Is anybody making their own Ferric Ammonium Citrate

Cor said:

Thanks ! that is a lot ! Reason for asking is that my stock of AFC is glazed over for lack of a better description. It has become one compact block with a glassy appearance, although I kept the brown glass bottle tightly closed and in the dark. I was planning to throw it out, but I gave it a try anyway. Chipped of a piece with a hammer and a screwdriver, and used it for Cyanotype: still works perfectly.

So I thought why not add water on top, let it stand overnight, mix and wait a bit more, and take off this solution and assume it to be saturated at 1.2g per ml and dilute it as needed.

best,

Cor

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PGum said:

That would complicate things. Assuming there are no additives in the HH Am and it is truly 20g/litre strength, you would need:

Ammonia in 50g ammonium bicarbonate= 0.215 x 50 = 10.75 g
Therefore, you would need 537ml of the HH Am for the earlier noted amounts to react together giving a 15-16% FAC solution strength. Would need to evaporate that down a bit.

Process change: first neutralize your ammonia with about 1/2 the citric acid mentioned above - get to neutral then, add it to the mud, warm on stove and stir, slowly adding the remaining citric acid.

If you don‘t have a proper setup for ventilation, you should consider a cartridge respirator until the ammonia is neutralized. Ammonia is damaging to the lungs as you are probably aware. That is why I use the bicarbonate - it still emits some fumes when opened but not like the liquid form.

When going wayward like this, I suggest scaling down to 1/10 amts as a test run!

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