# Results from my first film recovery



## rickbb (Nov 24, 2013)

Here is some pics of my results from the x-ray film trial. Stated with appx. 100 lbs. of film and now have some ugly looking little bars, 8 1/2 ozt. Some look really clean and pure, others not so much. I really need to work on my melting, sigh.

All in all I learned a lot, but money wise I have about the same return as I would have if I had followed the advise I was given here and just sold the film for $1 lb. But where would the fun in that be? lol



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## nh6886 (Nov 26, 2013)

Thanks for sharing the pictures RickBB.
What recovery method did you use? 
By the way I think the silver looks fine, especially for a trial run on a recovery process. I poured my silver to cold to start with but that's an easy fix. Also using a cover flame from a second torch like KADriver shared is a big help if its something you want to look really nice.
Be safe and have fun,
John


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 26, 2013)

Welcome to the world of refining x-ray scrap. It's not as easy as it sounds.

The only way that the silver from X-ray film can be contaminated is if you contaminated it during the process. There are no metals on the film but silver.


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## nh6886 (Nov 27, 2013)

Sorry Rick I just saw your other post about burning the film.
What did you end up doing to recover the silver from the ash?

All the Best,
John


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## rickbb (Nov 27, 2013)

@ John, No I didn't burn the film. That makes way too much toxic smoke without having a proper incineration setup with a scrubber system to clean the smoke stack output. 

I tried several chemical methods in sample batches first but came to the conclusion that none of them were working as well as the tried and true.

I used the traditional method of soaking in heated NaOH to strip the emulsion/silver. 

Then let it settle and siphon off the liquid. Take the black sludge and incinerate that to covert any remaining chlorides to oxides.

Add some borax and sodium carbonate flux and melt. 

One of my melting mistakes was to add too much borax, I think on my next melt batch I'll use much less flux. My next silver melt will be from keyboard Mylar's. 

I doubt I'll ever get any more x-ray film this was a one shot deal with a small office. They are likely to go digital soon so recovery from film is going to die off in the coming years. Besides I'm only going to make just a little more money on selling the silver than I would have by selling the film outright. (And that's not counting my time, which was many, many hours!)


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 27, 2013)

At present, with a $19.84 spot price for silver, the best developed medical x-ray film averages about $1.98 per pound, assuming there is no Dryview mixed with it. Most catscans seem to be Dryview in recent years. Refining film is a lot of work and, in my opinion, it takes a lot of volume to make money. Of course, big volume takes lots of expensive equipment and lots of knowledge.


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## rickbb (Nov 27, 2013)

Yep, at appx. 100 lbs. of film it was just $200 worth of silver. My yield of 8 1/2 ozt. is only $160 or so. But I spent $40 to $50 on chems and gas for the melting. I could have sold the film for $100, so I'm getting a whopping $10 or $20 for all my time. Which was spread out over several weeks, collecting, shredding and I was doing this in batches that fit in a 5 gal bucket at night after my day job.

I learned much and I'm glad I did it, especially when I look at the end result, but highly doubt I'll do it again. If I get another load of film, I'll sell it and stick the money in my pocket.


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## nh6886 (Nov 27, 2013)

Rick,

I apologize, your post clearly says how you processed the film I somehow misread it. I have box of industrial radiographs that I need to do sometime but I'm leaning toward oxalic but have been reading up on others experiences.

All the Best,
John


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