beginning of the video. Disregard my aforementioned statement. :D You forgot to mention the nitrogen dioxide danger this time. :D I've watched other videos you've made where you did mention the danger so that's how I know you forgot. Love your videos. You are so meticulous I thought for certain you had a background in chemistry. I was surprised to learn that you're a hobbyist! Nice job at being so efficient. I'm a jeweler so that's why I have an interest in precious metals recovery. :)

[@jovencasagrande2405]

Thank you for sharing your calculation and satisfy my curiosity about the costs!

[@TomokosEnterprize]

Great to see you back bud. I have done a lot of checking on this project. Is it really worth all the process ? I guess the end numbers say it all eh. It will be neat to see the end results my friend. Your chemistry is to be admired my friend.

[@sreetips]

Just wait until silver gets close to $100 per ounce - it's coming.

[@TomokosEnterprize]

@@sreetips I have been stacking various coins, rounds for over 40 yrs. and am now pouring silver so it is a real catch 22 for me LOL.

[@joeissa9548]

Hey sreetips ! Thank you for all the great content you keep on making ! I have 10kg of silver plated items , it wont make sense to dissolve them in nitric as i will need alot of nitric to do that . I was wondering if sanding the silver off and refining the dust would be a better option ?

[@objvst]

Good thought that way you would need much less nitric acid. Flat areas would be easier, relief areas would be tough.. Good idea though.

[@vishwaksen1534]

1

[@fuatakagunduz3493]

Ceviri

[@lonnieosullivan1331]

I have wondered how using a very course ceramic grit in a vibrating or even in a rotating polishing setup would work. I initially had the idea to strip gold off of pins and fingers etc. as a way to speed up the process by not having to devolve all of the copper

[@readoryx373]

sanbladt and screen

[@lion9419]

Awesome as usual but happy to see u thanks a lot

[@scrapperdscrapperj3948]

Interesting process. Thanks for sharing 👍

[@shaneyork300]

I wanted to watch this, to see silver recovery I have thousands and thousands of silver contacts. I want to someday process. It looks like it should be one of the easier pm to process, but I'm going to study and study until I'm very confident I can do it. Probably years in the future. Thanks for the GREAT VIDEO!!!

[@music-jn3wn]

Make sure there is no cadmium in those contacts.

[@doncachorron]

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, i'm working in a mining lab so we assay gold and silver from ore and pb concetrates. I dissolve the dore button with nitric acid with the purpose to dissolve silver and get a gold button and calculate its content in the samples. I generate a lot of silver nitrate solution every day and I precipitate it with HCl. I will suggest a method based on yours to take benefit of this waste and recover some silver. Greetings from Mexico.

[@sreetips]

Nice, glad you gained something. Thank you.

[@2Goiz_1ShanDA]

I finally got the store and I have huge silverware & scrap I gotta go through. It's time for me to learn it now. I told you I'd get that pawn shop in negotiations & now I own it😊

[@sreetips]

Nice! Treat your customers right and you’ll do fantastic.

[@almacli8360]

Thanks I was wondering that ✔️ I appreciate your work ‼️

[@peterbulford2750]

Thank you for this. I am looking at silver recovery and now know on cost yield ratio

[@drubradley8821]

There he is, I hope the holidays were the best they could have been for you and your family and friends... But, now it is time to get back to work!!!! Lol, just kidding, just excited to watch your new video as there isn't much out here in the interweb, that actually teaches me something, and your channel, I always learn something, if not many things, every video, just even the repetition of of how you pattern how you run your channel, and I think it is so important for the safety factor... thank you for the effort on doing that, as I can only imagine how much more work that is required, but is so worth it, as it has built my confidence in doing these processes.

[@sreetips]

Excellent Dru, thank you.

[@garygeahos4363]

Having your wife showing some of her shopping trips with hints would be great. The secret to making this a profitable hobby is a good, steady source of reasonably priced raw materials.

[@sreetips]

I agree - would make killer videos.

