I was just given 2 gallons of Kodak flexicolor tank bleach. The ingredient label contains the chemical names: ferric ammonium propylenediamine, ammonium nitrate and acetic acid. Can this bleach be used for film and or paper and can it be recharged with aeration? Also can anyone tell me what the capacity per volume might be?
It's for C-41 film processing. As for your other questions, google on "flexicolor bleach" and you will likely turn up the relevant kodak literature containing a wealth of info.
There are ways to recharge the activity of bleach, but they are usually reserved for large scale operations. Usually the colour film process, c-41 uses a sepaprate bleach and fix process. The paper process usually combines the bleaching and fixing - in the form of a 'blix'. It may be possible to use this bleach in a blix, but I am not sure this would be advisable for more than a one shot session. Bleach in working strength is usually quite long lived. So mix up just what you need to process your films, and keep the rest in concentrate form. I came across a few gallong of e-6 slide film process bleach a few years ago for freee. Since the bleach is the expensive part of the process, I have been using it for slide and c-41 films in 1L increments. The e-6 bleach is rated for 20 80 square inches worth of film. There were discussions on this site in the past that e-6 is a more active bleach than c-41, so it was ok to use both reversal and negative filme with e06 bleach, but not the oterh way around. Bleaching is a process that takes place after all developer activity has ceased. Develop, stop bath, and a couple of good rinses to make sure all developer is gone, and you can bleach with the lid off the tank. If the bleaching time is say, 6:00, and the film is not visually bleahced by half that time, then by my set of guidelines, it is time to mix a fresh batch, and take the existing bleach and package it up to drop it at the HHW depot. I am not up on the correct manual contents, but you should find all you need to know at this link: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/business/retailPhoto/techInfo/zManuals/url]
This is bleach III a much stronger bleach than the older version and lower in pollution. It should not be mixed with hypo to make a bleach fix. It can be used with all C41 films, but IDK about E6. It probably can with the right adjustment in time. Don't use it on paper. It might stain or affect image stability. IDK. PE
