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How to Separate Silver From Rock

Extracting pure silver from ore is an extremely time consuming and difficult task. Silver usually doesn't comprise more than 0.5% of the total weight of the ore it is mined from. The three most common types of combination ore include copper, lead and zinc along with silver. The extraction process involves at least three steps, sometimes more depending on the mineral content of the original ore, that must be done in a controlled environment. Due to these factors most silver mined is the result of a multiple metal mining operation.

Things You'll Need

Floatation separation aeration tank
Smelting equipment
High temperature forge
Sulfuric acid
Coal dust vaporizer
Electro refining equipment including a large aqueous solution tank and two electrodes
Zinc

Instructions

- 1
  Crush the ore and load it into an aeration tank.
- 2
  Pump air bubbles into the tank to adhere to the metal dust.
- 3
  Scrape the resulting froth off from the top of the tank. This froth with consist of copper, zinc, lead, and silver while the remaining sludge will sink to the bottom.
- 4
  Place the froth in a smelting pot and heat it to vaporize the copper and copper sulfide components. This vaporized copper is caught and re-condensed by a condenser above the smelting unit.
- 5
  Introduce extra zinc to the froth. This will combine with the silver and send the lead to the top of the mixture.
- 6
  Skim off the lead.
- 7
  Bathe the remaining froth in sulfuric acid to remove the zinc component.
- 8
  Place the remaining silver in an aqueous solution and dissolve.
- 9
  Insert a positive electrode at one end of the aqueous tank and a negative electrode at the other end and turn them on.
- 10
  Collect the purified silver that accumulates on the negative electrode.

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