Is food grade chemistry OK for use for photography?

[Photo Engineer]

Patrick;

To start with, you have said you purify borax by making a saturated solution and decanting the concentrated supernatant. The impurities are concentrated (hopefully) in the solids at the bottom of the beaker. Well, in a later post, you remark on how your developers are often cloudy with an unfilterable suspension. This indicates a contradiction in that the impurities are still somehow present.

So, with a cloudy developer that is not filterable, how to test.....

First make a reference developer with known good chemicals and which does not form a cloudy solution, and run some exposed 35mm film through the clear good check develper. Now, mix up the same developer with borax that yields cloudy developer and develop identical exposures in this developer. The next step is to examine prints and photomicrographs of the two 35mm negatives side by side and look for particles trapped in the film processed in cloudy developer. This would be the first and easiest step.

Of course, pH measurements and titration curves of these developers or at least equimolar solutions of the borax would be useful as well. If the buffer capacity or pH is different between the two developers, then it becomes necessary to run sharpness and grain measurements as well. Of course, it would be nice to do them anyhow just for further verification.

Now, to nail it down, a small partial factorial experiment would be useful to see if the two borax samples reacted the same to small fluctuations in the developer formulation, and I would run the experiment several times due to statistical variations that are normal in photographic systems.

Don't forget to include step wedges made using a sensitometer.

That is what I would do to check out my borax or any other critical chemical such as sulfite and etc.

So, that is the basic experiment to do this...... I don't have the time nor a microscope, nor do I have a microdensitometer and some other ancillary odds and ends, but go to it.

And, BTW, what I did at Kodak was more akin to running several grades of chemical purity for comparison, but they discouraged me from going too far, as it had been done before. What we did do was analyze every incoming chemical and reject those that were sub standard based on the tests run by the Analytical Chemistry Division and left us to the "real" work which involved designing the new chemistry and reading their reports.

Now, to a specific example of all of this especially for Alan..

Imagine that someone untrained in chemistry and physics, but well intentioned, comes to you and tells you that he has been playing around in the lab and has found that gases do not obey the laws established by Boyle and Charles, ie. PV = NRT.

He tells you that increasing temperature causes a decrease in volume! Will you go out and prove him right or wrong? Will you ask him if his gas volume returned to the original volume when returned to the original starting temperature? If you ask him the latter, what if he tells you that he never bothered to check that out....? Then you might conclude that his increase in temperature introduced a leak around a gasket and he lost some gas. Since there was no check, you can't prove anything to him! What use was the experiment?

I might remark that when I was in the AF, we used photograde chemistry to scratch mix almost everything. At one time, they complained about a bad odor in the HQ, but things "looked" ok. I opened the drum and found that the HQ was contaminated with quite a bit of green crystals and the HQ had a strong odor. It was Quinone.

We returned the batch with a complaint, but in this case the level and nature of the contamination did not cause a serios effect. So, sometimes you squeak by.

Oh well.

PE

 

[gainer]

I never said that the impurities are concentrated in the solids. I said that decanting the saturated solution at 20 C REMOVED most of the soluble contaminants along with about 47.1 gramss of the original 650 grams of borax, thus leaving the sediment purer. The percent reduction of soluble impurities remaining in the recrystallized borax depends on the percent of the original liquid I was able to recover in the saturated solution.

I am not ignorant of the principles of physics and chemistry. I failed the finals because I fell asleep. I remember nothing from the time I sat down in the examination room until an assistant awoke me after the bell rang. I could have repeated the test, but decided to change majors. I have never regretted that decision. I did quite well in quantitative and quantitative analysis courses, as well as in the Chemical Engineering lab class.
"Well, in a later post, you remark on how your developers are often cloudy with an unfilterable suspension. This indicates a contradiction in that the impurities are still somehow present." I lost track of that post. Where may I find it? It is true that I have found such cloudiness when I was experimenting with ascorbic acid in tablets and capsules, but it is also true that there were no adverse effects on the film I developed with those solutions. None of them were made with borax, in fact. I have not IIRC ever recommended that anyone use tablets or capsules for anything except to cure headaches brought on by PE.

