More Questions on Plastoc Bottles For Darkroom Chemical Storage

[Steve M.]

I just noticed that my black plastic Arista accordion bottle that I keep my developer in is labeled PE on the bottom. From what I can glean from the web, this is a lousy type of plastic for developer storage. My large brown plastic bottles are labeled HDPE, which appears to be good for fixer, stop bath, etc but not developer. My little brown bottles are much more rigid and simply have a 'T' on their bottoms. Would they be better for my developer storage?

I have to admit that my TD-16 developer stock solution lasts at least 4 months w/o any issues in the black accordion bottle. Before switching to this developer, I was using D76 and storing it in that same type of bottle and had issues after 3-4 weeks. Now I wonder if it wasn't the bottle that was the problem all along and not the D76?

 

[Jonik]

I don't know about plastic but i Would like to give you an other alternative. I use deep green glass bottles used for olive oil, with some lever type corks that completely seal the bottle from air and prevent any spillage. They have a capacity of 750ml(also available in other sizes) and what I do is fill them up with 700ml rapid fixer so there's very little air inside. I only use them for fixer since my current developers are used as one-shot. I bought them from a big market/store about house and garden and other things (it's called Praktiker and I think u can only find them in Greece, but I'm sure there are similar stores where you live). They cost so much less than plastic ones (e.g the 1lt plastic from macodirect.de go for ~4eu
and I got my bottles for 0.60 eu/each) and I think they are better for this kind of job.

 

[Tin]

Just use brown wine bottles as long as you can find rubber stoppers (i.e., those used for reagent bottles in chemistry labs) that fit the mouth of the bottle. That was what I used in the old days before plastic bottles were available.

 

[mwoenv]

PET platic provides an excellent oxygen/gas barrier. This is why it is used for carbonated drinks to retain the carbonation for about 6 months. I use plain seltzer water (unflavored) 1-liter bottles and have stored D76 and XTOL for 6 months without a problem. Of course, the bottles are squeezed and capped to remove air and stored in the dark. I make 1 gallon of D76 at a time (3 1-liter bottles and one 0.8-liter bottle) and 5 liters of XTOL (5 l-liter bottles). Kodak's D76 and XTOL data sheet indicates 6 month storage life in a full, stoppered bottle.

Since I use stock D76 (4 rolls/liter) and XTOL (6 rolls/liter) and reuse the solutions, if I develop 2-3 rolls with D76, for example, it degrades within about a month if I don't use the remaining 1-2 rolls capacity, i.e., the 6 month storage is good for unused solutions. Fortunatey, I develop enough rolls so that this happened only once.