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silverblood | 11-29-2009 12:05 AM
Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Porters sells this device to collect silver from spent photographic film and paper fixer. Silver Magnet Silver Recovery Unit They say that a home darkroom that goes through a gallon of fixer a week can recover from 30 to 50 ounces of silver per year. I rarely consume fixer at that rate, at least not for sustained periods, but I may go through enough fixer to recover 10 ounces of silver a year. It seems a pity to keep throwing my silver-laden fixer down the drain, as I've done for many years. This is what they say about it: Quote:
Electrolytic silver recovery device designed for the smaller darkroom recovers 30 to 50 troy ounces of silver per year if you use just one gallon of fixer solution per week. Simply submerge the pick-up cell in a container of used fixer solution, plug into an AC outlet, and it starts extracting silver. When the Silver Magnet becomes filled with silver (up to 30 troy ounces), insert the pick-up cell into the included preaddressed shipping bag and mail to the recycler. Payment will be mailed to you promptly. 221063 Silver Magnet includes power supply, pick-up cell, instructions, shipping bag and mailer envelope. 221065 Silver test strips are used to determine approximate silver concentration in fixer.
They sell the unit for $46, and replacement cells for $18. So after the initial investment of 2.5 oz of silver to buy the unit, it'll cost you another ounce per replacement cell. That's not so bad, but I figure I might be able to make my own device for lower cost. Can someone suggest how to construct a simple homemade electrolytic silver recovery device to extract silver from sodium or ammonium thiosulfate type film and paper fixers?

silverblood | 11-29-2009 12:16 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Found this on another site: Quote:
6.7.17.1 Electrolysis Recovery Method. When electric current is passed between two electrodes immersed in the silver-bearing fixer, the silver is electronically deposited upon the cathode. This silver can be stripped from the cathode and refined. This method permits re-use of the fixer
How much current? What would make good electrodes?

ShortJohnSilver | 11-29-2009 12:30 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Best to go to http://goldrefiningforum.com ; the guys there seem to know it cold.

silverblood | 11-29-2009 12:54 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom I'll check that out SJS, thanks. I forgot about that site. I believe I registered there a long while back... I also found this discussion on photo.net: Electrolytic silver recovery voltage & current

Hellsbane | 12-10-2009 10:25 PM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Hmmmmm what do studios do with their spent photographic film and paper fixer?

Saul Mine | 12-11-2009 02:10 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom The silver deposits on the wool. One is left with a silver sludge. Kodak makes/used to make? a 5 gallon drum; packed with steel wool. You let the old fixer stay in the drum; say overnight; then the fixer was drained out.. This drum was then returned to Kodak or recyclers; who sent you a check for the assay of the silver removed from the sludge. Saddly this low cost technique has gotten out of vogue; it was simple and dumb and worked well. You can build your own; and save up the sludge; and wait till silver prices go up. The electrical removal system we have worked well for many years; and plates a cake on an electrode. Now it is all corroded up; and I use a simple 5 gallon paint bucket; packed with steel wool. If you use steel wool you do not need electricity! Essentially the silver percipitates out as a black sludge. The iron, being more active chemically, replaces the silver in the solution. When you dump the liquid it contains iron rather that silver, and the iron is considered relatively harmless. http://photo.net/black-and-white-pho...g-forum/006io9

silverblood | 12-11-2009 03:39 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom I considered the steel wool method. Kodak still makes their recovery buckets, or at least, you can still buy them from certain photographic supply vendors (e.g., Calumet). Rotex also makes them - http://www.rotexsilver.com/reloadable_canisters.htm. Also a company called CPAC, and another company called Imagemax. Some of them are fairly expensive, but as your quote from the photo.net thread indicated, you can make your own. According to Rotex, one pound of steel wool can recover 6 to 9 troy ounces of silver "in normal operation". But therein lies the problem for a home darkroom. Normal operation for a dentist may be a gallon of fixer a day. For a minilab, it could be many times that. But the volumes of spent fixer produced by a home darkroom are so low that the steel wool or iron may degrade (rust) before it has recovered much silver. Anyway, I'm still looking into it. Electrolytic recovery seems simpler for low and irregular volumes.

lumpOgold | 01-23-2010 08:03 PM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Quote:
Originally Posted by silverblood (Post 2069924) I considered the steel wool method. Kodak still makes their recovery buckets, or at least, you can still buy them from certain photographic supply vendors (e.g., Calumet). Rotex also makes them - http://www.rotexsilver.com/reloadable_canisters.htm. Also a company called CPAC, and another company called Imagemax. Some of them are fairly expensive, but as your quote from the photo.net thread indicated, you can make your own. According to Rotex, one pound of steel wool can recover 6 to 9 troy ounces of silver "in normal operation". But therein lies the problem for a home darkroom. Normal operation for a dentist may be a gallon of fixer a day. For a minilab, it could be many times that. But the volumes of spent fixer produced by a home darkroom are so low that the steel wool or iron may degrade (rust) before it has recovered much silver. Anyway, I'm still looking into it. Electrolytic recovery seems simpler for low and irregular volumes.
Do you have any idea how much the steel wool canister costs? I would specifically be interested in the M-25 (capacity is about 150+ tr oz). I'll call rotex next week, but thought maybe someone here has purchases this one or one similar and have a ballpark price. Thanks!:s1:

silverblood | 01-24-2010 02:02 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom I haven't checked the price yet. You know you can make your own by packing common steel wool, which you can get at Home Depot or similar, into a bucket, then just slowly pour in spent fixer, or drain it in slowly from your fixer tank. Do you use a lot of fixer?

Red_Leg | 01-24-2010 11:11 AM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom I saw the following in the local news and thought of this thread. I admit I know nothing about this topic. Ya learn something new everyday. The place I retired from was pretty tough on people that were caught 'stealing' their recycle materials. Quote:
Associated Press | Posted: Sunday, January 24, 2010 9:00 am URBANA -- Police in Urbana say a thief who made off with hundreds of old X-rays from Carle Clinic probably wanted them for the value of their silver content. Urbana Police Sgt. Dan Morgan says that on Jan. 13, a man who is believed to have done the same thing at other hospitals in Illinois showed up at the clinic's storage facility and picked up 1,300 packets of X-rays intended for recycling. Carle Clinic spokeswoman Jennifer Hendricks says X-rays were from 2005 and earlier, and she does not believe the information included with them would be sufficient for identity theft. Morgan says that if the thief is successful at recycling the X-rays for their silver content, he'd probably get a few hundred dollars -- enough to make the crime a felony.

mayhem | 01-24-2010 01:12 PM
Re: Photographic silver recovery - home darkroom Ran/Owned a "litho' prep shop in the 70's. I had 3 - 30" film processors all equipped with silver recovery units. We also sold any scrap film. Originally when the price of silver was low I would throw one hell of a Christmas in July party for the employees in the Key's. When the Hunt's made the run on silver I bailed out at $30 +/- a oz. When it crashed I just kept it here. I still have about 200 lbs of the sledge. If I recall correctly, the purity varries from 70 to 80 %. It has been a long time and many miles since I sent any to a refiner. Maybe I get the son to dig it up and send it out.

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