Gold plated silver melting question

jmcu12

I am not sure if this is the forum for this but I thought I woud give it a try.

I want to melt down some gold plated sterling silver and I am wondering if, in the process, I will lose the gold? Will it mix in with the silver, join together, etc? What can I expect?

SilverEagles92

I'm by no means an expert, but...

Would it be bad to lose the gold? Likely, if it's plated, there's only a few cents worth of gold on it. It should not mix with the silver, as they are two COMPLETELY different metals.

JMHO

SmallSizedGuy

Yes, the gold will alloy with the silver.

basestealer

Silver has a lower melting point--you can melt the silver and keep the gold foil intact.

BlindedByEgo

A couple of dips in a nice potassium cyanide bath will strip that pesky gold right off of the silver:

"...cyanide process or cyanidation, method for extracting gold from its ore. The ore is first finely ground and may be concentrated by flotation; if it contains certain impurities, it may be roasted. It is then mixed with a dilute solution of sodium cyanide (or potassium or calcium cyanide) while air is bubbled through it. The gold is oxidized and forms the soluble aurocyanide complex ion, Au(CN)2−1. (Silver, usually present as an impurity, forms a similar soluble ion.) The solution is separated from the ore by methods such as filtration, and the gold is precipitated by adding powdered zinc. The precipitate usually contains silver, which is also precipitated, and unreacted zinc. The precipitate is further refined, e.g., by smelting to remove the zinc and by treating with nitric acid to dissolve the silver. The cyanide process was developed (1887) by J. S. MacArthur and others in Glasgow, Scotland. It is now the most important and widely used process for extracting gold from ores..."

When I was a kid my father (who, as a chemist) had a pretty good lab in a backyard outbuilding. He used a dilute KCN solution to soak a bunch of gold-plated costume jewelry and recover the gold. He always used a respirator and heavy rubber gloves - KCN is not only deadly as a poison, but highly corrosive. The thing with your situation is that you are stripping away from silver, which is also extracted. You will still have to have the resulting metal separated - as stated above.

Out of many pounds of costume jewelry he only recovered a few grams of gold. He did it for fun, rather than profit - and to teach us. I have lots of fond memories of the time spent with my dad "fooling around" in the lab.