JP3013127B2 - How to reuse photographic processing waste liquid - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for effectively utilizing waste liquid (hereinafter referred to as photographic waste liquid or waste liquid) generated during the development of a photographic light-sensitive material by an automatic photographic developing machine.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In general, photographic processing of a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material involves processing steps such as development, fixing and washing with black-and-white light-sensitive material, and color development, bleach-fixing (or Bleaching, fixing), washing with water, stabilization, and the like. In a photographic process for processing a large amount of photosensitive material, usually, the components consumed in the processing of the photosensitive material are replenished, and the components eluted from the photosensitive material into the processing solution and the components of the processing solution are kept constant. Means are employed to maintain the performance of the processing solution at a constant level. Specifically, a replenisher is replenished to the treatment liquid for the above replenishment, and a part of the treatment liquid is discarded outside the system as a waste liquid to remove elution components.

However, such a photographic processing waste liquid has an extremely high pollution load, and together with the recent tightening of environmental pollution regulations, it is practically impossible to dispose it in sewers or rivers. For this reason, at present, a collection processing mode is adopted, and a specialized trader is in charge of this. However, the method of outsourcing wastewater treatment to a wastewater treatment company has a disadvantage that a considerable space is required to store the wastewater, and that the cost of collecting the wastewater is high. Further, in order to detoxify the collected waste liquid, extremely large-scale equipment is required, and installation of such a processing equipment requires enormous costs and increases the processing cost. For this reason, some of the collected waste liquid has been discarded in the ocean, and under the current situation where global environmental protection is forcing the ban on ocean dumping, waste liquid treatment is becoming a serious problem.

[0004] In order to solve the above problems, efforts have been made to reduce the amount of waste liquid as much as possible. For example, low replenishment processing, regeneration processing, and the like have been actively researched and developed. However, it is still insufficient to reduce the amount of waste liquid, and another innovative method has been desired.

[0005] As another problem, there is a problem of water necessary for dissolving the treating agent or for compensating for the evaporation. That is, the processing agent for photographic processing is supplied in the form of a concentrated solution in consideration of transportability and handleability, and needs to be diluted with water when used. When the treating agent is supplied as a solid treating agent such as a powder, a granule, a tablet, etc., not in the state of a so-called concentrated kit, more water is required. In addition, since the processing solution is maintained at a temperature higher than room temperature and is being processed, inevitably evaporation occurs and concentration of the processing solution,
This causes a drop in the processing liquid level. In such a case, the processing performance cannot be maintained at a constant level. Therefore, water corresponding to the evaporation amount is generally supplied as evaporation correction. In this way, water is always required to perform photo processing, but with the recent spread of minilabs and microlabs, there are cases where photoprocessing must be performed in places where there is no nearby water supply, Securing water is becoming a very pressing issue.

As a method for solving the problem of treating waste liquid and securing water, JP-A-62-201442 discloses a method.
A method is disclosed in which the waste liquid is heated and evaporated at normal pressure, and the obtained distillate is reused.Also, there is a description that this distillate can be used as it is in the bleach-fix solution, but the waste liquid is heated and evaporated at normal pressure. In such case, components and decomposition products in various waste liquids accumulate in the distillate, and cannot be practically used as dissolved water or evaporation-corrected water. This has also been found by the study of the present inventors.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 3-229688 discloses a method of heating and evaporating by decompression means. However, by this method, bad odor at the time of evaporation and concentration is almost eliminated, or decomposition products and the like in waste liquid are removed. Accumulation in the distillate is considerably reduced. However, when the distillate produced by this method was used as dissolved water or evaporation-corrected water, it was found that the image storability after processing was significantly reduced.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above-mentioned problems, an object of the present invention is to distill a distillate produced by a photographic waste liquid processing apparatus as dissolved water of a processing agent or evaporation-corrected water without causing a problem in photographic processing. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method that can be used and that substantially reduces or eliminates the amount of a processing waste liquid without generating a bad odor.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the present invention is to provide a photographic processing waste liquid.
In the method of evaporating and concentrating under a reduced pressure of 700 mmHg or less and at 90 ° C. or less, the photographic processing waste liquid is substantially free of acetic acid, and the distillate that has been subjected to the evaporating and concentrating treatment is dissolved water and / Alternatively, it has been found that the present invention can be achieved by a method for reusing a photographic processing waste liquid, which is characterized in that the photographic processing waste liquid is used as evaporative water supplement in a processing tank of an automatic developing machine.

