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Silver Magnet Silver Recovery Device

thanks for bringing these concerns up marco ..
i spoke with trevor at ecs and he is will update the
portal's front page and this thread to be more clear ...

- john
 
This might be a dumb question:

I've been reversal processing black and white negatives for a while. The bleach I use is a Potassium Permanganate / Sodium bisulfate bleach. WOuld the magnet recover the silver from that bleach or is the silver from this bleach unrecoverable? I've been taking it to a local chemical dropoff site, but I'd be interested in using your magnet if possible.
 
hi existing light

i spoke with the manufacturer,
and they said as long as you are able
to do something to lower to ph of your solution
to about ph 3 you can use the magnet.

john
 
hi barry

if it is is b/w fixer with no bleach in it, there are no worries,
but if it is mixed with bleach for color or wild alt process stuff
you have to target your ph to be about 3 ... i hope this makes sense ..
i don't do anything with bleaches so i don't really know if it makes sense or not

john
 

I'm no chemist, so I dont know the reasoning behind it, but I guess I can get the ph to 3. is there a specific way I need to get the ph to 3 or does it no matter as long as it's at 3?

Thanks for the reply btw
 
i am not really sure ..

i am not a chemist, either ... and i am not
really sure how you would go about doing that ..
and i am not sure
if whatever you decide you would want to
change the ph with will do something adverse
with the recover devices ..
i will ask again, and let you know ...

john
 
hi again

i asked the manufacturers what they suggest ..
and they said it is beyond their scope of expertise ..
and i am sorry to say, it is beyond mine too ...

maybe a mini-lab who does recovery can let you know
what they do to lower the ph ...

sorry i can't be of more help ..

john
 
The issue with bleach & fixer or blix is the bleach will start to re-dissolve the silver already plated out.

It's getting late here (Turkey) so I'll re-read tomorrow. meanwhile John can you send me technical data on the units & I'll get back to you.

Ian
 
thanks for the updates, John.

Ian, is there a way to 'neutralize' the bleach so that it wouldnt redissolve the silver that's already been plated out? Would lowering the PH to 3 be enough to keep the potassium permanganate bleach from redissolving the silver? (I know those might be dumb questions, but my knowledge of chemistry is 'limited,' to say the least )
 
In large scale silver recovery silver is plated out of recirculating fixer or bleach fix (blix) using sophisticated plating units that control the ampage precisely, too much current and the fixer is destroyed.

Colour processing:

On a smaller scale usually mixing the bleach fix (prints) with the fixer from films after colour processing and also the rinse/wash water is sufficient before passing the solutions through a device like the Silver Magnet units. This will remove most of the silver however the remainder should be removed by then passing the solutions through a Steel/Wire wool cartridge.

The Silver magnet should reduce the level of Silver to 10-15 ppm (very approx) with the cartridge as well to below 1ppm. With just a Silver Magnet then the spent solutions should be diluted by about 10 -20X to comply with the legal 1ppm discharge limits (most areas UK/EU/US).

Black & White processing:

With B&W fixer the Silver Magnet will work more efficiently even with undiluted fixer - which it's designed for.

It needs to be remembered that the small volumes used in home darkrooms are normally very heavily diluted by domestic water wastes and are of little or no concern to waste authorities, but you need to be aware of local regulations.

Kodak's guidelines for safe disposal of photo chemistry are based on agreed procedures accepted by virtually all authorities in North America and The EU/UK and are available online.

Ian
 

thanks for the info. My next big dumb question is does a bleach for black and white reversal processing work like a color bleach when using the silver magnet? I usually mix all my chems together and drop them off at the chemical drop-off site, but I'm wondering if I should keep them in seperate labeled containers...

Lets say I do pour my bleach, which is potassium permanganate and sodium bisulfate, the clear bath (sodium metabisulfite), spent fixer, and wash water in the same container, the silver magnet would be able to retrieve the silver from that, right? Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question, but I think I've gotten myself confused trying to figure out how to get the ph to 3, as Jnanian said his magnet supplier suggested. BTW, I'm finding nothing worth mentioning about silver recovery on the internet. All I'm finding are MSDS sheets on potassium permanganate, patents for silver recovery systems, and some wikipedia entries for potassium permanganate and processing film :/
 
If you mix the permanganate solution with the metabisulphite the bleach is destroyed so you won't have problems passing that through the Silver Magnet especially if you mix with the fixer.

