[Athiril]

Okay some background info.. I joined up since my chemical knowledge is lacking and I've been hitting some brick walls with what Im attempting..

I need either (or boh preferably) Sodium Bromide or Potassium Bromide for photographic colour processing, I cant find any suppliers in Australia - the single photographic chemical supplier in Australia has MSDS sheets on them but doesnt sell them (along with other critical components they list for sale but no longer sell..) bar one - AceChem who will send to residential addresses, but its like $70 or so for 500 grams (1.1 lbs) for technical grade and then their expensive shipping on top of that.. bit of a joke.

I need to make my own rehalogentating ferricyanide bleach as commercial colour bleach also has a slight fixing affect and it screwing with my results of making a weak colour developer from paracetamol and bleaching and redeveloping to layer the dye.

In any case, sodium (or potassium) bromide is one of the few components I have left on my list to get.


The best pool chemical suppliers I can find are only offering Bromine tablets in Austraia (overseas suppliers have everything, quite frustrating..) - 'Active constituent: 650g/kg available Bromine. 280g/kg available Chlorine present as Bromochlorodimethylyydantoin.'



On Wikipedia's article on Potassium Bromide, I did find this short mention of producing it..
'A traditional method for the manufacture of KBr is the reaction of potassium carbonate with a bromide of iron, Fe3Br8, made by treating scrap iron under water with excess bromine:[citation needed]

4 K2CO3 + Fe3Br8 → 8 KBr + Fe3O4 + 4 CO2 '

Of course it doesnt have a reference for it.. so I would like some help

Using the Bromine tablets I figured I could try this, since I have plenty of Potassium Carbonate, but would like some further information on how to go about this.

And if I use Sodium Carbonate instead, would this result in Sodium Bromide?


Dan.

[Dan]

Check here, where NaBr is listed as "hot tub salt" sold at pool supply stores.

And also the Citizen Chemist board

[Athiril]

Thanks for the wiki list I can see that will be quite helpful.

I have my doubts about Australia stores carrying that though, as I've checked every single chemical on many online pool supply shops (such as directpoolsupplies.com.au), in many regards Australia can be like a third world country.

I've tried a little searching for hot spa salt in Australia.. not turning up, but I will give it a longer go, thanks

Will also post in the citizen science thing


Came across spaguard brominating concentrate, which is about $50 for 800grams (1/5th to 1/10th that in the U.S.), after checking about 15 sites that carry, I found one that specifies its composition -
'# 82.5% Sodium Dichloro-s-triazinetrione
# 14.7% Sodium Bromide'

So not quite.. getting closer I guess.