Sodium Chloride substitute

[Pete Watkins]

Has anybody ever tried using either sea salt or rock salt in formulas that call for Sodium Chloride? I'm trying to avoid the postage for Sodium Chloride, the local supermarket sells the sea and the rock salts.
Thanks,
Pete.

[J D Clark]

Why not just use table salt from the local supermarket? Other salts have various amounts of other salts mixed in, but table salt (non-iodinized) is sodium chloride.

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

[Murray]

Sea salt would likely have other minerals.

I would hope that non-iodized food grade salt would be more highly processed/extracted & maybe it's cheaper to make it in a factory than to extract it.

It would be worth an inquiry (e-?) to suppliers of either the table or rock variety (water softener, ice melt?) regarding content.

Beware of rock salt blends. That would be hard to miss...clearly labeled, and overpriced.

[Colin Graham]

I believe most of the kosher brands of salt are pure NaCl.

[Ernest Purdum]

Salt is a weird product. It seems to me that the more contaminated it is, the higher the price. This may be different in Staffordshire than Oceanside, though. Pete, if we Californians buy either "sea salt" or "rock salt" it is considered a gourmet product and priced accordingly. Our "table salt" that John Clark refers to, may not be readily available to you. If it is, I'm pretty sure that lots of our home chemists have used it without problems.

We have a high postage problem too. The gourmet gurus tell us we should use "Fleur de Sel" imported from France (at vast expense).

[Ernest Purdum]

Colin, I just took a look at a label of Morton's kosher salt. Besides salt, it lists "Yellow Prussiate of Soda" whatever that is as the only additional ingredient. They say that it is an anti-caking agent.

It gives no idea of the proportions, but it does provide what is to me the most interesting information. It says it's great for margaritas.

[Colin Graham]

Hmmm... The kosher brand I have (Diamond Crystal) just lists salt as the ingredient. Anyway, sorry for the misinformation; not sure if it would be available in the UK either. I tried tracing it back to the parent company (Cargill (http://www.cargillsalt.com/food/dc_salt_food_koshersalt.htm#TopOfPage)) but no luck finding more info. It does work well for making palladium salt solution though.

[D. Bryant]

Hmmm... The kosher brand I have (Diamond Crystal) just lists salt as the ingredient. Anyway, sorry for the misinformation; not sure if it would be available in the UK either. I tried tracing it back to the parent company (Cargill (http://www.cargillsalt.com/food/dc_salt_food_koshersalt.htm#TopOfPage)) but no luck finding more info. It does work well for making palladium salt solution though.


If your are mixing NACL with palladium why not just purchase a pound or two of pure NACL from Photographers Formulary or one of the competitors? The cost compared to the palladium is nada. I use pure reagent grade NACL. What's a few pennys compared to tens of dollars?

Don Bryant

[Colin Graham]

It's not really a matter of saving money, I love the color and consistency of my toner solution so why mess with it? Though I am curious now how much impact the grade of salt might have on it.

[Ole Tjugen]

I use "ordinary sea salt", the kind that I get in the local shops on 5kg bags, for salt prints. If it were for Pd/Pt printing or similar the cost of a better grade would be negligible compared to the other ingredients - as it indeed is for salt prints.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I use Hawai'ian sea salt for my albumen prints. The other minerals can affect the print tone, but I think that's an interesting thing.

[Pete Watkins]

Thanks for all your answers. I want the stuff to try in a Microdol substitute formula. I've looked for Kosher salt around here but with no success. All the table salt in this country has anti-caking agents added magnesium carbonate, iodine and stuff like that. I can order sodium chloride from Silverprint in London but I bought some Saxa (brand name) rock salt produced in a town named Middlewich up near the Ilford factory (have I discovered a trade secret?). I'll give this a try on some uninportant negs in the next few weeks, if it works it works! Thanks again for all your help.
Pete.

[nolindan]

sea salt or rock salt

Sea salt and rock salt have other minerals in them - maybe this is good for the process or maybe it isn't.

Iodized salt can't be used - although a small amount of P. Iodide is added to Crawley's(?) high actuance developer the amount in table salt is 100x (? - some large number) too much.

Kosher salt uses 'Yellow Prussiate of Soda', aka P. Ferricyanide, as an anti-caking agent. Table salt uses dextrose. P. Ferricyanide when it decomposes and turns blue is 'Prussian Blue' of watercolor box and cyanotype fame.

"Canning and Pickling Salt" seems to be salt and nothing but salt.

If you make Microdol-X add a 1/4tsp of EDTA to 1 liter water before mixing up the stock in order to prevent dichroic fog: I don't really know if it was what did the trick but when I added it to homemade M-X the fog no longer formed, I need to try again without it and see if the fog returns. In any case EDTA keeps the developer from getting cloudy with precipitated calcium salts.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I use canning salt for mixing my pd solution and it works fine.

[Jim Noel]

I have used Diamond Crystal Kosher salt in all formulae requiring NaCl for several years. In most super markets there are usually 3 or 4 brands of Kosher salt. Just read the label and see which contains no additives.