 

[gainer]

BTW, if you have read Aristotle or Aquinas, you have heard that the argument from authority is the weakest argument.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I never said that the impurities are concentrated in the solids. I said that decanting the saturated solution at 20 C REMOVED most of the soluble contaminants along with about 47.1 gramss of the original 650 grams of borax, thus leaving the sediment purer. The percent reduction of soluble impurities remaining in the recrystallized borax depends on the percent of the original liquid I was able to recover in the saturated solution.

(

Sorry, that was certainly unclear.

I mean that whether you use the solid or the liquid from this step, whichever you cosider the purified fraction, if you get a cloudy developer, then an impurity was not properly removed.

You said that you had included this caveat about cloudy develoopers in your article IIRC, it a post a few pages back.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

BTW, if you have read Aristotle or Aquinas, you have heard that the argument from authority is the weakest argument.

I agree completely.

I am arguing from a lack of time. I spent the last week making and coating emulsions. Sorry for the lack of diligence on this!

Now, where are you arguing from?

PE

 

[gainer]

I have been trying to find the specs for the laundry borax from 20 Mule Team, so far without success. The technical Rio Tinto grade seems to match the photo grade in Iron at 30 ppm. The ANSI photo grade has no spec for Cl or SO4. Tech grade allows 700 ppm of CL and 600 ppm of SO4. Cl is probably not so important in developers because it takes a lot more than 700 ppm of NaCl to affect development. You may have more critical uses of borax, but I think that if you start with tech grade and "wash" it as in my Borax Project article, dissolving 600 grams in 1 liter water at 100 C, discarding the liquor after colling to 20 C, you will wind up with about 550 grams of crystallized borax, about 800 ml of cleaning solution, and the remaining crystals will be rock hard but will contain only 20% or so of the original soluble impurities. The problem for me is that I do not know the analysis of the laundry borax, so I do not know the number of iterations required to satisfy a given requirement.

The value of a solution that is saturated at a temperature lower than that in the storage place is that it has a known concentration of the decahydrate at any higher temperature, no matter what the original state of hydration and can be measured either volumetrically or by weight with more consistency than the original dry granular form.

I really did not expect this thread to be so drawn out, with so many misunderstandins and accusations, and I regret having been a part of the problem.

 

[Photo Engineer]

To my APUG friends;

I have been agonizing over this thread and a number of similar threads for some time now and have been asking advice from friends on how to address these issues. Here is the basic foundation.

I am in contact with a high school student, a college student and some teachers who want to run photographic engineering style experiments for projects. I am also in contact with several other students who are working on various photo projects and who have mentioned them here on APUG. I sent a largish batch of chemistry to one student (Photo Grade of course ).

Now, here is my dilemma. I am advising them on good lab practices and good experimental design, and this includes no chemicals in microwave ovens, separation of food and chemicals, and using high grade photo chemicals. I am also advising them on the design of factorial experiments with proper checks and balances and repeats to satisfy statistical variations. Now, along comes a thread like this and I may well get questions centered about the fact that "it seems to work for him and he takes a lot of shortcuts so why can't we do it like that?" and I am frankly stymied. You see, if I advise the student to take the shortcut approach given here, the student might (probably would) fail the course. At Kodak the employee would be surely fired.

So, I try to maintain standards and give professional advice that will act as an example for you all as well as establish a high level of quality to the student's research project. Can I do less? Yes, if I just shut up! I cannot. I wish to give the new upcoming student the best chemical lab and photo engineering advice to these young people as I can possibly give.

So, forgive me for my apparent cranky nature here, but the general tenor of cheap chemistry and use of microwaves and teaspoon measurement is NOT setting a good example for the young aspiring scientists out there.

I am all for experimentation and doing things in unique ways, but it behoovs me, under those conditions, to iterate all of the possible pitfalls. And, above all, I must avoid and censure any advice I see that might be harmful and certainly is forbidden in real chemistry labs. I can do no less than teach things the right way, or we will be back to Alchemy and Phlogiston Theory.