[@fredkaningok6460]

Thank you for the video. That was a nice find

[@robertcampbell9205]

Fascinating video. Well done. 👍

[@margoreally1]

I really enjoyed this video and learning more about silver plate. I was surprised by the amount at the end. I also really liked going through the costs and seeing that it is not worth it to separate it. I wonder also though about how much the copper is worth that was in it. 😀😀

[@kromair22]

Thank you for this video very informative. I am interested to know what the copper solution is. Is it copper oxicloride?

[@sreetips]

The blue liquid is copper nitrate.

[@Barribt]

As always a very good educational video

[@alfredogarciasalinas]

Thanks for your great Video, very instructional as always ! One question, It´s possible to "UnPlate" the item, that is, using the appropriate electrolyte can electrically remove the thin layer of silver ? Maybe this way is economically feasible.

[@dawncawthra3519]

Yes it is, there are a few people who've posted videos on this :)!

[@sreetips]

There is a way to do it, but I’ve not mastered it. Maybe when silver gets up around a hundred bucks.

[@stevenfeil7079]

Several other items missing from the cost analysis. Not a very cost effective way to obtain silver, but the chemistry was interesting. I am glad YOU did it.

[@sreetips]

Me too

[@jessefew8229]

I would like to see you do a refining of keyboard mylars & to know if you know how you could incenerate the mylars to recover the silver

[@SomervilleBob]

I just sell my silver plated trays and such to my refiner for $1.75 per pound. Works for me.

[@dzezvick26]

HI! I have a problem about silver recovery from silverplated silverware. The basic metal is zinc, then a thin layer of copper and then silverplating on. First i try to disolve whole spoon in nitric acid, but it starts to boil over the floor. I repead the proces with less concetrated nitric acid, the spoon is disolved, but i have a lot of powder on bottom, the liquid is blueish. So im guesing that zinc is on the bottom like powder, silver is in liquid? or did zinc something else to my silver? Now I will first melt the zinc away and scrap the upper layer down, and i will procced with that nugget forward

[@sreetips]

Zinc is soluble in nitric acid it will turn your solution green. Get a small sample of the blue liquid and test it with a few drops of hydrochloric acid like I did in the video. What ever is on the bottom, it shouldn't be zinc. It might be your silver.

[@dzezvick26]

@@sreetips Hi again. I finished disolving silverplated silverware in nitric acid, filtered it and put Hcl and nothing happened. Like no silver inside. No cloudiness... ;( Should I try put copper inside to cement silver? But now I have second problem with recovering gold from cpu...I disolved 15cpu and few ram sticks in Hcl + hidrogen perokside (little), put those goldplating leaves in aqua regia, they disolved, filtered the liquid and today I got my smb by mail, (in Slovenia hard to buy), and surprise...nothing happened with liquid..like no mud at the bottom, still green yelowish colour...I put it so much that smb sit on the bottom...no reaction. Do you know what could go wrong? Should I put a little bit of urea inside?

[@CenterStarsChannel]

Another question. Is tap water needed in the transition to silver oxide? Is there something in tap water imperative to the transition or is distilled water okay to use???

[@glennbartusch7310]

Sometimes you can answer these questions by yourself, but to do so required an understanding of the rxn that's occurring. Since you already know (or were given the information) that when you take sodium hydroxide and mix with hydrochloric acid, you obtain common table salt. You can extend the idea here: what happens when the same (lye) is mixed with silver chloride? Since lye pulled the chlorine off of the hydrochloric acid to give sodium chloride, intuition tells us that lye, when mixed with silver chloride, will also pull the chloride off, to give sodium chloride! But what about the silver part in silver chloride? We got the chloride part to give salt. The silver part stays behind as silver oxide (oxide because the the silver takes on the hydroxyl in the lye, giving the oxide). But what tf does any of this have to do with tap water?! I'm glad you asked. Nowhere in this set of reactions did a special or trace ingredient need to be used for the rxn to occur. Special minerals, dissolved metals, and other impurities in tap H2O were never called out. In fact, not once were they even mentioned. Therefore, being guided by just a simple, intuitive understanding of the chemistry behind this reaction, we are definitely in a position to answer the question once and for all. And the answer is: NO! There is no special quality to the tap water; one may use any kind of water for this - hard water, soft, water, tapped, distilled, reverse osmosis, hot, cold... Insolong as it's water, it shall work........

