# Recovering Silver From X-Ray Films -VIDEO



## kadriver (Jan 4, 2018)

Here is a video that I created that shows a way to get silver from X-Ray films:

https://youtu.be/0tn-a0S0FD8

kadriver


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 4, 2018)

Kevin, as usual, a good video, although I feel there are better methods to use in production. I'm always impressed by how neat and tidy you are. Some comments:

(1) Believe it or not, the .5 Oz you came up with was exactly what I would have predicted for 5 pounds of "wet" medical x-ray film. If you check my chart that I've posted several times, you'll see that the average yield for standard "wet" rare earth medical x-ray is 0.1 tr.oz./pound. I've seen it as low as .075 (chest x-rays) and as high as about .12 or .13. My figures are based on assays I performed on about 3000 ea, 10,000 pound batches of film. That's about 30 million pounds of film. Even undeveloped "wet" film only runs about .18 tr.oz./pound. That's 0.9 oz for 5 pounds. Maybe you were thinking about industrial x-ray, which averages about .25-.30 tr.oz./pound, when developed.

(2) About 15 years ago, Kodak "Dryview", x-ray film developed by heat (thus, "dry" x-ray film) became quite popular. Of what little "hard" copy x-rays are used today, the bulk is probably the "dry" variety. A large batch of x-ray today is likely to be a mixture of "wet" and "dry" film. Most all MRI's and Catscans are "dry." When developed, the 2 types look identical. When undeveloped, the "dry" film looks like a slightly milky piece of clear blue plastic. The exposed areas turn black when heated. One way to sort developed "wet" from "dry" is by holding a cigarette lighter flame about 1/2" from the film, underneath a clear area (like the margins) for about 1 or 2 seconds. If the spot turns black quickly, it is "dry " film. Juan gave us another good method. He said that bleach would not strip "dry" film and he is right. Bleach only works on "wet" film. You're lucky that's what you had. In fact, "dry" film is much, much more difficult to process - sometimes I think the best way is to burn it,except you would then lose the value of the plastic and as much as 25% can fly off in the ash. From my assays, I found that the "dry" film runs between .04 and .10 tr.oz./pound, depending on who made it.

(3) Your siphoning technique is almost exactly like mine. The only difference is that, before I give it a stir and let it settle, I put about a 6" piece of 2 X 4 flat under the back edge of the bucket and let the bucket tilt towards me. That way, the solids settle in a pile at the bottom front of the bucket. I then put the tip of the hose about an inch deep, against the front inside of the bucket, at an angle. Then I constantly watch the tip and slide the tip lower as the solution level goes down. I have found that I can siphon off a lot more of the solution this way than I can by leaving the bucket flat and putting the tip in the center. Another trick is to mark about an inch of the hose tip with a big red magic marker. Instead of painting it solid, I put a few stripes laterally along the last 1" of the hose. By marking it, I know how deep the tip is and I don't get it too deep (and suck up solids) or too shallow (and raise the tip out of the solution and lose my siphon). This works great, especially in darker solutions or solution that are not perfectly clear. Eventually, the marker marks will go away and you have to re-mark it. Black works fine in most solutions, but I sort of prefer red.

(4) With 5 pounds of those big sheets cut in half, you had about 100 sheets. I'm sure you figured out fast that doing a sheet at a time wasn't the way to do it. I would be curious as to how long it took you to strip all those sheets. With sheets, you can't put a big pile in because, when wet, the sheets stick together and you don't strip the center of the sheets. The first time I tried it in lye, I had a 30" dia. tumbler. I put about 50 pounds of 8X10 sheets in and let it tumble. After about 6 hours, there were still 4", unstripped spots on each sheet, where the sheets were stuck together. Moral is, you have to chop up the film if you want any sort of decent production.

Good technique all the way through! I like the Streetips on the smock. I always wore smocks but I never could keep them that clean. You're definitely one of the forum success stories.


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## kadriver (Jan 4, 2018)

Thanks Chris. I was wondering about the yield. I've used wooden dowel rod to prop one end of the buck to tilt it when siphoning. Kevin


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