Ag recovery from copper anode slime by acid leaching at atmospheric pressure to synthesize silver nanoparticles

In this paper, recovery of silver from anode slime of Sarcheshmeh copper complex in Iran and subsequent synthesis of silver nanoparticles from leaching solution is investigated. Sarcheshmeh anode slime is mainly consisted of Cu, Ag, Pb and Se. Amount of Ag in the considered anode slime was 5.4% (by weight). The goal was to recover as much as possible Ag from anode slime at atmospheric pressure to synthesize Ag nanoparticles. Therefore, acid leaching was used for this purpose. The anode slime was leached with sulfuric and nitric acid from room to 90 °C at different acid concentrations and the run which yielded the most recovery of Ag was selected for Ag nanoparticles synthesis. At this condition, Cu, Pb and Se are leached as well as Ag. To separate Ag from leach solution HCl was added and silver was precipitated as AgCl which were then dissolved by ammonia solution. The Ag nanoparticles are synthesized from this solution by chemical reduction method by aid of sodium borohydride in the presence of PVP and PEG as stabilizers. The synthesized Ag nanoparticles showed a peak of 394 nm in UV–vis spectrum and TEM images showed a rather uniform Ag nanoparticles of 12 nm.