[@d.pierce.6820]

Reed and Barton was (is?) a maker of high quality sterling and silver plate items. They would heavily plate their items-I see some things marked "Quadruple plated" also.

[@user-wd8cj6qj3p]

"Thick" silver plate is often silver "clad" rather than plate. This is done when the flat sheet of metal is made, already clad in the silver then it stamped out and presses into shape.

[@modenam9046]

Usually plated will have an “A” or “community plate”

[@CenterStarsChannel]

Do you have a video showing what you do with the blue copper mix? Do you chemically change it into copper???

[@toomuchdebt5669]

Yes it can be done. Check Nurdrage youtube channel.

[@sreetips]

I change it to copper in my waste treatment bucket. The copper comes out of the blue solution as metallic copper on pieces of angle iron.

[@MrGhotifry]

So glad you’re still at it! I was fairly worried. Fail Forward!

[@kamisama9715]

My mom threw away the silver chloride I had kept in the sun because she thought it was detergent

[@sreetips]

Bummer

[@sleezybeezy2382]

If I can ask honestly, is it worth it to purchase nitric acid or distill your own? I depleted a fair amount of junk silver but I'm not quite sure what the best way to purify is. If you could comment on what works best for you I would appreciate it.

[@sreetips]

I’ve never attempted to make my own nitric acid. Much easier to buy it already made.

[@timjlarsen]

Hi Sreetips, I am a new watcher and you have me hooked. QUESTION: what is the orange gas and would it make the reaction and therefore nitric acid use more efficient if a condenser was used to drop it back into the beaker?

[@sreetips]

Orange gas = nitrogen dioxide. Refluxing it would improve efficiency.

[@ewastegold6619]

I contacted you on eBay. I have a bulk lot of Silverplate. I can sell the items by the piece, but shipping adds too much cost. Their size and shape make it hard to stuff a priority mail flat rate box full of it. I can deliver if you want it.

[@user-kl6ej9zh2i]

It's nice to see you again.

[@sreetips]

I'll be getting some more vids out soon. Thanks for watching.

[@shshgaming189]

Great video. Would this process be the same if I wanted to recover silver from the waste that I got from my initial gold recovery? To be more precise I recovered gold from CPUs but I know there's silver in the waste. Do I recover this silver like you've done in this video so basically adding distilled water and nitric acid to the waste solution and continuing like u did or is there another way? Would highly appreciate your reply. Thank you so much.

[@shshgaming189]

Or do I add copper to the waste solution to cement the silver out. I'm a little confused as to what the next step will be to recover the silver. Help pls. 😬

[@sreetips]

If you have silver in solution then you can add copper to "cement" the silver out. However, if your solution contains any hydrochloric acid then this won't work. Hydrochloric acid added to a silver nitrate solution will immediately precipitate silver chloride. The silver chloride can be recovered and converted to pure silver metal with lye and sugar. You can test your unknown solution by putting some in a test tube then add HCl. If silver is present then you'll immediately see a cloud is silver chloride form.

[@shshgaming189]

That makes sense now. Thank you so much 😀

[@willr69420]

Very engaging content, thaks for sharing!

[@billstjohn3031]

Will R "

[@taylojer]

Sreetips what’s your source for nitric at that price? I have been making my own because it’s expensive but $15 a liter is great.

[@sreetips]

GFS Chemical, they require a business shipping address.

