Safe concentration of Acetic Acid

[Ken Nadvornick]

If you ever took the top off the bottle and put your nose up to it for a sniff to see what it smells like, you might wish it had been a nuclear rod instead. It'll scorch your eyeballs from the backside. If you had stopped up sinuses before, you surely won't after. Although you probably won't have sinuses either. Some bad-a$$ stuff.

Well, that's sort of like holding one's head underwater for five minutes, then complaining that one's heart has stopped. In both cases the solution to the problem is: Don't do that...

I've been diluting from and using glacial acetic acid without a single problem since the 70s, and I'm still alive.

Imagine that.



Ken

 

[RattyMouse]

MSDS may be great help to physicians or hazmat teams who have to deal with injuries/poisonings/spills, but they are mostly useless to photo amateurs.

If you can't read and understand an MSDS, you really should not be handling chemicals. At all.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Well, that's sort of like holding one's head underwater for five minutes, then complaining that one's heart has stopped. In both cases the solution to the problem is: Don't do that...

I've been diluting from and using glacial acetic acid without a single problem since the 70s, and I'm still alive.

Imagine that.



Ken

sometimes,natural selection fails us

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

sometimes,natural selection fails us

Or... works exactly as advertised and is wildly successful...



Ken

 

[RobC]

Agfa used to make and sell 60% Acetic Acid in 5 litre bottles. I still have a half empty one.
Fuji still make and supply 60% Acetic Acid in 5 litre bottles which is supplied wholesale only to a lot of labs and mini labs.
This implies it's considered safe to send via courier delivery and be used in minilabs many of which are in the shop front.

You'd need to be a real numpty not to understand this stuff is dangerous and should be handled with care. But then if you took a swig from a bottle of household bleach it wouldn't do you a lot of good. Does that mean household bleach should be banned?

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have used Glatial Acetic Acid since the '50s and have had no problems of any sort.

Numpty is a good word to describe someone who would undertake to use chemicals without some sort of knowledge of what they were getting into. Too many fit that description. GA is rather benign unless you spill it on yourself and then refuse to take the precautions printed on the bottle or on the MSDS or whatever. Any acid or base is dangerous to that extent.

PE

 

[fdonadio]

If you ever took the top off the bottle and put your nose up to it for a sniff to see what it smells like, you might wish it had been a nuclear rod instead.

In high school, I had chemistry classes in a lab. My teacher was very clear: don't ever smell (sniff) anything directly from a bottle, flask or tube; always use your (other) hand to bring the fumes to your nose, and only if strictly needed.

i still do it that way, even if my wife, relatives and friends find it funny.


Cheers,
Flavio

 

[RobC]

Acetic Acid is used in foodstuffs. According to wikipedia 4-8% for table vinegar and maybe 18% strength in when used for pickling. That should put it into context for anyone worrying about it. The stronger it is the more chance of it damaging you. At 60% I take great care. But I dilute some down to 25% for my stock solution I keep in the darkroom which is safe enough for regular darkroom usage (so far).

Fuji datasheet for 60% Acetic Acid

http://www.fujifilmeurope.be/msds/press/English (non-GBR)/EN_918458.pdf

 

[Gerald C Koch]

I'm no chemist, so I really have no clue. Are the other common acids of that strength level as sharp in odor? I won't go on about it any more, but that stuff is pretty unforgettable and unmistakeable. I'm glad I never put my nose up to a bottle of it and took a good whiff.

Concentrated hydrochloric acid has a distinctive, sharp odor. Fuming nitric acid also gives off an unpleasant gas, dinitrogen tetroxide. Concentrated sulfuric acid is odorless, so is phosphoric acid. But phosphoric acid is a weak acid.

 

[Rudeofus]

If you can't read and understand an MSDS, you really should not be handling chemicals. At all.

Which part of "Wear personal protective equipment", "Ensure adequate ventilation, especially in confined areas.", "Wear appropriate protective gloves to prevent skin contact. Replace torn or punctured gloves promptly", "Wear appropriate body protection to prevent skin contact" and "Avoid contact with skin, eyes and clothing" are so hard to understand?. These are all phrases taken from the MSDS for Glucose, a compound that most of us eat on a regular basis, and allow me to state it once more: this is ridiculous.

Whatever this MSDS is good for, the information contained therein is useless for people casually working in a darkroom. It does more damage than it prevents, because people will look at the MSDS of harmless compounds, shake their heads and will ignore serious warnings for actually dangerous compounds from then on, exposing themselves and others to unnecessary risks.

