A suggestion for pickle and pickle pots: I use sulfuric acid in water and never change it, just add more acid when it gets slow.
What strength is the sulfuric?
Richard Hart G.G.
Denver, Co.
I don’t know about him, but I mix 4 parts water to one part acid.
Using 65% battery acid from the auto parts store. This results in
"about" a 15% sulphuric solution. Battery acid is even cheaper and
cleaner than PH-down. It is also cheaper than lab or reagent grade
sulphuric, and doesn’t require your life history to purchase. I find
the care needed because of the liquid acid not to be a problem. I
came by a PH meter, and maintain PH by adding water or acid as
necessary, untill the liquid is so filled with copper that the
bottom is hard to see.
Those who are using Sparex/PH-down because it is not acid are
fooling themselves. Once mixed in water, the result is the same - an
acid solution
I’m not a chemist but I do know about relative strengths of acids.
The strength of an acid is determined by it’s Molarity and, without
going into to much detail, it all relates back to how much a certain
number of molecules of all the elements in a compound weights (all
the info is on the periodic tale if you want to look). Usually when a
scientist gets a big bottle of an acid the strength is listed in
Molarity or M. Sulfuric acid is one of the stronger acids. Anyway you
can say what percent of a solution you are using but to be accurate
you should use the Molarity. Anyone wanting to do the calculations
can contact me directly.
Marla
www.marlasrudnick.com
I'm not a chemist but I do know about relative strengths of acids. The strength of an acid is determined by it's Molarity and, without going into to much detail, it all relates back to how much a certain number of molecules of all the elements in a compound weights (all the info is on the periodic tale if you want to look). Usually when a scientist gets a big bottle of an acid the strength is listed in Molarity or M. Sulfuric acid is one of the stronger acids. Anyway you can say what percent of a solution you are using but to be accurate you should use the Molarity. Anyone wanting to do the calculations can contact me directly.
Molarity is a measure of concentration
There are other measures of acid strength such as pKa
http://evans.harvard.edu/pdf/evans_pKa_table.pdf
The first column has some common mineral acids, lower numbers are
stronger, and the scale is logarithmic. In other words the
difference between HCl (hydrogen chloride, dry hydrochloric acid) pKa
= -8.00 and HBr (hydrogen bromide, dry hydrobromic acid) pKa = -9, is
that the HBr is 10 times stronger. The HCl is more than 10^12
(1,000,000,000,000) stronger than acetic acid.
A moderately dilute solution of strong acid, such as hydrochloric
acid, is not particularly active, but will be much more active than
a concentrated solution of a weak acid, such as glacial acetic acid,
aka concentrated vinegar.
Jason