Apologies for a rant, but one based on a real situation.

PE

 

[gainer]

The question I ask myself is "Does cost always equate with quality?" But cost is not the major factor for me, as I have tried to say. Availability of usable materials in a timely manner often is. I am not stupid. I know that I might buy borax at the Formulary (believe me I am glad for their service) and wait two weeks for delivery. I can buy borax at the grocery store and wind up using only a portion of it for photo work after the steps necessary to assure purity, but I can get it in short order when I go to the grocery store, and do keep it on hand, and can use the portion the 100 grams or so that is sacrificed in the purification for cleaning and other purposes.

Heating some things in a microwave oven is safer than heating them over an open flame or red hot heating element.
I developed my own film starting when I was about 12 years old. One used to be able to get the chemicals at most any pharmacy. A walk-in closet, a red light, a soup bowl, some Velox paper and a printing frame got me hooked on the hobby. Not to mention the box camera. It was a long time before I even thought of heating anything but the water to mix some developers, like D-76, and it was an even longer time before the microwave was invented.

The rules you lay down for a student can be stifling or they can stimulate learning beyond the literal knowledge that you teach them. In order to do the work that had to be done at NASA i had to study some advanced math, information theory, statistical analysis of data and design of experiments, psychology, and yes, photography. I was inspired by one of my teachers at WVU, who said "Engineers can do anything" and by my father, a Professor of English Literature, a very fine singer and director of choruses and of the College Church Choir of St. Louis University, an Admiral of the Cherry River Navy in WV, and above all, an inspiration to all his students and children: me, my sister Miriam who earned the BS in chemistry and the MS in music and was for years chair of the Fine Arts Department of Keene College, NH; my brother Michael, who invented the "Gainer Effect" shaped charge while at Aberdeen Proving Ground, went on to graduate with MS in Physics and become head of Physics at St, Vincent's College and an author of 2 books on astronomy; my brother Thomas, who followed me into Aeronautical Engineering and spent his career in the 7x10 Foot Wind Tunnel at Langley Reaearch Center; my brother Nicholas, who was a people-type, a personnel manager. My parents were proud of all of us, not because they told us what to do but because we were the best we could be at what we chose to be.

High grade photo materials? How do we recognize them? By the label? If you are going to be a stickler, you have to know how, and you should teach your students how. If you trust someone to provide a higher quality because they charge a higher price, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Forget all this talk about price. The real issue is suitability of a given grade for the use.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Patrick;

Your post gives us the same CV as you have posted over and over. I grant you that and ask you to grant me mine. I am not trying to promulgate my level of education, I am trying to pass on good chemical practices and usage! If anything is less than that, I try to give out all possible warnings as to what might go wrong.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

BTW, if you have read Aristotle or Aquinas, you have heard that the argument from authority is the weakest argument.

You accuse me of this by the implication of this post, but then you keep posting your CV over and over and over. I have read them at least 3 or 4 times recently. What kind of argument is this, but the ultimate argument from authority?

PE

 

[Kirk Keyes]

There's several ways to procede:

Decide if you are really not concerned with industry standards and that chemicals that are "good enough" is acceptable to you and just dispense with all the discussion here and use whatever source of chemicals you wish.

If you ARE concerned with the technical quality of your chemicals, then you can:

1) Buy whatever grade of chemicals you wish, and then personally test them for suitability in photographic applications. This means you would need to use rather expensive test equipement like microdenistometers and test the photographic results of your chemicals.

2) Buy whatever grade of chemicals you wish, and then personally perform the ANSI/ISO test procedures on each batch (box or bottle) of chemicals you buy. This would be less expensive as many of those tests are pretty simple and straightforward to perform, and they generally don't require very fancy test equipement. But it does take time.

3) Buy your chemicals in grades that meet or exceed the ANSI/ISO specifications. You don't need to do any testing and you are ready to make your photographic solutions.

