Topic: Proper chemical etiquette

[Indofunk]

I'm very slowly starting to treat my chemicals with more and more respect, in the hopes that they will respect me back and give me beautiful pictures. It started with storing my C41 developer in an accordion bottle, and taking great care not to contaminate the dev with fix/blix. This has been working great so far. My next step is respecting my HC110 syrup. The last 1L bottle I got took me about 2 years to go through, and I kept it in the same clear plastic bottle it came in for the whole time. By the time I got near the bottom, I had to add a few extra minutes of dev time to each film, and the syrup completely coagulated at the bottom of the bottle. So for this next 1L bottle of concentrate, I bought a few brown glass bottles to decant it into. Two 16oz bottles for long term storage, and a 4oz dropper bottle for daily use. I filled one 16oz bottle to the top and capped it, and poured the rest of the HC110 into the second 16oz bottle. Then, using the second bottle as my "use this first" bottle, I decanted 4oz of it into the dropper bottle. I will continue to refill the dropper bottle with the "use this first" stock bottle until it's empty, then start using the first, full 16oz bottle to refill the dropper bottle. So far, so good.

I just got to the point with my dropper bottle that the dropper won't reach the top of the concentrate. There's still a decent amount of syrup in the bottle. So can I just pour some "new" HC110 right on top of it, or should I dump whatever is in there so that 1. I can clean out the dropper bottle and 2. in case the remaining concentrate has been oxygenated through constant use? I realize this is minutiae, but that's what this forum is for, right?

[Francois]

For my HC-110, I stuck a bit of hose on a syringe. This thing gets every last drop from my bottle.

[jharr]

I will go ahead and pile onto Satish's thread with some additional (related) questions since I don't think he will mind.

Is oxidation the culprit in loss of activity with developers?
Does oxidation happen simply by exposure to atmospheric oxygen or is there another driver like heat or light?
Do the oxidized compounds precipitate or stay in solution?
Does eliminating headspace eliminate oxidation or is the damage done as soon as the bottle is opened?
I know someone on the forum puts a "pfft" of lighter gas (butane) on top of partial bottles to drive out oxygen. I suppose dropping marbles in to take up the headspace would have the same effect.

If atmospheric oxygen causing inactivation is the problem and the inactive oxidative products stay in solution, I don't see why throwing away the 'old' developer would be necessary. Of course, the "it helps me sleep at night" excuse is one I use often for doing questionably useful things. 

[Indofunk]

Yes!! More minutiae! Thanks James

[imagesfrugales]

Oxygen is the one and only but big problem that ruins a developer. Sulfite "absorbs" the oxygen and therefore concentrates with a lot of sulfite keep much longer than working solutions. I.e. sulfite is used as "bubble ex" for water beds. Tap water can have huge amounts of diluted oxygen.

The best you can do to prevent a developer from being oxidized is to keep away the oxygen. Plastic bottles are no good, the oxygen diffuses through the plastic, and harmonica bottles are even worse imho because the surface is much bigger and you can't clean them properly. Glas bottles are the best and you can fill the volume with marbles to keep the air outside, or, much more conveniant, spray a little bit of lighter gas into the bottle. It's exactly the same as "Protectan" from Tetenal. It is denser than air so it will make a protective layer on top of the surface. I depress the canula of the gas bottle with my thumb fingernail while holding it as close as possible into the bottles opening. Spray for maybe 1/2 sec. Works for me.

Also working solutions (c-41 etc) will keep longer if stored this way. Expect no wonders here, when reusing the solution you will always bring a lot of air into the fluid. That's why I prefer 1-shot devs if possible.

I use glas bottles of all sizes with a screw cap, be creative, but don't forget to label the bottles.

[Francois]

There are basically two problems with oxidation.
The first is molecular oxygen. This is the air that gets mixed with the water through the agitation of the liquid. And pretty much anything can add air to the mix. Agitation, faucet aerators, just water going through the pipes. The best way to remove this would be using a vacuum pump... But who has this?
Then, there's the atomic oxygen. The only way I know how to stop this would be using a dilution medium that doesn't contain  h2o... HC110 uses propylene glycol, that's why the concentrate lasts so long.

[Indofunk]

So ...... go ahead and pour some "new" concentrate into the dropper bottle right on top of the "old" stuff in there? Since it sounds like it doesn't make a difference...

[jharr]

So ...... go ahead and pour some "new" concentrate into the dropper bottle right on top of the "old" stuff in there? Since it sounds like it doesn't make a difference...

Yes, and as Reinhold says, reuse glass bottles. Just remember to take off the "Shake well before using" labels so you don't get confused. 

