Developer from Broccoli

Alan Johnson · Nov 15, 2011

Many plant chemicals contain phenolic groups (as do hydroquinone,pyrogallol,pyrocatechol).I tried to extract the phenols from Broccoli by heating 200g Broccoli in 1% sodium carbonate (anh) solution at 100C for 15min with stirring.After filtering this Broccoli extract I added some Phenidone dissolved in isopropyl alcohol.

PP-1 developer:
Extract of 200g Broccoli
Phenidone .................0.1g
Sodium Carbonate 1% to 600ml.

I checked that phenidone alone was not doing the developing by developing old APX 400 30m 20C ag 10s/min in PP-1 without the Broccoli extract.The negatives were very thin and flat.
For the test, APX 400 at EI=200 was developed in PP-1 30m 20C ag10s/min.
The negatives were slightly underdeveloped but otherwise good.The attachments show the full negative and a 0.2in square section.

To see if there was any tanning I bleached the negs in 100g/L ferricyanide/bromide and fixed them.No relief image or tanning could be seen.
This surprised me as I expected plant phenols to be like hydroquinone,pyrogallol, pyrocatechol and tan the negatives.The only explanation I can find is that the oxidation products of Broccoli phenols are not very stable and do not spread through the gelatin (Photographic Processing Chemistry, LFA Mason 1975 p172).Of course all this does rely on the assumption that it is the phenols from Broccoli that are involved in the developing.
Thanks for comment.

brianmquinn · Nov 15, 2011

Nice work. I started out my science career working with plant extracts. The only problem I see with your truly new developer is that phenols and other chemicals contained in Broccoli and other plants vary highly. They are affected by the growing conditions, age of the plant and horticultural variety used. It would be nice to have a developer that had the same streignth each time it was mixed up. I think "Broccinal" may not be consistent from batch to batch. (or is it bunch to bunch)

But I could be wrong. Only real tests like yours will tell.

guitstik · Nov 15, 2011

I like mine with cheese.

artonpaper · Nov 15, 2011

Amazing!

landscapepics · Nov 15, 2011

Now I know what to do the broccoli that my kids consistently leave on their plates !

Mainecoonmaniac · Nov 15, 2011

It is amazing! So let me ask if doing a roll of film is considered a serving of vegetable?

pgomena · Nov 15, 2011

I now feel secure in knowing the grocery store will supply me with photographic chemicals long after commercial suppliers have vanished.

Is there any chance that some of the power of the extract might come from vitamin C, or would all the vitamin C be destroyed by the "cooking" process?

Peter Gomena

nhemann · Nov 15, 2011

This is probably the most interesting/odd post I have seen on here - I love it! I can't wait to hear more about this!

Photo Engineer · Nov 15, 2011

There is bad reticulation evident on the second thumbnail. Any thoughts? Temperature? pH? Broccoli induced softening? Broccoli induced swell?

PE

guitstik · Nov 15, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
There is bad reticulation evident on the second thumbnail. Any thoughts? Temperature? pH? Broccoli induced softening? Broccoli induced swell?

PE

Egg roll

Mike Wilde · Nov 15, 2011

Take care where we are going with this. Coffee, broccoli, who knows what is next.

Read Haist. Apparently human urine can be a viable developer. If we go this way, then we will have to specify what the urine producer was drinking and eating in the three hours prior to voiding to generate the feed stock to standardize on development times.

Then we can really talk up the image in gallery showings.
I can just imaging the label - "negative and print developed in a solution eveolved from the urine of a pregnant Zulu, who consumed 4 litres of Perrier and ate a package of red licorice during the production period."

Actually, hats off to your scientific curiousity. Very intersting work.

lxdude · Nov 15, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
There is bad reticulation evident on the second thumbnail. Any thoughts? Temperature? pH? Broccoli induced softening? Broccoli induced swell?

PE

Maybe the animal the gelatin came from didn't like Broccoli.

lxdude · Nov 15, 2011

Mike Wilde said:
Take care where we are going with this. Coffee, broccoli, who knows what is next.

Asparagus!

Apparently human urine can be a viable developer. If we go this way, then we will have to specify what the urine producer was drinking and eating in the three hours prior to voiding to generate the feed stock to standardize on development times.