I suspect that someone will argue that you can't trust any particular bottle of meet the grade that's printed on the bottle. Well, if you want to live that way AND you care about the technical quality of your chemicals, then do the steps in items #1 or #2. I personally trust the vendors I buy stuff from to have bought stuff that meets the specs that they bought.

The only time I got burned taking this appoach was when I got in on the Chinese Amidol purchase a few years ago. Someone contracted with a Chinese chemical firm to manufacture a 1000kg or so of amidol, they recieved a "sample" batch of what the company said they could make, and then they did not get the same quality that they had been told would be delivered... What arrives does develop prints, but it has issues with insoluble matter (solid junk) and I think I heard some people had issues with stains on the prints. I don't think that any grade was mentioned with the Chinese Amidol - as it works when precautions are taken when mixing it, one could argue that it was "technical" or "industrial" grade, but it certainly could not be deemed photographic grade as it was delivered.

 

[gainer]

Oh, well.

 

[jim appleyard]

Is this the end?

 

[wogster]

The question I ask myself is "Does cost always equate with quality?" But cost is not the major factor for me, as I have tried to say. Availability of usable materials in a timely manner often is. I am not stupid. I know that I might buy borax at the Formulary (believe me I am glad for their service) and wait two weeks for delivery. I can buy borax at the grocery store and wind up using only a portion of it for photo work after the steps necessary to assure purity, but I can get it in short order when I go to the grocery store, and do keep it on hand, and can use the portion the 100 grams or so that is sacrificed in the purification for cleaning and other purposes.

Heating some things in a microwave oven is safer than heating them over an open flame or red hot heating element.
I developed my own film starting when I was about 12 years old. One used to be able to get the chemicals at most any pharmacy. A walk-in closet, a red light, a soup bowl, some Velox paper and a printing frame got me hooked on the hobby. Not to mention the box camera. It was a long time before I even thought of heating anything but the water to mix some developers, like D-76, and it was an even longer time before the microwave was invented.

The rules you lay down for a student can be stifling or they can stimulate learning beyond the literal knowledge that you teach them. In order to do the work that had to be done at NASA i had to study some advanced math, information theory, statistical analysis of data and design of experiments, psychology, and yes, photography. I was inspired by one of my teachers at WVU, who said "Engineers can do anything" and by my father, a Professor of English Literature, a very fine singer and director of choruses and of the College Church Choir of St. Louis University, an Admiral of the Cherry River Navy in WV, and above all, an inspiration to all his students and children: me, my sister Miriam who earned the BS in chemistry and the MS in music and was for years chair of the Fine Arts Department of Keene College, NH; my brother Michael, who invented the "Gainer Effect" shaped charge while at Aberdeen Proving Ground, went on to graduate with MS in Physics and become head of Physics at St, Vincent's College and an author of 2 books on astronomy; my brother Thomas, who followed me into Aeronautical Engineering and spent his career in the 7x10 Foot Wind Tunnel at Langley Reaearch Center; my brother Nicholas, who was a people-type, a personnel manager. My parents were proud of all of us, not because they told us what to do but because we were the best we could be at what we chose to be.

High grade photo materials? How do we recognize them? By the label? If you are going to be a stickler, you have to know how, and you should teach your students how. If you trust someone to provide a higher quality because they charge a higher price, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

Patrick,

You make an assumption here, that may or may not be correct. The assumption is that the grocery store chemical is always cheaper then photo grade from a chemical supplier. This may or may not be true, it depends to a large degree how much your buying at a time. If you go through 20kg a year, then a 20kg bag from a chemical supplier may in fact be cheaper then 20 1kg boxes from the grocery store. You also know that if it works, then the whole bag will work, without having to do tests on each box, as a lot of food grade stuff can vary from batch to batch. This variance is less likely when you have a whole years supply from the same batch.

 

[sanking]

Well, that would be my thinking also. Technical grade borax is available from The Chemistry Store at less than $2 a lb in quantities over 10lb.
http://www.chemistrystore.com/cart.cgi?group=49899&child=49903
So you pay a bit more for shipping but then you don't have to go through a purification process to get rid of unwanted stuff that might be in there.

