A single datapoint about reformulated HC-110's longevity

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

I purchased a fresh bottle of HC-110 right before Covid hit in 2020. For obvious reasons, life got in the way and I didn't get around to cracking it open until this past Tuesday, 11/16/2021. The manufacturer's expiration date stamped on it is 11/21.

Given the new formulation's unknown longevity, I immediately decanted it into glass bottles leaving no air-space other than in my "working" bottle that I'm keeping purged with butane.

The next morning, about 12 hours later, the remnants left in the bottle looked like the attached picture. It's worth noting that I doubt moisture is at play; my house has been at 15% relative humidity this winter. Also, there were some crystals precipitated out before I opened it. It would seem "new" HC-110 is considerably more sensitive to O2 than the old, thick formula.

ChristopherCoy · Feb 21, 2021

phreon said:
I purchased a fresh bottle of HC-110 right before Covid hit in 2020. For obvious reasons, life got in the way and I didn't get around to cracking it open until this past Tuesday, 11/16/2021. The manufacturer's expiration date stamped on it is 11/21.

Given the new formulation's unknown longevity, I immediately decanted it into glass bottles leaving no air-space other than in my "working" bottle that I'm keeping purged with butane.

The next morning, about 12 hours later, the remnants left in the bottle looked like the attached picture. It's worth noting that I doubt moisture is at play; my house has been at 15% relative humidity this winter. Also, there were some crystals precipitated out before I opened it. It would seem "new" HC-110 is considerably more sensitive to O2 than the old, thick formula.

Or perhaps its more sensitive to butane.....

My bottle bought and opened last year around this time, was recently reopened after non-use and was still clear.

albada · Feb 21, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
Or perhaps its more sensitive to butane.....

I'm sure the OP did not purge the original bottle with butane.
@phreon : Could you add water to the remnant to approximate a typical dilution, and then perform a strip-test on a film-leader? That would tell us whether the developer is actually dead.

ChristopherCoy · Feb 21, 2021

albada said:
I'm sure the OP did not purge the original bottle with butane.

I assumed he introduced butane into the bottle to displace the air since butane is heavier.

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

I introduced butane into the glass bottle I'm using as an oxygen purge, not the empty plastic bottle. For anyone who's curious, look at the MSDS for Tetanal "Protectan Spray" linked below. It's butane, propane and isobutane - portable cook stove gas.

As for testing what's left in the bottle, it's a mix of liquid and precipitated crystals. There might be enough left to make some sort of working solution out of. I'll run a test strip off of the decanted HC-110 tonight and note the time; I plan to develop a roll @ dilution H, I'll see if I can work up a comparison to the brown sludge.

Either way, the old formulation didn't darken nearly this fast.

https://www.digitaltruth.com/products/tetenal_msds/protectan-MSDS.pdf

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
Or perhaps its more sensitive to butane.....

My bottle bought and opened last year around this time, was recently reopened after non-use and was still clear.

The difference is your bottle wasn't mostly air-space, if I've reading you correctly.

Did or does your bottle contain and solid precipitates?

ChristopherCoy · Feb 21, 2021

phreon said:
The difference is your bottle wasn't mostly air-space, if I've reading you correctly.

Did or does your bottle contain and solid precipitates?

I opened it around March last year I believe, but only used about 1/8th the bottle, maybe less. Significantly less airspace than your bottle had.

Having recently read about possible problems though, I decanted the bottle into small 8oz blue glass bottles that were filled until overflowing before capped.

pentaxuser · Feb 21, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
Having recently read about possible problems though, I decanted the bottle into small 8oz blue glass bottles that were filled until overflowing before capped.

Christopher, assuming that the OP tries the remnants in the decanted container and finds that they are dead after as little as 12 hours then if there was nothing wrong with it in the first place when decanted, this suggests a worrying aspect which as yet doesn't seem to have been seen. However the alternative of small bottles has the serious drawback of requiring almost ludicrously small bottles( can you even get such small containers and if you can how long is it going to take to decant a whole bottle of say 500ml into what will be maybe 50 bottles?) as they need to be used completely in one go. If they are not then you are back to hoping that purging with a gas each time you extract a few ml works and preserves the new version HC110 as long as that of the old version which I assume never required purging. It was in effect almost the Kodak equivalent of Rodinal in terms of longevity.

So you may as well just decant the 9/10ml each time from the original bottle and use gas each time.

I hope that my extension of what the OP is telling us is wrong because what he thinks he has found is not in fact what he has found and everything is OK.

Hopefully relistan's theory about a non water ingredient which is less syrupy that what was used before is right

I have addressed this reply to Christopher as it is his quote I have used but my post in terms of the use of the word "you" is really the general "you" as it applies to all users

pentaxuser

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

pentaxuser said:
I hope that my extension of what the OP is telling us is wrong because what thinks he has found is not in fact what he has found and everything is OK.

I've main no claims other than this current batch darkened extremely fast in the presence of air, something the old version was much slower to do. I've made zero claims otherwise. However, my understanding has always been that HC-110 going dark was a bad sign. I simply have never had it happen before.

ChristopherCoy · Feb 21, 2021

pentaxuser said:
However the alternative of small bottles has the serious drawback of requiring almost ludicrously small bottles( can you even get such small containers and if you can how long is it going to take to decant a whole bottle of say 500ml into what will be maybe 50 bottles?)

I purchased 4oz bottles. I think I ended up with 13 full bottles.

Actually, now that I think about it, there was a little left in the plastic kodak bottle that I wasn't able to get into the glass bottles. It's been that way since the afternoon of 2/9. I'll check my bottle when I get home after work this evening and report my findings with photos.

