The Basics of Silver Mining
Silver mining is the extraction of silver ore from the ground through excavation. Unlike gold, silver is rarely found in nuggets in placer deposits or veins and is often combined with other elements and alloys. Most silver bearing ore contains very little silver. This means that most miners that extract silver do not do it as the primary focus but as a byproduct of mining other materials such as copper and lead. As a result of silver’s natural occurrence in low percentages in ore containing silver, specific extraction techniques are utilized to separate the silver from the ore.
The methods utilized for mining the silver ore vary based on the situation of the ore the miners are looking to extract including considerations such as the grade of the ore, its depth, host rock, and economic considerations. In most situations silver ore is extracted from open pit mines and underground drifts and shafts. As many know, silver is very dense and therefore very heavy. This creates a challenge in extraction as hauling large amounts of heavy silver ore is difficult up long mining shafts. Explosives are commonly utilized to break silver veins in smaller pieces that are transported up mine shafts via mine cars. The process is inherently dangerous and can lead to rock bursts, a structural failing of the mine.
When silver ore has reached the surface it is then crushed into a fine powder. The extraction of silver from the silver ore occurs through smelting, chemical leaching, or through the electrolytic refining of copper or the parkes process applied on lead metal. Smelting is simply providing heat to the silver ore to melt off the silver and separate it from the rest of the composition of the silver ore. Silver melts at 1764oF and a series of metallurgical steps are taken to extract it via the smelting method at this temperature. While mercury was the preferred chemical extraction technique in the past, Parting is the most common chemical extraction of silver from silver ore. Parting involves dissolving a gold alloy (that contains less than 30% gold) and boiling it with 30% nitric acid which separates the silver and gold. The electrolytic refining of copper and the parkes method for separating silver from lead are techniques that use direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction to separate two elements from each other.
The final product that is shipped on to the mint for coin or bar production or for industrial uses is 99.9% pure silver, although higher purity grades do exist.
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