The best thing I've ever found to keep air out of solutions to prolong their storage life are plastic Cubitainers...(the things that Sprint Systems package their products in) with spigot caps. As the solution is gradually used..atmospheric pressure squeezes the container in so air stays out. This dramatically prolongs the life of any kind of oxygen sensitive solution. Before he died several years ago I was fortunate to talk my good friend and mentor Paul Krot into selling me a supply of new, unused, empty Cubitainers, but I will need new ones @ some point soon. Apparently Paul went thru a lot to get access to them originally when he designed Sprint packaging (I believe they are made by Heico)..so Sprint is still (very understandably) reluctant to go into the empty container business. If anyone can locate a source for new, unused Cubitainers..with or without the boxes..they would be doing the Photo world a major favor...Anyone???

-- C Matter (cmatter@riag.com), April 22, 1999.

-- C MATTER (cmatter@riag.com), April 22, 1999

Answers

I use Air-Evaq's. Why do they have to be new Charlie? I'm trying to imagine a wing-ding surrounded on all sides with new cubitaners and I can't see it! Just wouldn't look right.

-- Trib (linhof6@hotmail.com), April 23, 1999.

1 Gal Cubitainers work better. I want them to be new and unused because plastic tends to absorb (slowly) a little bit of the chemistry. Putting a developer in a used plastic container, regardless of how much it is rinsed out, runs a contamination risk

-- C Matter (cmatter@riag.com), April 23, 1999.

Try stores that sell supplies for amateur wine-makers. Some of them carry Cubitainers without boxes.

-- Allan Connery (connery@cadvision.coms), April 23, 1999.

In Europe there's a product called Vacu-vin. It's a rubber cork with a split in it through which you can suck the air out of the bottle with a little pump. People use it here to conserve their wine. Many doka-workers I know use it for their chemistry, stored in one-liter old wine bottles. For me, it's a better method than storage in collapsable plastic bottles, because you can use glass bottles, which I trust more.

-- Lot (lotw@wxs.nl), April 24, 1999.

You can get collapsible containers from laboratory supply companies such as Cole-Parmer. I checked my catalog and the containers come in 1 quart, 1 gallon, and 5 gallon sizes. The price for the 1 gallon size was 4.95. However, this does not include the spigot, and spigots only come in packages of 12 (24.95 for 12). Also, unlike the old cubitaners, they do not have the cardboard box to surround them. There are cardboard shipping boxes for them that look like they could be easily modified. If you have a Van Waters & Rogers (usually lised as VWR Scientific Products in the phone book) outlet nearby, you also might want to check with them.

-- steve (swines@egginc.com), April 26, 1999.

I did not know that Paul Krot had died, he was a teacher of mine about twenty years ago...

-- Andrea Robbins (Robbecher@aol.com), January 05, 2002.