PET and Glass...which to put fixer, deveopler in?

BetterSense · Jan 13, 2009

I'm trying to come up with enough bottles to store dektol and kodak fixer stock solutions in. I have .5L PET bottled water/pop bottles and some various glass Snapple/peanut butter/pickle jars. Should I put the developer or the fixer in the glass? I'm just wondering which one is harder to 'keep' so that I can put that one in the glass. Come to think of it I might only make half of the dry powder in each case, and then I can put it all in the glass.

Reinhold · Jan 13, 2009

Since developers are vulnerable to oxidizing, Glass is preferred. Wine or beer bottles are especially nice.

To demonstrate the permeability of PET bottles, fill one to the top with developer and put it away for a week or so... Watch how the sides of the bottle start to cave in... the developer is sucking up oxygen from.........

Reinhold

BetterSense · Jan 13, 2009

I'll prioritize glass with the developer then. I also noticed the pop bottles are a lot thicker plastic than the water bottles.

archphoto · Jan 13, 2009

WARNING

Put a lable on the wine or beer bottle, even if you store it in your own darkroom......

I used allways glass bottles and it worked best.
Some eather on top will prevent oxidizing, but be carefull with it, vent properly !

ricksplace · Jan 13, 2009

I asked my pharmacist about the plastic bottles that druggists use for prepared solutions. They sold me 500ml bottles (plastic) for .99 each. I have stored d76 in them for over 6 mos without any problems. The bottles don't cave in, and the developer remains fresh. They are dark brown with just enough transparency to see how much is in them. They are also graduated in 100ml amounts.

Bob-D659 · Jan 13, 2009

Reinhold said:
To demonstrate the permeability of PET bottles, fill one to the top with developer and put it away for a week or so... Watch how the sides of the bottle start to cave in... the developer is sucking up oxygen from.........

Reinhold

That shows that liquids contract on cooling. PETE is not very gas permeable, that's why you can pressurize bottles to 60psi with soft drinks. If you check the properties, PETE is less oxygen permeable than the HDPE used in retail packaging of liquid photo chemicals.

nyoung · Jan 13, 2009

Pop bottles will be somewhat better vis-a-vis O2 ex/infiltration because they are engineered to hold the fizz - for a while. Glass will always be the best overall for all your solutions. You don't say where you are but free glass is getting universally harder to find. Use your plastic for now and keep an eye out for glass upgrades. I'm currently waiting for the heavy glass quart (.9L) vinegar bottle currently in the pantry to get empty so it can move to the darkroom.

Anscojohn · Jan 13, 2009

For many years I have stored paper developer as well as fixer in red, plastic, one gallon gasoline cans. Bought new, of course. I threw the spouts away and cemented the sealing septum into the screw top.

I was always told not to use clear glass--something about alkalinity in clear glass. Perhaps some of the experts can comment on that.

For smaller quantities, the local Vietnamese restaurant sold an Alsatian beer in brown bottles with neat little ceramic tops, held in place with a kind of heavy wire bale.

nworth · Jan 14, 2009

PET has the decided advantage of being non-breakable. It is also usually free, as empty soda pop bottles. As mentioned above, it is not particularly gas permeable, although not as good as glass in that regard. In general, it works just fine for most darkroom chemicals. I do use amber glass, however, for some things - like silver solutions.

Andrew4x5 · Jan 14, 2009

Another major advantage of a PET bottle over a glass one is that you can squeeze out the air as you use up the chemical.

pcyco · Jan 14, 2009

hallo

i use old developer and fixer bottles.
for longer storage also.
when they are good enough for ilford etc. they are also good enough for me.

analog greetings

thomas

fschifano · Jan 14, 2009

Reinhold said:
To demonstrate the permeability of PET bottles, fill one to the top with developer and put it away for a week or so... Watch how the sides of the bottle start to cave in... the developer is sucking up oxygen from.........

... whatever air is in the bottle. There is always a small airspace and there are always some dissolved gasses in the water. If the bottle were as permeable as you imply, then it would not be caved in because the pressures would equalize.

To the OP, glass is good but IMO not spectacularly better than PET or PETE pop bottles. Pickle jars and Snapple bottles have metal caps and these are to be avoided. Developers are reducers and will corrode the metal caps.

CBG · Jan 14, 2009

Reinhold said:
... To demonstrate the permeability of PET bottles, fill one to the top with developer and put it away for a week or so... Watch how the sides of the bottle start to cave in... the developer is sucking up oxygen from......... Reinhold

Actually, that doesn't demonstrate much of anything other than the two facts that the cap is on tight enough that any contraction of liquid volume will try to pull the sides in and that the sides are flexible. If the PET were as permeable as you intimate, the sides would not suck in since the gases would be pulled in through the sides and equalize the pressure.

Glass is best for developer storage, but PET is actually a pretty good storage material for developers since it's permeability is quite low. Please see: www.silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/plastic.html for a better explanation of what plastics do what.

Edit: Frank Schifano beat me to it ... had I only read the entire thread carefully ...

Ole · Jan 14, 2009

Developers range from alkaline to very alkaline, so are bad to very bad for glass. I won't say that what is bad for the container is bad for the contents, but...

Reinhold · Jan 14, 2009

You guys are absolutely right.

2 seconds after I hit the submit button I realized what I said.

I've had plastic bottles collapse when they were partially filled, and the developers gobbled up the O2 in the headspace. To collapse a filled bottle, some of the fluid would have to disappear from inside the bottle ...(duh)...

I will admit to being a bit fanatical about glass, hoarding bottles for the darkroom.

Thanks for the Silvergrain link.

Reinhold

dancqu · Jan 14, 2009

Reinhold said:
Since developers are vulnerable to oxidizing,
Glass is preferred. Wine or beer bottles are
especially nice. Reinhold

Nicer still are clear or amber glass Boston Rounds.
They are a laboratory standard for chemical storage.
Both narrow and wide neck versions with a variety
of caps are very inexpensively available. Dan

eli griggs · Jan 20, 2009

I've been using Ragu PETE jars, the ones with handles, for storing fixer, etc for well over a year and it's worked very well so far. I fill to the top with stock and use a layer of Saran Wrap to separate the chemistry from the metal lids and both TF-4 and Kodak Professional Fix have stored well, no separation of chemicals seen in the form of sediment and no discoloration. Samples of about an ounce dipped and tested with regular fixer tester drops show no sign of milkiness or clouding.

I've started using 1500/750ml wine bottles for developers, replenisher and selenium toner but I have and will still use Ziploc trays with lids for small printmaking with Ansco 130. I have kept a complete line up in these for months and they performed well with developer, fixer, selenium and hypo-clear solutions.

PET and Glass...which to put fixer, deveopler in?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency