Silver Refining: Extract pure Silver at Home from Mixed Metal Jewelry 

We are extracting pure Silver (Ag) from cheap jewelry containing copper and silver.
The metals are converted into nitrates by dissolving them in concentrated nitric acid. The excess acid is evaporated and the forming crystals are re-dissolved in water. A piece of elemental copper is added to this solution. The silver nitrate in solution reacts with the copper, forming copper nitrate and elemental Silver.
A simplified equation of this single displacement reaction is below:
AgNO3 + Cu = CuNO3 + Ag
The obtained silver can be molten directly as-is. To use the silver for making an electrolyte solution for silver plating, the Ag has to be molten before reacting it with nitric acid again to form silver nitrate. Nitric acid reacts violently with this "silver dust" as it has too much surface area.
Materials needed:
- Scrap Silver (we used 5,36g)
- 70% Concentrated Nitric Acid HNO3 (we used 17ml which is a slight excess)
- A piece of copper
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