Recover Silver From Fixer

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mda20

mda20

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
92
Hello friends,

Good Day! I would like to know if there is a chemical way to recover silver from concentrated fixer solution. I usually use a electrolysis unit. it is good. But I need to know if I can add some material to the fixer for recovery.

I searched the forum, but no result.

Regards,
mda20
 
Your search function must not be working then. I type in the word "fixer"for these results. 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

Eric
 
Thank you Eric.

This link is useful for me.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=17017&p=172561&hilit=fixer#p172322

But not enough. If I will follow Westerngs`s way:

Westerngs said:
If all you aretrying to accomplish is recover the silver, there is really no need to identify the type fixer you have. That would be close to impossible, as there are thousands of fixer types.

As for recovering the silver, there are several ways for you to go.

The easiest would be to add zinc powder to cement out the silver metal. The resulting silver metal could then be smelted into a bar. It would then require further refining to produce 0.999 silver.

Electrolysis is also an option. That silver would also need to be smelted and further refined. Actually, all silver recovered from fixer would need to be further refined to achieve 0.999 purity. By the way, electrolysis will not remove all the silver, there will still be some left in solution, somewhere in the hundreds of parts per million and will need to be recovered by a different method.

There are also several other precipitation methods you could try, such as sodium borohydride - I never did like to work with sodium borohydride, but some people like it.

You could also run the fixer through a steel wool silver recovery canister. It will need to be smelted to recover the silver and the total costs may be more than the worth of the silver.

I guess my recommendation would be the zinc powder.
Click to expand...

I need to know how much zinc poweder I have to add?
And what does mean: It would then require further refining to produce 0.999 silver?

Regards,
mda20
 
You cement with zinc till you get no more reaction then you collect your precipitate and wash with a dilute sulfuric at about 10% to rid any excess zinc. similar to what you do with PMG powders when you cement them with zinc.

Eric
 
Thank you Eric

I will try your way. let me ask some questions please.

- How much zinc I will start with 5 liter of fixer?
- What you mean by PMG powders?
-Is there any risk when dealing with zinc?

Regards,
mda
 
Beware that fixers may get to you AFTER
silver removal. Asses silver presence
by precipitating with NaOH powder,
washing and analyzing. If positive
Do same for the whole lot.

Answer gold riddle No. 2 on
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gold-electronic-enigma/162208933810735
 
Thank you Lino1406 for posting.
I do not understand what you mean. Could you please give more details?
 
Good Day friends,

I am still wiating for more information. I would like to know if there is a chemical way to recover silver from concentrated fixer solution.

Regars,
mda20
 
Try sticking a piece of copper in the solution and if the silver cements on it use copper for recovery.
 
mda20, i don't know what type of fixer you have, where it come from, but i done some photo fixer back when i first join here and i used NaOH (lye) to drop the silver. I don't think there is a fast way to do what you want, I have learned over the past dealing with precious metals of any kind - time seems to slow way down.

The silver i dropped was in a brown to black mud, i decanted the solution claiming all the powder and washed several times, boiling in distilled water to remove the NaOH (lye).

A word of Caution here is in order, do this outside or in a fume hood, the smell is unpleasent at the least, Also when using NaOH (lye) read the MSDS on lye. lye can effect your health several months down the road and can kill you, DO NOT BREATH THE FUMES. Hope this helps some.
Ken
 
Thank you jeneje

jeneje said:
i don't know what type of fixer you have, where it come from,
Click to expand...

It comes from medical x-ray films.

i done some photo fixer back when i first join here and i used NaOH (lye) to drop the silver.
Click to expand...

Adding NaOH will give black mud from which silver is hard to be recovered.

i decanted the solution claiming all the powder and washed several times, boiling in distilled water to remove the NaOH (lye).
Click to expand...

How it will be washed if it is dissolved in the solution?

Regards,
mda20
 
My understanding at the time was the black powder was the silver, ready to melt. I may be wrong about this but that was my understanding at the time. I have never melted it and have somewhere put up. I now use copper to cement out my silver.

Maybe someone can clarify this - this is a need to know for me also.
Ken

edited lye does not dissolve silver into solution it drops it out of solution.
 
mda20:

First of all,you have to know how many silver is in your fix.Let us see...

You can test your fix using the copper wire method,which is posted in this wonderful Forum.

Once you know how many silver is in 1 litre of fix you can add zinc dust...How many?,well,it depends on your silver concentration,as a rule of thumb add the same quantity of zinc as you have silver,I mean,if you have 6 gr/lt of silver in 5 liters of fix(which leads to 6 gr/lt x 5 lt=30 gr. of silver) then add 30 gr. of zinc dust.A dark mud will be formed which contains silver and zinc,so you need to refine it(by using Karo syrup process or any other refining process) to bring it to 0.999.


Does all above mentioned sound complicated?...Do not worry...you can use my sodium sulphide process to recover your silver,fast and easy and you can also use my process to convert silver sulphide into 0.999 silver.Both processes are posted right here...this why GRF is the best Forum in the world,isn´t it?.

I hope it helps.

Kindest Regards.

Manuel
 
jeneje said:
My understanding at the time was the black powder was the silver, ready to melt. I may be wrong about this but that was my understanding at the time. I have never melted it and have somewhere put up. I now use copper to cement out my silver.

Maybe someone can clarify this - this is a need to know for me also.
Ken
Click to expand...

You can find more details in this forum. Just search for "silver sulphide".


Dear Manuel, thank you for details.
you can use my sodium sulphide process to recover your silver,fast and easy and you can also use my process to convert silver sulphide into 0.999 silver.Both processes are posted right here
Click to expand...

Does sodium sulphide will give metal silver?

this why GRF is the best Forum in the world,isn´t it?.
Click to expand...

Surly it is. I have been getting more and more from this great forum and from kind members here. Especially, Manuel, GSP and others. Thank you for all.
 
Dear kind Friends,

Good Day! After a long search I have found out the best way to recover silver from fixer. It is the zinc method. I will try it.


Best Regards,
mda20
 
Add zinc powder or shavings (bars are a wast of time and will strain your patients) till you get all the silver down(no more reaction) then rinse silver with hot water till it settle's nice. Next rinse with diluted HCl or sulfuric acids @ 10% this will rid your silver of any excess zinc powder.

Eric
 

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