Lith Homebrews and "Sodium Formaldehyde Bisulfite Addition Product"

I have been working on homebrewed lith developers, taking some formulas from sources like Rudman's book, and others from patents found on the internet.

Lots of formulas call for "Sodium Formaldehyde Bisulfite addition product" or some other name for the same thing. I'm wondering if anyone has information on how to mix this using formalin and sodium sulfite/bisulfite/metabisulfite or whatever (assuming this is possible).

I have been using Amquel, the fish tank ammonia remover, and it works really well, but it's a little expensive--not as expensive as buying pre-mixed lith developer, but still somewhat out of line with the cost of the other ingredients: 200mL seems to equal about 50g of "SFB."

I've read that some use acetone as a formaldehyde substitute, but either way they are both very toxic substances. I've been working on lith formulas with NO formalin/-aldehyde or acetone.

Moersch EasyLith is supposedly formaldehyde-free, but it is expensive.

I tried an acetone substitution without success, but I have not given up altogether on that. I'll probably try it again once I polish off this round of Amquel. One reason for my question, besides liking the results of developers that use formaldehyde-ish stuff, is that I have a fair amount of formalin and would rather use it up than let it sit around.

If you haven't searched "hydroquinone AND infectious AND graphic AND patent," try it (or whatever language your favorite search engine likes). You'll find plenty of interesting stuff.

I'm still committed to searching out a way to transform formalin into "SFB-addition product," or--failing that--to transform sea water into gold. I'd love to hear from anyone with specifics on how to do either one.

The easiest way to get the addition product is to add paraformaldehyde to a solution of sodium sulfite. Paraformaldehyde is a white powder and easier to work with than formalin. Paraformaldehyde is a polymer of fomaldehyde but reverts to formaldehyde under certain conditions..

Check out (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I appreciate the suggestions. The reason I would like to restrict myself to formalin is that I already have some. I'm really just trying to use up the formalin that I have, preferably by combining it with other chemicals I already have, in order to bypass a couple of days of trial and error (error, mostly) that would rely on theories I have about the stuff after looking at dozens of old patents. And I'm a musician--so my chemical theories are more questionable than most.

Alternatively, if anyone knows for a fact that it is not possible to do what I'm asking about, I would appreciate hearing that almost as much. But if formalin is indeed formaldehyde in water, it seems as if x(formalin)+y(sodium [bi]sulfite) might be somewhere close. I'm just clueless as to how close, and for that matter, close to what.

An Le-qun said:

I have been working on homebrewed lith developers, taking some formulas from sources like Rudman's book, and others from patents found on the internet.

Lots of formulas call for "Sodium Formaldehyde Bisulfite addition product" or some other name for the same thing. I'm wondering if anyone has information on how to mix this using formalin and sodium sulfite/bisulfite/metabisulfite or whatever (assuming this is possible).

I have been using Amquel, the fish tank ammonia remover, and it works really well, but it's a little expensive--not as expensive as buying pre-mixed lith developer, but still somewhat out of line with the cost of the other ingredients: 200mL seems to equal about 50g of "SFB."

Click to expand...

One mole of Sodium Bisulfite and one mole of Formalin will give you one mole of the Bisulfite adddition product which forms in cold water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bisulfite

The reaction reverses in alkali to give formalin and bisulfite (or sulfite) depending on the pH. Therefore, it is not necessary to physically make the adduct but merely to mix the ingredients at the proper concentration in the developer and you will get the "things" you need.

PE

Perfect! Brilliant!

This simple explanation is exactly what I needed--and it's something taken for granted, I'm sure, by people who listened in chemistry class, rather than sat in the back and drew in their textbook like I did.

I'm getting results that I like better than what I got from "store-boughten" chemicals costing almost a hundred times what I'm spending now; and I now have the freedom to mess around in ways that I never had (or felt I had, anyway) using commercial formulas.

Thanks for making my life simpler, cheaper and way more fun.

Good to hear! Show us some of the results when you get around to it.

I have been playing around with homebrew lith developers lately, mostly because I have had to use several different brands of commercial developers due to reformulations and being temporarily off the market. I was hoping to find a developer as good as the commercial products that I could mix myself. After many darkroom sessions and going through several dozen sheets of paper I have concluded the following:

All of the homebrewed developers produced a lith print. Some were rather dreadful looking, some came fairly close to what I get from the commercial products. The closest I came was with the Kodak D9 formula, but it took several prints before I began getting nice color, and had a window of 2, or at best, 3 prints before it died.

I have concluded that in terms of reliability, consistency, and throughput, none of the homebrews that I experimented with is comparable to the commercial products. A recent email exchange with Tim Rudman validates this conclusion. At the dilution and price of my current favorite developer (Fotospeed,) the cost to mix up one batch does not even equal the cost of one sheet of Fomatone paper, so economy is not an issue. I just need to hope that there continue to be enough of us lith printers out there to keep the products on the market.

I just find that the experimentation is an interesting read in itself, but I am far off from getting down to doing home-brewed lith developers. I prefer to spend the time fumbling around in the dark, agitating prints. At the moment, it seems that everybody and their uncle are doing lith. Like you, Dan, I hope it stays that way.

Dan, as I mentioned in an earlier post, part of my motivation for taking up the spatula, so to speak, was to get rid of some formalin gracefully. Another part was the semi-holy grail of consistency—as you indicate, reformulations in commercial products can be a source of some frustration.

“All…produced a lith print”—your batting average is a lot higher than mine. I tried several that were a colossal waste of time; in some cases this was due to a result that was just not what I was looking for. In other cases, however, it was due to my not really knowing what I was doing with respect to the formaldehyde-sulfite relationship. I’m looking forward to learning more about the chemical process in the future, but that does not seem quite so urgent anymore. I am just really pleased at gaining a measure of control over another aspect of the photographic process.

Throughput is definitely an issue—some of the patents I’ve been exploring relate directly to this issue, however, as does the formaldehyde-sulfite relationship, it seems.

Cost-per-print is not the only economic issue, at least for me. At a time when I have to justify to myself and to others every dollar spent, there’s a psychological effect (on certain people I’m married to) of some expenditures that can make my life kind of complicated. The effect of a $5.00 outlay for a box of trisodium phosphate at a local retail place is different from that of a similar charge from some place in California for something that screams “photo supplies.”

Jerevan, I’m with you. There are only two or three times in a week, however, when I can get into my darkroom—read “my bathroom”—to do any serious printing; the experimental stuff is a much quicker setup and takedown, though, and can be done with a lot less inconvenience to (again) certain people I’m married to.

Perhaps the following says something about my recent chemical obsession: my first thought, upon getting the look I was after with satisfactory consistency, was “Good. Now I can get back to photography.”

Yeah - there has to be a balance between the mad scientist, the print-producer and the guy who actually takes out the garbage - a constant juggling of mental and monetary resources.