murgs
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cleaning old drums for water storage
Out driving today i noticed a stack of plastic drums on the side of the road with a sign saying free drums.I got 6 and they r plastic with big
screw on lids and once contained 200litres oftrichloroisocyanuric acid 90%.
What id like to know is if they will be ok to store water in after a good wash or will i have to treat them before i use for water storage.
Water will be collected for drinking.Thanks.
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thesmug
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I think you'll need to wash them with a high ph water if you think there's still acid left over. I wouldn't trust drinking from them at all, though.
Wash them a lot with a ton of water maybe but it would be helpful if you could find out what kind of plastic it is. Certain plastics can retain
materials for a long time, slowly letting them out over time. I wouldn't trust drinking from them anyway.
Good eyes
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macckone
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isocyanuric acid is relatively low toxicity orally (5g/kg)
It also is not very soluble in water .3g/100ml.
You would probably need to wash the barrels with concentrated
acetic acid or ethanol and then with water.
Standard procedure is to wash 3 - 5 times with each cleaning agent.
And as thesmug stated the plastic may leach the chemical
out over time.
You would probably be better off buy unused barrels.
msds: http://www.chemone.com/default/msds/Isocyanuric%20Acid.pdf
*** edit added url ***
[Edited on 1-5-2014 by macckone]
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MrHomeScientist
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Plus even though they might be labeled as to what they contained, you don't know what was really in them. Especially since you found them on the side
of the road. Maybe the initial contents were used up, then the drums were used to store dimethyl mercury. (200 liters of this is about the scariest
thing I can imagine)
Point is, if I found some containers in a ditch with a cardboard sign saying "FREE" on them, the last thing I would want to do is drink out of them.
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murgs
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Where im located water is scarce and i was going to use for household use but now i‘m thinking maybe they‘d be right for watering my vegetable
garden after a good clean.Thankyou for replies.
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HgDinis25
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You could try wash them and then fill them up with water. Let te water stay for a few days and then take a sample and have it analyzed for organic
contamination, heavy metals, etc. I don't know if the procedure is expensive or not in your location but might be a good way to go.
Anyway I still think drinking from it is not a sensible choice.
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UnintentionalChaos
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If they are plastic and had trichloroisocyanuric acid in them recently, they will smell like pool sanitizer/bleach. If they do, you're probably fine.
It's not particularly toxic, and could be used for drinking water sterilization in low doses. Expect the water to smell/taste off for a while.
Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!
'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
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