Chemicals- how long do they live?

Today we had the both sweet and sad opportunity to empty out someones darkroom. Apart from tons of old film and paper there were chemicals both b/w and colour, some stuff from the seventies and some fresher. We got rid of the fluid ones but surely the powder should be ok, or?

-Sarah

sarahfoto said:

We got rid of the fluid ones but surely the powder should be ok, or?

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You got rid of all of the Rodinal?

Powder, if kept dry, should be ok. Have used powders from late 80's recently. The current fixer batch 'expired' in 1990.

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Best way to know for sure would be to crack a pouch and mix up a batch. If it nice and powdery, not clumped due to moisture, I would bet they were all kept well and would not hesitate to use any of it.

Other than developing agent and some anti-foggants, which are orgainic and subject to oixidization, most of the dry ingredients should be fine. If they are pure ingredients, ie. sodium carbonate, sodium sulfite, etc, the worst that might have happened is thst they have absorbed moisture and gone from the anhyrdous state, if they started that way, to monohydrate, etc. There are conversion factors available that make then still usable.

Well there are some pure chem but mainly different kinds of developers Kodak and fix. I will follow Christopher's advice and try it out! Thanks
-Sarah