In the present invention, the photographic processing waste liquid is 200 mmH
g under a reduced pressure of not more than g, the photographic processing waste liquid is subjected to the evaporative concentration treatment at a temperature of 60 ° C or less, and the distillate is dissolved water of a photographic processing agent and / or a processing tank of an automatic developing machine. The effect of the present invention becomes more remarkable by using it other than the color developing solution as the evaporation replenisher.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail.

[0012] The photographic processing waste liquid used in the present invention is not particularly limited, and may be generated in any step of the photographic processing step, or may be a effluent generated from one of the photographic processing steps. Alternatively, the waste liquid generated from a plurality of steps may be collected.

[0013] Examples of the photographic processing waste solution include a color developing solution, a bleaching solution, a fixing solution, a bleach-fixing solution, a stabilizing solution, and a pre-washed black-and-white developing solution in a color developing process. Treatment solution, PS plate treatment solution, and the like.

The reduced pressure condition for evaporating and concentrating the waste liquid is preferably 200 mmHg or less, more preferably 5 to 100 mmHg, most preferably 10 mmHg to 55 mH in consideration of evaporation efficiency.
mHg. The evaporation temperature is required to be 90 ° C. or less, which is unlikely to cause decomposition and volatilization of waste liquid components, and is preferably
It is below 70 ° C, most preferably in the range of 10-60 ° C. The evaporating and concentrating apparatus may have any configuration as long as it satisfies the above conditions.However, it is necessary to recover the distillate by cooling the steam generated in the evaporating process in order to reuse the evaporated water. is there. An example of an evaporative concentration apparatus that can be used in the present invention is described in FIG. 1 of Japanese Patent Application No. 3-2813.

In the case of color photographic processing, the recovered distillate can be used as a water for dissolving any of a color developing solution, a bleaching solution, a fixing solution, a bleach-fixing solution, and a stabilizing solution, and can also be used as evaporation correction water for each. it can.

When the recovered distillate is used as the dissolving water and the correction water for the color developing solution, the color developing process requires a very delicate control of the composition of the processing solution as compared with other processes. It is preferable to keep the ammonium ion content in the 2,000 ppm or less, 1000 ppm
It is more preferable to set the following.

It is necessary that the photographic processing waste liquid contains substantially no acetic acid. That is, if photographic processing waste liquid contains acetic acid, the acetic acid component accumulates in the distillate due to the reduced pressure. It has been found that when this distillate is also used as dissolved water, the image storability after processing, particularly the dark fading property of yellow stain and yellow, deteriorates. Substantially no acetic acid is defined as 1.0 ml or less, preferably 0.5 ml or less, particularly preferably zero, per liter of waste liquid.

Acetic acid is used as a buffer in a bleaching solution, a bleach-fixing solution and the like of a color processing solution. Instead of acetic acid, aliphatic acid such as glycolic acid, propionic acid, emulsion, acrylic acid, butyric acid, and pivalic acid is used. Basic acids, asparagine, alanine, arginine, ethionine, glycine, glutamine, methionine and other amino acid-based monobasic acids, benzoic acid and derivatives thereof, aromatic nicotinic acid and other aromatic monobasic acids, oxalic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid Aliphatic dibasic acids such as tartaric acid, malic acid, maleic acid, fumaric acid, glutaric acid and adipic acid, amino acid dibasic acids such as aspartic acid, glutamic acid and ascorbic acid, and aromatics such as phthalic acid and terephthalic acid Among them, dibasic acids and the like can be mentioned. Among them, dibasic acids are preferably used as a substitute for acetic acid.

The evaporative concentration treatment apparatus preferably used in the present invention will be described.

The evaporating and concentrating apparatus used in the present invention is for distilling a photographic processing waste liquid, and is schematically shown in FIG.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 21 denotes an evaporator capable of withstanding reduced pressure, which is made of Teflon, SUS16, glass coating, or the like. An aqueous solution such as a photographic processing waste liquid is injected and stored in the evaporator 21. Reference numeral 22 denotes a cooling pot provided concentrically outside the evaporating pot 21. The upper portion of the cooling pot 22 communicates with the evaporating pot 21 and is connected to a pressure reducing device 23 to reduce the pressure. It is known that when the pressure inside the evaporator 21 is reduced to a pressure lower than the atmospheric pressure, boiling occurs below the boiling point. In this embodiment, evaporation is performed at a low temperature where gas generation is unlikely to occur. As the decompression device 23, means such as a vacuum pump system and an ejector system can be used, but a so-called water flow pump system, which is an ejector system using a water flow among the ejector systems, is preferable, and the odor component is introduced into the outside air. Is preferred because it does not emit

