RE: Making Silver Oxide From Red Devil Lye: Argyrotype

Oh my, that was an impressive bit of text.

I buy silver nitrate at either Baddley in Baton Rouge (server may be
down - http://www.baddley.com/), not a user friendly website
or Artcraft - http://www.artcraftchemicals.com, a great source for
lots of stuff

cost is between 95-100 per pound, silver oxide is 1.30 per gram, or
589 per pound.... makes economic sense to me to precipitate the silver
oxide

Darryl Baird

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Koch-Schulte [mailto:mkochsch@shaw.ca]
Sent: Mon 9/5/2005 10:53 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Making Silver Oxide From Red Devil Lye: Argyrotype
 
"Of course why stop at Silver Oxide why not just start compounding my
own
Silver Nitrate," or so I thought....until I read this....don't try
this at
home kids... you'll almost die laughing.

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/DEAD.htm

R.I.P.

~m

Etienne Garbaux wrote:
> Michael wrote:
>
>> the lye I have on hand is guaranteed 98.5 per cent pure sodium
>> hydroxide, marketed as an ingredient for making soap.
>
>> I'm thinking that this must be pure
>> enough for this intended use.
>
> Of course, it all depends on what the < 1.5% impurities are and what
> process you are doing! But yes, grocery-store lye is generally
> perfectly fine for all photographic uses (as are grocery-store
> washing soda [sodium carbonate], baking soda [sodium bicarbonate],
> sour salt [citric acid], and borax).
>
> My previous message was directed specifically at Drano brand drain
> cleaner, which (in the US) is about 90% sodium hydroxide plus about
> 10% aluminum shavings plus coloring and anti-caking ingredients.
> It's primarily the aluminum that makes Drano unsuitable for
> photographic uses. When you put it in water, the NaOH reacts with
> the aluminum, giving off hydrogen gas and leaving aluminum ions in
> the solution. The aluminum ions then react with other ions in your
> coating and/or processing chemistry (particularly those containing
> other metal ions), leading to undesired results.
>
> Best regards,
>
> etienne