A new process for silver recovery from all types of X-ray film that is more effective and far more energy efficient than current processes

许多废物管理公司和他们的客户并没有意识到某些废物流的真正价值。医疗和工业x射线胶片、印刷电路板、工业废物和许多其他“废物”都含有少量的贵金属。虽然许多组织将纸板，玻璃和罐头分开回收，但由于缺乏对如何识别这些贵金属废物流的理解或缺乏科学知识，高价值材料通常被作为危险废物处理，因此回收这些材料似乎过于复杂。一个典型的例子是x射线胶片，它含有银（Ag）。几个主要的工业企业已经储存了大量的这种薄膜。医疗行业将大多数电影保存7到30年。国防、海洋、石油/天然气和航空航天工业有数千吨的x射线胶片，作为船舶、潜艇、坦克、飞机、直升机、石油钻井平台、管道、炼油厂和许多其他应用中焊接和铸造部件的无损检测（NDT）质量控制的一部分。胶片是在设备使用期间保存的，但在大型存储设施中经常被遗忘。我们发明了一种新的水化学工艺，可以同时从传统的干式膜中去除银。进一步的研究将使我们能够更密切地探索新工艺，我们相信该技术可以改进到处理大多数（如果不是全部的话）干膜类型，同时回收几乎所有的银（99%以上），能耗非常低，特别是与焚烧相比。与现有的热解工艺相比，拟议工艺的好处是：•回收约99%的银•估计节省90%的能源成本•减少98%的碳足迹•原产国可以保留对回收金属的控制•NHS，国防，航空航天，海洋，海洋工业可以从薄膜中回收价值•回收价值250至500英镑/吨的高品位PET薄膜。

Many waste management companies and their customers are not aware of the true value ofcertain waste streams. Medical and industrial X-ray films, printed circuit boards, industrialwastes and many other ‘wastes’ contain small amounts of precious metals. While manyorganisations separate cardboard, glass and cans for recycling, yet higher value materials areoften disposed of as hazardous waste because there is a lack of understanding as to how toidentify these precious metal waste streams or there is a lack of scientific knowledge and sorecycling these materials seems too complicated.A prime example of this is X-ray film, which contains silver (Ag). Several major industrieshave stockpiled large quantities of this film. The medical industry keeps most films forbetween 7 and 30 years. The defence, marine, oil/gas & aerospace industries have thousandsof tonnes of x-ray film taken as part of the Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) quality control ofwelds and cast parts in ships, submarines, tanks, aircraft, helicopters, oil rigs, pipelines,refineries and many other applications. Film is kept for the life of the equipment, but often liesforgotten in large storage facilities.We have invented a novel hydro-chemistry process to remove silver from traditional & dryview film at the same time. Further research will allow us to explore the novel process moreclosely, and we believe that the technology could be refined to treat most if not all dry filmtypes, while recovering virtually ALL the silver (99+%), with very low energy consumption,especially compared to incineration.The benefits of the proposed process v. existing pyrolysis process are:• Recovery of an estimated 99% of silver• An estimated 90% saving in energy cost• 98% cut in the carbon footprint• Country of origin can retain control of metal recovered• NHS, Defence, Aerospace, Marine, Offshore industries can recover value from film• Recovery of high grade PET film worth £250 to £500/te.