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Thread: Sulphuric acid

  1. #21
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    Wow! From disaster to inheritance. Funny how things work out.
    One of my father's favorite statements: "If I say a chicken dips snuff, look under his wing for the snuffbox" How I was raised, who I am.

  2. #22
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    Got limestone nearby? Dump some of that into it until it stops fizzing.
    H2SO4 isn't that toxic once neutralized.
    “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

  3. #23
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    Growing up, I'm sure they were told to stay away from those because there's acid in them. Over the years it became sulfuric acid. And to add to the confusion, I've been spelling "sulfuric" incorrectly - it's not sulphuric.
    Well, I did come home with a two piece Craftsman tool chest, the kind on wheels, and a bench grinder.

  4. #24
    Boolit Master BJK's Avatar
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    That's the best solution!

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Battis View Post
    A family member passed, and in the garage we found the jars of the acid. Why he had it, no one knows, though there have been guesses. I'll call the local fire dept or board of health this week.
    When milk was tested for butterfat on the farm, sulfuric acid was a reagent. By the 70's, samples were sent to a central lab in Northeast states at least.
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  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Minerat View Post
    I seem to recall from chem class (50 years in the past) that there is an order of mixing so if you do it be sure to read up on it. There are probably chemists on here that can enlighten you better the my old memories. Just be careful H2SO4 is strong stuff.

    Going back to grade school in Texas (yes a few decades involved in that) - There was the equivalent of a Nursery Rhyme:


    Do what you OTTER
    Add Acid to WATER.

    (Yeah we all wanted to be chemists in grade school - mixing stuff as a scientist (Chemist) looked cool with all that bubbling and color changes and of course - the BOOM.)
    Mustang

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  7. #27
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    That's exactly how I learned it getting my Chem degree. Acid's dissociate in water, generating heat. If you pour a small amount of water into a quantity of acid, that process begins and there is very little water to absorb the heat. That water boils and we all know what boiling water under the surface of a dangerous liquid does...ACIDIC TINSEL FAIRY! Go the opposite way by adding acid into water, and you have a much greater mass of water to absorb that heat. You still have to be careful when concentrations and quantities are on the high end, but it will keep you safer.

    My advise was going to be dilution and Sam's Club quantities of baking soda once we got a better handle on how much.

    Quote Originally Posted by MUSTANG View Post
    Going back to grade school in Texas (yes a few decades involved in that) - There was the equivalent of a Nursery Rhyme:


    Do what you OTTER
    Add Acid to WATER.

    (Yeah we all wanted to be chemists in grade school - mixing stuff as a scientist (Chemist) looked cool with all that bubbling and color changes and of course - the BOOM.)

  8. #28
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    What the FD is concerned about is approx. 1 tablespoon of Mercury in a closed jar. They're working on removing it properly.

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Battis View Post
    What the FD is concerned about is approx. 1 tablespoon of Mercury in a closed jar. They're working on removing it properly.
    We did that properly too in grade school. You poured the mercury out on the table and moved it around with a pencil or your finger. Broke it apart and herded all the small drops back together with that same pencil or finger. Course, the Grade school teacher had previously TRAINED the grade schoolers to not stick their fingers in their mouth after handling chemicals.


    Me thinks that common sense and identifying control processes in proportion to the hazard has disappeared.
    Mustang

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  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by SeabeeMan View Post
    That's exactly how I learned it getting my Chem degree. Acid's dissociate in water, generating heat. If you pour a small amount of water into a quantity of acid, that process begins and there is very little water to absorb the heat. That water boils and we all know what boiling water under the surface of a dangerous liquid does...ACIDIC TINSEL FAIRY! Go the opposite way by adding acid into water, and you have a much greater mass of water to absorb that heat. You still have to be careful when concentrations and quantities are on the high end, but it will keep you safer.

    My advise was going to be dilution and Sam's Club quantities of baking soda once we got a better handle on how much.
    Isn't H2S04 close to muriatic and hydrochloric acid? I know the latter is what we all have in our stomachs to digest food.
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  11. #31
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    Hydrochloric acid aka muriatic is HCl i.e. 1 hydrogen and 1 chlorine.
    Hydrofluoric acid, HFl, while chemically similar to HCl will etch glass.

