Yikes! Left the (mixed) Diafine in the car....

[PaulN]

I brought my diafine back from my darkroom class during the Easter break and left it in the car by accident. The temperature fluctuated from the mid 30s to the 70s during this time. It may have been warmer in the car when the sun was directly on it, but I have no idea how much warmer... 90 degrees inside, maybe?

I'm now wondering if the diafine is still safe to use. Does anyone know the storage requirements for mixed diafine? I have a roll of holga shots I could use as a test, but I hate wasting film, and I'd hate to dump 2 gallons of diafine on a whim.

Does anyone have any concrete evidence if my Diafine is still good?

Thanks,
-Paul

 

[taffer]

Hmmm, if reusing it for more than a year does no harm to it, you could just try with a roll of film . Even if there's some way of testing if it's 'active', the only way to know if it's active enough for your uses would be that, I guess...

 

[FrankS]

There shouldn't be a problem because Diafine is divided (developer/activator) and it wasn't left at too high a temp for too long.

 

[PaulN]

Ugh.. So I went out to the car to grab it, and even though Solution B was tightly sealed, the heat must have gotten to it, because it looked like there were huge crystaline mushrooms growing down the side of the bottle. Apparently it leaked out all over my floor mat. I'm guessing it expanded, or created gas when it got hot.

Sigh. I chucked it.

Hopefully I can find more to mix some up tonight, otherwise this weeks developing session is kaput.

 

[T_om]

Just heating it did nothing adverse. It will be fine when brought back into the "Use" range.

However, it sounds like you had more of a leakage problem than just a heat problem.

Tom