[@UncalBertExcretes]

Problem with nitric its so damn expensive, atleast in 2023... Im not sure about US prices but in the UK its £106 for 5 litres of nitric, if you need to use 800ml to extract 10g of silver then its costing you money. I was thinking about refining karat gold scrap but the cost of the nitric just eats away all the profit plus some more :(

[@sreetips]

I buy six 2.5 liter bottles for two fifty. Was three hundred with the fifty dollar shipping charge. But last time I ordered, it was still two fifty, but the shipping charge went up to one fifty!

[@UncalBertExcretes]

@@sreetips I can see why you only really do karat scrap, anything else is a complete waste of nitric and it appears that refining gold consumes far less nitric than silver.

[@thevalleyofdisappointment]

37:32 I assume this is Copper chloride solution with some trace silver chloride some trace copper nitrate and unconverted silver nitrate in that white bucket. Can this be mixed in with your silver waste bucket with the pour offs from regular silver cementation?

[@sarahhoward9081]

Where do you get your nitric? I need a good source. I’ve been making my own and it’s just too much trouble. Thanks

[@sreetips]

GFS chemicals

[@PhantomOfThePsy-Opera]

Your voice sounds very similar to another youtuber I watch named Dahboo7....can tell the difference, but man!....you guys could do voice overs for each other no problem...lol...love your channel, and all you do!

[@cadenjohnson4114]

Anyone know what to do when you’ve added to much lye? I added the sugar, no reaction still just black liquid

[@shadowleep]

I've got one of them same platters. Good to know it's at least worth $8.69 today. Then one has to add the price of the copper...

[@robertwoods4281]

wow, that was very interesting. thank you for that. now I don't know much about everything you were doing, but I was following u. to my lay understanding. all metals of the periodic table are soluable? is that true or then my spelling.😁

[@sreetips]

Robert, nitric will dissolve silver, copper, brass, zinc. But nitric won't dissolve gold, platinum, aluminum or stainless steel. Some metals are soluble in certain acids but insoluble in others. We can use this knowledge to selectively separate metals from each other.

[@420growers3]

Nice vid, thanks. Do you think buying scrap silverplate is worth it?

[@sreetips]

Right now, with silver at $16, it would cost more to get the silver than it's worth. But that can change.

[@ImThatGuy17]

Is there any way to strip the silver off without completely dissolving the base metals as well, or will the silver continue to cement out onto the base metal requiring that is be completely dissolved? I have a very large amount of silver plated items that I was hoping to strip, and am trying to figure out exactly how much nitric acid and total volume of liquids will be required throughout the process.

[@sreetips]

Yes, but I’ve not tried it yet.

[@anarchy_79]

And thank you so much, very informative, subscribed and liked.

[@sreetips]

Welcome, and thank you!

[@jaeshikchung6269]

Very impressive. btw, how sugar can transfer silver oxide into pure silver?? is it a reduction reaction?

[@sreetips]

I'm not a chemist. I just know that adding the sugar converts the silver oxide to pure silver. Something to do with the carbon in the sugar, I think.

[@tracymcknight8978]

Hi, love your video's. I have a question about my project. I came into some electronic silver wire pieces from my work. I've followed your refining process to find out that im able to retrieve some silver from the wire but cant get all of the wire to melt all the way. Also while the acid is working the silver wires the mixture of acid, and distilled water turns a light grey and not the blue color. Im thinking the wire pieces are not copper, and silver mixed? Do you have an idea? It does turn blue when im at the next phase of adding the copper pieces into solution. Would appreciate your thoughts

[@sreetips]

If copper returns is in your wire then the solution will be blue once dissolved. No blue, no copper. Get some silver testing solution and check your wire for silver BEFORE putting it in acid. If you want a proper outcome then make sure your inputs are correct.

[@tracymcknight8978]

@@sreetips do you think i can send you some of this wire to test it for me?

