Adox D76 ?!

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Don_ih

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Never overestimate my chemistry knowledge.

Yeah, my chemistry knowledge can be written on a salt packet you get with a plate of chips.
The stuff appears to be significantly alkaline, which is what borax is doing in D76. so maybe can replace borax.
 

pentaxuser

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Thanks, Don. Any idea what it is that it does specifically My question is driven by a thought that lots of stuff may be significantly alkaline but still not meet the requirement to replace borax.

It was just that in any comparison between one packet D76 and two packet ID11 a lot seems to get made of D76's advantage in it being one packet only compared to ID11. I may be naive as well as lacking in knowledge but other than it being mixed slightly quicker nothing else springs to mind in terms of an advantage

pentaxuser
 

MattKing

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a lot seems to get made of D76's advantage in it being one packet only compared to ID11. I may be naive as well as lacking in knowledge but other than it being mixed slightly quicker nothing else springs to mind in terms of an advantage

pentaxuser

Cheaper to package. Potentially cheaper to ship. Easier for retailers to display and possibly easier to store.
And if you are a commercial lab mixing it up gallons of it frequently, the mixing advantages are very clear - particularly the big containers that they bought.
 
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albada

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If it has no borate, it's not D76.
Perhaps Adox should call it G76, where G = Green.
 

Anon Ymous

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Meanwhile, I can go to the farm supplies store and buy as much borax as I want, it is used as a fertiliser. If it wasn't for Adox stating that borates are some sort of controlled substance I wouldn't have known.
 

Don_ih

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It definitely should not be called D76 if it has no borax, since D76 has always been described as a mq-borax developer. But if it is indistinguishable from D76 made with borax, in terms of behaviour and results, there's not much good reason to not call it that.
 

pentaxuser

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Cheaper to package. Potentially cheaper to ship. Easier for retailers to display and possibly easier to store.
And if you are a commercial lab mixing it up gallons of it frequently, the mixing advantages are very clear - particularly the big containers that they bought.

Thanks Matt Yes that makes sense but I was just under the impression that its one packet v two packets had some kind of an advantage to consumer and all I could think of was it speeds up the mixing slightly

pentaxuser
 

removedacct2

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Borax (and probably all borates) are a controlled substance in the EU for safety reasons. It has become nearly as challenging for private individuals to purchase borax as, say dichromate. Whether that's justified...well, I think it's clear to anyone the risk profiles of these substances are completely different, and that it's debatable how dangerous borax realistically is. But that doesn't change the fact that it's logical if Adox has indeed eliminated borates from their products.

borates are in EU classified as H360F, risk for fertility, reproductive toxicant 1B.
What it implies is a specfic label with warning:

https://echa.europa.eu/fr/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.239.213


there is no ban as it is sometimes read online and in fact borates, recently, after the "adventures" of EU with China and Russia, are put on the list of critical substances for EU:


because the H360F, use in household consumer products is banned, and in food industry, and industrial uses requires specific procedures in plants , but otherwise a range of borates are sold as usual. In wielding for instance.
Here was an old (2010) and not canceled/amended opinion of the European Chemical Agency, when asked about the use of borates in hobbyist photographic development:


"The opinion concerns the use of the substances by amateur photographers to develop and print their own photographs from films in the darkroom. In its opinion, RAC concluded that the use of these substances does not pose a risk to consumers when no other boron sources are considered."

----


D-76 original formula is an old staple of metol-hydroquinone developer, and in Europe two companies have been manufacturing and selling: FOMA in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic and Slavich in Russia. They sell small packs of two powder bags to mix for 1 liter.
Slavich's is labelled D-76, FOMA's in Fomadon P and is a buffered D76 ie. D76d it has more borates like 8g borax + boric acid. (pH stabilization effect also).

we can leave Slavich apart because it's not EU, but FOMA is Czech and this is EU.

foma-fomadon-p-w37-revelateur-film-1l.jpg



Borax is easy to buy as individual. In Germany for instance Flußmittel zum Feuerschweißen or Schweißpulver.

that said different countries have different kind of sociological and cultural specifics.

so why ADOX makes a D76 ersatz without borax but FOMA makes a D76d with four more amount of borax that D76, yet Germany and Czechia are both inside the EU ?
 
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Philippe-Georges

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If it has no borate, it's not D76.
Perhaps Adox should call it G76, where G = Green.

No, E-76 like Chris Patton from the Hopkins Marine Station (and others) did...
E from ecologic?

BTW, his formula is pretty good!
 

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Philippe-Georges

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It completely fails to take account of the need to prevent the Fenton reaction.

I use this formula since around 2005 regularly, when X-Tol isn't available, and I never had an issue.
I banned Metol and Hydrochinon from my darkroom...
The same for Patton's E-72.

