Recovering silver can be done in a couple of ways. I think a
web search will turn some up. The big motion picture labs used to
recover silver and regenerate the fixing baths. Since in color
processing virtually all the silver is removed from the film a
large lab can make a lot of money from it. A small home darkroom
not so much but I have heard from people who recovered enough to
earn enough to make it practical. Because all the silver is
removed from color film quite a bit more can be gotten than from
B&W where some must be left to form the image. Fixer which has
been overworked to the point where its cloudy will plate clean
copper pennies. Lots in the literature about this.
On 4/25/2019 7:51 PM, Zack Widup wrote:
A friend of mine who was a professional photographer had a machine that electroplated the silver out. It had some thin metal disks (stainless steel, I think) that the silver plated on in a tank full of spent fixer. He would then remove the disks, flex them and the sheets of silver would pop off. I think he recovered quite a bit of money doing that and selling the silver.
Zack
