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silver nitrate


boris_73

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actually, our school never does cool chem labs. in fact, the most "dangerous" materials we worked with last year in my honors chem class are 18M sulfuric acid and fuming hydrochloric acid. we burned magnesium as well. thats it though. the AP class (which i will be in next year) works with materials that are a little more dangerous. the last lab the AP class does is a student-designed lab where people work in groups of two and design their own experiments. naturally everybody wants to do explosives, and a friend of mine actually got permission to do silver acetylide.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have several ounces of Silver Nitrate here as a saturated soln.

 

collect as much scrap silver jewelery as you can (I scrounged old broken rings and necklaces etc...).

dissolve that in Nitric acid, the soln will be Blue in color, that`s the Copper contamination, what you need to do is add more copper to displace all the silver, then filter it off when no more copper will dissolve (you may as well crystalise the copper nitrate for a later experiment) wash the silver powder thoughoughly in water and give a final wash with deionised water (you don`t want any Chlorine traces). then re-dissolve the now pure silver in the nitric acid, adding a little excess silver at the end and store in a dark glass bottle (I wrap alu foil around mine to make sure).

the excess silver is to absorb any stray nitric that may become present over time.

 

Thats how I made mine :)

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you`ll be in no doubt which is which :)

the copper Nitrate will be the blue liquid, the blackish powder will be the silver, when I say add excess copper till no more dissolved, I mean a large peice like a water pipe off cut, so that you can pysicaly remove it after :)

 

as for the conc, use conc nitric to start with :)

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thank you very much, thats saved me quite a bit of money to spend on other things one more thing how much silver nitrate would i get back once nitrated, because i can get a 1 ounce silver bar of the internet at http://www.ebay.co.uk for £5. thats going to be one of the hardest parts distroying pure silver to make silver nitrate i just dont think i can do it :)

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well why not try using it as a color additive to some Pyro stars?

 

or just keep it as a neat way to store "Niric acid" for a displacement reaction with a more reactive metal when you need it :)

 

C`mon dude, use your noodle :)

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  • 11 months later...

I know this is an old thread.

My question is when silver nitrate is hit by light it turns dark due to the impurities.

If this is a liquid soln then how would you get it back to white from black(grey ish)?

 

Edit, also when you add you copper to get the pure silver out does the silver just drop off? Because I thought it would plate the copper, not that silver plated copper isnt nice (roll up, roll up, get your best silver rings right here, :P lol )

 

I take it would make crystals which would be easy to remove?

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if your silver nitrate is White, there`s a problem already.

I personaly keep mine as a liquid, with a chunk of pure silver in the blacked out bottle.

yes it does plate the copper, but comes off easily in a conc soln, almost like a spongey mass.

silver nitrate also doesn`t react to light all that much, Chlorine contamination making the Chloride of silver certainly will and often within seconds of a strong light when dry (takes alot longer when wet).

 

here`s a fun one for you, make some of the silver nitrate conc, dissolve it 1:10 ratio and soak it up in white UNBLEACHED coffee filter paper, get 2 keys or anything that fits on the paper that you`ll recognise as a shape later, leave one half of the dried paper as it is with the object on it, and with the other peice, spray some salt water on it, let it dry in a dark room, place the object on it and put Both peices in the sunshine (a windowsill will do) then time how long it takes for the change to occur and note which changes 1`st.

with washing afterwards, you can keep these papers too as your 1`st ever photograph homemade :)

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Normally I don't like to give sources of chems, but giving a source for silver metal is not too hefty I think :D .

 

You can get very pure silver (99.95+%) at http://www.emovendo.net at a price of $13 per 30 grams. Shipping worldwide is another $3 or so. If you combine orders from this company, then shipping almost can be neglected. This is a very nice source of very pure silver.

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Normally I don't like to give sources of chems' date=' but giving a source for silver metal is not too hefty I think :D .

 

You can get very pure silver (99.95+%) at www.emovendo.net at a price of $13 per 30 grams. Shipping worldwide is another $3 or so. If you combine orders from this company, then shipping almost can be neglected. This is a very nice source of very pure silver.

 

Thanks for the link.

This sunday just gone I went to the carboot, (big one here).

And picked up a load of scrap silver (about 1oz at least). old lockets snapped chains etc etc.

Only spent £3.

Bargin :D

But I'm waiting for an old Car bat (should of been this morning) to make some nitric acid, :)

fun fun fun.

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remember to do you best to charge the batt 1`st, the acid is much cleaner and stronger that way, and if you can, leave it to stand in a plastic pop bottle for a few days too, you`de be surprised just how much crap actualy settles :)

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remember to do you best to charge the batt 1`st, the acid is much cleaner and stronger that way, and if you can, leave it to stand in a plastic pop bottle for a few days too, you`de be surprised just how much crap actualy settles :)

 

Yeah I was thinking abut that, gotta get my self a charger, :(

I'm not bothered about the "crap" in the the acid as I'll be wanting the gas off it, would this be effected?

 

I've been looking all over at the Car shops for a bottle of the stuff, but all I find is over prices water, lol.

Dont you just love it, :D

 

But until I place my order for other chems I'm happy to make do with this, if the gas is still the same.

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