First off, I'd like to make it clear that I have not yet attempted to try this!

Instead of using an ink additive, e.g. SterilInk, I have been pondering the possibility of putting my ink in the microwave and nuking it in order to kill off any microorganisms that may be growing in it. (i.e. oomycetes, mildew, algae...)

Do you think this would work?
Has anybody tried this before?

Basically, you would just be heating it (perhaps to boiling) just as is you put it in a pan on the stove.
I really don't know if that will affect the dyes, but I'd be concerned it would.

Hmm. The death of any microorganisms would result from the heat. Ink is mostly water so it would heat up in a microwave just like any other container of water. You'd get the same result by heating the ink by other means. The question is can the ink withstand heat? I don't know. It depends on the temperature that causes breakdown of aniline dyes. I would guess that temperature is above the boiling point of water because I have used aniline dyes in boiling water before.

The other question is whether additives to the ink (alcohol, solvents) would be quickly driven off by the heat.

My guess is it would be fine to heat it to 160F or higher but we should get an expert opinion here.

Oh Nathan? Where are you?

For what I know it shouldn't harm it. I don't believe FP ink has solvents in it and I don't think alcohal- I think you'd be able to smell it if it did. The only concern would be how the heat affects the pigments.

You're not going to be able to control the temp in a microwave and I suspect if one does put it in a microwave, some evaporation would take place if the temp reached boiling. Never having done it, I would think it wouldn't be a good thing.

Nuking coffee even mildly totally changes the taste of the coffee.

This is quite different from what happens to the taste if you reheat it on the stove. And it probably implies that heating your ink in the microwave would give you different results from heating it on the stove.

Given that there is usually little coffee in ink (although I'm a bit suss about some of the browns...) it is drawing a long bow to suggest that doing the same to ink would affect it adversely.

However, given that both coffee and inks are complex mixtures of different long and short chain molecules, I can't even begin to guess what it would do to your inks.

Some inks smell. That says that there is at least one volatile component in there. Heating the ink would drive those off and change the balance of the ink. Also some older inks have nasty volatiles like phenol. You really don't want to open the microwave and get a lungful of hot phenol gas.

I'm rambling to cover up the fact that I have no idea what would happen.
I would suggest trying it on a small sample. However, do chromatography on the ink before and after the nuking to see what happens to the dyes.

Let us know. Good luck!

Hmm... some interesting feedback from you folks. I am now even more reluctant to attempt nuking any ink.

On the other hand, I had also considered (but not mentioned) the possibility of using a stove-top double-boiler pot and placing the ink container in the top half, in shallow water. This would be a lot less harsh than heating the ink directly and would reduce the risk of it boiling over.

I doubt my ink has any volatile solvents in it, as I have only been using water-based calligraphy fountain pen ink manufactured by Manuscript.

This has been helpful. You folks pointed out some things I had never even had any inkling about. (pun intended) Evaporation, chemical changes, etc.

Perhaps I should invest in some Sterilink additive, after all.

It might be spectacularly exciting if one left the ink bottle tightly capped while microwaving; there could be military applications for the idea.

I'm curious why you are worried about germs in your ink. I never thought of bacteria in my ink before - though I guess that in a few situations, it make sense. Maybe if someone sneezed in the ink?

I would guess the ink is fairly inhospitable to germs - likely purposefully so. If enough bacteria found it cozy, they likely would mess it up by eating some of the compounds. There are many germicides out there, so it shouldn't be hard to discourage them.

No idea on what it would do to the ink. But what I would worry about is making a mess or (as dcwaites mentioned) releasing some nasty chemicals. Maybe it would be safer to do it on a stovetop? Then ventilation is much better. Personally, I wouldn't try it, but please let us know how it goes.

It's not "germs" that I am worried about, but rather fungi, mold, and algae type substances. I recently had some unpleasant experiences with my fountain pen accessories. You can read about it here http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=50075

There are misconceptions about microwaves and killing microorganisms.

Microwaves are a poor choice for hoping for killing of microorganisms because in order to kill them, it's not enough to just apply heat - but you also require time. Boiling water in a microwave still requires three to four minutes of boiling a liquid to kill microorganisms, as far as I know.

This is why Tryphon sells Sterilink.
http://www.tryphon.it/catalogo.htm

It is advertised to inhibit bacterial and fungal growth without changing the flow properties of the ink the same as their InkSafe product. And it's only $2.

Seems a little "safer" than nuking your ink.

Imagine the mess if it boils over!

I would have no idea what would happen either, though I'm usually willing to try most things once. That said, given how accident prone I can be, this is the one thing I probably would not try -- especially now after I read "lungful of hot phenol gas."

That may sound intriguing (and even a bit sexy if you repeat it in a whisper a few times to yourself) -- but I'm not inclined to risk the innards of my microwave (I quite like it) or the possibly of harming my lungs (I quite like that as well) whatever else might happen. But I would watch (with much anticipation) a YouTube video of someone trying this (hint, hint).

