As with concentrating hydrogen peroxide, I have yet another way of making usable chemicals from household products. This agitates material in the clog, making it easier to flush away. Make mistakes, but don’t play games with your safety. To see if the can even has a useful amount of sodium hydroxide to extract, the MSDS sheet is the place to start. A quick way to test for sodium hydroxide is to dissolve the salt in question into water. In modern laboratories, sodium hydroxide, NaOH, is a very commonly used chemical which serves a wide variety of applications. Very, very carefully, I slowly added small amounts of water to the solution to dissolve the rest of the powder. I chose this drain cleaner for two hopefully obvious reasons. ( Log Out / If the solution heats up, it may be sodium hydroxide. These equations are actually how the drain cleaner destroys blockages in a pipe, but for me, this meant trouble. Let it work its magic for 30 minutes. Rinse it with water before screwing it back into place. Also, I am not responsible for any mistakes you may make. However, when I dissolved this mixture in water…. Later, I went back and calculated the exact strength of the solution. After the initial weighing, these big pieces were further crushed into semi-usable pieces. ( Log Out / Considering all the mistakes I made, this result is not too bad. However, when I took the puck off my hot plate, the glass bottom of the beaker (RIP) was stuck to it. What kind of beaker would you recommend to use while boiling the solution? The ingredients list only tells what exists in the powder, but it does not tell in what amounts. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Below is what I thought was the sodium hydroxide. Dr. Helmenstine holds a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences and is a science writer, educator, and consultant. In my experiment, I should have used more protection (i.e. After dissolving all the powder and getting rid of most of the dye, I had a concentrated solution of sodium hydroxide. Yes, that is sodium hydroxide. A common problem with bathroom sinks, showers, and bathtubs is hair caught in the drain. From being used as a drain cleaner to playing a key role in certain reactions, sodium hydroxide is one of those chemicals a serious amateur home chemist needs (I am going to be using mine as part of the electrolysis experiment). If you have a plunger, try to loosen the clog. A solution of any strong base or acid will heat up when dissolved into water because the enthalpy of dissolution is exothermic, meaning that when the Na+ ions break away from OH– ions (as they do when salts dissolve), energy is released due to the protonation of water molecules (H2O becomes H3O+). Quickly, I took the beaker out of the garage and set it on a table to calm down. I accidently made a 40M solution! Of course, as usual, the problem for us as backyard chemists is the availability, and (as usual) we could buy it. Putting the mixture through a simple kitchen strainer does the job just fine, although some aluminum turnings fell into the fine mixture. This is a highly effective chemical, but as with commercial drain cleaner, you need to follow safety instructions. A solution of anything else may or may not heat up, and in my case, sodium nitrate and sodium chloride do not. I then used a hammer (very gently) to break it into pieces. Mixing baking soda and vinegar is safe and non-toxic. Pour vinegar (weak acetic acid) into the drain. Doing some quick research, this lack of sale is because sodium hydroxide is used as a key reactant in the production of methamphetamine hydrochloride (aka crystal meth), a tutorial which will NOT be created on this site. The products are also easy to find and inexpensive, so if your drain is just slow rather than seriously clogged, it's a good option to try. So, wear gloves and avoid handling sodium hydroxide or putting unprotected hands in the water after adding this product. Of course, the result is impure, the chunks are too big, and glass is still stuck to some pieces, but for my purposes, this was a success. After wiping up the excess liquids up with numerous paper towels, I wondered how I was going to get what was essentially a hockey puck of sodium hydroxide stuck to my hot plate to a usable form of the chemical. How to Make Hydrogen Gas Using Simple Materials, How to Make Nitrocellulose or Flash Paper, How to Make a Sulfuric Acid Formula at Home, Candle Science Trick to Extinguish Fire with Carbon Dioxide, How to Make a Homemade Volcano That Smokes, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, B.A., Physics and Mathematics, Hastings College. First, it contains sodium hydroxide (wow…). Fill a plastic bucket most of the way full with cold water. Well the sodium hydroxide reacted with it very vigorously in the following equations: 2 Al + 6 H2O → 2 Al(OH)3 + 3 H2 So, after preparing my lab bench and gearing up, I began to physically separate the powder. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. But this time, although yes, it is not backyard, it is also very challenging to obtain online or in person. ( Log Out / When I went inside, I noticed small little drop-sized burns on my arm from being splashed with small amounts of the boiling solution. It is important to note that from failure comes heightened understanding, and I realized that the fine powder was actually the sodium hydroxide. The powder immediately began to boil, and I could smell hydrogen gas. Or just use a lesser concentration of NaOH? Before I begin describing the process of extraction, I cannot specify enough the importance of safety in this experiment. Scrolling through the document, this section comes up: In case you can’t read it, the breakdown of components within the powder are: Aluminum: 1% – 5% (I’ll get to why aluminum is in the mixture later). The pieces were then weighed. What Is Caustic Soda and Where Can You Get It? Yes, it would be possible to extract sodium hydroxide from solution, but that would be much more complicated and take more time, among other things. Change ). Just be careful, even the backyard can be a dangerous place. The sodium hydroxide dissolves organic material, like hair and grease. ( Log Out / Eventually, I got the slab free from the hot plate. The heat helps melt greasy clogs. While you could simply pour sodium hydroxide in your drain, it's much safer for you and your plumbing to mix it with water first to dilute it. If you haven't tried it already, clear the U-shaped trap below the drain, Put a bucket under the drain and use a wrench to unscrew the trap from the plumbing. Why pay for expensive drain cleaners when you can apply chemistry to make the products yourself? I had to stop work for the day at this point, so I covered it, labeled it, and set it on top of my hot plate for the time being. Pour a liberal amount of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) into the drain. The active ingredient in serious drain cleaner is sodium hydroxide or lye. I turned off the heat and let the solution crystallize out (solid sodium hydroxide is much less harsh to deal with). By raising then cooling the temperature, the NaOH which is dissolved more than the water can hold will fall out of solution and turn into a paste at the bottom of the beaker, which you can retrieve. Remember how I said there were a few aluminum turnings in the fine powder? In other words, colder water will dissolve less NaOH than hot water. The same chemical reaction that makes bubbles for the classic science fair chemical volcano can be used to loosen gunk from a slow drain. Another way to make lye is from ashes. When baking soda and vinegar are mixed, carbon dioxide is produced. But when exposed to molten sodium hydroxide even glass will dissolve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O3fOHYBXx0, The Chronicles of Electrolysis: The Basics, Concentrating Grocery Store Hydrogen Peroxide. Some commercial products also contain small metal flakes, which react with sodium hydroxide to produce hydrogen gas and a lot of heat. If no water is draining at all, you may need to break out the big guns. But, as I quickly found out, this too was a big mistake. Using sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) we dissolve glass. Al(OH)3 + NaOH → Na+ + [Al(OH)4]–. Avoid inhaling the fumes. Yes, that is my beaker. Ingesting it is poisonous, it is highly reactive with metals and produces explosive hydrogen gas when it reacts, and a concentrated solution could easily burn your finger completely off. After fiddling with the beaker for a few minutes….
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