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has anyone ever tried recovering silver from fix?
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there is a small amount of info available online as to how to do this and a few products available but most of these are geared toward sending off the silver in return for cash… I’m more interested in re-using the metal myself (even if it takes years to get a small ingot for casting), but also saving my septic tank as silver is the most toxic part of the waste.
so, has anyone given it a go?
if so how did you go about it? was it a complicated process? how much metal was recovered from how much fix?
I’ve occasionally thought about it, esp. when running a community darkroom, but never really investigated.
There are a few galvanic systems about; e.g.:
http://www.fujindt.com/products/conventional-xray/accessories.asp” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Making one doesn’t sound impossible either; but you’d need a lot of photochemistry to get a workable amount of silver I’d think; also it mightn’t be in a usable form, i.e. you’d possibly have to to melt it and skim off the slag (all do-able :))
I’m sure someone in a larger country (e.g. US, Russia) has tried that.
sounds like fun project and let us know if you dug something up.i did research on this some time ago but left it off for a while so I’m re researching… as long as it doesn’t work out being terribly expensive to do I’m not bothered about it being complicated or taking a long time.
it seems wire wool can be used as the iron replaces the silver but you are left with a sludge, not sure yet what happens next on that one. Kodak used to supply units which they then had processed and reimbursed you for the metal.
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/documents/e4/0900688a803130e4/J200_en.pdfI’ve also found this paper: http://www.alexeng.edu.eg/~aej/Archives/2004/3/391.pdf but as yet not really done much more than that, other info buried on external HD.
i’m willing to accept that it may all be a bit far fetched of course though!
Worked in a printers years back, used tons of film per year, didn’t get great return on either neg film or fixer…….. A lot of effort for little return
…..came across this by chance….
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum146/68135-silver-magnet-silver-recovery-device.html” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
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Some suggestions here also: http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/19569-silver-recovery.html” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
the price for silver at the mo from those cash for gold places is €0.37c per gramme –
not worth the hassle of recovering the silver from fixer for a cash return.for the environment . . . my local lab takes my used fixer – they have a machine for removing the silver content.
the fizz : thanks a million, very useful links!
aoluain : I’m more interested in re-using the metal myself than selling it to be honest but i would like to lower the toxicity of waste. its a back burner project at the moment anyway
here is a gook kodak ased resource for recovering silver and some
estimations on the amounts that can be recovered on average >http://www.kodak.com/ek/uploadedFiles/J210ENG.pdf” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
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