Is anybody making their own Ferric Ammonium Citrate

[Bruce6666]

Hello all, is anybody making their own (Green) Ferric Ammonium Citrate ?, if so would you mind sharing your process please ?
I have been trying to make some of my own, but not very successful.

 

[koraks]

Welcome aboard @Bruce6666 !

I'm not aware of anyone doing this, mostly because it's fairly easy to get hold of in most places. I do appreciate the fact that Australia is sometimes a little different in terms of availability of materials. Is there any particular problem getting FAC where you live? Surely, people are doing cyanotypes etc. in Australia as well?

 

[Maris]

I note that Gold Street Studios in Victoria sell (Green!) Ferric Ammonium Citrate and a whole lot of other photographic chemicals. Even stuff I've never heard of.

 

[Bruce6666]

Welcome aboard @Bruce6666 !

I'm not aware of anyone doing this, mostly because it's fairly easy to get hold of in most places. I do appreciate the fact that Australia is sometimes a little different in terms of availability of materials. Is there any particular problem getting FAC where you live? Surely, people are doing cyanotypes etc. in Australia as well?

Hi, FAC is available here , but its not easy for me to travel there, and postage is a killer, being a very amateur home chemist I have all the chemicals in the shed and wanted to give it a try again, had a try at it about 25 years ago and had some success but could not "fix" my pictures. So this time I wanted some FAC to try some new ideas, I've had a look at a few patents etc but just looking for a simple process for FAC.

 

[Bruce6666]

I note that Gold Street Studios in Victoria sell (Green!) Ferric Ammonium Citrate and a whole lot of other photographic chemicals. Even stuff I've never heard of.

Thanks, yes I will probably end up getting some from there.

 

[koraks]

OK, gotcha. Maybe @fgorga has some input on this, but I'd just stick with the store bought material. Even if you can get a synthesis going, the question is how well you'll be able to purify the product. And yields can be very low in DIY settings.

 

[BJ68]

You can have a look at this patent: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/2644828.pdf

Found a few others:
a) https://patents.google.com/patent/FR2200236A1/en
b) https://patents.google.com/patent/CN108059596A/en

and long time ago I made a trial for it, which was no real success:
https://illumina-chemie.org/viewtopic.php?p=56845#p56845 (in German).

The "Hagers Handbuch der pharmazeutischen Praxis " which is mentioned in the text is free to get from archive.org:
Part 1: https://archive.org/details/HagersHandbuchDerPharmazeutischenPraxisBand21919
Part 2: https://archive.org/details/HagersHandbuchDerPharmazeutischenPraxisBand11919

Other years: https://archive.org/search?query=Hagers+Handbuch+der+pharmazeutischen+Praxis+

But is all in German...


bj68

 

[nmp]

Hello all, is anybody making their own (Green) Ferric Ammonium Citrate ?, if so would you mind sharing your process please ?
I have been trying to make some of my own, but not very successful.

Look up Mike Ware's "Simple" cyanotype which essentially involves making FAC in situ using Fe nitrate, citric acid and ammonia.

:Niranjan.

 

[Bruce6666]

You can have a look at this patent: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/2644828.pdf

Found a few others:
a) https://patents.google.com/patent/FR2200236A1/en
b) https://patents.google.com/patent/CN108059596A/en

and long time ago I made a trial for it, which was no real success:
https://illumina-chemie.org/viewtopic.php?p=56845#p56845 (in German).

The "Hagers Handbuch der pharmazeutischen Praxis " which is mentioned in the text is free to get from archive.org:
Part 1: https://archive.org/details/HagersHandbuchDerPharmazeutischenPraxisBand21919
Part 2: https://archive.org/details/HagersHandbuchDerPharmazeutischenPraxisBand11919

Other years: https://archive.org/search?query=Hagers+Handbuch+der+pharmazeutischen+Praxis+

But is all in German...


bj68

Thank you for looking up that information

 

[Bruce6666]

Look up Mike Ware's "Simple" cyanotype which essentially involves making FAC in situ using Fe nitrate, citric acid and ammonia.

:Niranjan.

Thank you, will check it out

 

[revdoc]

You can buy FAC at Gold Street and Vanbar (though they only have brown FAC at the moment). You can also buy a Jacquard cyanotype kit from a lot of art stores.

