Building a small silver recovery unit

Mark B spake thus:

Well as the one that started this I was far less concerned about whether
it was smart from an economic point of view. For the volumes I do I
know its not. The buckets are a pain. I don't have the resources to
spend the kind of cash it would take to buy the factory made ones. Those
run into the thousands and that investment would be far better spent on
a large format Epson 9600 inkjet printer than a recovery system.

So can someone kindly explain the "steel wool" method teasingly
described above? I asked about it but received no replies. Am I in
everyone's killfile here? or isn't it worthy of discussion?


--
I think someone should unplug the entire Internet and let us start
all over again. This time, make sure that Sergey Brin, Larry Page,
Jimmy Wales, and any admins from Wikipedia are not allowed to play,
by order of the U.N. Security Council or whatever.

- Daniel Brandt, on Wikipedia Review (http://wikipediareview.com)

David Nebenzahl wrote:
Mark B spake thus:

Well as the one that started this I was far less concerned about whether
it was smart from an economic point of view. For the volumes I do I
know its not. The buckets are a pain. I don't have the resources to
spend the kind of cash it would take to buy the factory made ones. Those
run into the thousands and that investment would be far better spent on
a large format Epson 9600 inkjet printer than a recovery system.

So can someone kindly explain the "steel wool" method teasingly
described above? I asked about it but received no replies. Am I in
everyone's killfile here? or isn't it worthy of discussion?


--
I think someone should unplug the entire Internet and let us start
all over again. This time, make sure that Sergey Brin, Larry Page,
Jimmy Wales, and any admins from Wikipedia are not allowed to play,
by order of the U.N. Security Council or whatever.

- Daniel Brandt, on Wikipedia Review (http://wikipediareview.com)

I'm not quite sure what you want explained. A simple approach is, put
a blob of steel wool in a liter of used fixer, wait a few days and
throw
the mess away.

In case you want to keep the silver, filter the mess and discard the
liquid. What you have left is most of the silver and some residue
of iron from the steel wool. The iron can be disolved in acid.

Some folks don't like discarding disolved heavy metals down the drain.

Being silver, the silver part of the residue is nearly insoluble (well,

it disolves in mercury, but that's another problem) and is safer.

David Nebenzahl wrote:
Mark B spake thus:

Well as the one that started this I was far less concerned about
whether it was smart from an economic point of view. For the volumes
I do I know its not. The buckets are a pain. I don't have the
resources to spend the kind of cash it would take to buy the factory
made ones. Those run into the thousands and that investment would be
far better spent on a large format Epson 9600 inkjet printer than a
recovery system.

So can someone kindly explain the "steel wool" method teasingly
described above? I asked about it but received no replies. Am I in
everyone's killfile here? or isn't it worthy of discussion?


The steel wool provides a means for the silver in the chemistry to
attach to the steel. The silver is not very pure and disposal isn't
simple. It works, but I am hoping to improve on that. Some company
sell tanks that hold about 5 gals where it can trickle through the system.

Nicholas O. Lindan wrote:

So, more realistically:

1/8 oz of silver/100 sheets 8x10 [1/2 the silver in the image]
120 8x10 sheets / gallon fix
1 gallon fix / week
50 wks / year

= 7.5 oz / year recovered silver at 1 gal/wk of fixer consumption,
manufacturer claimed "30 - 50 oz".


Another way to figure it: Ilford's capacities for their
fixers are based on averaging. Ten 8x10s or forty 8x10s,
archival or commercial, per liter of working strength. The
silver limits are 0.5 and 2.0 grams respectively. Either
way Ilford is allowing for 0.05 grams silver per 8x10.
As I mentioned previously, 0.08 grams +/- very little is
the usual silver content of an 8x10.
Two bath fixing is the only realistic way to go if silver
recovery is an objective. Dan

Peter spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Mark B spake thus:

Well as the one that started this I was far less concerned about whether
it was smart from an economic point of view. For the volumes I do I
know its not. The buckets are a pain. I don't have the resources to
spend the kind of cash it would take to buy the factory made ones. Those
run into the thousands and that investment would be far better spent on
a large format Epson 9600 inkjet printer than a recovery system.

So can someone kindly explain the "steel wool" method teasingly
described above? I asked about it but received no replies. Am I in
everyone's killfile here? or isn't it worthy of discussion?

I'm not quite sure what you want explained. A simple approach is, put
a blob of steel wool in a liter of used fixer, wait a few days and
throw the mess away.

So a guy could, say, pour off the excess liquid, let the remaining
"mess" dry, then take it (the steel + silver) to a local hazardous
materials drop-off site?

In case you want to keep the silver, filter the mess and discard the
liquid. What you have left is most of the silver and some residue
of iron from the steel wool. The iron can be disolved in acid.

Some folks don't like discarding disolved heavy metals down the drain.

I don't like it, no.


--
I think someone should unplug the entire Internet and let us start
all over again. This time, make sure that Sergey Brin, Larry Page,
Jimmy Wales, and any admins from Wikipedia are not allowed to play,
by order of the U.N. Security Council or whatever.

- Daniel Brandt, on Wikipedia Review (http://wikipediareview.com)

On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 14:46:47 GMT, "Nicholas
O. Lindan" wrote:

"Lloyd Erlick" Lloyd at @the-wire. dot com,
hailing from the land of the Imperial Gallon wrote:
wrote:
Total, 8 grams or a 1/4 plus oz
I'd much rather discuss silver weights in
grams. I'm pretty sure the way silver is sold
is in Troy ounces

Google pondered mightily spake thus:

1 Troy Oz = 31.10 grams
1 regular folks' ounce = 28.35 grams

But you could convince me of most any conversion
factor.

1 troy (French) oz = 480 grains
= 12 pennyweights
12 troy oz = 1 troy lb.
14.58 troy oz = 1 pedestrian lb.
32.15 troy oz = 1 French Kilogram

The English didn't use the metric measuring
system because it was invented by the French;
America carries on this proud tradition.

The troy oz is said to have originated in
France and moved to England with William
the Conqueror.






August 3, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,

I love the tricks memory plays, eh?

So now I'm not even sure silver is sold in
Troy ounces ...

regards,
--le