rickbb said:
Fixer, (sodium thiousulphate), will only work on the un-developed, (virgin), film and paper.
For your developed film you need a different method, (and honestly you'd be better off just selling it as is).
Blix, (bleach/fix) is used in the development of color film negatives or color slide film. X-ray film is very similar to black and white photo film/paper and lithographic film processing. It only uses a developer bath, (which turns the exposed silver bromine/halide crystals black), then a fix bath (which strips the un-exposed silver off the film), then a water rinse before a hot air dry down.
I was wrong about the blix. I read somewhere that ferricyanide bleaches converted silver to AgCl and just assumed that a bleach-fix would convert and dissolve Ag. This doesn't seem to be the case. I've never used it. Live and learn.
If one truly wants to dissolve the Ag from developed film in thiosulfate, they must first convert the Ag to AgCl. This can be done in hypochlorite laundry bleach. I think I read in an old Kodak book (recently posted) that from 2 - 22% of this, at room temperature, would convert all the Ag and quickly remove the emulsion at the same time, in short order. I think household laundry bleach was 6.25% but, now, most brands are stronger. After rinsing well, the resulting AgCl is finally dissolved in thiosulfate.
There are 3 basic types of medical x-ray film -
(1) Undeveloped Rare-Earth - Silver Bromide. Before being exposed to light, this film is usually a light green color. Thus, it is called "Green" film in the trade.
(2) Developed Rare-Earth - Black Silver Particles.
(3) Dry-View - Silver Behanate (almost transparent)/Silver Metal (black). Dry-View is the Kodak brand of this type film. There are others. On these, the image is developed by heat. Therefore, no silver is removed during developing. Both undeveloped and developed Dry-View contain the same amount of silver (.04-.10 tr.oz Ag/pound, depending of the manufacturer. Undeveloped Dry-view is clear (tiny bit cloudy) blue and it looks like regular x-ray film after the emulsion has been stripped. Heating with boiling water will turn it solid black. The plastic PET film base is the same on all 3, except there is an intermediate mylar layer on the Dry-View.
Industrial x-ray film is the same, except that they don't use Dry-view (yet). Industrial contains a little over 3 times more Ag than Medical Rare Earth.
There are many ways to strip film but I know of only one chemical method that will strip all 3 types. That is hot caustic soda (sodium hydroxide; lye) solution. I have used from 3% to 10%. On undeveloped and developed rare-earth film, the emulsion breaks break loose fairly quickly (10-15 min, @ 150F, @ 5% Caustic Soda), when tumbling, but it takes 200F for about an hour with Dry-View. Dry-View works best with the Caustic Soda at the higher end of the above range). The silver on the Dry-View never breaks in the caustic up but stays as a super-thin black sheet. If you strip a 3/8" triangular piece of chopped Dry-View, a 3/8" triangular sheet of black silver eventually floats off. After removal from the plastic, the black silver material is collected and then treated like the regular sludge below.
You should have no problem stripping either developed or developed Industrial film with Caustic Soda. The silver bromide on the undeveloped film will be converted to silver oxide and the black silver on the developed film will not be altered. The sludge is then incinerated and flux melted with about 30% its weight in borax and 10% in soda ash (sodium carbonate).