Urine with asparagus! The developer could be called Stinkinal-P.

Mainecoonmaniac · Nov 15, 2011

Ye good olde days, the Saltpeterman made gun powder from urine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP7DohlcqkI

I'd imagine if we did use urine as a developer, women would have a tougher time filling the film tanks. Also APUGers would have to figure out a standard development time for 98 degrees too. Maybe recycled urine can be the next green, eco friendly photo chemical.

bsdunek · Nov 15, 2011

Mike Wilde said:
Take care where we are going with this. Coffee, broccoli, who knows what is next.

Read Haist. Apparently human urine can be a viable developer. If we go this way, then we will have to specify what the urine producer was drinking and eating in the three hours prior to voiding to generate the feed stock to standardize on development times.

I don't even want to know what can be used as fixer.
That aside, this is interesting.

Someonenameddavid · Nov 15, 2011

Mike Wilde said:
Take care where we are going with this. Coffee, broccoli, who knows what is next.

Read Haist. Apparently human urine can be a viable developer. If we go this way, then we will have to specify what the urine producer was drinking and eating in the three hours prior to voiding to generate the feed stock to standardize on development times.

Then we can really talk up the image in gallery showings.
I can just imaging the label - "negative and print developed in a solution eveolved from the urine of a pregnant Zulu, who consumed 4 litres of Perrier and ate a package of red licorice during the production period."

Actually, hats off to your scientific curiousity. Very intersting work.

human urine developer...... Urinal

David

ntenny · Nov 15, 2011

This is great! It'd be nice to replace the phenidone with something kitchen-derived, but it sounds like there probably aren't any good candidates that would give superadditivity with the broccoli extract. Even as it is, the activity seems pretty low if 30 minutes produced underdeveloped negatives.

-NT

Alan Johnson · Nov 15, 2011

How about a free radical for everyone made a good joke.

Brian,
It seems not much research is done on plant extracts.Maybe this is because there are so many ingredients, over 4000 phenolics alone and its hard to patent anything.

Peter,
From "Free Radicals in Biology and Medicine" Halliwell & Gutteridge 3rd ed p204,ascorbate scavenges the OH free radical.I believe it would not last long in a plant phenol extract.

PE,
The effect seen is the result of scanning a 0.2 in square section of 400 ISO film in a flatbed with a true resolution of 2300 dpi and sharpening hard.
(I do this because by this means it may turn out to be possible to show on a computer screen the relative granularity from different developers, more work needed.)

When I get time I will run a check that the Broccoli extract without phenidone is not a good developer,that would be a surprise.

Thanks for the comments.

greybeard · Nov 15, 2011

Hmmmmm. I wonder if Broccoli extract affects the green sensitivity of the emulsion....?

brianmquinn · Nov 15, 2011

"Brian,
It seems not much research is done on plant extracts.Maybe this is because there are so many ingredients, over 4000 phenolics alone and its hard to patent anything."

Actually there is a lot of work done on plant extracts. I goes something like this. You take a crude extract from about 1,000 plants. Then dump the extract on cancer cells, bacteria or whatever. If it kills the bad cells then all you have to do is find out what ONE of the 10,000 chemicals in the extract was the one that did the work. Very easy you see.

jon.oman · Nov 15, 2011

This is interesting, but I like Broccoli too much, to use it this way!

tomalophicon · Nov 15, 2011

Wow, I'm impressed by the high standard of humour on this board.

lesm · Nov 15, 2011

Alan, is this likely to work with other members of the brassica family - cauliflower, cabbage etc? And I'd be very interested to know if you've experimented with silverbeet/spinach. We grow lots of vegetables and I'd love to experiment with silverbeet in particular (broccoli's too precious!) but I'm very weak in chemistry and wouldn't know where to begin.

Gerald C Koch · Nov 15, 2011

I am not amazed that broccoli extract can be used as a developer. Phenolic compounds are wide spread throughout the plant and animal kindoms. I am amazed that we can eat broccoli without being poisoned. Three cheers for our livers which detoxify our food.

guitstik · Nov 15, 2011

I wonder if we could make a developer out of kudzu? We have acres of it here in the south.

Developer from Broccoli

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