Silver recovery using steel wool

[MingMingPhoto]

hi guys. I have a PH meter and was hoping to get advice on silver recovery using the steel wool method. we already have one right now that we pay to have swapped out every year but I'm interested in doing the whole process myself.

is anyone here an expert on the matter?

if so, any tips on how to prepare a new set of steelwool, and how to test the PH and how to actually do the recovery would be helpful.

 

[koraks]

How much silver is there in the film that you process, on an annual basis?
The short & sweet answer is that at the scale of a small lab or a home user, it's not economical to do silver recovery.

 

[MingMingPhoto]

How much silver is there in the film that you process, on an annual basis?
The short & sweet answer is that at the scale of a small lab or a home user, it's not economical to do silver recovery.

what if I'm holding my exhausted steel wool for more than a year?

 

[koraks]

You'd still have to face the actual recovery process, which is not something easily done unless you know quite well what you're doing. There's also the efficiency question - will the sales value of the silver justify the expense (both in cash and in kind) of the recovery effort? The answer is usually a firm "no" for small-scale labs.

If you're contracting it out now, IMO you've optimized it as far as you reasonably can.

 

[mcfitz]

If you read through to the end of this article, it tells you pretty much all you need to know.

Also, Koraks is correct with what he's told you.

Silver extraction from exhausted film fixer

Here are my 20 Argentine pesos on silver extraction from film fixer. As you already know, a big variety of light sensitive emulsions contain silver salts that form the image through development and…

analoguephotolab.com