Silver Reclaim Process

Atomic_03 · Oct 21, 2024

Hello!
I was wondering what the best method is for silver reclaiming or rather what yields the highest product?

I’m saving all of my prints to eventually bleach the silver from the paper as well as all my fixer to try and get as much silver back as possible. Luckily, being a university student gives me access to a lot of powerful purification processes so I’m only left at what the best method is to actually reclaim the silver.

I say that a steel wool displacement would yield higher product however I’d like to know others thoughts on this? I don’t plan to get a lot of silver back but something small would be nice!

Thanks everybody!

koraks · Oct 22, 2024

Electrolytic recovery appears to work best, but doesn't make sense at the scale you're aiming at.

Replacement approaches (steel wool, tinfoil etc.) leave you with challenges w.r.t. purification.

Whichever method you use, you'll come to the conclusion that the effort and energy spent on the process only make sense if you scale up the operation by a few orders of magnitude.

_T_ · Oct 22, 2024

I'm guessing you're doing this project for the fun and learning experience of it, as opposed to trying to make a profit. So I would probably choose whatever method seems the most interesting and fun to try.

I don't know how budget constrained your project is, but you might find that one method is more affordable than another at the scale you're working and with the suppliers that scale makes feasible.

Atomic_03 · Oct 22, 2024

_T_ said:
I'm guessing you're doing this project for the fun and learning experience of it, as opposed to trying to make a profit. So I would probably choose whatever method seems the most interesting and fun to try.

I don't know how budget constrained your project is, but you might find that one method is more affordable than another at the scale you're working and with the suppliers that scale makes feasible.

You’re right on the dot with it. As a student in university for materials, I have access to purification means well beyond what I probably need (think 9N purity) so this is just a project for the fun of it. I plan to try to recover a small amount but enough to do some thin film testing with it at a later date for a project with my professor.

I’ve reached out to a few local film labs about their exhausted fixer but sadly one of them (that I know just discard it) give it to a company for free where they get the silver out of it while the other place does reclaiming themselves so I’m stuck to whatever I have from old developed test strips and film development it seems.

Atomic_03 · Oct 22, 2024

koraks said:
Electrolytic recovery appears to work best, but doesn't make sense at the scale you're aiming at.

Replacement approaches (steel wool, tinfoil etc.) leave you with challenges w.r.t. purification.

Whichever method you use, you'll come to the conclusion that the effort and energy spent on the process only make sense if you scale up the operation by a few orders of magnitude.

I assume the steel wool/ tinfoil method is the cheapest and probably doesn’t require anything “special” per se. Luckily purity isn’t much a concern.

Waldo · Oct 22, 2024

Atomic_03 said:
You’re right on the dot with it. As a student in university for materials, I have access to purification means well beyond what I probably need (think 9N purity) so this is just a project for the fun of it. I plan to try to recover a small amount but enough to do some thin film testing with it at a later date for a project with my professor.

I’ve reached out to a few local film labs about their exhausted fixer but sadly one of them (that I know just discard it) give it to a company for free where they get the silver out of it while the other place does reclaiming themselves so I’m stuck to whatever I have from old developed test strips and film development it seems.

Does your university have an art department, or a photography club? They might be another easy source of used fixer.

Since you're doing this for fun, and seem to have knowledge and access to some chemistry tools I think it would be great fun recycling the silver into some silver nitrate for use in alternative processes. Be warned, it's not exactly friendly stuff so do proper research beforehand.

Atomic_03 · Nov 4, 2024

Waldo said:
Does your university have an art department, or a photography club? They might be another easy source of used fixer.

Since you're doing this for fun, and seem to have knowledge and access to some chemistry tools I think it would be great fun recycling the silver into some silver nitrate for use in alternative processes. Be warned, it's not exactly friendly stuff so do proper research beforehand.

Luckily my university does have a darkroom class that I’m currently in, so I’ll be trying to get fixer from them as well as a local lab I got in contact with. Still researching the ins and outs of it all.

I wish that the silver magnet was still in production as I think that would be the best tool for the batch size I’m working with. Perhaps I can find another small electrolysis setup somehow unless someone on here still has one they don’t use.

Silver Reclaim Process

Atomic_03

koraks

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_T_

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Waldo

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