[@travelinjohn2163]

Awesome, I’m clumsy so I wouldn’t try my ideas myself. I have a box of gold and silver plated jewelry and some 40%coins I’d like to eventually get the gold silver and copper from. are their trustworthy refiners I could send to that don’t charge an arm and two legs for it. But seriously I pretty much can do it but I’d need instruction step by step on paper just so I don’t miss any steps

[@blueberryfreddy2432]

Great video!!! When does adding borax make sense in process like this?

[@sreetips]

I add borax to the melt dish to keep the silver from sticking to the dish

[@jefferycrawford9194]

Quick qustion for you chief. If there was some gold also in this solution would adding the hcl cause the gold to come out of solution with the silver?

[@sreetips]

No

[@prathyushathunugunta4473]

Super sir I m from India you gave a clear idea

[@williamarmstrong7199]

In the UK most silver plated items have the "EPNS" stamped on them. This stands for Electro Plated Nickel Silver.

[@sreetips]

Ive seen it. I look for EP (electroplated) but I can also tell by the texture of the surface.

[@topher6_9]

I don’t know about you guys but that blue liquid looks like it tastes delicious.

[@cdeichhorn]

Would it be most cost effective to electro strip the silver directly off the base metal into solution then recover.

[@sreetips]

Chuck, I don't know because I don't have any experience with stripping the silver off. With silver at $16 my guess is probably not. Especially when there is so much silver scrap jewelry out there. Stripping off a few grams doesn't make much sense when you can buy scrap sterling silver for pennies, if you know where to look.

[@kickAssScience]

@@sreetips where to look?

[@xmachine7003]

@@sreetips where do you look for the scrap sterling silver? Thank you,Chuck.

[@louismorgan2679]

I would really appreciate if you replyed to this. If you were just getting started in metal refining so you have chemicals (I.e. nitric), would you think it safe enough and ok to do everything outside, still with the appropriate equipment and safety stuff but without a fume hood? This is just because I wanted to get some sort of a better insight into this as if you think it unsafe I wouldn't do it. I really appreciate your feedback. Thanks :)

[@sreetips]

I did my reactions in the back yard before I bought my fume hood. It was hard because rain would be a problem. Also, no matter how hard I tried, I always got some fumes in my nostrils. Holding my breath while adding reagents didn't work very well.

[@louismorgan2679]

@@sreetips ok, thankyou very much, I think I will go for it outside as recently here in Britain it hasn't rained much, however I will get a big fan to hopefully blow most of the fumes away, many thanks, love watching your videos!

[@angelarogers6268]

Best to melt into a sheet and electroplate the copper out with copper sulfate and sulfuric acid in a cell will get pure copper and anode slimes being able to reuse the acid many times lowering the acid cost

[@sreetips]

I don't have any experience with that. Can you make a video and show how it's done? Thanks for watching.

[@OwlTech333]

sodium sulphite is even better, non-toxic, cheap alternative.

[@erichansen2418]

@@sreetips Great video Sreetips. Glad you are back. :-) Nurd Rage has a video converting copper chloride, from PCB etchant, to copper sulfate then plates out copper to recycle... essentially I would think it's pretty close to the same thing your doing converting the copper & silver nitrate to copper and silver chloride with HCL ... anyway check out the link. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJuooIWfmduaj6c

[@SomeAustrianGuy]

Look up "growing copper crystals". Electroplating with CuSO4 is actually the industrial process for refining copper. You just need a DC powersupply, a bucket and some CuSO4. Silver won't dissolve in sulfuric acid, but copper will. You're transfering copper from the anode to the kathode, pure silver will collect under the anode, as the copper gets dissolved. Also as you use dichromate for your testingsolution, I've no doubt that you can get CuSO4

[@brandondennis4033]

I have a question about cementing, I'm in the process of cementing silver from my solution but instead of my copper is turning a reddish- brown on top of the silver. Any idea what it could be?

[@sreetips]

No, i have never seen that happen

[@jimt6953]

I wasn't interested at all in this topic but I watched it all from start to finish lol

[@karenabrams8986]

Thanks for showing that process. Looks super dangerous!