# Greetings everyone!!!



## NDEnewbie (Sep 2, 2016)

Hello. 
New to this site... I have been doing some research on silver recovery from Xray film. I work in Non-destructive inspection and have access to hundreds of pounds of spent film. Nermourous gallons of spent developer, stop bath, and fix. 
I have done a small sample run of getting the gelatin off 1 peice of 14" * 17" developed film. I burnt down the gelatin and have been left with black dust, that looks to have a silver dust shine to it. I was thinking of burning it down with a blowtorch in a cermarmic dish using borax as a glaze.
Q: What weight in grams of dust would be a good starting weight for my first test?? 
Thanks in advance. I have tons to learn, and will be reading a lot be for asking all the "New guy" questions.


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## NDEnewbie (Sep 2, 2016)

1 more thing.......
I have right now, 45gallons of spend developer "almost black liquid" from processing so much film. What chemical do I use to solidify the silver to the bottom. I'm thinking that evaporating 45 gallons of chemicals in small batches on the bbq will take me 6 months. 
Thanks!


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## goldsilverpro (Sep 3, 2016)

NDEnewbie said:


> Hello.
> New to this site... I have been doing some research on silver recovery from Xray film. I work in Non-destructive inspection and have access to hundreds of pounds of spent film. Nermourous gallons of spent developer, stop bath, and fix.
> I have done a small sample run of getting the gelatin off 1 peice of 14" * 17" developed film. I burnt down the gelatin and have been left with black dust, that looks to have a silver dust shine to it. I was thinking of burning it down with a blowtorch in a cermarmic dish using borax as a glaze.
> Q: What weight in grams of dust would be a good starting weight for my first test??
> Thanks in advance. I have tons to learn, and will be reading a lot be for asking all the "New guy" questions.


With incineration of film, you will tend to lose 25-30% of the silver up in the smoke. Very poor way to process the film. 

There are several different chemical solutions that can be used to dislodge the emulsion/silver from the film. In industry, although it can be dangerous, the most common is about a 4 to 10% sodium hydroxide solution, run hot. A much, much safer solution contains baking soda solution and an enzyme. It is run slightly warm. Another method, which I don't care for, uses bleach or a 10% HCl solution to convert the silver to silver chloride. Lots of stink. 

For industrial x-ray film, I would use the enzyme solution. At my last refinery, I had a 350 gallon tank filled with the enzyme solution and it worked great. I ran it about 120F and it stripped the film in about 10 minutes. I used the same solution every day for well over a year - I just added a little enzyme every morning. By use of a hoist, a stainless steel tumbler made from the drum of an industrial clothes dryer that held about 50-100 pounds of chopped up film was lowered into the solution. At the end of the day, I pumped the black solution into drums that were elevated higher than the tank. The next morning, the black sludge had settled and the solution was siphoned back into the tank, heated up, and reused. 

The enzyme I used was made by Miles Laboratories. I think Corning also made it. An experiment I've also thought of but haven't tried is using Rid-X, or similar septic tank enzymes to strip the film. If I were you, I would test this by first dissolving 30g of baking soda in a liter of water, heating it to about 120F, and then dissolving, say, about 5-10g of Rid-X in it. Then put a piece of film in it and see what happens. If it strips the film in a reasonable amount of time, you're in business.

Running film chemically is not as easy as it looks. Run in bulk, the film must first be shredded or chopped into about 1/2" pieces. If you try running a number of full sheets together, the sheets will stick together when they get wet and you'll never get all the silver in between the stuck-together sheets. After stripping off the emulsion/silver, it is filtered, rinsed, incinerated, and then melted and cast into bars.

Developed industrial X-rays should average about $5 in silver per pound of film, at a $20 silver spot price. About an equal amount of silver will be dissolved in the chemistry. Getting the silver out of the fixer is a whole other story.


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## NDEnewbie (Sep 3, 2016)

Wow.
By burning down it down......i meant just the gelatin. I boiled the film for about and hour, and the gelatin scraped right off, I used a little tin in the bbq and evaporated till crunchy chunks were left over. I just pulverized it into dust. 
Q: would I still be loosing a lot of silver that way.
NoAH pure has been hard to find in stores, I may have to purchase off the net.


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## NDEnewbie (Sep 3, 2016)

I guess I should just ask this question. 
Is a home setup project worth the time vs the return. All in all I'd say I have around 1000lbs of developed industrial xray film 90gal of stop bath and fix (mixed together) and 45gal of used developer.thanks.


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## goldsilverpro (Sep 3, 2016)

NDEnewbie said:


> Wow.
> By burning down it down......i meant just the gelatin. I boiled the film for about and hour, and the gelatin scraped right off, I used a little tin in the bbq and evaporated till crunchy chunks were left over. I just pulverized it into dust.
> Q: would I still be loosing a lot of silver that way.
> NoAH pure has been hard to find in stores, I may have to purchase off the net.





> I guess I should just ask this question.
> Is a home setup project worth the time vs the return. All in all I'd say I have around 1000lbs of developed industrial x-ray film 90gal of stop bath and fix (mixed together) and 45gal of used developer.thanks.


A sheet of film probably contains, on average, about $0.10 - $0.20 worth of silver. Therefore, the boiling and scrapping method of 1 sheet at a time or even handling one sheet at a time in a chemical process would definitely be a loser. I have seen film shredded in a heavy-duty paper shredder. This works OK but it twists the pieces and this decreases the bulk density about 10 times or more. In other words, if shredded in a paper shredder, you could only pack 1/10 as much weight of film in a bucket as you could with whole sheets or sheets cut into flat pieces.

With any of the chemical methods I mentioned, everything falls off, leaving just clear plastic. No scrapping needed. With enzyme and shredded film, you could use a cement mixer, with a lid on it, or you could use 2 containers of different sizes - like a 3 gal bucket and a 5 gal bucket. You put the solution in the 5 gal bucket. You drill a bunch of holes in the 3 gal bucket, put the shredded film in it, and then put it into the 5 gal bucket and slowly bob it up and down. You would also have a 2nd 5 gal bucket with water in it to rinse the film.

The 1000# of film you have is worth about $5000 U.S. If that's all you'll have, I would keep everything low-tech, like a cement mixer or the 2-bucket method. Is this a one-time deal or will it be ongoing? If ongoing, how much will you get each month?

When you say a "home setup", this can mean a lot of different things. Explain your home situation. Kids? Animals? Neighbors? Outbuildings?

If there is a film refiner within a reasonable distance of you, I would just sell the film and not screw with all the mess and waste solutions you'll surely have. This is top-of-the-line film. You should get from 50 to 70% of silver value for it, depending on your negotiating skill. If there aren't any film refiners close, there surely are in-between film buyers somewhere close. With them, you'll have to take less but you still might be able to get 50%.


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## NDEnewbie (Sep 4, 2016)

Thanks for all the info....
It wouldn't be a 1 time thing. But would take a few years to stock up that much film again. It would be ongoing for the chemicals tho. My company averages about 7 gallons a month of used developer, stop and fix ( 7 gallons each).
By home setup I mean using my shop at work. We also have a devision at work that has a big steel fabrication shop, so I do have access to storage of my "things needed" and a secure safe environment to process the film and chemicals.
I'm thinking about making this my winter project, so I have a few months to do some research, but would still love to do a little sample run to get some silver fever.
Sorry if I didn't answer all your questions. This is all done on my smart phone and I can scroll down to see the last posts from you!


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