Ammonium Dichromate replacement for Carbon printing

[Jim Fitzgerald]

As one who is just starting down the Carbon Printing road (and so taken with it I am converting my darkroom to solely Carbon Printing and selling off my four enlargers) I have been buying up stocks of Ammonium Dichromate as they become available (in the UK), I currently have 500 grams of crystals and am hoping to add to that before the EU ban comes fully into place (I say fully as a large number of companies will only sell Ammonium Dichromate to large commercial users or Educational establishments.

On another note, I was printing some tissues on Thursday and I took my gloves off between the sensitising and exposing stages, when I completed the exposure I mated the exposed tissue to the final medium forgetting to put the gloves back on. What made this worse was earlier in the day I managed to cut my finger on one of my mitre trimming knives (whilst making a frame) and although I had a waterproof plaster on I am pretty sure some of the Dichromate laden liquid would have got in. Nothing I can do about it now but a lesson learned.

I'm glad that I live on this side of the pond. I have several pounds of both dichromates and as a dedicated carbon printer I know I have enough. I just hope they do not ban it here. If so, I'll buy more right away. None of the other printing processes gives me what I see and feel.
Ed, glove are a must. We all get careless once in a while ... me too.

[Struan Gray]

Struan,
I was informed of the oncoming ban by a supplier in London. They let me know the source of their information. It's a part of the UK Health & Safety Executive, a government department. They will be monitering the ban but it is a European directive, pushed out by The EEC. Hopefully it will be reversed if we ever get e vote to leave that organisation.
If you PM me your e-mail address I'll foreward you the e-mail that I recieved from them. If anybody else in EEC countries wants to see it just do the same.
Good news for the rest of the world, unless your government is stupid enough to join the EEC this ban will NOT apply to you.
Pete.

Thanks Pete. This wouldn't be the first time HM Govt. has over-enthusiastically applied EU safety law. The EU directives I have seen say nothing whatsoever about use of the raw chemical by private carbon printers, and even a commercial carbon printer would be exempt as the amounts of hexavalent chromium in the final product are so vanishingly small. The problem, if any, will be one of over-cautious suppliers not wanting to ship it to unaccredited buyers.

The suppliers of laboratory chemicals I would order from here don't have any plans to discontinue standard dichromates in hobby scale amounts. But then, in the past, I have always ordered such things as a member of university research department - things are often more difficult for a private individual.

I am paranoid enough about safety that I don't want dichromates in the house with my kids. Not without building a lockable darkroom with a proper fume cupboard at any rate. But colour carbon prints are something I long to try, once time and space are available.

Struan

[Peter De Smidt]

How should one work with the powder safely? I suppose I could move the powder to the de-tached garage and mix the solutions outside with a cartridge respirator on. That won't make the neighbors wonder.

[O_H]

I've had a trawl through the REACH and other EU legislation and can't find anything relevant. The legislation aimed at big industrial users may make dichromates harder to come by, but I don't see anything that will stop the specialist chemical suppliers selling it to carbon printers.

See Commission Regulation No. 348/2013. To use dichromates after September 2017, you need to have applied for authorisation, and the last date for application is in March 2016.

[gth]

Can you buy it and ship it in Sweden?

BH photo will sell it but only at their store in NYC…. no shipping. (ETC.)

I think we all end up at the same place… "I can handle it safely…. BUT"……

Carbon and other processes that use dichromates are too important to end up as a historical "but.."

So let's put out pants on and develop safe work flow that assures the continuation of carbon printing et. al.

Some already have:

http://carbonprinting.wordpress.com/category/process/

Thanks Pete. This wouldn't be the first time HM Govt. has over-enthusiastically applied EU safety law. The EU directives I have seen say nothing whatsoever about use of the raw chemical by private carbon printers, and even a commercial carbon printer would be exempt as the amounts of hexavalent chromium in the final product are so vanishingly small. The problem, if any, will be one of over-cautious suppliers not wanting to ship it to unaccredited buyers.

