Using butane gas to preserve solutions?

[david_henderson3]

I put a layer of Butane gas from a blow lamp!! in my bottles of chemicals, could this be detremental to them. Example AGFA Rodinal which now seems to 'keep' for ages judged on it's lack of darkening

[jorge_gasteazoro]

let me see if I understand this correctly? you are risking blowing up

your house and/or a fire to save a few bucks on developer?

Yeah I would say it is the right choice..as to the developer, no it

will not hurt it..butane is not an oxidant, it might make your

plastic bottles brittle after time...Basically I would say you are

just waiting to see which one lasts longer your house or the

developer..Good luck, I think you will need it!

[bill_nagel]

Butane would work since you are purging out the oxygen in the

headspace above the liquid in the bottle but using a flamable gas in

confined bottles is NOT the best choice. Nitrogen is a far better

choice but the cost of the nitrogen does not make it practical for

most people. It's usually cheaper just to through out the old and

bring in the new.

[arnie_milowsky]

Nitrogen will not work, as it lighter than air, and will simply

diffuse out unless kept under a positive pressure from a nitrogen

source. In the labs, we used to use argon to blanket a liquid, but

this is impractical in a home darkroom. Tetenal makes a product

called Protectan that is supposed to work well. See,

http://www.jobo-usa.com/products/chembw.htm#Protectan Spray

[tim_brown5]

I use small mouth glass bottles and a "winesaver" kit (available at

kitchen supply stores) which consists of special corks and a hand

operated vacuum pump.

[n_dhananjay3]

Considerably cheaper and safer to use one of the following methods.

Buy a bunch of marbles and add them to the solution till the solution

reaches the brim. Or hold your breath as long as you can and exhale

the carbon di oxide into the container to displace the oxygen. Or put

up the money for the Prtectan. Cheers, DJ

[george_papantoniou]

Protectan is Butane and Propane. Don't smoke in your darkroom and

don't light a match in order to find the light switch...

[j._patric_dahl_n]

Yes, Protectan is the same gas as used in the blow lamps. If you can

get a very slow flow of butane/propane gas from the gas bottle, you

can use the gas over powder chemicals too. ;-)

 

<p>

 

VERY SLOW FLOW! No one wants to get the chemicals snowing around in

the room and in the eyes and nose. :-(

[scott_walton1]

I have to agree with N Dhananjay. I have used the marble trick for

years. Make sure they are glass marbles. You can get them in a craft/

hobby store.

[boris_krivoruk3]

I've used marbles for years. They work well, except when I what to

preserve concentrated partially filled chemicals when their amount is

too small. In cases like this I use Protectan.

[george_papantoniou]

What happens if you lose your marbles ?

[j._patric_dahl_n]

I have seen recommendations for using glass marbles in german photo

books that are 70 years old. So this is nothing new. :-)

[richard_ilomaki]

What happens when you lose your marbles? You use a flammable gas for

a purpose it was not intended for without proper safeguards.

 

<p>

 

As a professional Fire Portection Engineer, I can only support the

other comments about the cost of a new face and house and possibly a

funeral against the cost of a few 100 cc of developer. Not only is

the gas flammable, but intoxicting, and can potentially cause liver

damage, just like sniffing glue.

 

<p>

 

Marbles are good, as are foamed polystyrene peanuts used in

packaging, as they fill up the airspace above the liquid and exclude

Oxygen.

 

<p>

 

I use Ilford HC poured into 30 ml film containers, then freeze them.

When I need a litre of developer, I pop one of the film containers of

gelled developer out of the freezer into 970 ml of water and in 2

minutes have a nice fresh developer solution of the corrrect

strength. The dilution can be controlled to achieve whatever

concentration you need.

 

<p>

 

Cheers

[miguel_jiminez]

I bought recently a winesaver kit of the type mentioned above by Tim

Brown. I haven't tried it yet for the developer but for the wine it

works very well!

[ted1]

There is a product for wine fanatics that is an inert gas, its an

aerosol can. I found it at a wine shop in NY. Perhaps that will not

explode - in case you were worried. Personally I say thank you all,

I'll be buying some butane real soon!

 

<p>

 

cool idea.

Ted

[chuck_albertson]

Use nitrogen or some other inert gas, not something flammable!

Besides, the darkening you are trying to prevent has absolutely no

effect on Rodinal---the stuff goes from a pale wheat color to a dark

brown once you crack it open, and it has had no effect on development

times, etc., in the twenty-some years I've been using it.

[rui_lourosa]

well i use protectan, and thiourea and paraformadehide and pyro and selenium and mercury chloride and potassium dicromate and probably i wont last another week

[kelly_flanigan1]

The developer bottle my brother made in 1960 had a floating wax disk. This cuts the surface area down radically; and makes the developer last way longer. He got the idea from an old 1920's to 1930's photo book from the Detroit library. It showed using a glass one quart vineger bottle and filling 1/2 full of water. Then the molten wax is very slowly poured in place. I used this bottle for about 25 years; until it got broken during a move. The time to fill a Nikkor tank will increase; because the developer must "glug glug" while passing the edge of the wax slug in the inverted bottle. The developer will last about 2 to 3 times as long with a wax floating lid.<BR><BR>