Reference numeral 24 denotes a radiator arranged in a spiral shape in the evaporator 21. The radiator 24 connects the compressor 31, the radiator 24, the pressure reducing device 23, the heat absorbing unit 29, and the refrigerant air cooling device 32 in order, and seals the heat medium with them. This constitutes a heat pump device 25. The heat radiating section 24 of the heat pump device 25 constitutes a heating means, and its surface temperature is most preferably controlled to 100 ° C. or less under reduced pressure evaporation, particularly to 30 to 40 ° C. to prevent generation of odorous gas. preferable. This management method is a method of turning on / off the fan 33 according to the temperature of the concentrated liquid in the evaporator 21, and turning the fan 33 on / off according to the heating side temperature and pressure of the refrigerant (heat medium).
Is preferred. The heat radiating portion 24 of the heat pump device 25 has a lower part immersed in the aqueous solution W and an upper part protruding from the liquid surface and exposed to the air. The reason why the heat radiating portion 24 is spirally arranged so as to extend between the liquid and the air is to enable the liquid and the liquid surface to be heated simultaneously and efficiently.

As the heat medium used in the heat pump device 25, ammonia, freon gas or the like is generally used. In the present invention, freon gas HCFC-22 is preferable in terms of evaporative concentration efficiency. In addition, the compressor of the heat pump device 25
31 employs various systems such as a rotor system, and a compressor used in an air conditioner such as a refrigerator, a refrigerator, and an air conditioner can also be used. Further, a Peltier element can be used instead of the heat pump device in which the heat medium is sealed.

Although a double can system in which the evaporating pot 21 is placed inside and the cooling pot 22 is placed outside it is used, the overall configuration of the apparatus can be made compact by doing so. In addition, the demister 43 is placed on the liquid surface of the evaporator 21.
In the upper part of the demister 43, the evaporator 21 and the cooler 22
Is communicated. By doing so, the evaporator
It is possible to prevent the condensed component in 21 from splashing and mixing into the condensed water in the cooling tank 22, so that the evaporative concentration can be performed stably. The demister 43 is an aggregate of sintered bodies of sponge-like fibrous substances having a porosity of 80% or more, and has a thickness of 1 cm or more. Practically, Saran lock in which Saran fibers are bonded with an adhesive is preferred.

The operation start of this evaporative concentration processing apparatus is as follows:
It is preferable to start the operation of the water flow pump to create a reduced pressure, and to start the liquid supply at this stage. After a certain depressurized state, the compressor 31 is operated to shift to a normal evaporative concentration operation. As a method of detecting the depressurized state, a pressure sensor 62 is used, or the process forcibly shifts to the next step for a certain time or the like. There is a method.

26 is a tank for storing the aqueous solution, and 27 is a tank 26
Solenoid valve 27 that pumps up the aqueous solution and feeds it into the evaporator 21
An aqueous solution supply means provided with a. This aqueous solution supply means 2
7 is activated when the liquid level falls due to heating and evaporation in the evaporator 21 and falls below the liquid level detected by the liquid level detecting means 28. The aqueous solution pumped up by the aqueous solution supply means 27 is supplied into the evaporator 21 while washing the liquid level detection electrode of the liquid level detection means 28. In addition, the heat radiation part
The submerged portion 24 and the portion in the air are usually controlled at the same temperature. In this case, the surface temperature of the portion in the air is substantially higher due to a difference in heat transfer effect. For this reason,
If the supply waste liquid is sprayed directly to the heat radiating section 24, unpleasant gas may be generated due to rapid heating. As a countermeasure, it is necessary to adjust the supply amount or to suppress the temperature of the heat radiating portion 24 in the air to a gas generation temperature or less. Alternatively, the heat radiating unit 24 may be divided into liquids and outside the liquid, and may be separately controlled to an appropriate temperature.