Funny thing is I often read hysterical warnings about chemical dangers in threads about relatively mundane compounds, but rarely in threads about Pyrogallol/Catechol based developers, Dichromate bleaches and Sulfide toners.

 

[RattyMouse]

Which part of "Wear personal protective equipment", "Ensure adequate ventilation, especially in confined areas.", "Wear appropriate protective gloves to prevent skin contact. Replace torn or punctured gloves promptly", "Wear appropriate body protection to prevent skin contact" and "Avoid contact with skin, eyes and clothing" are so hard to understand?. These are all phrases taken from the MSDS for Glucose, a compound that most of us eat on a regular basis, and allow me to state it once more: this is ridiculous.

Whatever this MSDS is good for, the information contained therein is useless for people casually working in a darkroom. It does more damage than it prevents, because people will look at the MSDS of harmless compounds, shake their heads and will ignore serious warnings for actually dangerous compounds from then on, exposing themselves and others to unnecessary risks.

Funny thing is I often read hysterical warnings about chemical dangers in threads about relatively mundane compounds, but rarely in threads about Pyrogallol/Catechol based developers, Dichromate bleaches and Sulfide toners.

You can find all the comical examples you want. The fact is, the entire chemical industry uses MSDS documents as the first line of safety information.

At my company, if you cant read and understand an MSDS, you are fired. Period. We waste no time with people who cannot understand basic safety.

 

[Xmas]

Hot peppers are a good example, no instruction manual, but you will avoid repeating the first mistake when preparing them for eating.
Unless you have no memory.

 

[RobC]

The trouble with using chemicals is that the first mistake could be your last mistake.

 

[pdeeh]

What we need is some form of photography where there are no chemicals involved at all ... hmmm ... that's a good idea ... I wonder if I could make a camera where the sensitive material is replaced with something like photodiodes?
actually, that sounds a brilliant idea, I need to have a look in the yellow pages for a patent agent. I could make a fortune if it ever caught on .. .

 

[winger]

For Mordançage, you use GAA and hydrogen peroxide (around 40%, not the 2% you find in the store) plus Cupric Chloride. It's definitely best as an outdoor process. With gloves. But taking care and not being stupid with them makes it fairly easy to do it right.

At the lab, we made the chemicals for the screening test for blood from 50% acetic plus the powders and then carried small bottles of those around in our cars for use at crime scenes. They were contained in a scene kit, so no one had damage to their cars, but they did occasionally blow the tops of the dropper bottles in the summer.

 

[Gunfleet]

I dislike the smell of acetic intensely but you can buy citric for photography

 

[Rudeofus]

The fact is, the entire chemical industry uses MSDS documents as the first line of safety information.

At my company, if you cant read and understand an MSDS, you are fired. Period. We waste no time with people who cannot understand basic safety.

Who cares? AFAIK your company doesn't operate darkrooms, and most people actually working in darkroom don't have the qualifications to work at your company.

And that's exactly my issue: I have no problem with chemical industry using MSDS, but I do have a problem with MSDS touted as valuable resources for darkroom amateurs with no formal training in chemistry.

APUG would be a pretty sad and lonely place, especially from an artistic standpoint, if they allowed only folks who live up to your MSDS literacy requirements.

@pdeeh: that type of photography you asked for already existed well over 50 years ago, it was the common way of producing images back then: give the exposed film roll to some lab, pick up photos/slides some time later. See, no chemistry involved! Most people presenting their Velvia slides would have vigorously rejected the notion that their slides were reexposed or even bleached!

@Gunfleet: Citric Acid can allegedly destroy dyes in color film.

 

[RobC]

Citric Acid can allegedly destroy dyes in color film.

As far as I'm aware dyes are pretty much all susceptible to being killed off (colours reduced/faded) by any acid. Again, as far as I'm aware colour film processing always uses fixer on the alkaline side of neutral for this reason.

 

[RattyMouse]

Who cares? AFAIK your company doesn't operate darkrooms, and most people actually working in darkroom don't have the qualifications to work at your company.

And that's exactly my issue: I have no problem with chemical industry using MSDS, but I do have a problem with MSDS touted as valuable resources for darkroom amateurs with no formal training in chemistry.

APUG would be a pretty sad and lonely place, especially from an artistic standpoint, if they allowed only folks who live up to your MSDS literacy requirements.