MattKing · Feb 21, 2021

My experience with traditional HC-110 is that it would slowly go dark.
I expect that if you had done the same thing with a bottle of the traditional HC-110,you would soon see it going darker, but not as quickly as with the new stuff.
The deterioration happens at the air to syrup interface.

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

MattKing said:
My experience with traditional HC-110 is that it would slowly go dark.
I expect that if you had done the same thing with a bottle of the traditional HC-110,you would soon see it going darker, but not as quickly as with the new stuff.
The deterioration happens at the air to syrup interface.

All I can say is the last bottle I ran out years ago had the same general amount of remnant left in the bottle as this one. It was straw colored when I used the last bit and threw the bottle out. I posted this because changing to the color of cherry syrup in 12 hours is completely outside my experience with the old, thick stuff. That's why I titled this thread a "data point", not a claim of any type. The new formula exhibited different behavior than the old stuff in a short period of time.

If anybody still has one of the old, squat bottles (original formula), I'm curious to know what the stamp showing the plastic type indicates.

albada · Feb 21, 2021

phreon said:
If anybody still has one of the old, squat bottles (original formula), I'm curious to know what the stamp showing the plastic type indicates.

I have such a bottle that I bought in the 1990s and is about 85% full, kept refrigerated the entire time. It's still straw colored, except the remnant above the syrup is dark. The expiration date is 2009-12. The recycle code of the plastic is 2, also marked HDPE. I don't think polyethylene is a particularly good oxygen barrier; I much prefer PET or glass.
Mark Overton

John Bragg · Feb 21, 2021

Perhaps of interest to anyone seeking a cheap and efficient storage solution, I have found that Calpol childrens oral medicine bottles are ideal. 100ml winchester brown bottles complete with dedicated stopper and an oral medicine syringe and a child proof cap. I tried them on Ilfosol 3 and they work like a charm. I now have a litre of Ilfotec HC decanted into 10 of them and that will be used at dilution H.

Wallendo · Feb 21, 2021

This is disconcerting, especially if confirmed by others’ experiences.

Using dilution B and steel tanks, I use 7.5ml of syrup for each roll. If takes a long time to use up a liter. If the developer is relatively short-lived, I hope Sino Promise will sell it in 250 or 500ml bottles.

ChristopherCoy · Feb 21, 2021

This is my bottle, which has been this way since 2/9 as previously stated. Bottle expires 01/22. It’s clearly darkened some, but not to the extent of the OP. Maybe the colder temps kept it longer?

Wayne · Feb 21, 2021

I would do an experiment but I'm not going to waste any of my precious old-style HC-110. I think the lesson is simply to store it in filled PET or (for the old fashioned) glass bottles once its been opened.

MattKing · Feb 21, 2021

There is way more air in that almost emptied bottle that the OP pictured.

pentaxuser · Feb 21, 2021

I was watching a video on a demonstration of film developing that was dated April 2020 using HC110 and certainly from what I saw the HC110 which I think by then must have been the new version was moving in the bottle no differently from any other liquid developer so it would appear that the old syrupy nature has completely gone but hopefully this lesser syrupy nature means little or nothing. However as I said unless you can decant it into full but very small bottles that you use completely then I do wonder if there is any benefit compared to simply injecting a layer of gas each time you remove 10 ml from the Kodak 500ml container

pentaxuser

grat · Feb 21, 2021

MattKing said:
There is way more air in that almost emptied bottle that the OP pictured.

Not just more air, but the surface area exposed to the air is far, far greater. ChristopherCoy's bottle has a single layer of liquid exposed to air. Phreon's bottle, nearly everything on the sides of the bottle is heavily exposed to air.

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

I *thought* I was going to do a quick test with my 1:63 working solution; of course that was a ludicrous idea. FAR to slow, so I just got on with developing the roll of Fomapan 400 @14 min, 19C. It's drying now, the negatives look decent.

I'll come up with a 1:10 test between the developer stored in a glass bottle (water clear) + butane vs. the mess still in the old HDPE bottle tomorrow.

Pictured/attached is how I'm storing 1L of HC-110, two 8 oz and one 16 oz bottle. There was a little spillage making sure 2 of those bottles were filled to the brim when being capped. The two on the right are full, the leftmost has "air" space.

phreon · Feb 21, 2021

MattKing said:
There is way more air in that almost emptied bottle that the OP pictured.

That bottle has more than what's left in my bottle by 2 or 3 times.

mgb74 · Feb 22, 2021

Something to consider as if you're putting the HC-110 into bottles is the seal of the cap. For some bottles I have, I was able to find rubber washers that fit.

pentaxuser · Feb 22, 2021

Perhaps others who buy the new HC110 will decant the whole bottle into smaller bottles and if they do it will be helpful if they were to keep the empty HC110 bottle and report (a) how soon the straw coloured HC110 turns the same colour as the OP's bottle and (b) try if possible to see if there is enough of the cherry stuff left to make a small quantity of diluted HC110 and use if for a leader test

Thanks

pentaxuser

phreon · Feb 22, 2021

I performed a quick and dirty test. Given what I could get out of the old bottle, I set up 2 small plastic graduates with 2+100. Left is "fresh" out of the glass bottle, right, the cough syrup dark HC-110 that has by now been in the mostly empty bottle since Tues, 2/16 (6 days).

I eyeballed it a bit. I held the test strip more or less half way in the developer and slowly swished it about until it was clearly darkening - in this case, 3 minutes. Then I dunked the whole strip for another 3 giving a 3/6 minute strip. Not particularly scientific, but it's something. After the time was up, a quick rinse in tap water, then into fixer.

Both strips were photoed on my light tablet/table with my cell phone camera in manual mode (LG V40).

The left strip done in the clear developer did noticeably darken a bit more, but the deep red "sludge" was clearly still quite active.

A single datapoint about reformulated HC-110's longevity

phreon

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