It's my preference to neutralize it just for safety. Sodium
hydroxide is very scary stuff. That, and it's really not good for
the drain pipe:)
I’ll agree with the first part of that. But Paul, Traditional toilet
cleaners and drain cleaning products are primarily Lye. (Draino,
etc.) Many of them, anyway. And it doesn’t attack the materials drain
pipe is made of. So how do you get “not good for the drain pipe”? OK,
I’ll agree, it doesn’t improve the pipe, other than cleaning the gunk
out. But it doesn’t harm it either, and the lye, once diluted in the
waste water stream, becomes harmless. If you’re neutralizing it,
seems to me you’re not only introducing additional chemistry into the
waste water stream for no good effect but the slight negative effect
of yet more chemicals in the waste water. Plus the cost of the
chemical you’re neutralizing with.
It's my preference to neutralize it just for safety. Sodium
hydroxide is very scary stuff. That, and it's really not good for
the drain pipe:)
sodium hydroxide (Lye) is what is used to clean drains!! it won’t
work if you neutralize it. It turns a grease clog into soap . It
helps clean out the other gunk too.
Would acetic acid, commonly available in the home as vinegar, work
to bring the ph of lye to neutral?
Yes it would, HOWEVER depending on the relative concentrations the
reaction could be violent, (For people who have not worked with
chemicals Violent could boil or cause steam to be produced and cause
material to be splashed all over you!!).
To be on the safe side you should delete both chemicals massively
with water then mix them, say one cut of lye and 2 gallons of water
to start and ditto for the acid.
And even with that proper protective clothes and face gear is
strongly recommended
Kay
Who has nightmares about the idea of someone ordering glacial acetic
acid and using it.
HOWEVER depending on the relative concentrations the reaction could
be violent, Sodium hydroxide denatures proteins, causing them to
lose their three dimensional structure And even with that proper
protective clothes and face gear is strongly recommended someone
ordering glacial acetic acid and using it.
All to clean a dirty piece of jewelry…
In addition all alkalis turn fats into soap on contact - that
includes the fats in your flesh.
I’ve been reading this thread… Certainly there’s no disagreement
that lye/sodium hydroxide is a great cleaning agent, expecially
against fats and greases, which are a major component of dirty used
jewelry. It’s also hunting cockroaches with a shotgun.
I cannot stress enough that your pickle pot (filled with Sparex or
equivalent) is a fine first step for cleaning filthy jewelry - at
least as good as lye, maybe better. Household ammonia will also do a
fine job of it.
I would no more put a jar of lye solution in the ultrasonic than I
would put an icepick in my ear. It’s probably THE most hazardous
chemical the general public is allowed to buy… You like it, fine.
Don’t think, from this thread, that you need to rush out and buy
some because you just don’t. We clean 20-50 pieces of repair a week
just fine without it.
Would acetic acid, commonly available in the home as vinegar, work
to bring the ph of lye to neutral?
It would neutralise it eventually - but you’d need one heck of a lot
of vinegar to do so! Sodium hydroxide is a strong alkali but acetic
acid is only a weak acid - not to be confused with weak as in
dilute.
Strong acids totally dissociate in water to donate their hydrogen
ions (protons). Examples are hydrochloric, hydrofloric, hydroiodic,
sulfuric, nitric, etc. Their reactions are one way. Weak acids only
partially dissociate to release hydrygen ions in water. Examples
include acetic (ethanoic), citric, and many more (most acids are
weak acids). Their reactions are reversible, with the reaction
favouring either reactants (reverse reaction) or products (forward
reaction), depending on the conditions. Many people confuse the
strong/weak acid (and base) thing with dilute/concentrated, thinking
that if you water down a strong acid, it becomes weaker - this is not
the case. It will have a small effect on the pH, because pH is a
logarithmic scale of the negative log of the concentration of
hydrogen (H+, well really hydronium H3O+) ions in a solution, so
adding more water (caveat: add acid to water not other way round!)
will lower that concentration and slightly raise the pH.
However, if you dilute a strong acid, it will still be a strong acid
just more diluted. There will still be the same number of hydrogen
ions in the solution as before and so it will do the same amount of
damage to clothes, skin or eyes - just more slowly, as the water
evaporates. Same goes for weak acids.
So, you can have a very dilute strong acid and you can also have a
very concentrated weak acid - such as glacial acetic acid which has
no water at all (someone else mentioned this the other day).
Sorry for the detour - hope this won’t annoy too many people. I
would imagine that it would take rather a lot of vinegar to
neutralise any amount of sodium hydroxide.
As Peter Rowe said, diluting will raise the pH, and once it’s in the
waste water system, it will be sufficiently dilute to be benign.
As Peter Rowe said, diluting will raise the pH, and once it's in
the waste water system, it will be sufficiently dilute to be
benign.
Ignore this paragraph. My brain confused two completely different
threads. Peter’s comments were about disposing of saturated pickle -
not sodium hydroxide!
Diluting sodium hydroxide with plenty of water will LOWER the pH,
because it is a strong alkali. Let’s hope I don’t get any more angry
emails for confusing folks! It was me who got momentarily
confused.
It was me who got momentarily