Which chemicals, other than surfactants, cause bubbles in film developers? Or which developers have the fewest bubbles?

[Alan Townsend]

When I develop film in daylight tanks as one-shots, I always dump them into a large bucket. In the past, I always noticed lots of bubbles there, when I was using developers with sodium sulfite such as d23, d76, etc. I recently changed to a sulfite free developer, Gainers Original MC developer, and now I see absolutely no bubbles in the spent developer at all. So I wonder if it's sulfite causing the bubbles. I would think an antioxidant would reduce bubbles, not increase them, so this is more an academic question. Agitation method of course also has an effect on this.

I am careful to never put surfactants like photoflo or polysorbithane 20 into my tanks or on my reels or channel plates, so this common bubble source is eliminated. I just wonder what experience others have with finding those pesky bubbles in their developers and which chemicals are responsible for them. I still tap the tank a few times after agitation.

 

[loccdor]

I would like to know more about this too as I've also stopped putting wetting agent on my tank and reels and still frequently notice some bubbles right before pouring the developer out.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Google Search

 

[Alan Townsend]

Google Search

Thanks, I tried googling but used wrong terminology?

Yes, sodium sulfite (


) acts as a coalescence-inhibiting salt. It belongs to a group of electrolytes, often including simple inorganic salts, that prevent the coalescence of bubbles in aqueous solutions.

Yes, sodium carbonate (


) acts as a coalescence-inhibiting salt in aqueous solutions, particularly in flotation and bubble dynamics studies, behaving similarly to certain alcohols and other electrolyte solutions to prevent bubbles from merging.

Well, still confused. Both the salt I no longer use, sodium sulfite, and the salt I currently use, sodium carbonate, are coalescence inhibiting salts. Anyway, very noticible lack of bubbles when I dump my developer. I guess maybe one is worse than the other, I know Patrick Gainer was adamant about sulfite free developers, but don't recall anything about low foam, mostly difficulty he had getting it in rural West Virginia.

 

[Ian Grant]

When I was living in Turkey I initially had an issue with air bells, very hard water, quite a high salt content. I was using Pyrocat HD so almost no Sulphite and a Carbonate level of 0.75% in use.

I noticed that a glass of tap water contained a lot of bubbles, and they just stayed, I experimented with a Paterson tank and reel with just tap water, tapping etc just moved the bubbles. I then added wetting agent, talking drops, and the air bells vanished, it's a fine balance because too much wetting agent will cause foaming.

Now I add Wetting agent when I mix my Developer concentrates, nearly 20 years later no issues.

Ian

 

[Alan Townsend]

When I was living in Turkey I initially had an issue with air bells, very hard water, quite a high salt content. I was using Pyrocat HD so almost no Sulphite and a Carbonate level of 0.75% in use.

Just the chalk in the water?

I noticed that a glass of tap water contained a lot of bubbles, and they just stayed, I experimented with a Paterson tank and reel with just tap water, tapping etc just moved the bubbles. I then added wetting agent, talking drops, and the air bells vanished, it's a fine balance because too much wetting agent will cause foaming.

Now I add Wetting agent when I mix my Developer concentrates, nearly 20 years later no issues.

Ian

I always wondered why some people are putting photoflo in their developers! Very interesting, never would have thought of or done that myself. I lived near Yuma AZ on well water a few years ago where the water was 1300 ppm and RO water was around 70ppm, so I used distilled for developer there.

Now, using midwest tap water, which is commercial aquifer well water, water softener and RO filter I have about 5ppm, almost as good as distilled.

 

[Lachlan Young]

why some people are putting photoflo in their developer

I'd be cautious about this. With some (not necessarily all) film/ developer combinations, components in some commercial photograde surfactants can be (and are sometimes incorporated in manufacturing/ coating of emulsions as) development accelerators. If you take account of this within process controlling, it might not be an issue for you, but it could cause unexpected results.

And I'd also refer you to section 9.4.3.2 'Resemblance to Surfactants or Soaps' in the SPSE Handbook which discusses the preference for developing agents to structurally resemble surfactants (hydrophilic/ nucleophilic/ argentophilic 'head' and hydrophobic 'tail').

 

[mshchem]

I would caution putting Photoflo in developer. If you have been using this for years sure, no doubt you're going about it successfully.

I have always used Kodak prepared film developers, if you are mixing from scratch then it might be a different thing.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I would caution putting Photoflo in developer. If you have been using this for years sure, no doubt you're going about it successfully.

Post from Ron years ago ...

Photo-Flo in the Developer? Hell Yes !!

Like a few others here, I have had issues with bubbles during development. (there was a url link here which no longer exists) not long ago about these issues. I thought I had it taken care off by removing the reels during development, with the lights off of course, but the bubbles seem to have...

www.photrio.com

 

[mshchem]

Post from Ron years ago ...

