Copper Parting

Made a visit to Jack's yard today while I was there cut these silver soldered copper ends off of a few industrial condensers, with silver now at $27.70 a troy ounce its worth chasing.



After burning off the oil residue the ends get melted into a cathode, the tube video below pretty much explains the rest of the process.

From Ammen's book Refining Precious Metals Wastes.

The crude copper is the anode, and a pure copper starting sheet is the cathode. The electrolyte is made by dissolving, in distilled water, copper sulphate (CuSOJ, a copper salt that is approximately 25% copper. Some sulphuric acid is added as free acid to increase the
conductivity of the bath.

A typical copper-refining acid bath, in miniature, would be: 250 grams per liter of copper sulphate, and 75 grams per liter of sulphuric acid; a bath operating temperature of 70° to 120°F; a voltage of 6 to 8 volts; and a current density in amperes of from 20 to 100 amperes
per square foot of cathode surface.

Copper from the crude copper anode goes into solution and the positive ions of pure copper ( C u ) are carried over to the cathode by electromotive force through the electrolyte, where they are neutralized

Silver contacts from over cooked motor start relays, the pads are silver soldered onto iron. A bit of heat removes them, then they're added into the copper anode melt for parting.

What do you guys n gals think about me casting a few copper anodes from the AC ends, maybe even one or two with platinum group metals.

Then offering these up for auction on fleabay and let others enjoy the experience of parting copper to get their silver or pgm's.

Similar in idea to those bags of pay dirt being sold that the buyer is able to pan out the gold during those long cold winter months their not able to get to the rivers and gold bearing streams.

You do not need to run out to the nearest hardware to purchase copper sulphate, minus the copper sulphate mix up the electrolyte per Ammen's instructions.

Insert your copper anode into the barren electrolyte with a copper cathode, copper plated virgin circuit boards work if you do not have a source of a copper sheet.

Once you have applied the necessary power, copper from the anode automatically goes into the electrolyte, once an equilibrium has been met you'll see fresh copper being deposited onto the cathode.

Any old PC power supply will work for the purpose of parting your copper..

From Ammen's book.

A typical copper-refining acid bath, in miniature, would be: 250 grams per liter of copper sulphate, and 75 grams per liter of sulphuric acid; a bath operating temperature of 70° to 120°F; a voltage of 6 to 8 volts; and a current density in amperes of from 20 to 100 amperes
per square foot of cathode surface.

Ammen is referring to 98% sulphuric ( oil of vitriol ) almost like syrup, battery acid runs at 33% you can purchase this from NAPA.

I have not melted to copper pieces into a solid anode instead have them placed in a pile near the lead anode, also throttled the voltage back to 1.9 volts 7;5 amps hoping to get a better tighter copper dieposit at the cathode.

I am interested in your continuing process. Thanks for sharing. 73, Mike

Top image shows the distribution of the silver solder which is common on most joints.

One issue is the copper sulfate in solution's is not being replaced fast enough, when this happens the plated copper is fluffy and the voltage on the power supply drops as simple remedy would be to insert an aquarium heater.

Also the copper should have been melted into a solid or at least have the tubing flattened to avoid an accumulation of concentrated copper sulfate inside the tubing.

This mornings copper harvest, I now have 2.5 pounds recovered, plenty of silver rearing its head, bottom image silver contacts from main circuit breaker with the smaller ones removed from magnetic motor start switch.

The smaller contacts are brazed onto a magnetic backing, plenty of iron, these are soaking in a dilute sulfuric solution, the end result will be ferric sulfate in solution with the contacts left behind to harvest.