Cleaning ?silver? from fixer bottle

[nickc1]

<p>I keep working film fixer in 1litre concertina bottles, and coming to one that had not been used for a while I found that I had left it containing exhausted fixer. As a result there is a metallic-like deposit over the sides and bottom of the bottle (?silver?) that flakes off when I try to clean the bottle for reuse, but does not appear to be easily cleaned off completely. As a result any liquid I put into the bottle is contaminated with metallic-like flakes. I am not certain that these are silver due to the quantity - if there was that much silver in the films I have processed in 1 litre of fixer we would all be rich! It is a gunmetal grey to black metallic flake with the same kind of sheen that you would see on iodine (but obviously not the same colour). <br>

I know that these bottles are not that expensive and I could just replace it, but they are no longer easily available on the high street round here, so any suggestions for cleaning the bottle out and preventing a reoccurrance?<br>

Thanks for your thoughts - Nick</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>You don't need that type of bottle for fixer. Use a clear "recycled" soda/water bottle. You can try to clean that old bottle with household bleach if you want to waste the money, better off throwing it away.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_shriver]

<p>First of all, realize that you probably have a buck's worth of silver in there. Give it a local photo lab, they can recycle the silver.<br>

Dilute Nitric acid will clean it out, making (of course) Silver Nitrate.<br>

As Bob says, soda bottles are fine for fixer. Just label very clearly.<br>

You certainly don't want to keep using the same bottle in that condition, as you film will be contaminated with the silver flakes.</p>

[Alan Johnson]

<p>I use the concentrate solution of toner bleach to clean the black deposit off my stop and fix bottles occasionally:<br>

Potassium Ferricyanide............100g/L<br>

Potassium Bromide...................100g/L<br>

Soak for a day or more till the black deposit dissolves.<br>

Tray cleaning solution might work, I have not tried it.</p>

[erik_prestmo]

<p>As I use cafenol as a developer, I have noticed that the high washing soda content in that mix will remove black silver deposits from old fixer on old, used developing tanks, that was kinda surprizing, since common "wisdom" has it that Cafenol is a staining developer - it certainly aint staining developing tanks!<br>

Since I started with cafenol, I got 3 old Jobo tanks, and all had black stains on the red lids and on the spirals. After a years continued cafenol use, most all of the stain is cone, and I did nothing to make that happen, it just dissolved and washed away.</p>

<p>Stains like that comes from the fixer, and because the previous owner did NOT clean the tanks properly. The fixer will dry, and in the process the concentration of fix to silver in used fixer changes, leaving the silver to fall out of solution and deposit on the surfaces. You can spot the same effect with stained finger prints - fixer contaminated fingers handling the tanks, then setting them aside without proper cleaning.</p>

<p>I dunno if itis thesoda alone, or if the ascorbic acid works in concert in the cafenol mixture, but the stains are gone.</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Household ammonia usually cures what I throw at it, including fixer bottles. Hmmm lemony fresh too!</p>

[george_zaharia]

This also happened to me, with a bottle of exhausted fixer. Out of curiosity, I tried the fixer again and it worked very well. I don't know what disadvantages there could be, but given the purpose of the fixer and the way it works, I don't see any possible problem. Anyway, does anybody have an idea what that deposit might be as a chemical compound, how it forms and why ?