Putting crap silver to good use...

I was wondering if making Silver Nitrate out of some crap silver objects was practical; I hear you just need to dissolve it in nitric acid and recover what is left...

So, good, bad idea ? I like recycling

buze said:

I was wondering if making Silver Nitrate out of some crap silver objects was practical; I hear you just need to dissolve it in nitric acid and recover what is left...

So, good, bad idea ? I like recycling

Click to expand...

That's not a good idea (unless you're a chemist, in other words you know what yo do and you have a very effective fume hood). AFAIK, mixing Silver with Nitric Acid will cause formation of NO (Nitric Oxide) and then NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) by oxidation in air. NO2 is a serious / dangerous / deadly poison. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_dioxide for more information. Also http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/MHMI/mmg175.html <- see Acute Exposure. Or see many other sites when you seach for "Nitrogen Dioxide Poisoning" in Google ect.)

Silver Nitrate is cheap, just sell the crap Silver objects and buy Silver Nitrate from a reliable chemical supplier.

Hope this helps,
Loris.

Edit: See bottom of -> http://yarchive.net/chem/nox_msds.html for results of exposure to NO2.

OK, bad idea

Apart from the health issue: What is the silver alloyed with? How do you remove it, and what effect will it have if you don't?

Generally the alloying metal is copper, which will also go into solution readily. Separating those by fractional crystallization is a task I would only assign to students I didn't like.

Sell them as scrap, or find a local metal sculptor who will work in funky materials. I saw a couple great sculptures recently made out of silver forks.