RECOVERY OF SILVER FROM PHOTOGRAPHIC FILM

A project report submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of

B.E

In

Chemical Engineering
By

Name: Aakriti Khadka Roll no: 13

Name: Aishwarya Bhandari Roll no: 04

Name: Preksha Adhikari Roll no: 02

Name: Reshav Shrestha Roll no: 24

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY

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 AUGUST 2019

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project titled EXTRACTION OF NATURAL DYE is a bonafide record
of the work done by

Name: Aakriti Khadka Roll no: 13

Name: Aishwarya Bhandari Roll no: 04

Name: Preksha Adhikari Roll no: 02

Name: Reshav Shrestha Roll no: 24

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Engineering in
Chemical Engineering of the Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel during the year 2019.

Bibek Uprety Dr. Rajendra Joshi

Project Coordinator Head of Department

Department of Chemical Engineering Department of Chemical Engineering

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 Project presentation held on ________________________

Internal Examiner External Examiner

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Date: 02:08:2019

To
The Project Supervisor,
Department of Chemical Engineering
Kathmandu University

Subject: Cover letter for project report approval

Dear sir,
We are pleased to submit our project report for reviewing entitled “Recovery of silver from
photographic films”. The project report is submitted as required for credit requirement fulfilment
of course entitled Engineering Project ‘ENGG 102’. The proposal includes the abstract,
introductions, methodology, result and discussions and conclusion of this project.
We hope for your keen review and continual future assistance in our work along with the approval.

Sincerely,
Aakriti Khadka
Aishwarya Bhandari
Preksha Adhikari
Reshav Shrestha

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 ABSTRACT

Radiographic films like X-ray for general radiography consist of silver halide crystals, such as
silver bromide or silver chloride.Waste radiographic films can act as potential source materials for
the recovery of valuable silver.In todays era,where our garbage and waste materials are abundant,it
is mandatory to recycle and one of the waste material which actually contains a valuable item is
waste x-ray films.If we come off a better idea to recycle and extract the silver from a mere waste
x-ray films then we could actually reverse the environmental hazards that we created and if
economical we could do something greater good for society. In this study, a chemical processing
scheme was adopted to recover silver metal from waste radiographic films. The films were
dissolved in 1 M nitric acid (HNO3) solution for 3 hours at 70°C to convert silver into silver nitrate
(AgNO3(aq)). The silver nitrate solution was cemented fine zinc powder.The treatment with Zn
powder resulted in the formation of metallic silver powder.Then for purification process we washed
our solution with HCL.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are thankful to our supervisor Bibek Uprety (Assistant Professor, Department of chemical
science and engineering) for regularly supervising us throughout the project and teaching us the
relevant concept and procedures.
We also express our deepest gratitude to Dr. Rajendra Joshi (Head of Department, Department of
chemical science and Engineering).
We would like to acknowledge our respected teachers: Dr. Kyun Young Park, Dr. Dilip Kumar
Rajak, Dr. Bibek Uprety, Dr. Ziaul Haque Ansari for assisting us in solving our queries and
confusions.
We would like to express our deepest thanks to Mr. Pancharam Tamang & Mr. Babu Kaji Shrestha
(Lab Assistant, Department of Chemical Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University) for their
regular monitoring and assistance.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v
LIST OF TABLES 1
LIST OF FIGURES. 2
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 4
1.1 Soxhlet Extraction 5
1.2 Microplate Reader 5
1.3 Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy 5
1.4 Thin Layer Chromatography 6
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 7
2.1 Materials 7
2.2 Solvent Extraction of the sample using Soxhlet extractor 7
2.3 Purity test of the sample by TLC plate 8
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 9
3.1 Interpretation of FTIR 14
3.2 Interpretation of Thin Layer Chromatography 14
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 15
4.1 Conclusion 15
4.2 Recommendation 15
REFERENCES 16

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Solubility Analysis result at 20 degree Celsius……………………………………….…10

Table 2: Multiplate reader data……………………………………………………………………12

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LIST OF FIGURES.
Figure 1: Extracts from different samples………………………………………………….….……9
Figure 2: Spectrum of different samples……………………………………………………………10
Figure 3: FTIR spectrum……………………………………………………………………………12
Figure 4: TLC observations…………………………………………………………………………14

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TLC: Thin Layer Chromatography
FTIR: Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
PMT: Photomultiplier Tube
UV: Ultra Violet
nm: Nano meters

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Silver, with a price around $500 per kilo, is one of the precious and noble metals. It is used in
large quantities for many purposes, particularly in the photographic industry due to its
photosensitive properties. It has been reported that 25% of the world’s silver needs to be
supplied by recycling and that 75% is obtained from radiographic waste. In terms of the
environment and economy, it is important that silver be recovered from photographic waste.
The research and study on “Silver Extraction” is important for following purposes:

● Lessens pollution from waste plastics of radiographic films.

● Alternative way of silver extraction.
● Good prospect in the future.
● Easier than mining.
● Economical than silver itself.

