Melting Silver Plated Scrap to Recover Pure Silver & Copper
Published 2023-12-01
Recovering silver with fire experiment! Is refining silverplated items worth the effort? I think so, if you can purchase the silverplate at low cost. To test this theory, I melt over three kilos of silverplated scrap, pouring it down the lava slide, to turn it into shot • LAVA SLIDE! Melting Metal, Silver, a... . After pouring the shot, I test the alloy metal in the Olympus GoldXpert XRF. You can fast forward to XRF results towards the end of the video. The alloy metal included copper, silver, zinc, lead, manganese, tin, and trace iron all melted together. Next, the shot is further purified in a custom-built copper cell using copper sulfate electrolyte to recover the silver from all other base metals. The pure copper plates out on the copper cathode. I’m keeping track of all significant weights to calculate profit and loss from this experiment. This will be an ongoing experiment that may take several weeks with future videos to come.
Typically, I purchase silverplated items as an afterthought while searching for gold and silver jewelry and scrap. Over a year, I have collected over 50 pounds of silverplated scrap which I will be running some excitining experiments. I’m calculating different methods of purification while keeping track of supplies and other expenses. The ultimate goal is to be able to refine electroplated silver at the lowest possible cost. Just the refined copper alone has proven to be profitable and useful for other refining projects.
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All Comments (21)
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Make sure to post the follow up, it would be interesting to see how it works out. thank you
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Brilliant. I guess this is part one? Looks like you will get between 2 and 3 ounces of silver out of 3000 grams of shot. Didn't realize that there were so many other elements in silver plated scrap besides, copper, nickel and silver.
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It’s only 3% silver content? Wow… that’s really poor quality. What about using a copper rod in the solution to cement the silver first, then make a shot of that instead of the raw silver plated metal?
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That was my cousin,peaking into the bucket😀
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Where did you get the XRF machine and how do you like it?
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The lava slide is so cool
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Awesome video. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. Looking forward to the follow up. Nice shop too btw...
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Did the zinc cause any problems like causing the copper to cement out or foul the solution ?
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Question? After melting and pouring silver plated material to shot, couldn't you make a silver solution and grow silver crystals? Same process as this video but using silver nitrate solution?
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Question what kind of filter are you using? My coffee filters aren’t filtering that great.
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What is the voltage you run on the copper cell? 12V DC?
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Subtítula en español por favor
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Love the lava slide!
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The only part that makes me sad about this is that silverware in a home is so uncommon now-a-days. Whereas before, silverware and fine China plates were the pride of many humble, middle-class families. Only to be brought out for special occasions. All of this silverware in the video was most likely, at one point, some housewife's pride. I have a decorative, wooden case full of my grandmother's silverware. And believe me, she was not rich. But she loved bringing it out for Thanksgiving.
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Did you intentionally separate all the plated items, taking out those made of nickel and stainless steel?
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I melted silver stuff, made an ingot bar out of it, I want to remelt it to remove impurities, guess what, the bar turns red but doesn't melt, not even soften. Why?
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Ahh, Pac Man.
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It's all good if you got that kind of money to spend on that kind of equipment
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Your running “silver plated” not sterling silver in this silver cell??
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That s not finish.....
