Xtol longevity / shelf life

[McDiesel]

Just wanted to share an experiment. When cleaning up my storage I discovered an old bottle of stock, full-strength Xtol. According to the label on it, it was roughly a year old. This bottle was abandoned and forgotten because it was mixed from the "defective" bag (Kodak made an announcement last year, where they listed serial numbers of problematic manufacturing batches).

At the same time, I am finishing up my current batch which has been stored in a wine bag (Astrapouch brand) for 4 months.

Since I have been moving from DIY "control strips" (based on HP5+) to proper control strips based on FP4+, I decided to do a little experiment which I hope you'll find useful:

• I mixed another fresh bag of Xtol.
• Developed HP5+ and FP4+ based control strips in stock Xtol from all 3 batches: fresh, 4-months old, and 1y old.
• I used the development times from the Ilford (not Kodak) datasheets for stock Xtol at 20C
  
• Compare the results

No surprise here: the results were nearly identical. I see a small difference on a densitometer (within 0.05) but I can't tell the negs apart on a light table.

Conclusion: well-kept Xtol lasts at least a full year with no change in activity. All batches were mixed with distilled water, the oldest one was kept in an amber glass bottle (with a walnut-sized air bubble).

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have stock XTOL stored in 1 liter bags that are over a year old and they are still working.

 

[mshchem]

I found an 11 year old bottle of XTOL stock. It worked. It looked like light beer. I was shocked. Key to XTOL is zero air.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I have several bags from that "defective" batch. They work fine. They are not defective at all.

 

[mshchem]

I have several bags from that "defective" batch. They work fine. They are not defective at all.

I had a single bag of defective, it was fine, lucky.

 

[MattKing]

I have become more and more convinced that the "defect" was in the packaging, and therefore unpredictable.

 

[Radost]

Xtol is cheap. Just buy new.

 

[McDiesel]

I found an 11 year old bottle of XTOL stock. It worked. It looked like light beer. I was shocked. Key to XTOL is zero air.

Eleven years?! Mind blowing! BTW, in my original comment I should have been more clear: I wasn't simply testing if the developer was working, I verified that it produces identical density on control strips, because I haven't found anyone online who had verified this with a densitometer.

 

[radiant]

.. until it doesn't.

 

[pentaxuser]

I had thought that based on users' experience, mine included, the general consensus was that if air is exluded by means of unopened bottles or the use of winebags then 12 months was within easy reach of Xtol's life. More than a couple of years may be very good in a winebag but this, unless you really have an exceptionally airtight bag, may be very close to the limit.

It seems to me that in theory a glass bottle that has been emptied of air completely, filled totally with Xtol and has been sealed totally should have a very long life of many years as is the case with some users who have achieved this kind of "total and permanent" vacuum in the bottle

I suspect this is where the old spectre of " irrational doubt " that infects most humans comes in. Something says: I am stretching my luck to breaking point so better not do it but this idea of luck may be completely irrational and there is no reason why properly stored Xtol does not have a very long life indeed

pentaxuser

 

[Sirius Glass]

Eleven years?! Mind blowing! BTW, in my original comment I should have been more clear: I wasn't simply testing if the developer was working, I verified that it produces identical density on control strips, because I haven't found anyone online who had verified this with a densitometer.

I have had XTOL work years after it was mixed because it was tightly sealed without air, but I STILL ALWAYS test any mixed developer before using.

 

[mshchem]

Eleven years?! Mind blowing! BTW, in my original comment I should have been more clear: I wasn't simply testing if the developer was working, I verified that it produces identical density on control strips, because I haven't found anyone online who had verified this with a densitometer.

Yeah, I think I added 50% to the development time. Definitely not checked for anything other than it made reasonable negatives. I don't use old developer. I never save partial bottles of developer. Using XTOL that's been kept in a partially filled bottle isn't a good idea because of the lack of color on oxidation.
I was printing RA4 color prints 5 days ago, saved a half filled quart bottle of the developer, today went down, it was already brown. I tossed it. Sometimes we forget how reactive the air is.

 

[McDiesel]

Just curious, how did you guys end up storing unused Xtol for years? It's only 5L and even in replenishment regime that's not a multi-year supply. In my case the year-old bottle was forgotten by an accident. Now I see that one year is an embarrassingly weak number vs your storage habits.

 

[pentaxuser]

Just curious, how did you guys end up storing unused Xtol for years? It's only 5L and even in replenishment regime that's not a multi-year supply.

It might be in the near future if fuel, heating and food prices continue to rise the way they are.

pentaxuser

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just curious, how did you guys end up storing unused Xtol for years? It's only 5L and even in replenishment regime that's not a multi-year supply. In my case the year-old bottle was forgotten by an accident. Now I see that one year is an embarrassingly weak number vs your storage habits.

Because of COVID I stopped going out as much to photograph the empty streets.