Photo-Flo in the Developer? Hell Yes !!

Like a few others here, I have had issues with bubbles during development. (there was a url link here which no longer exists) not long ago about these issues. I thought I had it taken care off by removing the reels during development, with the lights off of course, but the bubbles seem to have...

www.photrio.com

Ron isn't here to explain the situation. Again I would caution the use of Photoflo in developer. Especially considering every kid on the block wants to run continuous rotary agitation.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Post from Ron years ago ...

Photo-Flo in the Developer? Hell Yes !!

Like a few others here, I have had issues with bubbles during development. (there was a url link here which no longer exists) not long ago about these issues. I thought I had it taken care off by removing the reels during development, with the lights off of course, but the bubbles seem to have...

www.photrio.com

He's referring to the emulsion acceleration effect there - which he applied in his Azo paper recipe (for example).

 

[Ian Grant]

Just the chalk in the water?

The apartment is only a couple of hundred meters from the sea, tap water comes from a borehole behind the building, while it's safe to drink, it's unpalatable, aside from Calcium there’s a very slight sea salt content that permeates very slowly through the rock, which is a clay, limestone, stone, mix.

I experimented with just tap water in a Paterson tank, including the reel, to see how little wetting agent was needed to remove the air-bells. I went on to see how much wetting agent caused foaming, That was some years ago, but the difference was quite significant.

L.F.A. Mason in "Photographic Processing Chemistry" notes that Wetting agents are added to developers at levels up to 0.1%, and cautions that higher levels may cause foaming

My wetting agent is a 10% solution of Sodium Di-Iso-Octylsulphosuccinate, an anionic surfactant. I add 10ml per litre of Pyrocat HD Part A concentrate, which I normally use at 1+1 to 100. That equates to 0.01% Wetting agent in the working developer solution That is sufficient to prevent air-bells.

So as @Lachlan Young cautions, you need to know what you are doing, you also don't know the concentrations of commercial wetting agents like Photo-Flo, or Ifotol, etc.

I have erring towards a minimal level, which has worked well for close to 20 years.

Note the diameter of the airbells is larger than the gaps in a spiral, that's with no film. The issue was worse with a film loaded in the spiral.

Ian

 

[loccdor]

Thanks for the picture, I've always been curious to what those notorious 120 air bells actually looked like on the reels.

 

[Saganich]

I'm of the opinion that the origin of the bubbling is surfactants in the film which build up in reused/replenished developer like D23 and Diafine...and maybe stick to reels and tanks. It wouldn't surprise me that sulfite being a silver reducer may also be a modifying factor in surfactant build-up in developer. I also believe different films have varying degrees of foaminess potential. Photoflo may be a red herring or modifying factor in this case, as many have mentioned foam remains when photoflo is absent from the process but probably contributes if used in tanks. I haven't let photoflo touch my tank or reels in 20 years. Surfactants in developer may also be a modifying factor. When I use D23 mixed from my chemical stash, eliminated all photoflo use, eliminated all washing detergents for equipment/bottles, and only developed TriX, foaming was miner. When I would use other films, all else the same foaming, became a varying nuisance issue. Right now I'm using up a large FP4 expired stock in a one liter Diafine stock and after like 10+ rolls/liter I'm starting to get significant foaming in A developer. Will that be reduced if I replenish 50% of that stock? Maybe I'll see if I remember next week.

 

[pbromaghin]

It could be the film and not the developer. If you’re using Hp5 or Fp4, they have a surfactant that was giving me fits. Admittedly this was in replenishment, but adding a presoak has completely cured it.

 

[Ian Grant]

I'm of the opinion that the origin of the bubbling is surfactants in the film which build up in reused/replenished developer like D23 and Diafine...and maybe stick to reels and tanks. It wouldn't surprise me that sulfite being a silver reducer may also be a modifying factor in surfactant build-up in developer. I also believe different films have varying degrees of foaminess potential. Photoflo may be a red herring or modifying factor in this case, as many have mentioned foam remains when photoflo is absent from the process but probably contributes if used in tanks. I haven't let photoflo touch my tank or reels in 20 years.

In my example the air-bells are in plain tap water with a clean reel, so no chance the cause was surfactants in a film. I had noticed air bubble sticking to the sides of a glass jug when I filled it with water.

Air-bell issues have been known about since at least the 1930s, particularly with hard tap water Agfa added a surfactant to Rodinal in the 30s as 35mm became popular, other manufactures added compounds like Sodium Hexmetaphosphate to developers and/or surfactants..

A build up of surfactants on spirals or in a dirty tank causes developer foaming, the results look quite different to air-bells.

Surfactants can't cause air-bells.

Ian