From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@attbi.com)
Date: 12/17/02-12:44:02 PM Z
> mention of the danger of Sodium Hydroxide, and therefore the mixture is
> pretty dangerous. My question is: is it more dangerous than all the other
> chemicals I have been developing negs and prints in for years.
> Lisa
There are portions of each developer that use accelerators which are
alkaline. Otherwise the Metol and Hydroquinone would take quite a while to
develop an image. Sodium Hydroxide is one and it is a powerful alkali used
in low energy developers where Hydroquinone is a main ingredient.
It is also called Lye or Soda Lye and used in lye or caustic soap. If you
get it in your eye rinse with a 5% solution of boric acid as it is caustic.
Caustic means that it will eat away at your skin or burn it so to speak. If
you spill on your skin, flood with lots of water and then wash it off with
vinegar (stop bath could be used in a pinch). If you drink some (hard to
believe) drink vinegar, lemon, grapefruit or orange juice (like a lot) and
then drink a 1/2 cup of olive oil.
However there ought to be little problem in using it. It's used in lith
developers to achieve a very black & white w/no mid-tones negative.
On the converse, another alkali used in developers is Borax or Sodium
Borate. D76 uses it as the accelerator and it is used in the familiar hand
soap called '20 Mule Team Borax'. It is rather mild but also used in
developers of low activity (D76), in some fixers and in some gold toners to
increase the deposit of gold.
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