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  for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Extracting Silver Nitrate

I am a high school chemistry student and am looking for the easiest and cheapest method for extracting silver from silver nitrate. This is completely hypothetically, and we won't really be using the chemicals, but I need to research the process. Any information you could give me, would be much appreciated.

Thank you. Sincerely,

Elise R [last name deleted for privacy by Editor]
- Columbus, New Jersey
2001

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2001

Chlorides!

Either from hydrochloric acid or common (dissolved!) table salt. Mixing chlorides with silver nitrate creates silver chloride precipitate (Gay-Lussac's textbook method for silver analysis dating back a couple of hundred years?)

The precipitate looks like finely divided cottage cheese as it coagulates and settles out.

You can go through a couple of additional steps to reduce the silver chloride to metallic silver, but these require intensive environmental controls and are subject to becoming big messes if you don't have expert guidance.

Bill Vins
microwave & cable assemblies - Mesa (what a place-a), Arizona

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2001

Hello,

If you want to produce silver of reasonable purity, place a strip of polished copper in the silver nitrate solution. The silver is replaced by copper and forms needles on the copper strip. If you do not disturb the liquid you can get some quite dramatic and rather nice deposits of pure silver. You are left with a solution of copper nitrate in solution.

Cheers

PS If you collect, wash and dry the silver powder/granules, this can be melted to form a solid bead of silver.

Colin Tallis
- Leeds, UK

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Hello,

I have some silver nitrate solution in a bucket.
At the end of process collecting the silver.
I found some sulfur ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] agent mixed together with silver.
Someone advice to mix some HCl for a few minutes, but the result was nothing.

Please advice and thank you very much.

Joseph Wijaya
hobbyist - Corona, California
March 8, 2008

I use lots of silver nitrate as raw material in my factory. therefore tell me the method to make AR grade silver nitrate in my premises itself?

Deepak Pandey
plating shop - Delhi, India
January 15, 2009