I am with Reinhold also on the use of one-shot b/w developers. Rodinal clones seem to keep indefinitely in aqueous concentrate and they are so cheap (like me)! I guess I am fortunate that I like grain. If you are a fine-grain-ophile, you will need to look elsewhere although X-tol produces pretty fine grain and I have had good luck keeping it for a couple of months in plastic pedialite bottles under the lighter gas headspace.

[imagesfrugales]

Interesting discussion. I just bought a small bottle of propylene glycol to make a 1% phenidone stock solution that will keep very well. And it's so much more conveniant for measuring the very small amounts needed. You get the pg easily since electric cigarettes are hip and people mix their own flavours.

[jharr]

Interesting discussion. I just bought a small bottle of propylene glycol to make a 1% phenidone stock solution that will keep very well. And it's so much more conveniant for measuring the very small amounts needed. You get the pg easily since electric cigarettes are hip and people mix their own flavours.

Well, this is very timely. I just got a bottle of phenidone and was going to start measuring out little portions. I think I will use denatured alcohol for my stock since I have a can of it sitting around (I use it to extract paracetamol out of Acetaminophen tablets).

This is a good resource for Vit. C developers which can be of the metol or Phenidone (or coffee) variety.
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/VitC/vitc.html

[Bryan]

I use it to extract paracetamol out of Acetaminophen tablets
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/VitC/vitc.html

Just to be clear, you're making film developer, not Meth right? 

[Indofunk]

[jharr]

I use it to extract paracetamol out of Acetaminophen tablets
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/VitC/vitc.html

Just to be clear, you're making film developer, not Meth right? 

I can send you some and you can choose whether to soup film with it or smoke it. 

[Indofunk]

Aaaaaaaand now we're all on a federal watch list

[imagesfrugales]

Aaaaaaaand now we're all on a federal watch list

BOOH by Imagesfrugales, on Flickr

.... I just got a bottle of phenidone and was going to start measuring out little portions. I think I will use denatured alcohol for my stock since I have a can of it sitting around (I use it to extract paracetamol out of Acetaminophen tablets).

Oh my, does the p-aminophenol dilute completely in alcohol? And how is the ratio pa/alc? More details please.

Yes, the unblinking eye and Pat Gainer are a constant source of inspiration.

[Pete_R]

I have no idea what you all just said so that means...

[jharr]

.... I just got a bottle of phenidone and was going to start measuring out little portions. I think I will use denatured alcohol for my stock since I have a can of it sitting around (I use it to extract paracetamol out of Acetaminophen tablets).

Oh my, does the p-aminophenol dilute completely in alcohol? And how is the ratio pa/alc? More details please.

Yes, the unblinking eye and Pat Gainer are a constant source of inspiration.

An excerpt from http://jamesharrphoto.blogspot.com/2016/06/putting-that-chemistry-degree-to-work.html:

"I ground up 36 tablets, just in case the extraction efficiency was low. I ground them up very fine and poured it into a bottle with 200 mL of denatured ethanol. I shook that for a few minutes. Then I let it settle and poured the supernatant (the clear part) through a coffee filter into a plastic tub. Thinking back, a shallow glass dish would have sped things up. That took about 2.5 days to evaporate. Yeah, I know. Filtering would have been faster, but this has more 'cool factor'. Once the ethanol evaporated, I had a pink-ish powder. I scraped it off the walls and bottom of the tub and weighed out 15g. I ended up with a few grams left over, so that means that the extraction efficiency is quite high. Now I used that as my paracetamol source and followed the recipe as before. Bingo! A nice clear solution (with some of the sodium sulfite settled on the bottom). I let it 'age' for a few days and a sort of 'crust' formed on the top. So I gave it a shake and re-filtered this off along with the extra sulfite. The next day, the usual 'rodinal' crystals formed on the bottom of my bottle and I knew I was in business. I had a nice clear parodinal with preservative crystals."

An epilogue to that post would be to use less ethanol, put it in a glass evaporating dish and maybe warm it up a bit to speed up the evaporation.

I have no idea what you all just said so that means...

Nice use of the flower foul Peter. This thread definitely needed one and I like that rose? peony?. Beautiful!

[Francois]

I just bought a small bottle of propylene glycol to make a 1% phenidone stock solution

Don't forget to boil the Propylene Glycol and let it cool before use so that all trapped oxygen is removed...

[Pete_R]

Nice use of the flower foul Peter. This thread definitely needed one and I like that rose? peony?. Beautiful!

Begonia I think. My father used to grow them and this was one of his. Taken about 30 years ago - give or take.