The liquid level detecting means 28 is an electrode type liquid level detecting means for inserting an electrode into the aqueous solution in the evaporator 21 and detecting the liquid level. In order to prevent malfunction due to sludge or the like, at least a part of the electrode is covered with the cylinder 45, and the aqueous solution from the tank 26 is
The mixture is poured inside the cylinder 45 and supplied to the evaporator 21. Further, for the same purpose, a part of the electrode of the liquid level detecting means 28 is coated with a non-conductive substance, preferably a polymer heat-shrinkable tube, particularly a water-repellent material, and a Teflon-based heat-shrinkable tube is best. . Further, it is preferable that the cylinder 45 is also made of a non-conductive material, for example, a plastic material, and that the material of the inner surface is made of silicon or Teflon. The aqueous solution supply means 27 is controlled based on the detection result of the liquid level detection means. However,
Regardless of the result of this liquid level detection, at the start of the evaporative concentration work, a fixed amount of aqueous solution, that is, an amount that does not hinder the operation due to the liquid level of the aqueous solution in the evaporator 21 being increased
For example, 1/50 to 1/5 of the volume of the evaporator 21
Supply 21. With this control, it is possible to prevent a malfunction that the operation is performed even when there is no liquid at the time of starting due to the sludge adhering to the liquid level detecting means 28.

During operation, the liquid level detecting means 28 for a certain period of time.
If the state where the liquid has been detected continues, the liquid level detection means
In some cases, sludge is adhered to and malfunctions, and in order to prevent this, it is preferable to forcibly supply a fixed amount of aqueous solution, and this control can prevent malfunction of the liquid level detection means.

If a large amount of the gasification component is mixed in the aqueous solution, or if the surfactant component is contained, the aqueous solution becomes foamed (forming) at the time of evaporation. And may be mixed into the condensed water in the cooling kettle 22. In order to prevent this, an electrode type liquid level detecting means 60 separate from the liquid level detecting means 28 is used.
Is provided at the top of the pot. When the presence of a bubble state is detected by the liquid level detecting means 60, the solenoid valve 61 is opened and the evaporator
Breaking the vacuum in 21 prevents the condensate from entering the condensed water. In addition, a silicone-based or fluorine-based defoamer is
It is preferable to have a mechanism for injecting into the inside 21.

The heat absorbing section 29 of the heat pump device 25 is a cooling means provided in the cooling pot 22 for evaporating the aqueous solution in the evaporating pot 21 to cool and condense the water vapor that has entered the cooling pot 22 through the space above the pot. Let it. The condensed water thus produced is stored in the bottom portion 22a of the cooling pot 22, and is collected in a condensed water tank 30, which is a collecting container installed outside the pot. This recovery
In this embodiment, the pressure reducing device 23 using the ejector 23a is used.
It is performed by That is, when the water in the condensed water tank 30 is pumped up by the pump 23b and returned into the condensed water tank 30 through the vertical pipe portion of the ejector 23a, a vacuum region is generated in an orthogonal portion between the vertical pipe portion and the horizontal pipe portion. The liquid accumulated in the bottom portion 22a of the cooling pot 22 communicating with the pipe and the air in the cooling pot 22 and the evaporating pot 21 communicating therewith are sucked.
It contributes to stabilization of the reduced pressure in 22. Here, continuous condensation and recovery of condensed water are performed by the evaporator
When the pressure in 21 rises, the decompression balance is lost, but this is immediately cooled and condensed, effectively acting to suppress the pressure rise. The water overflowing the condensed water tank 30 is stored in the storage container 30a. Note that the ejector 23a is preferably located below the bottom 22a.

The refrigerant air cooling device 32 provided on the upstream side of the heat radiating portion 24 of the heat pump device 25 is for lowering the temperature of the refrigerant pressurized and compressed by the compressor 31 to a high temperature. And an air cooling fan 33. Further, the heat pump device 25 is provided with a capillary tube 34 serving as an expansion valve on the downstream side of the heat radiating portion 24, and the heat absorbing portion on the downstream side of the capillary tube 34 is provided with a water cooling means 29a in the condensed water tank 30 and It is used as a heat absorbing portion 29 in the cooling pot 22. That is, the heating area is on the upstream side of the capillary tube 34, and the cooling area is on the downstream side. But the cooling pot
The refrigerant that has passed through the heat absorbing section 29 of the 22 flows back to the compressor 31.

A slurry storage section 35 is provided at the bottom of the evaporator 21. The slurry storage section 35 is for storing a slurry concentrated to a high concentration by repeating evaporation and concentration. Slurry reservoir 35
A slurry outlet 36 protrudes from the outer surface of the side wall at the same level as the bottom surface of the container, and the slurry outlet 36 is sealed by plug means 37. The stopper means 37 may be constituted by a ball valve, a butterfly valve, or a slide valve, but in the case shown in the figure, is constituted by a packing stopper 46 in order to maintain a reduced pressure in the evaporator 21 and is connected to the packing stopper 46. Handle 38
By pulling or pushing, the slurry outlet 36
Can be opened and closed.

