Ultra-Concentrated Ink

August 30, 2014

Back when Amber asked about interest in modern powdered fountain pen ink, I mentioned I had been wondering about how I might dehydrate ink. I am calling the result ultra-concentrated inks, as I did not produce any powder.

I know some have done concentration, at least to a degree, after diluting ink too much, but I never got a good sense of how this was done or how safe it was. I have concern with leaving ink exposed uncovered to evaporate out of feat particulates would get in possibly causing SITB.

The most relevant similar endeavor I found online involved alcohol. From it, I came to the understanding that actually achieving a powder in the process was unlikely. I decided to forage ahead, but did not want to additional expenditure so decided to just try baking it. Originally I was going to use some silicon lava-cake molds but had been concerned about future use for edibles after doing this, then I remembered having some disposable metal cupcake cups.

What went in the oven was:


[/td]	Tap Water (control)	Noodler's Heart of Darkness	Private Reserve Black Cherry
Rather dilute Toucan Crimson from cleaning what was was dried on the bag.		Noodler's Blue	Hero 233 (Blue)
	Noodler's Apache Sunset	Noodler's Red

15 ml of each was used except for Crimson (that I was just wanting to evaporate to usable concentration) and I had the idea of targeting reduction to 5ml. For the most part I reused some pipets rather than syringes so my measurement was a little fuzzy.

I ultimately did not provide as good of brand representation as I should have. I ended up a bit flustered and rushed when I discovered one of my Toucan inks was leaking when I went to retrieve a representative. As a result, Toucan, Diamine, and Organics Studio are not represented as I should have done.

Ready to go in the oven:

In the oven at 170 degrees (the lowest the oven will go) convection bake:

The point I decided to stop:

The resulting ink:

Close ups that do not really show the ink that well but somewhat shows the ink level drop. The HOD was a very viscus fluid (sludge) while the Hero could be seem to actually have some clumped solids in it.

What remained in the cups after extracting what I could into sample vials:

(I think the solid seen in the PR Black Cherry tin is STIB. My conviction is that has happened to my bottle and it is not just natural settlement of high concentration inks)

I then let the empty foils sit a week or so in case more water might evaporate with a plastic grocery sack resting on top to try to prevent dust from falling in. I have now folded the foils and put them in a ziplock bag thinking I could reconstitute some ink from them.

Testing other inks and brands may yield interesting results.
Most of the inks used behaved largely the same. The exceptions being Hero and HoD. Hero which shows some solid structures making me think it might actually be able to become a powder. HoD became a sludge well to thick for FP use.
The Hero ink scares me because I know there is Phenol in it and now it is presumably more concentrated.

I think further research should consider using the same ink in different quantities. The experimenter could could then try to let the lower volume cups bake dry. This would allow for for discoloration as it is baked longer after drying out (ex. Does it burn?). Testing different inks or different brands of inks could also provide interesting information.

Edit: Just found this post with intentional, explicit instructions for concentrating an ink by leaving it to evaporate.

August 30, 2014

Writing samples

Each grouping is as follows:

The ultra-concentrated ink.
The original ink.
The ink resulting from flushing the pipette used to extract the ink from the tins.

The inks shown are:

Noodler's Red
Noodler's Blue
Noodler's Apache Sunset
Hero 233 (Blue)
Noodler's Heart of Darkness (I did not use a pipe to extract this one so have no dilution sample)
Private Reserve Black Cherry

Only the Hero 233 seemed to have good enough flow that it might have been usable in this form. The rest would need surfactant added if there is a desire to use them without diluting. The ultra-concentrated inks took longer to dry, probably because of higher humectant load.

On the least absorbent paper I believe I may have captured sheen in the scan of the Hero 233. When Amber gets the sheet she can judge if that is sheen since I have no personal experience with sheen.

Strathmore Writing (25% cotton, natural white, wove, 24lb):

Georgia Pacific Multipurpose Paper (20 lb, bright white, Walmart):

Southworth Diamond White (25% cotton, white, 20lb):

August 30, 2014

WOW, thank you for sending these to me. This was a lot of work. Did you have fun?

You are a tester for the ink powders, so that will be an interesting comparison.

August 30, 2014

The Hero black is a pigmented ink, yes? That would explain some of the clumping.

Hehe phenol. Relax. Just don't drink it, okay? Sore throat sprays used to be dilute solutions of phenol because it numbs tissue. In high enough concentrations it will actually attack tissue too. Brings back memories of doing phenol/chloroform extractions in the lab.

I have problems with Toulene, Xylene, MEK, petroleum "distillates," etc. and never had issues with the phenol that's in ink.

August 30, 2014

The Hero black is a pigmented ink, yes? That would explain some of the clumping.

Hero 234 (Carbon Black) is a pigmented ink. Hero 233 (Blue) has never been indicated to be. I think it is just a difference of composition. I think some component in the Hero ink is more likely to crystallize when dehydrated or heated. The Hero ink also had less liquid left than the others. I figure there is less (or a different) humectant in it making it evaporate quicker, so it is possible that others would have started to form clumps if cooked further (Or it was just a measuring inaccuracy). More investigation would be needed.

August 30, 2014

A few thoughts here...

The idea of anybody wanting something even more concentrated than Private Reserve puzzles me. They're the most saturated inks you can get, to the point where a fresh bottle often requires some dilution before it will flow right in many pens. My rule of thumb is two parts PR to one part distilled water. Then you end up with something like Noodler's.

As for trying to concentrated Noodler's Blue... Just buy yourself a bottle of Private Reserve DC Supersaturated Blue and be done with it.

And yes, PR bottles do sometimes arrive pre-molded. Always sniff when you open one.

August 30, 2014

My intentions were not really to make a usable ink so much as to form a reduction that could be reconstituted into a larger amount of ink. Could be good for travel and such. In reality, I do not use that much ink so would not need this for normal trips.

Having done it I see it could be another possible way to get more colors out of a single ink, but given the electricity input (2-3 hours of oven running at low temp, not sure the cost), I am not really sure it is worthwhile over just buying a bottle of another color which would probably behave better to boot. I suppose someone with very limited ink access and possession of an un-diluted surfactant may see appeal in this. Or someone trying for special effects like Renzhe's Xuan.

September 1, 2014

Did you post this in the experiments thread?

September 3, 2014

This was a lot of work. Did you have fun?

By the time it actually got around to doing the baking it was more just something I needed to get done than something to do for fun. It ended up being a bit stressful as I had a limited time window to do it, the toucan discovery, and that I do not have enough syringes to work efficiently with so many inks at once which makes experiments like this more work. Thankfully I had about 4 pipettes from the Susemai tests to help this time.

I hope at some point I have time to put the results (information and ink) to use.