The suppliers of laboratory chemicals I would order from here don't have any plans to discontinue standard dichromates in hobby scale amounts. But then, in the past, I have always ordered such things as a member of university research department - things are often more difficult for a private individual.

I am paranoid enough about safety that I don't want dichromates in the house with my kids. Not without building a lockable darkroom with a proper fume cupboard at any rate. But colour carbon prints are something I long to try, once time and space are available.

Struan

[Struan Gray]

See Commission Regulation No. 348/2013. To use dichromates after September 2017, you need to have applied for authorisation, and the last date for application is in March 2016.

I have read that, and the original REACH legislation to which it refers. The authorisation process is for companies selling goods to the general public which include hexavalent chromium in the final product (above a certain threshold value). It does not apply to industrial processes which use hexavalent chromium to produce a final product which contains only trace amounts (like a carbon print). It also does not apply to some of the biggest industrial excreters of hexavalent chromium into the environment - such as some steel and aerospace manufacturers - because they are specifically exempted, but that's a political argument for another day.

The ban is not on use, it is on sales to the general public. The distinction may seem minor, but it really isn't.

[Struan Gray]

Can you buy it and ship it in Sweden?

Yes. Not as a private individual, but as a single-person company (costs a few tens of dollars and a week to set up), or a school teacher, or someone working at pretty well any company whatsoever, I can order it and it will be shipped to me.

The real key is to have an organisation number, which in the EU is usually the same as your VAT number. They are not hard to obtain, if you are serious about what you do.

Note that I have a twenty year career as a research scientist behind me, and in that career I used all manner of substances and procedures which would be truly dangerous in the wrong hands. I have been responsible for chemical and other safety for a whole university science department. Which is not to brag, but to show that I know how to talk to chemical suppliers, and how comply with safety regulations. (And, FWIW, how to assess procedures and materials for compatibility with a happy and stable home life).

I have followed the DAS story on APUG with great interest. I'm not that keen on a molecule with two benzene rings and a bunch of nitrogen groups either, but it's better than hexavalent chromium, both for me and for the environment. Easier to dispose of too. My personal dream is colour Woodburytype, or Woodburytype over inkjet, which eliminates the exposure and development stages altogether. Thus far though, it's all in the mind.

[sanking]

How should one work with the powder safely? I suppose I could move the powder to the de-tached garage and mix the solutions outside with a cartridge respirator on. That won't make the neighbors wonder.

Peter,

It is very easy to handle and use dichromate safely. Basically, do this.

Avoid contact with eyes, skin, & clothing.
Avoid Breathing dust. Use with adequate ventilation.
Protect your hands with gloves and after handling dichromate.

Once the powder is in the dilute solutions (3%-8%) needed for carbon printing we are using it in such small quantities that the risk factor is extremely small.

Sandy

[gth]

I would like to make it clear that I was somewhat apprehensive about starting this thread, should it in any way cast the tremendous work and effort by Sandy and others in a bad light.

Obviously I have not added anything that was not already known.

I have nothing but admiration for the creative work put in by many people to revitalize and make carbon printing accessible and documented to be able to live on. It's easy to speak of alternates when you haven't spent years developing a work flow that works consistently with outstanding results.

Clearly dichromates CAN be handled safely by responsible practitioners.

What worries me is the regulatory environment and general attitude towards chemistry and science from regulators, politician and an uninformed public.

Perhaps I am paranoid but it is not all that hard to come up with scenarios with bad outcomes for carbon printing in todays world, considering what is known about hexavalent chromium compounds.

If "we" can stop that (remote?) possibility cold it's worthwhile.

The object is to ensure that carbon printing and prints will exist for another 100 years.

What other compounds could possibly be used to photochemically harden gelatine?

Can we step back and look at the basic process needed and find solutions?

Maybe these questions belong on APUG.

/gth

[Pete Watkins]

gth,
Well said. I have no idea what will happen in EEC countries but I fear the worst. We are ruled by un-elected morons.
Good luck to the rest of the world.
Pete.