Topic: Freezing chemicals

[Francois]

Yes, it all started out of a minor annoyance that inevitably led me down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Yesterday, I went to dilute some PQ Universal only to discover that my half full bottle had gone bad. Not much of a problem since it's not very expensive and I had a spare one. But still, it bugged me as I had the feeling I was throwing 7$ + tax in the bin. So I figured that there has to be a way to keep it for longer and get my full 14$ worth out of it.
Last week I was sorting through some old books to give to charity when I stumbled across a buying guide that had been published by one of the province's most renowned news photographers and photo educators, namely Antoine Désilets. In it were a bunch of his tips and tricks which I always appreciated; including one where he said that yes you can freeze developer. Could the old man be right? I had always heard that refrigerating developers would wreck them... so I decided to find out for myself.
I took out of the bottle 100ml that I poured into 4 Kodak film cans. The cans easily accommodate 25ml each with a bit of space on top. I put the whole thing in the freezer to see what would happen. This morning, I took out the cans and put them on the counter so they can thaw. The small cans turn to liquid quite fast due to their small volume. I put a bit of warm water in my beaker, poured the cans in making sure I add the rinse water to the solution so I have all that is clinging to the walls. Put in enough water to reach 1 liter, agitated a bit and did a test with a bit of scrap photo paper.
To my surprise, it turned a nice black just like I expected! It still worked.

I'll eventually do some tests with rapid fixer too.
In the book he says that the technique also works just fine with powdered developers. So I will need to test a lot of stuff...

So, there you have it, yet another way to save a few bucks.
So now, I'm out to split that bottle into small cans.

[MiguelCampano]

Interesting!

My dad mentioned that when he started developing slide film (E-4 process back in the mid-late 60s), he would freeze the chemistry because it was better than the humidity and the heat of his darkroom in Venezuela.

[Francois]

This means that it should also work for C41.
I tried it with dilute Rapid Fix and worked just fine.

I'm starting to get a feeling that this whole do not freeze thing is something that has been created by the manufacturers as a way to increase sales....

[cs1]

Ilford specifically warns not to freeze chemicals. And they do actually give a sound explanation: they say that some components of the chemicals will come out of the solution when being frozen and will not re-dissolve again. This sounds reasonable. That being said, it will very likely depend on the exact chemicals and doing a test run with different types of chemicals as you're doing it, François, makes sense.

[Francois]

So far everything has worked fine.
In the book I read he said it worked with Perceptol too.

I'll have to try with fresh rapid fixer when mine eventually goes bad. So far, the bad one I use didn't change a bit from the freezing process.

[SLVR]

francois have you ever tried the canned duster method of storing your chemistry?

I remember reading it a long time ago and I couldn't find any reference to it when I was looking for it recently but I've been using canned air to purge the actual air from my developers for a bit now and I did see that the developer didn't oxidize nearly as fast and worked all the way to the end of the bottle.

[cs1]

I've read about another method where people fill the bottle with glass marbles until there's hardly any air in it. Each time you remove chemicals you add marbles to fill in the void.

[Francois]

I've tried both methods and they do work.
But the sad part is that even with that I can never find a way to use every ounce of some chemicals.
So, freezing becomes an interesting option for me.
Besides, I find the experiment fun in a way. When it works, I get this wow it works feeling
I should add that I do all my tests on small quantities so that if it doesn't work, it's not a big loss.