This article will show you an easy way to refine your scrap silver, old jewelry, or your old worn down silver coins. After reading this article you will be able to produce your own .999 pure silver bullion. With the prices of silver and other precious metals rising at the rate they are now, it would be a very valuable piece of information to know how to make your own silver bullion.
Scrap silver can be found a plethora of different places. It also comes in many different purities. Most common forms of silver can be found as sterling silver. Sterling silver is 92.5% silver with the rest usually being copper but can sometimes be other metals. The added metal gives the silver strength, to keep the metal from bending. Sterling silver is mostly used in jewelry but many older spoons, forks, and other tableware is made from sterling. Although there are many other types of silver our there the only other one that we are going to talk about in this article is “coin silver”. When you hear “coin silver” people are referring to the silver coins that were made by the U.S. mint. The silver coins were the dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins that were made up until 1964. These coins were made up of 90% silver with 10% copper. The U.S. mint also made 40% silver half dollars from 1965-1970 and 35% silver Nickels during World War two. These are easily distinguishable from the non-silver nickels due to a large letter over the building in the back of the coin. All can be refined however the 40% silver halves and 35% nickels are not recommended for refining due to their low silver content and high copper content witch will make refining a difficult task.
Now that you know some ways to find some silver to refine lets get started. The first step in refining is to dissolve the silver. The best way to do this is to use diluted Nitric Acid. You want the nitric acid to be diluted to around 50% nitric and 50% water. Concentrated Nitric Acid is a chemical that is pretty hard to get your hands on, but if you look online there are some sites that show how to make your own acid. Since 9/11 the supply of Nitric Acid to the general public has been strongly watched over. But it is all for good reason nitric acid is one of the main components used to make powerful explosives and illegal drugs.
Warning! You are dealing with concentrated acids. Take all safety precautions when dealing with any acids. Make sure you wear rubber gloves, face shield and protective clothing. If you spill any of the acid, wash with ample amounts of water.
To refine Silver, dissolve several ounces of your scrap silver in Nitric Acid. This will take some time, but make sure that all of the metal is in solution. Heating the solution will speed up the reaction, but make sure that the acid does not come to a boil. Warning! Do not breathe in any of the vapors coming off the silver and acid it is very harmful to your health. I strongly recommend that you do this step outside upwind of the acid. Once all the silver is dissolved filter the solution using a few coffee filters, you want the clear solution. The Silver dissolved is in the form of Silver Nitrate. The easiest way to get the Silver to precipitate out of the solution is to use Copper. Any kind of copper will work, but I recommend using copper wire. Copper wire is pure copper and you don’t have to worry about any other metals getting in your solution. Suspend the Copper wire, using household string in the acid solution. A white-grayish precipitate will start to appear around the copper wire. Tap the suspended Copper lightly, and the Silver precipitate will sink to the bottom. What you are doing here is replacing the Silver Nitrate with Copper Nitrate, causing Silver to drop out of the solution. Allow the solution to sit overnight and all of the precipitate will settle to the bottom.
After all the silver has dropped out solution should be crystal-blue in color meaning that all of your silver is out. If not, use some more Copper to get all of you silver out. Filter the solution using coffee filters again, this time keeping the silver precipitate. Rinse your silver a few times using distilled water. There should not be any blue copper nitrate around the filter. Discard the spent solution and dry the filtrate. This precipitate is pure silver. Once your silver is completely dry place it in a melting dish. Use a torch to melt the precipitate. Once you melted all of the precipitate allow it to cool. Make sure that it has cooled before you try touching it. Once it is cool and you can handle it you have just created your own .999 silver bullion.