Further, a stirring blade 40 is provided in the slurry reservoir 35, and the stirring blade 40 is fixed to a lower end portion of an output shaft 42 of a driving source 41 installed above the evaporator 21. The stirring blades 40 can stir the entire inner bottom surface of the slurry reservoir 35 and sweep the slurry toward the slurry outlet 36 easily. Of course, the stirring blade 40 may be configured to be manually rotated by operating the handle. A part of the stirring blade 40 is made to pass near the slurry outlet 36, and before removing the slurry from the slurry outlet 36, the stirring blade 40 is rotated to shake the concentrated liquid,
The slurry adhered to the inner wall of the evaporator 21, in particular, the heated portion at the upper portion, is thoroughly cleaned and taken out without leaving in the evaporator 21.

A slurry discharge part opened at the lower part of the stopper means 37
The distal end of 39 is adapted to engage with a slurry collection container 50, and this slurry collection container 50 may be a flexible container such as a bag. By using the same sealing means as a cap (not shown) attached to these collecting containers, for example, a screw-fitting type or an elastic detachable type sealing means, the slurry collecting container 50 is used.
Is connected to the slurry discharge section 39. This is to allow the operator to easily take out the slurry without soiling the hands.

In order to clean the slurry which does not come out of the evaporating vessel 21 due to becoming a scale due to a normal concentration operation and clogging, especially in order to remove the slurry attached to an intermediate portion of the evaporating vessel 21, the scale is removed. A blade for use (not shown) can be used instead of the stirring blade 40. The slurry scraping blade may be rotatable by means from below.

When the slurry is hard and the stirring blades 40 are hard to move, a power transmission mechanism between the driving source 41 and the stirring blades 40 to prevent the drive source 41 and the stirring blades 40 from being forced. Insert the belt-type transmission unit into a part of. The slurry is hard at first, but has the property of becoming fluid during stirring. Therefore, at first, the stirring blade 40 rotates while the belt slips, and the stirring blade 40 can be easily rotated soon.

The packing plug 46 of the plug means 37 is, for example, a rubber plug. To prevent the packing plug 46 from being pushed too far, a stopper (not shown) is provided so that the packing plug 46 does not enter the slurry discharge section 39 beyond a certain distance. Further, a prevention member for preventing the packing plug 46 from coming out in the reverse direction is provided. The handle 38 is the slurry discharge section
It also helps to prevent spouting from 39.

A liquid level detector (for example, a float type) (not shown) is provided at least at a position near the intermediate position and the bottom surface of the aqueous solution tank 26, and starts operation when the aqueous solution is supplied to the intermediate position of the tank 26. Then, control is performed so that the operation stops when the liquid level drops to near the bottom. Further, a liquid level sensor 47 is provided in the condensed water tank 30, and when the condensed water tank 30 is full, the operation of the apparatus is controlled to be stopped.

The aqueous solution supply means 27 is operated to inject waste liquid, that is, an aqueous solution, into the evaporator 21 until a predetermined water level detected by the liquid level detector is reached, and tap water is also injected and stored in the condensed water tank 30. . Thereafter, the radiator 24 in the evaporator 21 is heated to a predetermined temperature by the action of the refrigerant flowing by the operation of the compressor 31, and the heat absorber 29 in the cooler 22 is cooled.
On the other hand, since the cooling pot 22 and the evaporating pot 21 are condensed through the ejector 23a by the operation of the pump 23b, the waste liquid boils at a temperature lower than its boiling point and evaporates.

The water vapor evaporated in the evaporating pot 21 enters the cooling pot 22 through the upper space, is cooled and condensed into water droplets, is collected at the bottom 22a of the cooling pot 22, and is taken out of the pot by vacuum suction. The condensed water tank 30 is collected. As the amount of the aqueous solution previously injected into the evaporator 21 decreases due to evaporation, the supply means 27 is operated and replenished. Therefore, the evaporative replenishment is repeatedly performed in the evaporator 21 and the aqueous solution is gradually concentrated.
The component solidified to a high concentration becomes a slurry and is stored in a slurry storage section 35 provided at the bottom.

