Silver in Factories | HOW IT'S MADE
Silver is a metal that has been around since the history of time, as the scene of trading in silver coins appears in the Old Testament, but its use was less valuable than that of gold. This is because the amount of natural silver produced was less than that of natural gold and it requires extra and much refining.
Since the main source of silver in ancient times was galena, it is often found with lead in ancient ruins. It was also found in archaeological sites such as Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. At this time, silver was considered to be nobler than gold
Old records of silver coins include those of the Kingdom of Lydia in the 7th century BC, which is in Greek. Moreover, it is said that Silver was inherited by Rome. While, Silver production has increased since Attica around the 5th century BC, and silverware was prized and treated with great care during the Roman period. Fascinating right? But have you ever wondered how Silver is made?
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Significance of Silver
Silver was widely used in crafts, but in Europe, silverware as tableware is especially respected, and British silverware is famous artistically. It has been used for a long time in India, and it is known that there was already a store dealing in silverware and silver ingots in China around the time of Tang and Song.
However, while gold symbolizes the sun, silver is associated with the crescent moon because of its colour, worshipped as the goddess of the moon, and revered in medieval alchemy.
Meanwhile, like the global trend, Silver was not used as much as gold from ancient times to the Middle Ages. Precisely, Silver mines were developed in various places during the Muromachi period, and their production value increased sharply.
Origin of the name: Silver
The element symbol Ag for silver is taken from the Latin word Argentum meaning white, which comes from Argos, and the French word argent is also derived from Latin. Whereas, the German word Silber is said to have come from the Assyrian word sarpu, which means silver.
Existence Of Silver
The abundance of silver elements is very small. In addition to being naturally produced as natural silver, it is mainly produced in the form of sulfide. The main minerals are argentite, brittle silver ore, antimony sulfur ore, and chlorargyrite, and there is also chlorargyrite.
It is also contained in some ores such as copper, lead and zinc, and a considerable amount is obtained as a by-product when refining these metals. The world's largest producers are Mexico, Peru, Australia, the United States and China, which account for most of the world's gross domestic product.
Making of Silver
Manufacturing method
Refining from silver-containing ore includes the mixing method, cyanidation method, and dry method, but the mixing method is not often used. Cyanidation method, Natural silver, silver chloride, relatively pure silver sulfide, etc are used as raw materials. Generally, there are many impurities in the raw material ore, and the collection rate is not so good.
Therefore, it is crushed as finely as possible, the concentration of the cyanide solution is increased (0.3 to 0.5%), the leaching time is lengthened by sufficiently stirring (stirring), and oxygen is taken in to increase the yield (80 to 90%).
Since the cost of refining is higher than that of gold, independent silver refining is rarely performed, and it is refined together with gold. The dry method is the same as in the case of gold when smelting copper and lead, smelting by adding silicate of gold ore as a melt to copper and lead ore and taking out with copper and lead at the end.
Purification method
The crude silver obtained as described earlier is purified by electrolytic refining. There are several silver electrolysis methods, but in each case, a silver nitrate solution containing nitric acid is used as the electrolytic solution. The electrodes hang the positive and negative electrodes alternately.
In the meantime, silver may develop into a dendritic shape and short-circuit, so attach a device to scrape it off and put it in a cotton or muslin bag to electrolyze it to prevent contamination of the electrodeposited silver. The obtained silver is collected and melted to obtain electric silver. Purity is usually 99.99% or higher.
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