Ancient (1930s-40s) chemicals safety

I recently cleaned out the closets and garden shed of an older collector who is moving due to health issues, part of my haul was a box of old chemicals in brown glass bottles with cork stoppers (oldest) or bakelite lids. Some of these bottles have lost their labels or they are illegible. I am a little concerned about safety, not in properly handling the chems in their normal state but if any of the commonly used chemicals in the 30s-40s might become unstable with age and reactive.

The bottles I could readily identify were things like silver nitrate (200-250g) and ammonium bichromate (not di-). There are also 3 bottles of metal nuggets, which from weight I assume 2 are silver, and the 3rd is probably copper sulfate from the color (well, something or other copper-related). I will make a list of everything I can identify and take some pics of the rest and post it for comments, I just want some reassurance before I actually open any of the bottles that don't have labels. Yes I have gloves, goggles, apron and an industrial respirator, but no real lab equipment. I have taken basic chemistry at uni level in the not too distant past, I know what can happen if I mix the wrong chems with water or expose a long-sealed reactive chemical to air. I do plan on doing collodion and pt/pd at some point in my life, though for the moment I do 8x10 B&W and E6 and scan only. I post on LFPF usually, but this question is probably best posted here.

Interested to hear any comments.

Welcome to APUG

You should talk to Photo Engineer. I will send him a message.

Sirius Glass said:

Welcome to APUG

You should talk to Photo Engineer. I will send him a message.

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Thanks. I just realized that this is my first post, though I joined a little over 5 years ago and I read fairly often.

Ammonium Bichromate = Ammonium Dichromate

The prefix "bi-" is Latin, the prefix "di-" is Greek.
Both languages were used in chemical terminology.

sounds light a nightmare.
how about bringing them to
your local hazmat disposal as-is
and let them take care of it ?
80-90 year old amber bottles
full of unknown potentially fumy, toxic, curious stuff **is
the last thing i would want to deal with.

good luck !

** containing mercury, uranium, cyanide and other salts that might after 80-90 years
not be what they were when they were originally poured into the bottles ...

Yes, there are chemicals that during long storage may turn into something (more) dangerous. Though no chemical typically used in the darkroom comes to my mind, fitting that group.

Any bottle where you got the slightest doubt about the content should be brought to hazmat collection anyway.
Keep in mind that even if there is a sound designation on the bottle the content not necessarily be congruent.

Jody S said:

ammonium bichromate

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Be careful - Ammonium bi-/dichromate is explosive and will decompose at temperatures > 100 deg. C and autoignite at temperatures > 130 deg. C. So keep it out of the sunlight and don´t drop the bottle.

A side note: some of the stuff from the old labs is extremely poisonous, like the ammonium dichromate and mercury salts. Wearing gloves when handling old bottles is a really good idea, as they might be contaminated on the outside!

Here's my list (amber bottles):
Merck silver nitrate crystals 16oz
Mallinckrodt Ammonium bichromate 1/4lb
Merck potassium triphosphate 1/4lb
Haupf glycin
Mallinckrodt pictol
Merck lead nitrate
Kodak elon
Merck calcium fluoride 1/4lb
potassium thiocyanate (poor condition, crystallized with liquid covering)
cupric oxide
potassium metabisulfate 1 oz + 4oz
Eastman crystal pyro
Merck potassium ferricyanide 1/4lb
potasssium bromide
1 bottle of what appears to be ancient glycerin (now looks like amber; I suppose it could be Canada balsam)
1 bottle of unidentifiable white crystals
2 bottles silver nuggets
1 bottle blue copper crystal something


And from another purchase in modern plastic bottles (10-15 years old):
tartaric acid 10g
potassium iodide 30g
boric acid 100g
alun 125g
ammonium peroxy-disulfate 500g
sodium sulfide 250g
ferric ammonium citrate 100g
potassium ferricyanide 100g
potassium bromide 250g
thiocarbamide 100g
ferric chloride 100g
sodium sulfate 250g
sodium carbonate 250g
copper sulfate 100g
catechol 100g
potassium citrate 100g
citric acid 100g
borax 100g
+ an invoice for most of the above from J.D. Photochem Inc of Longueuil, Quebec (google: J D Photochem Inc is a privately held company in Longueuil, QC . Categorized under Photography Equipment Stores. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of 91293 and employs a staff of approximately 1)


Questions:
1) Am I about to blow myself up or burn down my house or poison my cat?
2) What interesting things can I do with the above? I have no desire to reproduce commercially available products.

Sadly, JD Photochem is no longer in business. I used to get my chemicals from them. Will you sell any of these chemicals?

Andrew O'Neill said:

Sadly, JD Photochem is no longer in business. I used to get my chemicals from them. Will you sell any of these chemicals?

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It's not that I don't want to sell them, I don't want to ship them.

Right off, any lead or chromium salts are poisonous. Any material that is a combination of solids and liquids is bad. Any black or tarry materials is bad. White and yellow is ok, except if potassium iodide is yellow or smells it is bad. Yellow organic liquids such as glycerine is bad. There is so much more that can be said about this but the bottom line is that it is a messy unknown.

PE

You better be careful describing the 1930s-40s as "ancient". Some here might be upset

Photo Engineer said:

Right off, any lead or chromium salts are poisonous. Any material that is a combination of solids and liquids is bad. Any black or tarry materials is bad. White and yellow is ok, except if potassium iodide is yellow or smells it is bad. Yellow organic liquids such as glycerine is bad. There is so much more that can be said about this but the bottom line is that it is a messy unknown.

PE

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So I need to safely dispose of the potassium thiocyanate and I should assume the bottle of unidentified white powder is also toxic? The glycin is bad but not dangerous, and the more recent stuff that's only 10-15 years old is most likely still usable?

Now I'm wishing I'd bought the Darkroom Cookbook the one seller had (he was asking more for the book than a whole box of chems and outdated film).

MattKing said:

You better be careful describing the 1930s-40s as "ancient". Some here might be upset

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Ancient is relative. For a house fly, these are as old as the pharaohs. For a rock, they were made yesterday. For me? I remember seeing stuff like this on the shelves of the old family photo stores I used to go hang out in.

Jody S said:

So I need to safely dispose of the potassium thiocyanate and I should assume the bottle of unidentified white powder is also toxic? The glycin is bad but not dangerous, and the more recent stuff that's only 10-15 years old is most likely still usable?

Now I'm wishing I'd bought the Darkroom Cookbook the one seller had (he was asking more for the book than a whole box of chems and outdated film).

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Yes, but the silver and the silver nitrate might be quite valuable.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Yes, but the silver and the silver nitrate might be quite valuable.

PE

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There's no reason the silver nitrate would have gone bad? I will weigh it tonight.

I was glad to see your list didn't include any ether which can form very explosive peroxides over time.

Jody, silver nitrate is good if it looks like flakes of Mica. If it is dark brown or spotted, it is going bad. Even so, someone can rescue it by recrystallizition if they know how. So, it just darkens and this does not ruin the intrinsic value of the silver.

PE