Re: What are some house hold chemicals that could be u

Hello, Enio – a strange hypothetical situation you describe, but I will 
assume that you have black and white film, but no processing chemicals – 
at least none specifically designed for the purpose.

Having exposed your film, the first thing that needs doing is to reveal 
the latent image. This needs a reducing agent – but one that is not too 
strong – and will only start to develop exposed grains while not 
developing unexposed ones. One that is too strong will develop all the 
grains and destroy the image. A couple of chemicals spring to mind which 
would be suitable. The first is vitamin C – or ascorbic acid as it is also 
known. (Chemical name - L-3-ketothreohexuronic acid). In fact its isomer, 
d-ascorbic acid is actually used in some commercial developers. So a 
bottle of vitamin C powder is a good start. It needs to be dissolved in an 
alkaline solution for good developing effect – and for this washing soda 
will do nicely – sodium carbonate, in other words.
Concentrations should not be too strong, and the time in the developer 
should be right (trial and error). Then the development needs to be 
stopped – otherwise all the grains get developed eventually. An acid rinse 
will do that – diluted household vinegar will work. Then you need to fix 
the image – a bit trickier this. Strong household ammonia – keep your nose 
away! - should do the trick. At least with this step you can switch on the 
light and watch the film clear so that you will know when it has fixed..

Another potential developer you might consider is ferrous sulfate often 
used in gardening, although as this doesn’t work well in alkaline 
conditions – precipitation of ferrous hydroxide –you won’t need the 
washing soda. Unfortunately, on its own ferrous sulfate quickly reaches an 
electrochemical potential because of the build-up of ferric ion, which is 
no longer sufficient to drive the reaction. However, throwing in a more 
base metal than silver – iron itself, or zinc cures the problem by 
reducing the ferric ion back to ferric, and development proceeds. Straight 
dilution with water will do as a stop. I’ve heard that red wine acts as a 
developer, but I enjoy the stuff far too much to try it out! The other 
suggestion I’ve heard – and one in plentiful supply, is human urine. 
Again, this is an experiment I have not verified personally…
In both of these cases, dilution will suffice as a stop.

Next you need to remove the unexposed/undeveloped grains of silver halide. 
What is ideal is any soluble chemical capable of  dissolving silver 
halides. In practice, there are not many which are practical, due to 
issues such as toxicity, cost, effect on the silver image or the gelatin 
binder in which the image lies. Hypo – sodium thiosulfate is the 
ubiquitous fixer, but not exactly a common household chemical. The only 
chemical I can think of which might be available as such would be a strong 
solution of ammonia, but even this is not common these days. Still, even 
without fixation, an image will be visible and will last if you keep the 
negative in the dark when not viewing it. Printing it would be a bit 
tricky! Still, I suppose under the circumstances you describe – that may 
be the least of your worries!
I’m sure you are going to do some experiments – aren’t you? Maybe you are 
getting the science bug – if so, take care handling any chemicals, and get 
advice and help from someone in the know. Thanks for the (unusual) 
question.