Using an inkjet printer to apply sensitizer to paper.

Has anyone tried using an inkjet printer to apply sensitizer to paper?

I realise that the experiment may destroy the printer, so I will look for a well used Epson 1800 which can be picked up on the cheap, and get some Jon Cone cartridges ($30), and minimally load them with sensitizer for the test. Also, if the process works, a thorough cleaning of the printer would need to be performed following each batch.

Concerns:
1) Ferric Oxalate could readily clog or otherwise damage the print head.
2) Particle sizes in solution could be too large.

Advantages:
1) Totally uniform coating
2) Selective density of sensitizer would allow dialing in the amount of sensitizer applied, (reducing sensitizer use to the minimum required, but no less.)
3) Ease of creating shaped sensitized areas on paper, (e.g. oval for old style portrait.)

These are my thoughts. Obviously I do not want to just throw away money if someone else has performed the experiment and determined it cannot work. If anyone has tried this, please post your experiences and results here.

Note: The same technique could be used to apply a Fumed Silica pre-treatment of paper, and the fumed silica particles are small enough (to not pose an issue as the primary particle sizes range from 5nm to 50nm.)

I have no experience but I am quite intrigued by the possibility. You know, I thought of this briefly, the possibility of using an inkjet to apply sensitizer. It was just a thought
I wish you the best luck in your experiment if you decide to take it.

One thing that comes to my mind. Uniform coating might be tricky IMO.
If you had experience with QTR you might have noticed that each ink cartridge creates a different grain/ink dot pattern, it would be a necessary to involve more than one or all cartridges to create a uniform (dotless/grainless) coating. It might even be necessary to create a QTR profile to ensure that each cartridge is laying down very similar densities of sensitizer.

I think this is a great idea. Random thoughts: I would guess that with the papers you would be coating, the emulsion would spread enough to eliminate any problems of graininess. Larger droplets (older, cheaper printer?) might be better if that means larger ink nozzles. A printer with replaceable heads might be better than one with fixed heads, and I imagine the Pt ad Pd could also cause some clogging. I wonder if the nozzles are metal and if they would react with the pt/pd (like the old metal ferrule warnings). It would be cool if you could put FO, Pt and Pd in separate cartridges and select the ratio sort of like selecting a color.
Keep us posted if you actually try this.

Good luck,
Denny

Herzeleid said:

I have no experience but I am quite intrigued by the possibility. You know, I thought of this briefly, the possibility of using an inkjet to apply sensitizer. It was just a thought
I wish you the best luck in your experiment if you decide to take it.

One thing that comes to my mind. Uniform coating might be tricky IMO.
If you had experience with QTR you might have noticed that each ink cartridge creates a different grain/ink dot pattern, it would be a necessary to involve more than one or all cartridges to create a uniform (dotless/grainless) coating. It might even be necessary to create a QTR profile to ensure that each cartridge is laying down very similar densities of sensitizer.

Click to expand...

I was thinking of manually editing a very basic QTR profile with uniform values corresponding to the percentage contribution from each cartridge. Having seperate cartridges for Ferric Oxalate and Pd/Pt or Pd/Pt/NA2 would be a very attractive possibility. I think that the Ferric Oxalate will pose the biggest challenge in this scenario as I expect the clogging possibility could be "special". I concur with Denny that an older printer with wider nozzles/droplets is the ideal candidate printer. I will be on the hunt for just such an item at hopefully a giveaway price for the experiment. (Replaceable heads, not Epson.)

It looks like I have an experiment to perform ... aim for a report to appear sometime this summer after I source all the materials, and play with it.

Zero_Equals_Infinity said:

I was thinking of manually editing a very basic QTR profile with uniform values corresponding to the percentage contribution from each cartridge. Having seperate cartridges for Ferric Oxalate and Pd/Pt or Pd/Pt/NA2 would be a very attractive possibility. I think that the Ferric Oxalate will pose the biggest challenge in this scenario as I expect the clogging possibility could be "special". I concur with Denny that an older printer with wider nozzles/droplets is the ideal candidate printer. I will be on the hunt for just such an item at hopefully a giveaway price for the experiment. (Replaceable heads, not Epson.)

It looks like I have an experiment to perform ... aim for a report to appear sometime this summer after I source all the materials, and play with it.

Click to expand...

Printer with a wider droplet size definitely sounds very right for ferric oxalate coating.

I don't think another solvent is an option (something inert to ferric oxalate), may be something that can vaporize after delivering ferric oxalate onto paper. Just thinking wildly .

