Thin film evaporating concentrator, method of evaporating and solidifying photographic waste solution, and reuse method of photographic waste solution

Abstract

A thin film evaporating concentrator for evaporating and solidifying a photographic processing waste solution, the thin film evaporating concentrator comprises a cylinder having an inner wall surface as a heating surface and at least one rotor blade rotating about the central axis of the cylinder. At least one of the inner wall surface of the cylinder and a surface of said at least one rotor blade defines a water contact angle of one of 90 degrees or more and smaller than 40 degrees. The thin film evaporating concentrator comprises a clearance of from 0.1 to 1.0 mm between the heating surface and each of said at least one rotor blade. And a reuse system of a photographic processing waste solution, wherein the solid matter formed from a photographic processing waste solution is mixed into a photographic processing composition so as to constitute 50 to 90% by weight of the composition.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.