BLIX and Bleach Disposal

mshchem

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Just to try to get everyone on the same page. If I get you correctly you are starting up a Noritsu V30 processor. This is a roughly 20 year old (nothing wrong with that) minilab designed to run C-41RA . Bleach III is used in the original process C-41 (6.5 minute bleach time) or C-41B (4.5 min.?). This process is used with huge continuous roller processors, where films are spliced onto very long reels before processing, then separated after, or for dip and dunk, or large tanks. The C41-RA process reduces bleach times from up to 6 1/2 minutes to 1 minute. The V30 uses 69 second bleach time.
The fastest minilabs I've seen can process a roll of C-41 135-36 in about 7 1/2 minutes. Looks like the V30 is a bit more conservative and takes about 10 1/2 minutes.

You use freshly mixed replenisher in each tank. The waste tanks are sized appropriately. The bleach waste is the smallest tank, as a 36 exposure roll uses 7.5 mL of replenisher, this is the lowest dose rate of all the solutions. There's no need to run the bleach waste through any silver recovery process or regenerate. The fixer effluent will contain silver. Takes a heck of a lot of film to add up to an ounce of silver. I would think collecting the fixer effluent and asking the city what is the best course makes sense. The other wastes, which will be minimal usually go into the sanitary sewer.
 

EdSawyer

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good info to know! I use the regular C-41 process (not RA), fwiw. It sounds like the RA bleach must be much stronger than Bleach III if it can get the job done in 60 seconds vs. 6.5 minutes.
 
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