A novel electrochemical silver-refining method, modeled in Excel and prototyped with a custom cell design and supporting electronics. Developed to improve efficiency and performance over existing commercial refining techniques.

Design and testing

A novel, proprietary electrochemical process for refining silver was tested, using custom electronics and firmware to measure and apply varying voltages to electrodes, and a chemical-resistant enclosure. Silver powder samples were melted and subsequently tested for purity using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry.

Impact

Silver samples were shown to be of adequate purity to compete with the current refining process, thereby validating the novel process. This novel process was also shown to be both more energy efficient (<5% energy usage of existing process) and more environmentally friendly (produces no gas fumes) compared to the existing process.

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