The temperature of the heat medium used in the heat pump device 25 is constantly detected, and the degree of concentration is determined based on the detected temperature. When this temperature reaches a certain temperature, the concentration processing operation is completed, and the handle 38 is pulled to remove the packing stopper 46 of the stopper means 37.
, And the sealed slurry outlet 36 is released, and the slurry collected at the bottom of the evaporator 21 is taken out to the slurry collecting container 50. At the time of this removal, the rotating blades 40 are rotated by the drive source 41, and the slurry removal operation is performed efficiently.

Since the evaporating and concentrating apparatus operates as described above to perform an aqueous solution concentrating process, it can be used for a waste liquid processing operation and a stock solution concentrating operation.

[0043]

The present invention will be specifically described below with reference to examples.

Example 1 Konica Corporation's automatic developing machine CL-KP32QA, PP-
801SQA was used, and as a developing solution, a processing agent for Process CNK-4-52 and Process CPK-2-28 manufactured by Konica Corporation was used, and a color negative film SuperDD-100 and color paper manufactured by Konica Corporation were photographed according to the manual. Development processing was performed using QA paper type A-5. All of the discharged waste liquids were mixed, and concentrated under the conditions shown in Table 1 using the reduced-pressure concentration apparatus shown in FIG. However, acetic acid was not contained in the treating agent, and concentration treatment was performed under the conditions shown in Table 1. The obtained distillate is subjected to process C
P-2-, P-3 of PK-2-28 and process CNK-
A replenisher was prepared using 4-52 as the dissolved water of N-3 and N-4, and running was continued with a minimum consumption of 100 l of the replenisher.

After completion of the experiment, the color film (DD-100) and the color paper (QA paper type A5) which were subjected to the wedge exposure according to a conventional method were processed.
After storage at RH for 2 weeks, the difference in density from that immediately after the treatment was determined as the Blue concentration.

The results are summarized in Table 1.

[0047]

[Table 1]

From the results shown in Table 1, it can be seen that the present invention has good image storability, whereas the acetic acid in the waste liquid deteriorates the image storability. The image preservability is the distillation temperature,
It changes depending on the distillation pressure, and is slightly improved within the range of the present invention. Furthermore, among the acetic acid substitutes, dibasic acids such as maleic acid and succinic acid show that the effect of the present invention is particularly remarkable.

Example 2 Experiment Nos. 1-1, 1-6, 1-7 and 1-14 of Example 1
Was evaluated in the same manner as in Example 1 except that the ammonia concentration in the waste liquid was adjusted to the concentration range shown in Table 2 and used as a color developing replenisher for color paper and a color developing replenisher for color negative. Was measured and used as representative characteristics of developability. When the ammonia concentration was changed, part or all of the ammonia and ammonium salts were changed to potassium salts.

The results are shown in Tables 2 and 3.

[0051]

[Table 2]

[0052]

[Table 3]

As is clear from Tables 2 and 3, when the ammonium ion concentration in the waste liquid is high, the developability is greatly affected, and it tends to decrease. It can be seen that good results can be obtained by using acetic acid free and reducing the ammonium ion concentration to 2000 ppm or less when used as the dissolving water for the developer.

[0054]

According to the present invention, the distillate produced by the photographic waste liquid treatment apparatus can be used without causing a problem in photographic processing.
It is possible to provide a method that can be reused as the water for dissolving the treatment agent or the evaporation correction water, and that substantially reduces or eliminates the amount of the treatment waste liquid without generating a bad odor.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an evaporative concentration treatment apparatus showing one example of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 21 Evaporator 23 Decompressor 25 Heat pump 26 Aqueous solution tank 30 Condensate tank 31 Compressor 32 Refrigerant air cooler 35 Slurry reservoir

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method for evaporating and concentrating a photographic processing waste liquid under a reduced pressure of 700 mmHg or less and at 90 ° C. or less, wherein the photographic processing waste liquid is substantially free of acetic acid and is evaporated and concentrated. A method for reusing a photographic processing waste liquid, wherein the photographic processing liquid is used as a dissolving water for a photographic processing agent and / or as an evaporative replenisher for a processing tank of an automatic processor. 2. The method for recycling photographic processing waste liquid according to claim 1, wherein said photographic processing waste liquid is subjected to evaporation and concentration under a reduced pressure of 200 mmHg or less. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the photographic processing waste liquid is subjected to an evaporative concentration treatment at a temperature of 60 ° C. or less. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the distillate is used as a dissolving water for a photographic processing agent and / or as an evaporative replenisher for a processing tank of an automatic developing machine, other than a color developing solution. The method for reusing a photographic processing waste liquid according to claim 1.