Ian
 
thanks for your help ian !

existing light
as ian suggests it is best not to dilute the spent fix with the wash water
you want as high a concentration of fix/silver for the magnet to work.
if you are looking into a trickle tank ( iron steel wool tanks ) it can scrub
the wash water, and the post-magnet spent fixer to get the rest of the silver from it.
used with the magnet, the trickle tanks can handle 1000 to 2000 gallons of waste
and are pretty efficient ... working alone, without the magnet to pre-de-silver your waste
the tanks can handle about 400-800 of waste ( depending on the size of the cartridge / tank )

john
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have one of these units and have always wondered...just when should I stop? Should the red LED be glowing brightly in a lit room, or glowing dimly in a dimly-lit room, or...?

Thank you.
 
As they plate out the silver the capacity is physical rather than electrical, you should be able to see an appreciable build up of silver before you need to even think about sending for recovery.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
If you mix the permanganate solution with the metabisulphite the bleach is destroyed so you won't have problems passing that through the Silver Magnet especially if you mix with the fixer.

Ian
Click to expand...

awesome. I never would have thought the solution to my permanganate bleach 'problem' would be so easy. Maybe I should run grab some chemistry textbooks so I can learn this stuff for myself
 
steve

it is time to turn the unit off when you see the cathode getting "dark"
at that point it is plating out bromines (bromides?) rather than silver.

- john
 
Well, I have almost a full container (kitty litter bucket) of mostly potassium permanganate /sodium bisulfate bleach and sodium bisulfite clear bath (also a little bit of dektol and wash water. Fixer is still good, so none in this current container). There is a bit of dark gray "dust" on the bottom of the container that swirls around when I pick the bucket up. Is that silver or some other stuff forming solids and falling to the bottom? I ask because it's not much but seems to be quite a lot if it's silver. I'd say the bottom of the bucket is like 4x10 or 4x12 inches (estimating because the bucket is in my darkroom/shed outside), and there's a very thin but noticible layer on the bottom of something.

For the record, I've developed only 2 or 3 rolls of film. I've read that the bleach bleaches out quite a bit of silver because black and white slides require less silver than black and white negs. If this stuff is indeed silver, could that be the reason for the mass of silver lining the bottom of my kitty litter bucket? Thanks in advance


BTW, I'd post a picture, but my main computer is in the shop. It has slots for memory sticks, so I never bought one of those portable card readers. Now I'm left with no way to upload pictures from my point and shoot camera until I get my main compy back
 
it looks like i accidently deleted some of my attachments
attached are images of the silver magnet

thanks !
john
 
SPOT PRICE OF SILVER

TODAY THE SPOT PRICE OF SILVER IS $46.56 / TROY OZ ...

don't dump that $$ down your drain !
 
your device holds 28-32 ounces? which is 1.75 to 2 pounds. have you found a more realistic silver refining partner? not including electricity cost, silver would have to reach 52.50 to 60 / pound to even break even after paying for the anode and processing fee?
 
hi albertzerk

i am not quite sure what you mean ...
this past friday the spot price for silver was $30.25 ...
the silver magnet shipped in the usa is 65$ ...
it pays for itself ( and a replacement anode ) the first time it is sent for refining ...

even if you add in the electricity costs, maybe i am wrong, but i don't think it will cost
600$ in electricity to extract 25oz of silver ... that is about what 25oz will yield.

some refiners have minimums + hidden fees,
the refiners i refer people to (in the usa, canada and the uk/eu)
don't have hidden costs and are upfront about their fees ..

if you have a different refiner or a jeweler or someone else that you would rather have refine your silver
you can by all means send it / bring it / sell it to anyone you want. or you can keep the "full" anodes in a
50 gallon drum in your basement, and hoard them until you want to have the whole drum refined at once.
i have made suggestions to take the hassle out of getting them refined
but you don't need to use them if you don't want ..
 

Ah, I was thinking price per pound, not price per ounce. My bad.
At $30/oz, your refiner is paying $300 / pound, about $600 for a filled device minus refining fees. I got it now.
 
Happy customer here, just want to give a shout out to John. Aside from being an outstanding artist, John is also a wonderful businessman. Thanks again John for a great solution. Andy
 
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