{"id":16,"date":"2025-03-19T15:13:40","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/?page_id=16"},"modified":"2026-04-17T19:41:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:41:47","slug":"developer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/developer\/","title":{"rendered":"developer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

required materials<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please note some of these chemicals are officially hazardous and should only be handled by people who are properly equipped and prepared. Nothing on this page should be understood as permission or inducement to undertake the activities described, which are for information only.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also be aware that the quantities and concentrations here are suggestions based on what I have found works well for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re going to experiment with this you should wear nitrile rubber gloves and use eye protection in case of splashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

carboxymethylcellulose <\/strong>– CMC (amazon.com). An inert thickener used to turn the liquid developer into a gel. It’s convenient to prepare a 1 litre batch of CMC in water in advance. I recommend a concentration of 2.5% w\/w. Use a blender to mix it quickly and get rid of the lumps. Then pour it into a wide-necked jar and leave overnight for the bubbles to rise out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

potassium hydroxide<\/strong> – (amazon.com) This developer needs a very high pH – above 14 to work. That means that the gel is very caustic and you should take care to keep it off your skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N,N-diethylhydroxylamine<\/strong> (CAS 3710-84-7) or DEHA for short is the developer. In industry it is mostly used as an oxygen scavenger in high pressure industrial boilers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

aminoethylethanolamine <\/strong> (CAS 111-41-1) – an organic base. You may subsitute triethanolamine at three times the amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

uracil <\/strong>(CAS 66-22-8) is used as a silver solvent. It complexes the silver in the film emulsion and allows it to diffuse to the receiver sheet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

accurate scale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will need a laboratory scale accurate to 10mg<\/p>\n\n\n\n

magnetic stir plate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stir plate and stir bar will allow you to make sure the developer is properly mixed. I make batches in a 40ml beaker with a 25mm stir bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

instructions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To 25g of 2.5% CMC solution add 5.0g of potassium hydroxide and stir until dissolved. Then add 0.3g AEEA, 2.0g of DEHA and continue stirring. When the result is homogeneous add 2.0g of uracil. Mix thoroughly (5-10 minutes).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pour the developer into (e.g.) a syringe for application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

notes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use distilled water when making aqueous preparations. Using tap water means adding random amounts of carbonate, chloride, iodide and iron to your preparations which may have unintended consequences. Supermarket distilled water is cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The developer is in theory air sensitive. Nevertheless I have left it in a beaker uncovered over night without it losing capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developer shelf life is at least several months if air is excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

required materials Please note some of these chemicals are officially hazardous and should only be handled by people who are properly equipped and prepared. Nothing on this page should be understood as permission or inducement to undertake the activities described, which are for information only. Also be aware that the quantities and concentrations here are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diffusiontransferprinting.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}