Abstract: Hydrophobic compounds, such as photographically useful compounds, are incorporated into an aqueous medium, such as a silver halide emulsion or a photographic coating composition, by forming a solid additive material comprising the hydrophobic compound and a solid hydrophilic material. The solid hydrophilic material is preferably a mixture of a polysaccharide and sorbitol or succinimide. The additive material is prepared by dry powder mixing the solid hydrophobic compound and solid hydrophilic material followed by a process step that heats, expells, and cools the composition to produce a high surface area uniform material having a specific surface area of at least about 10 square centimeters per gram. The additive material can then be dissolved directly and uniformly in the aqueous medium.

Abstract: To reduce the amount of high quality energy utilized in removing water from a dilute ethanol solution, a two-stage process is used. The first stage removes eighty-five percent of the water using a low temperature apparatus and process and the remainder of the energy is removed by any of the other conventional processes. In the first stage, anhydrous sodium sulfate is dissolved in a dilute aqueous solution of 10 weight percent alcohol at approximately thirty degrees centrigrade. The solution is cooled to approximately twenty degrees centrigrade, at which temperature decahydrate crystals of sodium sulfate precipitate from the solution are removed. The solution is increased to a value in excess of 45% of alcohol which requires removal of approximately 82 percent of the water in the form of crystals. The crystals are dried to the anhydrous state at substantially room temperature and reused.