How do I clean silver with aluminum foil and salt?
Silver jewelry can be cleaned impressively even with simple household remedies. How exactly can I clean my silver jewelry? With little chemical tricks :)
I only found chemistry moderately exciting when I was at school, but a little chemical knowledge is really useful for cleaning silver! Watch out now - cleaning silver jewelry can be so easy:
Cleaning silver jewelry with salt and aluminum foil
- Take a plastic bowl (not metal!)
- Sprinkle ordinary table salt into the bowl (approx. 200 g of salt per 1 liter of water)
- Pour hot water over the whole thing
- Wrap your jewelry in aluminum foil (do not wrap it completely waterproof, just so that the jewelry has contact with the aluminum foil) or line the inside of the bowl with aluminum foil (but you should do this before you pour salt and hot water into the bowl ;))
- Place your silver jewelry in the bowl (please only place jewelry that has not been blackened and that is free of stones and especially pearls! Some stones and all pearls do not tolerate this cleaning method)
It is very fascinating to watch how quickly the dark layer peels off the silver. This produces a sulphur smell - this is completely normal, so please don't be surprised.
Depending on the degree of soiling of the silver, this takes one to two minutes. Please do not leave your jewelry in the bowl for too long, as otherwise a (different) patina will form on the silver, which will be difficult to remove. So if your silver jewelry is not completely clean the first time, it is better to take it out, wash it thoroughly with clear water and repeat the whole process.
Because the fact that we are using a simple chemical reaction for cleaning here also limits the cleaning power of our cleaning bath.
Why is that? It's quite simple:
The black layer on the silver is called "silver sulphide" - a completely normal compound between silver and sulphur that the silver forms through contact with - for example - air. To form silver sulphide, the silver has to give up electrons, so if we simply add new electrons to the silver, it dissolves its bond with the sulphur again. We get these electrons from the aluminum. This is because the "less noble" a metal is, the easier it gives up electrons. And since aluminum is less noble than silver (silver = precious metal / aluminum = not a precious metal), the electrons from aluminum migrate nicely to silver. The salt in our cleaning bath separates into ions in the water (i.e. into charged particles) and thus makes our water conductive.
As soon as our electrons reach the silver, exactly what we were so fascinated to observe happens: The silver separates from the sulphur again. To put it more scientifically, a reduction of silver to aluminum takes place and these two metals swap their bonding partners, so to speak - this creates aluminum sulfite and our silver is "pure" again.
However, the electrons that such an aluminum foil can release are naturally limited. At some point, no more electrons will migrate and our reaction will come to a standstill. It doesn't help to leave the silver in the cleaning bath for longer - nothing will happen. Once our cleaning bath is "used up", the ions that previously helped to transport the electrons can precipitate on the silver - which in turn leads to the patina that is difficult to remove.
Incidentally, the fact that we use hot water only helps to speed up the whole process. It would actually also work with cold water, but then everything takes much, much longer. So now our silver is clean again. However, our reduction has not produced any real shine. So simply rub dry with a soft cloth and then polish with a silver polishing cloth. Our silver is almost as good as new!
Have silver jewelry cleaned
And if you're now thinking: "Phew. Sounds all well and good. But I don't actually have the time. And I don't feel like it!" Then we have a very simple solution for you: just send all your silver jewelry to us! We will clean your silver jewelryprofessionally and conveniently for you and send your jewelry back to you clean and beautiful after the work is done :)
Please use our contact form and send us pictures of your jewelry so that we can assess the extent of the cleaning in the best possible way. And if you have any questions, you can of course send them to us as a message at any time. We will of course advise you on all your questions. It is important to us that you have a good feeling when you entrust your jewelry to us :)