Years ago when I was using PMK I mixed some mule team borax with red devil lye to make a substitute for the B solution sodium metaborate. It worked fine for the film I developed with it, but when I did the calculations I found that I could have purchased the same amount of sodium metaborate for less than I paid for the mule team borax and red devil lye at the grocery store. I suspect that if Pat made these calculations he would come to the same conclusion. But then he may be having a lot of fun mucking around with the purification process.

Sandy King

Patrick,

You make an assumption here, that may or may not be correct. The assumption is that the grocery store chemical is always cheaper then photo grade from a chemical supplier. This may or may not be true, it depends to a large degree how much your buying at a time. If you go through 20kg a year, then a 20kg bag from a chemical supplier may in fact be cheaper then 20 1kg boxes from the grocery store. You also know that if it works, then the whole bag will work, without having to do tests on each box, as a lot of food grade stuff can vary from batch to batch. This variance is less likely when you have a whole years supply from the same batch.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Is this the end?

I guess it wasn't!

 

[alanrockwood]

Is each lot of photo grade material tested for purity and/or function?

If so, who does the tests, the manufacturer (generally not the same company as the brand name on the package) or the company whose brand goes on the package or both?

 

[Photo Engineer]

In the case of Kodak, both do tests. Many other companies then follow that lead and use the same source.

PE

 

[gainer]

Patrick,

You make an assumption here, that may or may not be correct. The assumption is that the grocery store chemical is always cheaper then photo grade from a chemical supplier. This may or may not be true, it depends to a large degree how much your buying at a time. If you go through 20kg a year, then a 20kg bag from a chemical supplier may in fact be cheaper then 20 1kg boxes from the grocery store. You also know that if it works, then the whole bag will work, without having to do tests on each box, as a lot of food grade stuff can vary from batch to batch. This variance is less likely when you have a whole years supply from the same batch.

I'm getting old, really old. I don't remember saying that my motivation was cheapness. Sometimes I just want it as soon as I can get it, and waiting two weeks is so long that by the time it gets here, I can't remember why I wanted it. Do I believe in the hereafter? Of course. Everytime I get where I set out to go, I say to myself "Now what am I here after."

 

[sanking]

We may all already be in the hereafter and don't know it. Some of you are no doubt familiar with the play No Exit by the existential write Jean Paul Sartre, which contains the famous phrase, l'enfer, c'est les autres, or Hell is other people.

Sandy

I'm getting old, really old. I don't remember saying that my motivation was cheapness. Sometimes I just want it as soon as I can get it, and waiting two weeks is so long that by the time it gets here, I can't remember why I wanted it. Do I believe in the hereafter? Of course. Everytime I get where I set out to go, I say to myself "Now what am I here after."

 

[Sirius Glass]

I guess it wasn't!

<<sigh>>

Steve

 

[wogster]

I'm getting old, really old. I don't remember saying that my motivation was cheapness. Sometimes I just want it as soon as I can get it, and waiting two weeks is so long that by the time it gets here, I can't remember why I wanted it. Do I believe in the hereafter? Of course. Everytime I get where I set out to go, I say to myself "Now what am I here after."

You don't have to be old for that, I do that all the time.....

Seems that getting larger amounts would alleviate part of the problem. An old fashioned way to deal with forgetfulness is a package of sticky notes, when you order something, put a sticky note on the computer monitor bezel, a couple of weeks later when it arrives, check your notes. A cork/chalk board in the room where you mix your chemicals could also be used, just put a note on there, when the stuff arrives, check your notes!

 

[Sirius Glass]

You don't have to be old for that, I do that all the time.....

Seems that getting larger amounts would alleviate part of the problem. An old fashioned way to deal with forgetfulness is a package of sticky notes, when you order something, put a sticky note on the computer monitor bezel, a couple of weeks later when it arrives, check your notes. A cork/chalk board in the room where you mix your chemicals could also be used, just put a note on there, when the stuff arrives, check your notes!

What did we do before Post-Its?

Steve

 

[Kirk Keyes]

What did we all do before online forums?