Normally we use an acid stop bath to arrest development with developers having an alkaline pH. But XTOL is an acid. So is there any point in using an acetic acid stop bath? I've tried plain water as a stop bath/rinse, and if there is a problem with this, I'm not aware of it. Any comments?

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), February 25, 2001

Answers

I do not think that Xtol is an acid, although it might be less alkalic than most other developers with a pH around 8-9. Could not find any trouble with plain water either.

-- Wolfram Kollig (kollig@ipfdd.de), February 26, 2001.

Xtol isn't acid, although it may not be as alkaline as some other developers.

The use of a water rinse rather than stop has been noted to cause dichroic fog with some films.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), February 26, 2001.

I use stop bath diluted about double what is normal.

Xtol is still alkaline, it does use ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) as a development agent. But ascorbic acid is a very weak organic acid.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), February 27, 2001.