Compared to other films, waste X-ray photographic films contain an appreciable amount of
silver to enhance sensitivity to transmitted X-rays and there is 0.7 to 2.0% silver by weight left
behind in the emulsion on the polyester film base, even after the development and fixing
processes. These waste films are a good source of silver, which is reused for a variety of
purposes, including light sensitive materials.

Silver recovery methods from waste films can be classified as a) burning the films directly, b)
oxidation of the metallic silver followed by electrolysis and c) stripping the gelatin-silver layer
using different solutions. The second and third methods have been used more extensively than
first one. The first step is commonly leaching, which may be either microbiological or
chemical.

1.1 Leaching
Leaching is the process of extracting substances from a solid by dissolving them in a liquid
naturally. The waste radiographic films were cut manually into pieces with scissors; small
pieces with dimensions of 50 * 50 mm were obtained. These small films were placed in a
beaker containing nitric acid in a heating mantle.

1.2 Cementation
The solution was cemented with Zinc powder for metallic replacement to recover silver by
metallic replacement.

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1.3 Purification
The final outcome needs to be purified. Hence, 1M HCl is used for cleaning the product,
followed by distilled water.

1.4 UV SPECTROSCOPY

UV spectroscopy is routinely used in analytical chemistry for the quantitative determination of

different analytes, such as transition metal ions, highly conjugated organic compounds, and
biological macromolecules.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Materials

1. X ray films

2. Nitric acid (HNO3)

3. Zinc

4. UV spectroscopy

2.2 Leaching of X-ray films in different concentration of nitric

acid
● The X-ray films were cut into dimensions of 50mm*50mm.

● Then, they were leached in different concentrations of nitric acid at 70 degree celcius
in a heating mantle.

1st experiment:

● One hundred grams of waste films were dissolved in 2M HNO3.

● These are 3 hours at 70°C.

2nd experiment:

● Another set of fifty grams of waste films were dissolved in 1M HNO3.

● These are 3 hours at 70°C at an agitation rate of about 300rpm.

3rd experiment:

● Set of 33.33 grams of waste films were dissolved in 1M HNO3 for 3 hours at 70°C at
an agitation rate of about 300rpm.

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2.3 UV Spectroscopy
UV spectroscopy is the technique we used to find out whether the solution has Ag crystals or
not. The wavelength of 420nm would clearly say that the solution has Ag.

2.4 Cementation

1st experiment:

5 gram of ZnO powder employed to the obtained solution.

2nd experiment:

2.5 gram of Zn powder was employed to the obtained solution.

3rd experiment:

1.5 gram of Zn powder was employed to the obtained solution.

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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The result obtained after the leaching and cementation process are presented below.

3.1 Experiment 1

Figure 1-Leaching Figure 2-Cementation

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 Figure 3-UV spectroscopy
After the UV-spectroscopy it was found that silver had a peak value of 346.46 nm.But the

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CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

4.1 Conclusion
The extraction of silver using radiographic films, HNO3, hot plate, magnetic stirrer, Zn was
carried out. We tried about 4 times the entire process with varying concentration of the
solution,
time of the leaching process and amount of Zn used. We conducted the cementation process
using ZnO as well in order to find an alternative to Zn. But unfortunately it didn’t work as
ZnO convert Ag present in the solution into AgO which was hard to recover for us. The
solution obtained after adding Zn was tested in the UV spectrophotometer to check whether it
has Ag concentration or not. But the graph was not clear enough to figure out the actual
wavelength thus, no conclusion was obtained whether the solution had Ag concentration or
not.

4.2 Limitations

● The time required for leaching might have been less to take off all the silver particles
from it.
● The X-Ray used might have less silver than expected.
● The UV-spectrophotometer machine was out of order.

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REFERENCES
1. Ali, N. F., & El-Mohamedy, R. S. R. (2011). Eco-friendly and protective natural dye from
red prickly pear (Opuntia Lasiacantha Pfeiffer) plant. Journal of Saudi chemical
society, 15(3), 257-261.

2. Bechtold, T., Mussak, R., Mahmud‐Ali, A., Ganglberger, E., & Geissler, S. (2006).
Extraction of natural dyes for textile dyeing from coloured plant wastes released from the
food and beverage industry. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 86(2),
233-242.

3. Scholze, B., & Meier, D. (2001). Characterization of the water-insoluble fraction from
pyrolysis oil (pyrolytic lignin). Part I. PY–GC/MS, FTIR, and functional groups. Journal
of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 60(1), 41-54.

4. Singh, R., Jain, A., Panwar, S., Gupta, D., & Khare, S. K. (2005). Antimicrobial activity of
some natural dyes. Dyes and pigments, 66(2), 99-102.

5. Sinha, K., Chowdhury, S., Saha, P. D., & Datta, S. (2013). Modeling of
microwave-assisted extraction of natural dye from seeds of Bixa orellana (Annatto) using
response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN). Industrial
Crops and Products, 41, 165-171. 

6. ZHAnG, X., & Laursen, R. A. (2005). Development of mild extraction methods for the
analysis of natural dyes in textiles of historical interest using LC-diode array
detector-MS. Analytical Chemistry, 77(7), 2022-2025.

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