I determined the silver composition from an alloy obtained from a jeweler to be 55% and wanted to extract silver out of it. However, upon melting around 5 kgs of alloy, the silver composition went up to 57%. I noticed similar increase for another 2 times (different alloys of silver, i.e. different samples)
Could it be something related to oxidation/reduction of silver or any metal resulting in the increase in composition while in the furnace?
What are some of the analytical tests out there I could use to accurately determine the elemental composition and the compounds present in the original alloy vs the one just after melting it?