Denny said:

I think this is a great idea. Random thoughts: I would guess that with the papers you would be coating, the emulsion would spread enough to eliminate any problems of graininess. Larger droplets (older, cheaper printer?) might be better if that means larger ink nozzles. A printer with replaceable heads might be better than one with fixed heads, and I imagine the Pt ad Pd could also cause some clogging. I wonder if the nozzles are metal and if they would react with the pt/pd (like the old metal ferrule warnings). It would be cool if you could put FO, Pt and Pd in separate cartridges and select the ratio sort of like selecting a color.
Keep us posted if you actually try this.

Good luck,
Denny

Click to expand...

An older printer is what I have in mind. I will have to scout around as I am sure someone will have one that they can sell cheaply or donate to the cause. The clogging issue is the one I am most concerned with. I would love to separate things into their own cartridges. It would give a tremendous freedom. Cartridges for Pd, NA2, FO, toner, Fumed Silica, Fumed Alumina. It has a lot of possibilities.

I think FO is the highest risk of the lot. I will find out. I will do the experiment this summer, and in the worst case and old printer dies going where no inkjet printer has gone before.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but a dropper, a shot glass, and a brush are a whole lot simpler and more flexible. If you are looking for an even coating, that is precisely what brushing or coating with a rod provides.
You will have to maintain separate channels for platinum/palladium else you will be stuck with a single contrast mix and that's not an improvement. Mapping your drop counts to a printer profile will be challenging, and printer cleaning cycles are going to waste expensive chemistry. More interesting, I think, would be creating a platinum paper. Anyone remember the Palladio product?

pschwart said:

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but a dropper, a shot glass, and a brush are a whole lot simpler and more flexible. If you are looking for an even coating, that is precisely what brushing or coating with a rod provides.
You will have to maintain separate channels for platinum/palladium else you will be stuck with a single contrast mix and that's not an improvement. Mapping your drop counts to a printer profile will be challenging, and printer cleaning cycles are going to waste expensive chemistry. More interesting, I think, would be creating a platinum paper. Anyone remember the Palladio product?

Click to expand...

I would love nothing better than to produce a paper like Palladio, but that would require a major capital outlay, (probably well into the 6-figures), and special arrangements with a paper maker that can produce consistent high quality runs from batch to batch and to specification. Being as I don't have a couple of 100K eating a hole in my pocket, this was not the most appealing prospect. (Of course if it was easy other people would be doing it, and Palladio would still be around.) I would also probably want to take advantage of the process that was used by the gentleman who produced Palladio, and end up paying consulting fees and a royalty to use his process. I am not being sarcastic, as it would be a great thing to do, but I am not rich enough, nor have time enough to start such an endeavour.

Brush and rod coating while utilile is not consistent from print to print. (Yes there are other variables as well, but why not constrain one's that can be constrained to give a higher level of consistency. Even with that consistency, there will be minor variations between prints in an edition, (which makes each one unique), but not so much variation as to entail a higher fail rate. And with some processes, (e.g. fumed silica pre-treatment), the amount of variability seems very high. Wouldn't it be great to dial it in, to obtain that level of consistency? Now, it may all be for naught, but I want to know that it is all for naught, The experiment is cheap enough. (I expect a few hundred bucks should about cover the old printer, the refillable cartridges, and the small amount of sensitizer that I will use.) But if it works ... it would really open up some possibilities for consistency and customization. I think it is worth a few hundred and a bit of time in ye olde darkroom.

I don't think mapping drop counts will be that tough. Print a pure black image with a custom "flat" profile for QTR. The ratios between solutions are the key. (20, 20, 1) is what many use as the ratio of LiPd:FeO:NA2. I will start with this profile and a pure black image. Give the dried sensitizer covered paper the once over to insure that the density looks reasonable, and expose a step wedge as per normal exposure with normal curve for the paper and sensitizer. If the result looks reasonable, drop the density, (either with a new profile or by using a dark grey to black gradient image to apply the sensitizer.)

Yes, flushing will use a fair bit of sensitizer, but if the LiPd is in a single cartridge, the loss will be reasonable over a batch.

I will let you know when I perform the test, (hopefully within the next 2 months.)

By all means, experiment. There are plenty of alt practitioners who make their own POP, silver papers, and even film, so I don't accept your logic that making platinum paper can only be done on a commercial scale. It may not be practical, but more experimentation required. I was only suggesting that a platinum paper might be a more generic solution and one that's easier to consume. Good luck

I brought this up back in 2006: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I think it will be the future of niche traditional products. It will allow for perfect coatings in small custom batch runs. The ability to do this has increased a great deal since 2006. They can print stem cells, organs, tissues etc so I would assume emulsion would be doable. It may even get to a point we buy cartridges from a company like Ilford and print out their emulsions on paper, plastics or glass media. Once laid down the printed emulsion would level out and become uniform. It could make for an interesting kickstarter project but the investment needed could be quite large..