@pdeeh: that type of photography you asked for already existed well over 50 years ago, it was the common way of producing images back then: give the exposed film roll to some lab, pick up photos/slides some time later. See, no chemistry involved! Most people presenting their Velvia slides would have vigorously rejected the notion that their slides were reexposed or even bleached!

@Gunfleet: Citric Acid can allegedly destroy dyes in color film.

MSDS' are written for people with a high school education. If you have a high school diploma, you should be able to understand the safety information on an MSDS. The people who pack (and handle) our chemicals for shipment are not chemists, or even college graduates. The DHL or UPS guy shipping our chemicals may not have much more than a high school education. If there is a spill in his truck, he has to know what safety precautions to take which is all covered in any correctly written MSDS. The clerk at my company who receives incoming chemicals has to be able to understand the MSDS from all the unknown samples he/she receives.

Chemicals released "into the wild" have to have safety information available and understandable by any reasonably educated adult.

Any photo enthusiast who cannot get safety information about their dark room chemicals from an MSDS has no business using those chemicals.

 

[Rudeofus]

MSDS' are written for people with a high school education. If you have a high school diploma, you should be able to understand the safety information on an MSDS. The people who pack (and handle) our chemicals for shipment are not chemists, or even college graduates. The DHL or UPS guy shipping our chemicals may not have much more than a high school education. If there is a spill in his truck, he has to know what safety precautions to take which is all covered in any correctly written MSDS. The clerk at my company who receives incoming chemicals has to be able to understand the MSDS from all the unknown samples he/she receives.

Reading an MSDS is one thing, following up on it is another. I never questioned the reading comprehension of your factory workers, but seriously doubt they follow the hysterical recommendations given for mundane compounds. The Glucose MSDS I brought up as example is not an isolated incident, these MSDSs all look like that. Reading your postings, I begin to wonder whether you actually read these MSDS ...

Chemicals released "into the wild" have to have safety information available and understandable by any reasonably educated adult.

As long as all sheets cry "WOLF!!!" regardless of actual hazards, this is as good as no MSDS writing it. A sheet, which contains 80% information that falls under the "well, they had to write this for CYA purposes, let's not take this seriously" category, hardly satisfy this requirement you just stated, don't you agree? Recommending safety showers and protective gloves for rock salt and grape sugar is hogwash, not safety information.

PS: in case people don't know what safety showers are like: they release massive amounts of cold water for 15+ minutes. No, your cozy warm bath room shower would not qualify as one. There are compounds where in case of large skin exposure this kind of treatment is preferable to the alternatives, but rock salt is not one of them.

 

[RobC]

Health and Safety gone mad. If the manufacturing doesn't put all these warnings and some idiot without an ounce of common sense mis-uses the product, then they can sue saying there was no warning. This is what all the nonense in MSDS sheets is about.
But who as ever read the read the MSDS for their household bleach? It has a hazard warning icon on it which is all that is required. It means engage brain before use and read the instructions for usage.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/microwavedpet.asp

 

[Xmas]

Which part of "Wear personal protective equipment", "Ensure adequate ventilation, especially in confined areas.", "Wear appropriate protective gloves to prevent skin contact. Replace torn or punctured gloves promptly", "Wear appropriate body protection to prevent skin contact" and "Avoid contact with skin, eyes and clothing" are so hard to understand?. These are all phrases taken from the MSDS for Glucose, a compound that most of us eat on a regular basis, and allow me to state it once more: this is ridiculous.

Whatever this MSDS is good for, the information contained therein is useless for people casually working in a darkroom. It does more damage than it prevents, because people will look at the MSDS of harmless compounds, shake their heads and will ignore serious warnings for actually dangerous compounds from then on, exposing themselves and others to unnecessary risks.

Funny thing is I often read hysterical warnings about chemical dangers in threads about relatively mundane compounds, but rarely in threads about Pyrogallol/Catechol based developers, Dichromate bleaches and Sulfide toners.

Here the dichromates are not available cept eg after a college invoice.

 

[Rudeofus]

Here the dichromates are not available cept eg after a college invoice.

How about Stannous Chloride and Potassium Hydroxide then?

 

[pdeeh]

That's not true xmas except at silverprint.
You can buy Dichromates in whatever quantity you like from many other suppliers with a phone call or a mouse click. Process supplies to name but one

 

[Gunfleet]

Thanks for the info rudofius. I've only ever devved b&w so that mistake hasn't caught me out yet!