I've made ferric citrate. The hard part is usually making the ferric hydroxide. This can use ferric nitrate or ferric chloride; it's a bit messy. Ian Leake's page on making ferric oxalate is a good step-by-step, up to the addition of oxalic acid. You'd just add citric acid instead. You can also buy ferric hydroxide granules from aquarium supply stores and pulverise them.

Ammonia might be harder to source. Clear ammonia hasn't been widely available in Australia for years. You can get it a specialist cleaning supplies store, but you might have to buy 10 litres.

 

[Bruce6666]

You can buy FAC at Gold Street and Vanbar (though they only have brown FAC at the moment). You can also buy a Jacquard cyanotype kit from a lot of art stores.

I've made ferric citrate. The hard part is usually making the ferric hydroxide. This can use ferric nitrate or ferric chloride; it's a bit messy. Ian Leake's page on making ferric oxalate is a good step-by-step, up to the addition of oxalic acid. You'd just add citric acid instead. You can also buy ferric hydroxide granules from aquarium supply stores and pulverise them.

Ammonia might be harder to source. Clear ammonia hasn't been widely available in Australia for years. You can get it a specialist cleaning supplies store, but you might have to buy 10 litres.

Thanks for those tips, will have a look at Ian Leake's page.

 

[nmp]

You can also buy ferric hydroxide granules from aquarium supply stores and pulverise them.

What you buy as ferric hydroxide is actually hydrated ferric oxide which ferric hydroxide converts to as it dries. This is very impervious to reaction with oxalic acid - it takes months or years (I have tried) to get any ferric oxalate (but it does work.) That's why the standard process is to react the ferric hydroxide soon as it is formed in the colloidal form before it dries.

My first choice would be to buy from Gold Street as others have recommended. I don't think it is worth messing around with making your own. If OP still wants to tinker in the lab, Simple cyanotype is really simple - it has other advantages as well like stability and contrast control by dialing in various quantities of ammonia in the formula.

:Niranjan.

 

[Bruce6666]

What you buy as ferric hydroxide is actually hydrated ferric oxide which ferric hydroxide converts to as it dries. This is very impervious to reaction with oxalic acid - it takes months or years (I have tried) to get any ferric oxalate (but it does work.) That's why the standard process is to react the ferric hydroxide soon as it is formed in the colloidal form before it dries.

My first choice would be to buy from Gold Street as others have recommended. I don't think it is worth messing around with making your own. If OP still wants to tinker in the lab, Simple cyanotype is really simple - it has other advantages as well like stability and contrast control by dialing in various quantities of ammonia in the formula.

:Niranjan.

Thanks for your reply and info

 

[PGum]

Once upon a time I used to make my own FAC. It was economical on materials but expensive on time. Starting materials were water, ferric chloride, ammonium bicarbonate, citric acid, sodium hydroxide.

Precip the ferric chloride with the sodium hydroxide, producing a ferric hydrate mud. Wash multiple times by decant and cloth filtering, than add to a heated strong solution of ammonium citrate and citric acid made from above materials. Over the course of 15 minutes of stirring, the solution will turn a dark emerald green. Add two aspirin and it will never mold in solution. Do a final filtering.

15 years out, I still have 1/2 full 500ml bottle and it works as new. I have synthesis qtys in my notes but as mentioned, there are better, safer alternatives. I have been purchasing mine for years. But, it can be done!

 

[Bruce6666]

Once upon a time I used to make my own FAC. It was economical on materials but expensive on time. Starting materials were water, ferric chloride, ammonium bicarbonate, citric acid, sodium hydroxide.

Precip the ferric chloride with the sodium hydroxide, producing a ferric hydrate mud. Wash multiple times by decant and cloth filtering, than add to a heated strong solution of ammonium citrate and citric acid made from above materials. Over the course of 15 minutes of stirring, the solution will turn a dark emerald green. Add two aspirin and it will never mold in solution. Do a final filtering.

15 years out, I still have 1/2 full 500ml bottle and it works as new. I have synthesis qtys in my notes but as mentioned, there are better, safer alternatives. I have been purchasing mine for years. But, it can be done!

Hello PGum thanks very much for your reply, could you please tell me the amounts of each chemical that you used to make your FAC ?, and I will try your process, any tips to get a good result ?, Thank you