As a mater of fact, I don't really understand where that Fenton fear comes from.
If I understand Wikipedia correctly (and Wikipedia is correct), I am NOT a chemist, Fenton is an exothermic reaction between a reactive oxygen and Iron.
There is no Hydrogen peroxide (and alike) in E-76 nor iron in the demineralised water I use to mix this developer.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Fenton's reagent is a solution of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) with ferrous iron (typically iron(II) sulfate, FeSO4) as a catalyst that is used to oxidize contaminants or waste waters as part of an advanced oxidation process. Fenton's reagent can be used to destroy organic compounds such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene, PCE). It was developed in the 1890s by Henry John Horstman Fenton as an analytical reagent..."

But I realise that in industrial prepared developers, meant to be used all around the world, an 'encounter' with Fenton mus be anticipated...

Perhaps Marco from ADOX can help us here?
 
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halfaman

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I use this formula since around 2005 regularly, when X-Tol isn't available, and I never had an issue.
I banned Metol and Hydrochinon from my darkroom...
The same for Patton's E-72.

As a mater of fact, I don't really understand where that Fenton fear comes from.
If I understand Wikipedia correctly (and Wikipedia is correct), I am NOT a chemist, Fenton is an exothermic reaction between a reactive oxygen and Iron.
There is no Hydrogen peroxide (and alike) in E-76 nor iron in the demineralised water I use to mix this developer.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Fenton's reagent is a solution of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) with ferrous iron (typically iron(II) sulfate, FeSO4) as a catalyst that is used to oxidize contaminants or waste waters as part of an advanced oxidation process. Fenton's reagent can be used to destroy organic compounds such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene, PCE). It was developed in the 1890s by Henry John Horstman Fenton as an analytical reagent..."

But I realise that in industrial prepared developers, meant to be used all around the world, an 'encounter' with Fenton mus be anticipated...

Perhaps Marco from ADOX can help us here?

The Fenton reaction we care about here is between Vitamin C and ferric ion in aqueous solution. Ferric ions could come from water itself but also as an impurity on other chemicals. That is why XTOL has a powerful sequestrant in the formula.
 

Alan Johnson

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A recent [2021] study of the aerobic oxidation of ascorbic acid in presence of various ions is reported on p 44 et seq here. It is a lot faster in presence of copper and of iron.
Since this is a recent study , similar results for developer pH , say 8-10, have probably not been published in this form.
I have not tried to find confirmation but the results at pH 8-10 would likely be similar.
 

Formulahunter

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One must keep in Mind that when Kodak releases a product it must be as bulletproof as possible. And even if in only .1% of the Cases the fenton reaction takes place due to the user having a high iron content in the Water, or whatever, Kodak will try to mitigate that Issue. And so should they.
It could be that in 99.9% of the cases everything goes fine with the homebrew version. Its just not viable as a commercial product due to the .1%.
Also most chemicls are much more shelf stable when stored pure. Which also can be a reason for some additives in prepacked developers.
 

ADOX Fotoimpex

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Thank you everyone for the great interest in our new product. It is officially listed at Freestyles and in our webshop now.

Some of the questions raised here in the discussion can actually be taken from the topic starters post where we advertise our version of D-76 to contain a biodegradable chelating agent 🤓
About the borates it is more difficult to find out. Since the first amendmend of the CLP directive which became effective in March 2015 all borates are to be classified as mutagen toxic. This means they are not banned but regulated for professional use only. After a certain concentration in a mixture it is illegal to sell them to consumers and they have to be labeled and classified as a poison. Thus consequentially pure borates cannot be bought by individuals who are not in the posession of a special certifikate (Giftschein in German) and the store has to have an allowance to handle toxins.
None of this is possible for a photo chemical in the way we market them.
This is EU wide and therefore I am very sure that our competitors products do not have borate concentrations as outlined in one of the posts here (8g on a 126g mix is illegal).
We also expect borates to be fully banned in the future.
We still sell some older recipes like Atomal with borates in the allowed quantities but they underperform compared to the original recipe. This is why we undertook R&D to replace the borates completely. XT-3 was the first product to come out of this and D-76 is the logical continuation. ATOMAL is the next in line.
The new buffer costs substantually more, but we kept prices competitive despite. So for the user there are only advantages in our opinion.

To answer the last open question: Yes, we replace them with an alternative buffer. So our D-76 is buffered as if it had borates inside (the only reason for them in the mix) and yes we added a sequestering agent as well. Acording to Sinopromises MSDS this is actually missing in the current Kodak recipe. I can hardly imagine they use one with less than 1% or an eco version like we do. Also if I recall right Kodak promotes the mixing in distilled water in their techsheet. We actually think tab water is better than distilled water because of the bacteriological problems with ion-exchanged water. It is also far more convinient to use 😉
 
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