Electrolytic recovery of silver from dental radiographic films

Silver (Ag) was removed from unexposed Kodak X-OmatRP; T-MatG; X-Omat duplicating; and ultraspeed periapical dental radiographic films by immersing them into a fixer solution until the films were completely translucent. The silver was recovered from the fixer solution by the electrolytic plating technique. The number of unexposed films needed to be fixed in order to recover one troy ounce of silver by electrolysis was as follows: 250 panoramic films or 200 cephalometric films or 2,000 posterior periapical films. The silver was assayed for its purity by energy dispersive x-ray analysis, coupled to a scanning electron microscope. Depending on the sample tested, the purity of the silver recovered by electrolysis varied from 78 to 89 percent.