    Sulfuric acid is H2SO4 i.e. 2 hydrogen, 1 sulfur and 4 oxygen.
    “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by bakerjw View Post
    Hydrochloric acid aka muriatic is HCl i.e. 1 hydrogen and 1 chlorine.
    Hydrofluoric acid, HFl, while chemically similar to HCl will etch glass.

    Sulfuric acid is H2SO4 i.e. 2 hydrogen, 1 sulfur and 4 oxygen.
    I worked installing pipe in a plant that has a LOT of super dangerous chemicals, both gases and fluids. I was going up a ladder carrying a long stick of 2" stainless pipe to put in the pipe rack, and my knee hit a low point drain valve on a 6" PVC line going to the acid waste pumps and broke it off. A solid stream of mixed waste acid shot out about 30' and it got all over me waist down.

    I took off toward the showers shedding my clothing as I went, got in the shower and got it mostly off and they brought in big tubes of ointment with calcium, you smear on the skin and it absorbs (bonds with) the fluoride in the HFL to prevent it bonding with the calcium in your blood. Nobody knew how much hydrofluoric was in the mix, but there was some nitric, some hydrochloric and some other mess in there.

    Meanwhile the local fire marshall is on the scene with a couple of engines and of course they are going full bore to treat this "chemical exposure" by setting up a decon station outside. I was okay and called the new GF and told her I got into some stuff at work and would have to go to the hospital, I played it down but then the fire marshall comes up and loudly announces "Okay Mr. Phillips, the decontamination station is ready for you now" well that put an end to the calm on the phone, she flipped out and is on her way to the hosp warp speed, the ambulance is on it's way warp speed, get into the ER and they bang me with 2,000mg calcium and they start hooking up all these heart monitors and IVs and everything else.

    I was okay, didn't get enough hydrofluoric to cause any serious damage, and GF said I was just glowing like a Christmas tree with all those young and ravishingly beautiful nurses all pining over me....

    I learned that the heart is the biggest user of calcium in the body, not the bones, and that I could have been laying in the ER all connected to stuff and had my blood calcium level tanked they could not have saved me no matter what they did so.. Hydrofluoric is some BAD STUFF. Don't do what I did!

    They deconned all my clothes, boots, belt, safety harness, even my welding machine all went in a blue barrel that they seal and I assume bury in a landfill somewhere. Bossman showed up at the hospital with a walmart bag of new jeans, tee shirt, belt, boots, etc. They were really good about it but it scared the **** out of all of the project management.
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  13. #33
    Boolit Buddy
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    Is acid even hazardous? What pollutant is created if you just poured it onto the ground? Surely the ph of the groundwater isn't going to be affected by a gallon or two of acid.

  14. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Minerat View Post
    I seem to recall from chem class (50 years in the past) that there is an order of mixing so if you do it be sure to read up on it. There are probably chemists on here that can enlighten you better the my old memories. Just be careful H2SO4 is strong stuff.
    The pneumonic is “Always Add Acid to water.” The neutralization of an acid is highly exothermic with just water dilution. Trying to add an actual base would likely be, how shall I say, “exciting” unless you are into hot caustic showers.

  15. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by DougGuy View Post
    I worked installing pipe in a plant that has a LOT of super dangerous chemicals, both gases and fluids. I was going up a ladder carrying a long stick of 2" stainless pipe to put in the pipe rack, and my knee hit a low point drain valve on a 6" PVC line going to the acid waste pumps and broke it off. A solid stream of mixed waste acid shot out about 30' and it got all over me waist down.

    I took off toward the showers shedding my clothing as I went, got in the shower and got it mostly off and they brought in big tubes of ointment with calcium, you smear on the skin and it absorbs (bonds with) the fluoride in the HFL to prevent it bonding with the calcium in your blood. Nobody knew how much hydrofluoric was in the mix, but there was some nitric, some hydrochloric and some other mess in there.

