ascorbic acid: from Photographers Formulary or the vitamin store

ymc226

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Any difference as the vitamin store advertises
"pure" vitamin C powder for 1/5 the price.


I want to use it to add to stand development as it can decrease fog.
 

Ian Grant

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If you can check the brand name/manufacturer you might be able to check the prity onlinr.

It may well be fine. Often photographic grade chemicals are similar to normal technical grade, in the UK there are BS (British Standards) for Photographic chemicals, these form part of the Worldwide ISO standard system.

Ian
 

WarEaglemtn

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You want to double check what is required before buying. Some formulas use Sodium Ascorbate and some ascorbic acid. They are not the same thing and using the wrong one will mess with your results.

I get my sodium ascorbate at the local health food store.
 

jim appleyard

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There are several kinds of Vitamin C. Some are good for photo use and not for the human body and vice versa. What's at my local health food store will process film & paper, but it's not the best and leaves quite a bit of precip at the bottom of the jug.

Formulary will have the best type for photo use.

Gainer can explain in greater detail than I can.
 

Nicholas Lindan

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I use 'health-food-store' Vitamin C powder with no problem. It's a pure white crystalline powder, 100% Ascorbic acid on the ingredient panel. "now' brand, 3lb jar $30 from Amazon; even notes it's 2.25 gm / 1/2 tsp on the side - handy, that.


I wouldn't use any that is touted as organic or made from some natural source. You want a pure artificial manufactured synthetic product.
 
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Aurum

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Last time I looked the cost of Vitamin C, pure, from the manufacturer was about £5 / Kg, say $10-15 for just over 2lbs. (I needed a cost for a cosmetic product I was formulating, and was offering to buy about half a tonne a year)

Of course if you are buying comparitively small quantities that have been packed and repacked, the cost is going to be much more. $10 a pound from Amazon sounds not excessive once you factor in packing it, the packaging it comes in, packers profit and Amazon markup.

Oh and "Organic Vitamins" - My A*se.
All of the bulk commodity vits are made by huge great chemical plants to pharmaceutical standards. Usually in Germany, and by companies such as BASF and DSM (Previously known as Roche in some markets)
 
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ntenny

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Nicholas Lindan said:
I wouldn't use any that is touted as organic or made from some natural source. You want a pure artificial manufactured synthetic product.
Click to expand...

In the US, at least, "organic" tells you that the raw materials and processing met certain restrictions. From what little I know about commercial food processing, I'd expect that organic ascorbic acid and "pure artificial manufactured synthetic" ascorbic acid are probably both extracted from corn, but the organic version starts with organically farmed corn. I don't think there's any reason the resulting chemical would be different (especially if labelled "100% ascorbic acid").

-NT
 

Photo Engineer

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Jim's post #3 says it all.

Some ascorbic acid appears to be fine and others leave a residue suspended in the developer solution. One is good and one is bad for photographic applications. If the AA makes a clear developer solution in distilled water, or in tap water with a sequestering agent, then it is probably fine.

AA also oxidizes on the shelf with keeping and so can vary with strength.

PE
 

Nicholas Lindan

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Aurum said:
DSM (Previously known as Roche in some markets)
Click to expand...

Roche, the diagnostics division (nee Boehringer Mannheim), was one of my clients. The corporate company paper once touted that Roche produced 90% of the world's vitamin C. They had built a huge factory in Scotland dedicated to nothing but making ascorbic acid.

It was sold to Dutch State Mining (not exactly a catchy phrase for a vitamin company - hence DSM).

So, it doesn't really matter where you buy it - you are more than likely buying the same stuff.

As far as 'Organic Vitamin C' - extract of Rose hips and such. Dissolving a tablet leaves behind a lot of precipitate and a murky pale yellow sollution.

The manufacture of Vitamin C starts with glucose - think corn syrup. The Vitamin C is not extracted from corn. I don't think the origin of the corn would make the final product organic. May as well call plastic organic as it is made from oil that was made from dinosaur poop, said poop being pooped by dinosaurs that were raised without hormones or insecticides.
 
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gainer

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Ascorbic acid is in fact organic if it is pure because it contains only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.That is not the limit of elements that can be in organic compounds, but if those are all it has, it's pretty surely organic. For some of our uses, lemon juice would do with a little filtering of pulp.

I have been using ascorbic acid from NOW foods. I have also used erythorbic acid from The Chemistry Store. It is the mirror image of ascorbic acid, also called isoascorbic acid, which is what Kodak uses in Xtol. Our photographic uses will not be able to tell which one we are using, but don't imbibe it thinking you are getting your Vitamin C.
 

ntenny

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Nicholas Lindan said:
The manufacture of Vitamin C starts with glucose - think corn syrup. The Vitamin C is not extracted from corn.
Click to expand...

Agreed; it's synthesised starting with glucose, which can come from plant sources (corn, rose hips, &c.) or otherwise (I suppose the Scottish factory uses some form of petroleum by-product?). I shouldn't have said "extracted".


I think there might be something to that. But, seriously, "organic" on a supplement label became a term with a legal definition in the US as of 2005, and it means basically the same thing it means on a food label---the raw materials are animal or vegetable and were produced under "organic" conditions (no chemical fertilisers, antibiotics, &c., but it's a complex legalistic definition). I'm pretty sure the USDA regs actually do mean that "organic vitamin C" was synthesised using glucose from organically grown corn (or rose hips or what have you).

No argument about the possibility of tableted vitamin C having different residues and impurities depending on the source and process used to create it. But in the case of a jar of 100% ascorbic acid, I still think that unless the label is flat-out fraudulent, meeting the USDA organic regulations shouldn't have any bearing on how it behaves chemically.

-NT
 

nworth

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Sometimes what you get from the vitamin store is the stame as what you get from the chemical store, but not always. Ascorbic acid from the vitamin store can contain additives, fillers, and flavors that may or may not be compatible with photo uses. Moreover, the vitamin store frequently changes its sources, so what you get today may not be what you get tomorrow, even if the packaging looks the same.
 

Tim Gray

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Nicholas Lindan said:
May as well call plastic organic as it is made from oil that was made from dinosaur poop, said poop being pooped by dinosaurs that were raised without hormones or insecticides.
Click to expand...

Organic dino poop is my favorite. Far superior to the conventional dino poop. Look for the 9!
 

Kirk Keyes

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I've got some dinosaur poop. It's about 155 million years old, looks like agate, and there's no way anyone can make oil, plastic, or any other organic chemical out of it!
 

Kirk Keyes

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Nope - it's fossilized and looks completely inoorganic now.
 
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