I've heard that some members here have "heated" inks on a coffee maker hot plate. This intrigues me enough to try it myself, but I haven't done it yet. The purpose of doing so, however, is not to kill microorganisms but to evaporate some of the water off, making the colour more intense.

If you happen to find any microorganisms in your bottle of ink, I believe it's best to just chuck it. Bottles of ink are relatively cheap enough that I figure I won't risk a pen growing mold because of it. Hope that helps.

I think I understand some of the reasoning behind microwaving ink, that it's the microwaves jostling the little critters around until they lose a grip on earthly existence, and not heat. Else one could just heat the ink. Okay if the microwave jostling won't do it, how about irradiation? It works for the critters infesting papayas. Not that I eat irradiated papayas, but I bet you guys on the continent do. It might even make Noodler's Blue Ghost more vivid.

Doug

Hey, I like the way you talk...

Doug

This thought was wandering around the chasms of my mind. Girlieg33k has crystallized it. Heating ink before the fungus gets in doesn't do any good. The fungus will get in any time you have the lid open. Heating the ink after the fungus gets in may kill the existing fungus and stop it growing any more, but it doesn't get rid of the strands (hyphae) that the fungus grows. This is what ends up clogging your pen.

Having reread your original post, I wouldn't use standing water in a cork topped bottle. I like glass topped bottles myself, easier to sanitize. I'd want to know why my pens dry out. I don't think I've ever had to "prime" a fountain pen with water, ever. Unless of course you leave them sitting unused for long periods of time.

I tried a safe experiment today. I set my ink bottle inside of a pyrex measurer with about a quarter inch of water inside the measurer, then set it on the hotplate of the coffeemaker for 90 minutes to try kill any "stuff" that might have been growing in it. I believe the experiment was a success.

Before heating the ink, the ink had a slimy consistency.
After heating the ink, the sliminess appears to have disappeared. The ink appears much smoother.

I'll have to wait and see how it looks after it cools overnight. I'll test it how it writes with a speedball dip pen before I try using it on the fountain pen. I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

Actually, microorganisms are WAY smaller than the wavelength of a microwave, so there is a pretty good chance they won't be affected at all. That said, once the ink heated up, the heat would do the job for you.

That isn't logical microwave radiation may have a wavelength of 12.24 cm but keep in mind that the measure has no relationship to the distance the particles travel.

You could easily heat up an object smaller than 12.24 cm in length, or 12.24 cc

In a microwave its possible to bring water past its boiling point without actually boiling. There is a particular danger in that because for example if you wanted to warm up a mug of water for hot chocolate, after its hot you place the chocolate mix in, the pressure that was build up in the microwave is released rapidly causing an explosive reaction.

You may want to buy a new microwave when it's all over. If the container ruptures because of escaping water vapour, you could have an unholy mess and your microwave would no longer be considered food safe.

I could not stop laughing - thanks mate, just what I needed after a long day at the office!
I'm sure there are folks out there who have certain inks to which they would like to apply this manouevre.

It doesn't just happen to inks.
A long time ago, when living in Saidor on the north coast of New Guinea, we had a young Patrol Officer as a house guest. He was feeling a bit peckish, so he put a can of bully beef in our wood-burning stove oven to heat up. Ten or fifteen minutes later, not only had it heated up, but it had blown up, because he had neglected to put a steam hole in the can.
The stove was made of plates of cast iron that clipped together, and under the pressure from the exploding can, they unclipped, so not only did the oven door blow off, but the whole stove collapsed in a heap.
He was most embarrassed...

I've found that Parker Quink, Black, goes all transparent when heated up to near boiling temperature. (Discovered this when flushing out a pen when I wanted to get the section off).
So if your ink is this one, just chuck it.

To be honest, is it worth keeping the ink? It's one you know has caused problems, and you'll never really trust it again.

Regards

Richard.

You're welcome!

Please pardon me in advance for helping this thread creep further off topic. I cannot possibly hope to top dcwaites' marvellous account of the exploding bully beef and imploding oven, but here's another amusing account of an adventure with an oven, this time with a microwave. When I was in my teens, my father and I found ourselves preparing a meal without maternal supervision, which normally wasn't a cause for concern. On this occasion, however, we decided to cook Brussels sprouts (like tiny cabbages, for anyone who hasn't made their acquaintance) in the microwave. Little did we realize that one must pierce the wee sprouts through with a fork before preparing them in this manner. We cheerfully put a very large bowlful of sprouts in the microwave oven, which was set to cook them at maximum power for several minutes, and then retired to another room. Shortly thereafter the silence of the household was shattered by a noise that sounded remarkably like a burst of machine-gun fire but was really the sound of the sprouts exploding in quick succession -- almost simultaneously -- as the moisture within them reached the boiling point. The bowl was empty, but the interior surfaces of the microwave were covered with a thick, roughly uniform layer of hot green sludge. Since then I have scarcely been able restrain myself from laughing whenever I eat Brussels sprouts.

To return to the topic at hand: if you are microwaving your ink while Brussels sprouts are in the microwave, ensure that the sprouts have been pierced through with a sharp object.