Butane for developer preservation

[Ulophot]

I have seen this posted various times and happened on someone else's unused Ronsonol lighter fluid in the house today. Is this the same stuff, or am I looking for a gas? I haven't a clue.

Thanks.

[pendennis]

I believe butane is a gas at standard atmosphere. Butane lighters store it under pressure. Ronsonol lighter fluid (yellow can) is naptha.

[Jim Noel]

Butane is definitely a gas. Lighter fluid is not.

[LabRat]

A free source of inert gas is your breath... Take a drinking straw and blow a big exhale into the airspace of your developer storage bottle... The CO2 displaces oxygen, and my stock solutions are good for months...

Steve K

[Eric Woodbury]

breath still has much oxygen. We are not efficient about the conversion because CO2 is poisonous to humans. CO2 is acidifiying, but not much. Ask the coral.

[Mark Sampson]

If I was going to spray a gas into a developer bottle to drive the oxygen out, it wouldn't be flammable. Save the butane for fancy cigarette lighters.
In recent times, I've used two methods to deal with developer oxidization; 1) one-shot mixes from a concentrate (Pyrocat in glycol) and previously, XTOL stored in 500ml brown glass bottles.

[Ulophot]

A free source of inert gas is your breath... Take a drinking straw and blow a big exhale into the airspace of your developer storage bottle... The CO2 displaces oxygen, and my stock solutions are good for months...

Steve K

This has been my method for decades, best if I can hold me breath a long time, as the percentage of CO2 increases. Decades ago, there was nitrogen in a can (still available for wine drinkers), but that's not in my budget, either for wine or my print bath, so I was just wondering about something better, since my darkroom time is a bit more spread out now.

(I do decant into smaller bottles as volume goes down as well. I can buy a gallon of my print developer with free shipping for the cost of 2 quarts [plus shipping]. It goes into top-full quart containers.)

[Bob Salomon]

Or glass marbles to raise the chemistry level.

[Neal Chaves]

Wasn't that dust-off spray Omit once claimed to prevent oxidation of chemicals. Now I remember, that stuff was Freon. Probably long removed from the market. Maybe the new AC gas they sell in Walmart would work.

[xkaes]

Instead of explosive gases, leave the BLOW-UPS to optical magnifications under the enlarger.

For glass bottles -- which can't be compressed like plastic bottles can -- marbles are great. You can get large bags at the 99 cent store. If the tops to your bottles are too small, the local hobby/floral/home decor store will have smaller marbles for floral display purposes -- at higher prices.

I avoid all this hassle by mixing only what I need at the time -- it's always fresh.