I tend to agree with the above quote 'A high sulfite, weakly alkaline, buffered, properly balanced Phenidone-ascorbate developer should self replenish'.I can’t comment on the marketing by Freestyle or others. To be perfectly honest I doubt there is much rhyme or reason to it.
The chemistry of why an XTOL-like developer self-replenishes, however, is relatively straight forward.
The precise/exact proportions in the commercial XTOL formula are not known (and have changed a little over time in any case). In fact at various times the alkali/buffer has been swapped between metaborate and borax, for example. I was worried enough at the time to seek out Dick Dickerson for discussion.
But we don’t necessarily need the precise formula. We know what’s in it, proportions to a pretty close approximation, and how it works. I can’t comment on all the clones out there but the Freestyle product appears to be basically the same, although I don’t know what metal sequestering compound they are using. That’s another issue.
A high sulfite, weakly alkaline, buffered, properly balanced Phenidone-ascorbate developer should self replenish.
I’m not forcing anyone to do this, obviously.
Edit: typo
That’s interesting information - I wonder why isoascorbate has increased in price. An unfortunate extra complication for you to have to deal with.
Availability is not the problem. We can easily buy any borates but we may not mix them into a product for resale to consumers anymore.At least in the UK boric acid appears to be easily available: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PURE-BOR...495309?hash=item1f14b6918d:g:NWwAAOSwkf1fM8qB
I tend to agree with the above quote 'A high sulfite, weakly alkaline, buffered, properly balanced Phenidone-ascorbate developer should self replenish'.
As far as our ADOX XT-3 is concerned we completely removed the borates and replaced them by a custom synthesis buffer which is 100% eco (non toxic, biodegradable, non cancerougenous like borates). Our new buffer is superior to the old borates so fingers crossed the self replenishement will be possible but we lack long term tests at this moment as we did not have this on our radar of tasks. The price for this buffer along with the price increases for photo grade Isoascorbat are the reason why we had to increase prices slightly. The historic changes in the buffer were most likely manouvers to react to REACH and CORAP here in the EU. The boric acid was banned in about 2012 iirr and then metaborate was cut to a very low percentage. My guess is that competitors went from boric acid to metaborate and then down in metaborate to comply.
Is that in case they drink it?Availability is not the problem. We can easily buy any borates but we may not mix them into a product for resale to consumers anymore.
Availability is not the problem. We can easily buy any borates but we may not mix them into a product for resale to consumers anymore.
Understood. It is interesting to find out what challenges you face bringing products to market as a small manufacturer.
we have now an overall significantly better product. I am very satisfied.
Excellent. As a long time Xtol user I'm happy to read this.As the introduction of the new ADOX XT-III developer is "on the way" I want to share my test results with this new developer.
ADOX had asked me to do very detailed tests to find possible weaknesses. They wanted a kind of very critical "double-check" before market introduction. My benchmark was original XTOL before the here discussed problems occured.
So here are my test results:
1. Sharpness, resolution, fineness of grain and sensitivity / speed are on the same (very good) level of original XTOL. No visible differences here.
2. I could generate fine characteristic curves the same way as with original XTOL. Again no visible differences here.
3. The dissolubility of the XT-III powder is much, much better compared to XTOL. That is a very nice surprise, as you can dissolve the XT-III powder very fast in 20°C water.
4. The ADOX powder packaging is very good, and you can get all powder out easily without having any significant rests left in it.
5. As I already know from former tests of other ADOX developers and fixers with CAPTURA dust binding technology, this innovative technology works really very well. So dust isn't a problem anymore at all.
So my final test result:
ADOX XT-III offers in most parameters the same very high quality for which XTOL has is excellent reputation for.
But in some parameters XT-III even surpasses XTOL significantly. Especially the handling is much better and more user friendly.
And if you consider that XT-III is even more eco-friendly because of the new buffer system, and that it is also available in both 1L and 5L packagings, we have now an overall significantly better product.
I am very satisfied.
Best regards,
Henning
Is that in case they drink it?On a more serious note do you know why you cannot do this. Is Borate harmless on its own but not when combined to make a product?
Thanks
pentaxuser
The product is already on offer @ Fotoimpex. We expect a new XTOL not to be available at the old price anymore so we expect our product to be competitive.Hopefully the price will be comparable to XTOL.
Quite a few of us on here did back in January. We were promised replacement product mid-February. Since then there has only been silence. I have written them off, but not completely. Yet.Has anyone reached out to kodakpaperchem@pro.sinopromise.com ? I got this email from FreestylePhoto when asking about the XTol issues
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I probably belong to that generation where we were expected to use what was called common sense with chemicals and it does concern me that often new regulations are imposed by faceless committees that are never required to explain or justify their decisions None of this is ADOX's fault of course and it certainly sounds as it what you have made is a real rival to Xtol for which you have a ready-made market of people who are getting tired of the Xtol problem and KA /Sinopromise's handling of itNo, in a mixture their potential hazards do not increase, they decrease (in most cases).
As a professional chemical manufacturer you can buy all kinds of things that the end consumer cannot. But this is unimportant for us because we want to make first of all a safe and stable product and then we need it to comply with all rules and regulations otherwise the challenges in distribution will be prohibitive.
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Quite a few of us on here did back in January. We were promised replacement product mid-February. Since then there has only been silence. I have written them off, but not completely. Yet.
It is not upon us to speculate but if negatives are to thin @ correct devtime, agitation and temperature you either have a pH issue or general reduction potential problem, which in most cases is an oxidisation problem or a collapsed superadditive reduction system. We improved certain things in XT-III Developer over some competitors products out there. They were costly but we think it´s worth it. The price per film for a developer is to low to be frugal here.@ADOX Fotoimpex do you happen to know the reason for recall of Xtol? Thin negatives? White particles?
Great news! Is the Adox formulation functionally equivalent to the original XTol at the usual dilutions?
And can it be used replenished?
The product is already on offer @ Fotoimpex. We expect a new XTOL not to be available at the old price anymore so we expect our product to be competitive.
Yes it is. It can be used the same way as original XTOL both as stock solution and the usual dilutions.
But from my current knowledge I don't see a reason why replenishing should not work.
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