Photographic silver question

[Pawnbroker Bob]

I need some advice from some of the Gurus on the forum.

I picked up some inline electolytic photographic recovery cells from an auction a few months back. The cells were filled with accumulated black stuff. I have assumed some form of silver. This was accumlated on plates in the cell. This residue is black/dark grey, not moist but smelled of ammonia. The stuff is dense and I have about 5 lbs of it.

Any idea as to what this is? I have never done any photographic recovery.
Should I hit it with nitric? Melt it? Any ideas?

Thanks,

Pawnbroker Bob

 

[Pawnbroker Bob]

I should add that the faint ammonia smell had me worried but this stuff seems quite stable. According to the cell protocols I can find this stuff should be almost pure silver. I did try melting a gram or so with a hobby butane tourch with no result. I didnt want to contaminate any of my gold melting equipmet without knowing what this is.

PB Bob

 

[lazersteve]

Bob,

GSP is the go to guy for the info you seek.

He should be along shortly.

He has loads of experience processing photographic wastes.

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Bob,

I am nothing of an expert on these things but I my father deals with them quite often. He owns a recycling buisness and they get these things all the time. From my experience with them they usually contain quite a bit of silver. We have broken one open and there is defintently a strong ammonia smell. We did process one ourselves and got about 3 ounces. If you send it to a commercial refinery you can get alot more. My dad on averge gets about 10 a month and sends them to Academy silver out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They will process it and then send you a check. My dad usually makes good money, but then again he usually gets the canisters for free. Their websit is http://www.academycorp.com/

Hope this may help you.

MoVegas

 

[goldsilverpro]

I don't understand where the ammonia smell comes from. The ones I worked with had a very strong sulfur smell. The black is silver sulfide. The gray is mostly silver. They are best processed in a gas crucible furnace, using rebar to collect and slag out the sulfur. This subject was recently covered in another thread.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=1755&highlight=cannisters+sulfur+silver

 

[ChucknC]

Thanks for the tip on the refiner MoVegas. I'll check them out myself.
Chuck

 

[teabone]

The ammonia smell occurs when the fixer and developer solutions are mixed together. Silver from electrolytic recovery cells can be 90 percent or better, unlike steel wool cartridges which can be low grade and very difficult to refine.

 

[Pawnbroker Bob]

Thank you all for your input. I knew I could count on everyone to come through.

I think I am going to rinse and roast first to get rid of the residual photo chemicals. Do a nitric test and asuming the nitric test indicates high grade silver I will smelt it.

I dont have a mold large enough so I may sand cast it or use the greased cast iron muffing baking dish method of my own design. +) it actually makes great round ingots.

Thanks again for the info.

PB Bob

 

[Harold_V]

I think I am going to rinse and roast first to get rid of the residual photo chemicals. Do a nitric test and asuming the nitric test indicates high grade silver I will smelt it.

I strongly suggest you follow the advice provided by GSP---the man has years of silver recovery under his belt and knows well of what he speaks.

If you go to the trouble to melt the stuff, use rebar (or other scrap steel--angle iron, channel iron, etc.). Otherwise you're going to lose some of the silver. Use a borax flux while allowing the sulfides to be liberated from the silver (with scrap steel), then pour to a cone mold when the sulfides have been converted. The cone mold will allow the metal, which will stratify, to be easily separated from the sulfide layer that you'll find above the values. Flux will end up on top.

Harold