G’day - it’s late night here, actually - a few minutes ago I
took a small part of the pale blue liquid in my pickle pot and
subjected it to chemical tests for silver, and as I suspected,
there was no reaction: there isn’t any silver so don’t bother to
evaporate it and save it any more, eh? Don’t really believe me?
well, one of the most insoluble substances is silver chloride, so
add to the liquid in your pot some sodium chloride - common table
salt - and if there were any silver there, you would get an
instant white cloud of silver chloride. But phosphates and other
things would give you that too, so add carefully enough ammonia
to neutralise the acid, add excess, and shake or stir well, and
the precipitate will dissolve, but only silver chloride will
dissolve, not the other whitish things, and that is a definite
test for silver. There are other things you can do, to confirm
that but you need certain chemicals and I doubt you’ll want to
bother further. Want to tell whether you have silver or some
other silvery metal in your hot hands? Well, ask me again when
I’m wider awake! Cheers,
/\
/ / John Burgess,
/ /
/ //\ johnb@ts.co.nz
/ / \ \
/ (___)
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