    Meanwhile the local fire marshall is on the scene with a couple of engines and of course they are going full bore to treat this "chemical exposure" by setting up a decon station outside. I was okay and called the new GF and told her I got into some stuff at work and would have to go to the hospital, I played it down but then the fire marshall comes up and loudly announces "Okay Mr. Phillips, the decontamination station is ready for you now" well that put an end to the calm on the phone, she flipped out and is on her way to the hosp warp speed, the ambulance is on it's way warp speed, get into the ER and they bang me with 2,000mg calcium and they start hooking up all these heart monitors and IVs and everything else.

    I was okay, didn't get enough hydrofluoric to cause any serious damage, and GF said I was just glowing like a Christmas tree with all those young and ravishingly beautiful nurses all pining over me....

    I learned that the heart is the biggest user of calcium in the body, not the bones, and that I could have been laying in the ER all connected to stuff and had my blood calcium level tanked they could not have saved me no matter what they did so.. Hydrofluoric is some BAD STUFF. Don't do what I did!

    They deconned all my clothes, boots, belt, safety harness, even my welding machine all went in a blue barrel that they seal and I assume bury in a landfill somewhere. Bossman showed up at the hospital with a walmart bag of new jeans, tee shirt, belt, boots, etc. They were really good about it but it scared the **** out of all of the project management.
    Right after high school I worked at a feed testing lab for a summer, I moved the various chemicals around to the work stations. Sulfuric acid came in 55 gallon drums and was pumped into 5 gallon glass jars to move up to the lab. Caustic soda came the same but that we pumped up via an electric pump. Hydroflouric was kept in small plastic jars at the work stations and only 2 people in the lab were allowed to handle it. Me and the person using it for tests. That person dropped it on her counter an splashed it all over her front side... we stuffed her in the decon shower as we stripped her clothes off and waited for the life flight to land in the parking lot. They moved her immediately to the UofMN medical center. She survived with heart damage and was permanently disabled. It ate a crater in her chest, dissolved part of a rib... nasty stuff when pure! I would move the quart container into a foam lined carrier that could survive bouncing down the steps then carry it up to that workstation. Hated that stuff! Hydrochloric(muratic) acid we got in 1 gallon glass jugs. Used it all over the place for cleaning and testing. Lab had very hard ater and maintenance would run it through the pipes once a month ro clean them followed by a 2 hour water flush. Had other fun stuff there like ether... I found a 20 year old 5 gallon can buried in a closet full of junk. Ether gets VERY unstable with age. Bomb squad moved it to a small raft they made and floated it to the center of the sewage lagoon 1/2 mile behind the lab and detonated it with a rifle shot. It dang near emptied the lagoon. Stuff was a bomb waiting to go off from a hard bump...

  16. #36
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    Thirty-eight years ago I was on a project at a Penwalt-BASF Oxidizer plant. They had large plastic vats and barrels of sulfuric and hydrochloric acid pretty much everywhere. I recall one of the plant workers saying the sulfuric acid wasn’t harmful and demonstrating his point by rolling up his sleeve and immersing his arm into a vat for about 30 seconds. His arm appeared fine but he did say you wanted to rinse it off pretty quick.
    Less than a year later the entire plant burnt down. Five municipalities sent Fire responded to the alarm and they couldn’t put it out.

  17. #37
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    Well, I gotta say, I'm very glad that the jars didn't have sulfuric acid after reading some of the posts. Wow.
    I went back today and got all four jar batteries. They still have the lids and posts, and all four were jointed by a wire.
    So, if four jars were joined one to the next, and each jar was 2 volts, it made an 8 volt battery (from what I was told). I'll have to check that info out.
    Why do you want those? I was asked. No sure, but they're pretty cool. Apparently they were also used to power telegraphs and doorbells.

  18. #38
    Boolit Master WRideout's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Battis View Post
    Well, I gotta say, I'm very glad that the jars didn't have sulfuric acid after reading some of the posts. Wow.
    Apparently they were also used to power telegraphs and doorbells.
    And radios, so I'm told.
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  19. #39
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    Battery acid is a 25% solution, nowhere near full strength.
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  20. #40
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    Lyden jar batteries, very collectible IF you can find a museum.
    Whatever!

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