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Chemistry / How to make Ferric Ammonium Citrate??
« on: 01/07/2020 09:57:55 »
I'm an alternative process photographer. Meaning I print my photographs with 19th century formulas.
I get great satisfaction from mixing my own forumlas. I also like to tie my images directly to where they were originally captured. For instance, the image below was shot on the bank of the Arno river. After I captured the image I went went down to the Arno and collected a gallon of water which I then filtered and used in the development process. I want to take this a step further. I live on the coast of Georgia (state not country) and there is a goodly amount of iron in the sand. I can collect it with a strong magnet.
Can one make ferric ammonium citrate in a home lab? And if so how would I go about accomplishing it?
This is a VanDyke print. The formula I used was a 9% solution of ferric ammonium citrate, 1.5% tartaric acid, and 4% silver nitrate. The water was distilled from the Arno, and then the print was developed in filtered Arno water.
The above is really simple to do. Dissolve the required chemicals (which can be purchased from many photography supply houses) to the desired solutions in distilled water, and then mix the three solutions together and one has VanDyke sensitizer.
If I can make my own F.A.C. one of the things I plan on doing is collecting micrometeorites and creating an image that is at least in part made of extraterrestrial iron. My house has a few rain barrels and they always have a bit of sediment collected in the bottom, mostly bits of leaf and bird dirt, but if one runs a rare earth magnet through it, it always comes up with some ferric material. Part of that material has to be micrometeorites.
Thank you
I get great satisfaction from mixing my own forumlas. I also like to tie my images directly to where they were originally captured. For instance, the image below was shot on the bank of the Arno river. After I captured the image I went went down to the Arno and collected a gallon of water which I then filtered and used in the development process. I want to take this a step further. I live on the coast of Georgia (state not country) and there is a goodly amount of iron in the sand. I can collect it with a strong magnet.
Can one make ferric ammonium citrate in a home lab? And if so how would I go about accomplishing it?
This is a VanDyke print. The formula I used was a 9% solution of ferric ammonium citrate, 1.5% tartaric acid, and 4% silver nitrate. The water was distilled from the Arno, and then the print was developed in filtered Arno water.
The above is really simple to do. Dissolve the required chemicals (which can be purchased from many photography supply houses) to the desired solutions in distilled water, and then mix the three solutions together and one has VanDyke sensitizer.
If I can make my own F.A.C. one of the things I plan on doing is collecting micrometeorites and creating an image that is at least in part made of extraterrestrial iron. My house has a few rain barrels and they always have a bit of sediment collected in the bottom, mostly bits of leaf and bird dirt, but if one runs a rare earth magnet through it, it always comes up with some ferric material. Part of that material has to be micrometeorites.
Thank you