# Industrial Xray fixer solution and film?



## Mmon2616 (Apr 27, 2014)

Hello to every one on GRF! I a newbie at refining and I have made numerous rookie mistakes and wasted lost of money and gold. I decided to start reading up on refining and looking it I forums and you guys have answered a lot of questions. I am not a guy that just wants to do this as a hobby. I really enjoy doing it. I have a buddy that owns an industrial radiography and inspection company and he decided he would give me all his fixer solution and waste film. I think I have read somewhere on this forum that you can use zinc to precipitate the silver from the solution. But is there an easier cheaper way. I know zing isn't that expensive I am just curious. I will be getting about 100 gallons every few weeks. I also have tried to get the silver from the film and I am having trouble. I cleared the film with bleach then filtered of the greyish substance after it settled. Then I dried the grey and put it in a crucible. I then api called borax on it and heated it to a honey like state. I let it cool them I tried to dissolve it in nitric. It did not dissolve. Can anyone help me with both of these processes? I love doing this but I want to make sure I do it right. I would really appreciate anyone's help and I hope you all have an amazing day. Thanks for your time.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 27, 2014)

When using bleach, the silver ends up as silver chloride (AgCl). Simply melting with borax does nothing but fuse all the AgCl together, a state that makes the silver very difficult to recover. AgCl is not soluble in nitric. You could have used soda ash along with the borax to convert the the AgCl to silver metal. However, this reaction will attack the crucible fairly rapidly and eat holes in it. The best way to convert the AgCl is by using wet chemistry. I usually used Karo syrup and caustic soda (same as sodium hydroxide or lye) to convert it to silver. There are other ways to do this. All this has been discussed many, many times on the forum.

Actually, using beach is a very poor way to go about this. I always used about a 5%-10% caustic soda solution to strip the emulsion and the silver from the film. Here again, this and other methods have been covered many many times. 

Use the forum search for things like: film caustic soda; etc.. If you insist on using bleach, try searching for silver chloride; Karo syrup; etc.

Film is not easy to process no matter how you do it. On this forum, since about any information you would need for anything has already been discussed, your best bet is to start searching and reading. Then, you will be able to ask more informed questions

At present prices, developed black industrial X-ray scrap will average about $5 to $5.50 per pound in silver. Undeveloped green industrial about $10-$12/pound.


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## Mmon2616 (Apr 27, 2014)

Thanks for the info. Yeah I realized I screwed up when I just used borax. For some reason I thought it would do the same as soda ash. Like I said I am a newbie. Lol. I do have a lot of caustic soda/lye. I purchased a book on eBay that I thought would be helpful but it is very unreliable. Does anyone have any suggestions on the fixer solution? I will try the things you said and reply the results. Thanks again.


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 27, 2014)

Mmon2616 said:


> Thanks for the info. Yeah I realized I screwed up when I just used borax. For some reason I thought it would do the same as soda ash. Like I said I am a newbie. Lol. I do have a lot of caustic soda/lye. I purchased a book on eBay that I thought would be helpful but it is very unreliable. Does anyone have any suggestions on the fixer solution? I will try the things you said and reply the results. Thanks again.



You might wade through this
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=fixer+&terms=all&author=&sv=0&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

As you can see, there's a lot of info on fixer. The 3 common ways to recover silver from fixer are electrolytic, zinc, and sodium sulfide precipitation. They all have their problems, but these can be overcome.


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## Mmon2616 (Apr 27, 2014)

Thanks. I do have zinc. What are some of the problems I will have to overcome when using zinc. Also I guesstimate I will be fitting about 100lbs of film every couple of weeks. I have connections at 5 industrial inspection companies that are going to be giving me their film. I may be getting more film than that. Since I have worked in the industry I have a few friends that are going to give me boxes of old film that they aren't going to use. One company wants me to split some of the profits. What is a good split since I have to buy the chems and do the work?


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