Purpose and amount of ascorbic acid in Pyrocat-HDC

olk

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Hello,
what's the purpose of ascorbic acid in Pyrocat-HDC?
Which paramester determine the amount of ascorbic acid in Pyrocat-HDC (why 4g/l and not 40g/l)?
liver
 

koraks

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what's the purpose of ascorbic acid in Pyrocat-HDC?

It's a developing agent. It's often used as a replacement for hydroquinone.

Which paramester determine the amount of ascorbic acid in Pyrocat-HDC (why 4g/l and not 40g/l)?

You'd have to ask Sandy King who did the experiments, but apparently this gave the best compromise between the qualities he was looking for. If you were to dramatically increase the amount of ascorbic acid, the developer would become significantly more active, and since ascorbic acid doesn't stain, this means that at the same gamma, the stain would be less. After all, some of the development that would otherwise be done by the staining pyrocatechol would be taken over by the non-staining ascorbic acid. You may also run into solubility issues in glycol if you use 10x as much ascorbic acid, but I haven't checked the numbers on that.

The ascorbic acid will act as an antioxidant, although this is kind of moot in a pyrocat concentrate and of course, sacrificing it in this function would render it ineffective during development. So I don't think this was its intended purpose.

Btw, I doubt the ascorbic acid in HDC does all that much. I think Pyrocat HD is a perfectly fine developer as it is and the variants don't offer significant advantages. Sandy himself als also always stated that the variants perform nearly identically. So please don't ask what the supposed advantage is of the ascorbic acid. I don't think you'd be ever able to tell two prints apart from identically exposed and processed negatives, with the only difference being one was developed in HDC and the other in plain HD.
 

Ian Grant

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Thanks. Are you sure? It's odd, since the glycol version does fine without an antioxidant in the first place.

I think someone on the LFPF suggested using Ascorbic Acid, If you mix Pyrocat HD un Gycol you need a few ml of water to dissolve the Metabusulphite, & Bromide that doesn't affect long term keeping properties I have some Art A that's 15 years old, mixed double strength.

However as Pyrocat HD made up in water keps 3 to 4 years even in a part filled bottle it's not worth using Glycol.

Ian
 

revdoc

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I believe this is Sandy's earliest description of Pyrocat HDC, and includes his reasoning:

 

revdoc

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No problem. I bookmarked it very recently, so it was still fresh in my mind.
 

Ian Grant

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Note that in that thread there's 2.5 times more Ascorbic Acid than in Pyrocat HDC mixed 1+1 to 100, that's a significant difference and changes the balance of the diluted developer.

Ian
 
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olk

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I never encountered an ascorbic acid only developer?! So is the statement ascorbic acid is developer correct?
 

koraks

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I never encountered an ascorbic acid only developer?! So is the statement ascorbic acid is developer correct?
It's virtually always used as part of a superadditive pair, generally with phenidone, although I suppose it might also work with metol (never looked into it). But you could very well make an ascorbate-only developer. It'll require quite a bit of ascorbate and/or it might be slow. But still, it'll work. I think you can find some experiments along those lines also here on Photrio.

Whether we should label developers only by a single developing agent if they contain multiple...I don't know, but it's common to do it that way. We refer to staining developers as 'pyro' developers a lot, even if they also contain e.g. phenidone.
 

Ian Grant

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Staining developers are often called Pyro, but there are also Hydroquinone staining developers. and not all Pyro developers are staining.

It's a bit like Lager, all lagers are beers, but there are may other types of beer

Ian
 

MattKing

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koraks

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Staining developers are often called Pyro, but there are also Hydroquinone staining developers. and not all Pyro developers are staining.

This reminds me; I once did some experiences with a staining HQ developer. It worked fairly well, although it didn't give quite as pronounced a stain as pyrocatechol. In fact, I think at least part of the coloration you see on lith prints is actually due to hydroquinone stain!
And indeed, add sulfite to a pyrocatechol developer and it won't stain anymore. Didn't original HC110 contain pyrocatechol?

I try to stay away from staining lagers.
 

Ian Grant

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I'm not sure about the original HC110 but for a spell Kodak switched to Pyrocatechin, it should give slightly finer grain compared to Hydroquinone.

Ian
 
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