Diafine Analysis, Test Process Advise, What can go wrong ?

One APUG member helped me to find Diafine and I will bring it to university chemical lab at the same day reached me. There can be a professor or assistant and I want to inform them with your advises to do everything right.

PE warned me about some other threads about masking effects or disturbing effects of some chemicals.

What should be the test process , what is more important , what can go wrong ?

I will publish all computer, plotter or spectrometer outputs at APUG.

In next 45 days , I will test the developer in two different university labs.

Thank you,

Umut

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:

One APUG member helped me to find Diafine and I will bring it to university chemical lab at the same day reached me. There can be a professor or assistant and I want to inform them with your advises to do everything right.
PE warned me about some other threads about masking effects or disturbing effects of some chemicals.
What should be the test process , what is more important , what can go wrong ?
I will publish all computer, plotter or spectrometer outputs at APUG.
In next 45 days , I will test the developer in two different university labs.
Thank you,
Umut

Click to expand...

Are you asking how to determine correct development procedures and the resulting density-curves? Or do you want to know the chemical composition of Diafine?

Exposure and development are straightforward, but if you want curves, then you'll need to expose the film using a step-wedge and measure the tiles with a densitometer.

If you have a chem lab available, some people would like to know the chemical composition of each of the two parts. I suppose part of the analysis could be done on the dry powders, and some after dissolving them into water. Such a reverse-engineering of the formula would be helpful for those in countries where Diafine is not available.

Mark Overton

I want chemical analysis. I will publish everything here and Large Format Photography , Leica and Rangefinders forum. I will put every plotter, spectrum report in to the posts and after Fatih University , I will order an second analysis at Istanbul Technical University.

I was thinking what would I do with powder , dissolve everything before or not.

Now I will prepare 6 dry and 6 wet batches.

Can anyone say , such a developer with such common chemicals - referring to Darkroom Cookbook -
is easy to analysis ?

Do common photographic chemicals listed in spectrometer libraries ?

What kind of test might be done either wet or dry chemistry ?

Can spectrometer identify and separate sulfite , metabisulfite to bisulfite ?

There should be at least 2 substitute formulas for Diafine in the APUG archives. I know that I posted 2 formulas that appeared in the Dignan Newsletter. Search on "Diafine substitute", "Diafine formula" and "Diafine recipe". While these formulas may not be identical to Diafine there is enough play in developer formulas that it is the results that count.

While there is nothing illegal in analyzing a formula for your own use, publishing the results is a legal gray area and either you or APUG may be in legal trouble. While a formula cannot be patented the formula and trade name can be copyrighted. This is why such formulas are always termed a XXX substitute and no claim to authenticity is made.