[imagesfrugales]

James: thank you so much, sounds great

Francois: too late, already mixed. First tests show that it works.

Peter: thank you for the beautiful flower.

[jojonas~]

this bit gave me something of a warm and fuzzy feeling

"To keep the gallon from oxidizing I decanted the open gallon into repurposed water bottles.
The ones going into storage I melted a candle and filled the small airspace with melted wax then capped the bottles.
The one in use, I put small glass marbles into the bottle to displace the air & cap it and just add more beads as I go"

specially the candle bit

from https://www.flickr.com/groups/bw_film-dev_combinations/discuss/72157673925239453/

[Nigel]

The best way to remove this would be using a vacuum pump... But who has this?

I always thought this would be a good idea, we have one for our wine, but I've not tried it.

https://www.amazon.com/Vacu-Vin-Vacuum-Bottle-Stoppers/dp/B000GA3KCE?th=1

[jharr]

And you have to make sure that you have containers that are either flexible enough or rigid enough to withstand the vacuum. I have imploded bottles by putting them under what I thought was 'moderate' vacuum.

[Indofunk]

The best way to remove this would be using a vacuum pump... But who has this?

I always thought this would be a good idea, we have one for our wine, but I've not tried it.

https://www.amazon.com/Vacu-Vin-Vacuum-Bottle-Stoppers/dp/B000GA3KCE?th=1

Oh yeah, I have one of those too. Good excuse to drink a bottle of wine in the name of photo chemical etiquette 

[Francois]

And best of all, they're made in my home town 

I thought of using those years ago, but I feel the vacuum they pull is probably minimal when compared to a real vacuum pump like we used in the lab.
Though a similar vacuum can probably be made using a refrigerator compressor.

[Indofunk]

Yeah, I was going to reply to James saying that there's no danger of bottle implosion with these things

[Bryan]

When we sample liquids that we are going to run Volatile Organic Compound analysis on we use what's called a VOA vial.  You don't want to have any air bubbles in the vial because the volatile compounds can escape into that bubble and affect the results.  We're often looking at Parts Per Billion results so this is very important.  There is a procedure for filling the vial until the liquid forms a meniscus at the top (see links below).  you then carefully put the cap on, turn it upside down and tap on it to check for bubbles.  The vials are small and I believe there are different sizes.  They are glass and would probably work good for storing small amounts of developer.  I'm not sure how much they cost, the labs usually give us boxes of them for free since they will get the cost back when they do the analysis.  there are also 250mL amber bottles that are used for the same thing.  They have a soft part in the cap that can be used for extracting the liquid with a needle.  This also provides some flexibility in the cap for temperature changes.  The bottles sometimes come with a small amount of an acid preservative that the lab puts in them depending on the analysis but it can be rinsed out if you get them like that. 

http://www.bclabs.com/MainSite.asp?UserNav=5,6,0

http://www.alexinlabs.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/VOC_Sampling_Instructions.68154559.pdf

[Francois]

I wonder if instead of using butane as a safety gas we could use canned air?
Since the stuff in these cans is not really air, maybe it would work?

[jharr]

I wonder if instead of using butane as a safety gas we could use canned air?
Since the stuff in these cans is not really air, maybe it would work?

"Duster gases are such as 1,1-difluoroethane, 1,1,1-trifluoroethane, or 1,1,1,2 -tetrafluoroethane. Hydrocarbons, like butane, were often used in the past, but their flammable nature forced manufacturers to use fluorocarbons. When inhaled, gas duster fumes may produce psychoactive effects and may be harmful to health."

No O2 in there, so it probably would work fine.

[Indofunk]

When inhaled, gas duster fumes may produce psychoactive effects and may be harmful to health.

Sooooo .... better to use vaporized LSD instead?

[jharr]

When inhaled, gas duster fumes may produce psychoactive effects and may be harmful to health.

Sooooo .... better to use vaporized LSD instead?

That just goes without saying, doesn't it? It's like asking "Should I put butter in that recipe?" or "Will Rodinal 1:100 develop that film?"

[Indofunk]

When inhaled, gas duster fumes may produce psychoactive effects and may be harmful to health.

Sooooo .... better to use vaporized LSD instead?

That just goes without saying, doesn't it? It's like asking "Should I put butter in that recipe?" or "Will Rodinal 1:100 develop that film?"

all very true statements

[Francois]

When inhaled, gas duster fumes may produce psychoactive effects and may be harmful to health."

Talk about it, a kid in the neighboring city died a the dollar store last week because he tried sniffing the stuff straight out of the bottle...