Selling Silver Nitrate Profitable

The current spot price of silver sits currently at 16.92 USD per troy ounce. This gives a spot price of 0.544 USD per gram. Silver nitrate at one dollar per gram contains per mole only 107.8682g of silver, meaning only 58.86 dollars at spot price.

Selling one mole of silver at spot price would yield 58.86 dollars but in the form of silver nitrate more than 170 dollars. Even at 50 cents US per gram this would mean one mole of AgNO3 is worth 85 dollars per mole.

Considering that I can acquire 0.5L of nitric acid (15.8 Molar) for about 15 dollars US, would it be profitable to produce and sell silver nitrate? I have the equipment and experience to do so. All I would need to do is react silver rounds (the cheapest source of 99.9% Ag) with acid, dry, and maybe recrystallize. Is anyone on this forum interested in purchasing a few moles of silver nitrate at 170 dollars per mole? How large is the silver nitrate market? Has anyone made money using home chemistry here?

Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1

At 169.87 g/mol, I would think you'd be selling less than 1-mol quantities. The way the math works out according to your stats, it's about $1 a gram, so maybe you could do 5g, 10g and 25g quantities to make sure they're cheap enough to attract buyers? EBay seems a likely candidate for this sort of sale, barring any restrictions on silver nitrate I haven't heard about. Incidentally, how much are those coins? I have an old troy ounce of silver I bought a few years ago for about $20, and am wondering if it's worth polishing back to a full shine and keeping or if I should just do what you're doing.

Quote: Originally posted by Cryolite.

Another thing you might try along these lines is to make silver powder and sell that. It goes for a 2-3x markup over the price of silver bullion, and the synthesis is trivial from silver nitrate, sodium hydroxide, and sugar.

I too have considered selling silver nitrate,
my first batch from recycled silver was a failure due to copper contamination,
for my second attempt I used a US eagle 99.9% silver coin and 'lab grade' nitric acid (from APCpure/Atom Scientific)
although faint, a green tint was apparent in the silver nitrate crystals.
I still do not know if it was due to the 0.1% impurity in the silver (almost certainly copper), or in the acid, which was colourless.
Next time I'll probably use a Canadian maple leaf coin at 99.99% silver..

Also you have to avoid halides (e.g. HCl) as silver halides are light sensitive, discolouring your product.
All sources of nitric acid have impurities so get a CoA for yours before using it to make silver nitrate of presumed high purity.
I still have most of that batch and hope to purify it someday. now that I know a little more chemistry I may even succeed

Well that's funny.
About 1 year ago I found a silver ring.

I first thought I'd make SA/DS out of it and blow up a heart shaped cake for St Valentine

I didnt get to do it though. I acquired a lot more silverware, made a small business like some of you did and well... You'll see me asking a couple questions here and there about silver chemistry pretty soon !

St. Valentines Day Massacre comes to mind


How can you fail at SA/DS ?

Quote: Originally posted by VSEPR_VOID

Quote: Originally posted by Cryolite.   Another thing you might try along these lines is to make silver powder and sell that. It goes for a 2-3x markup over the price of silver bullion, and the synthesis is trivial from silver nitrate, sodium hydroxide, and sugar. Do you have a link to a synthesis you recommend or have tried?

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

St. Valentines Day Massacre comes to mind How can you fail at SA/DS ?

Lack of time and workers in the house prevented me from following up with the plan. Otherwise I would have made it into some kind of artistic project and posted the pictures on SM.

I still have the ring. Maybe next Valentine's

Quote: Originally posted by Melgar

If you have extra silver and want to put it in a form where you'd get a bit more money for it, then silver nitrate isn't a bad idea. But silver nitrate DEFINITELY isn't worth it to buy the silver and then sell the salt. Since silver nitrate is used in the purification and isolation of silver, a process that adds a step for you might actually be saving a step for someone else. If you want to do something like this, PdCl2 has much better margins and still moves moderately fast. You just need to buy an ounce to get anywhere near the spot price. But because the price of Pd is much more volatile than the price of Ag, there's more potential for making money by watching the markets.

You can sell silver nitrate on eBay. I have been in violation of their hazardous materials policy lately, and had to move a couple of listings to pick up only as a result, so I have been reading into this lately.

They follow the USPS Pub 52 Appendix A listing of materials and requirements. If you can ship it via USPS, then they accept it. It doesn't matter if you can legally ship it via UPS or FedEx, that is what they use.

Here is a pic of the silver nitrate entry. It can be shipped as ORM-D or under Limited Quantity exemption.



[Edited on 19-2-2018 by Loptr]

Quote: Originally posted by Loptr

You can sell silver nitrate on eBay. I have been in violation of their hazardous materials policy lately, and had to move a couple of listings to pick up only as a result, so I have been reading into this lately. They follow the USPS Pub 52 Appendix A listing of materials and requirements. If you can ship it via USPS, then they accept it. It doesn't matter if you can legally ship it via UPS or FedEx, that is what they use. Here is a pic of the silver nitrate entry. It can be shipped as ORM-D or under Limited Quantity exemption. [Edited on 19-2-2018 by Loptr]