Digital BW, The Print

In my latest efforts, I've been reading up on and starting to 
experiment with ways to increase the stability of the carbon pigments.  

One of the more interesting and intriquing factoids I've found is that 
Gum Arabic has been used to disperse and stabilize carbon inks for 
quite a while -- like maybe three thousand years.  Yet in efforts to 
disperse and stabilize the latest carbon nanotubes, Gum Arabic is still 
one of the best.  Additionally, it's safe and in lots of our foods.  It 
is also one of the ingredients in the old carbon photographic printing 
process and is available from Photographers Formulary.

I'll be experimenting with it and attempting to use a centrifuge to do 
accelerated settling testing of different pigment dilution bases and 
approaches.  

I'll post some of my latest notes and thoughts at 
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Pigment-Stabilization.pdf

Chemists and others, please don't hesitate to correct things I've 
posted if they are wrong (and clearly incomplete).  I make no claims to 
expertise here.  I'm just a curious B&W photographer exploring my new 
medium.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com