thunderfvck
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NaOH in Draino
Hi.
I've been having a lot of trouble finding a suitable source of NaOH. I live in Quebec and in most stores we don't have things like Red Devil
lye and the sort. So I've been left with two sources: Easy Off and Draino. Easy off is no good however, as it is lemon scented and my excessive
laziness has prohibited me from opening the damn bottle. The stupid thing has specific instructions on the back saying to push down this button and
turn, then it's supposed to spray. My ass. They won't let you remove the top either. Nothing a good beating can't handle but I've
recently been looking at Draino instead. It has actual sodium hydroxide pellets, very nice stuff. The drawback would be the fact that it is coated
with this green filth that is water soluble. I tried removing it with acetone to no avail, and water just dissolves everything. Methanol did an okay
job but still dissolved some of the NaOH. Anyway, I was just wondering what this green garbage might be, and should I go to all ends to try to remove
it? I should also add that I have a huge erection at the moment, so perhaps a nice shower accompanied by a good stroke should calm my NaOH excitement.
Thank you for your time.
[Edited on 11-2-2004 by thunderfvck]
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The_Davster
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During a failed NaOH electrolysis atempt I was using crystal drano and I found that if the NaOH is boiled gently the green crap goes away, and if You
had small pieces of metal in your drano(like I did) it would settle to the bottom. The molten NaOH was then poured into xylene which caused the
xylene to boil and when the NaOH had cooled it was nice pure white. The boiling was done on a simple alcohol burner.
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Magpie
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"The molten NaOH was then poured into xylene..."
Why was this done?
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thunderfvck
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The molten NaOH? Or do you mean the dissolved NaOH? As far as I know boiling water will only increase the rate of solubility of NaOH in water.
I'm guessing the xylene caused the NaOH to come out of solution, leaving the green crap dissolved in the water?
I do not have xylene, can I use another non polar solvent such as petroleum ether?
I beleive all drainos have the pieces of aluminum in it, I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just to help the NaOH move along it's
path down the drain or something, the aluminum doesn't seem to react with the NaOH in solution. And the NaOH pellets are really hygroscopic so
this would only make them stick to the sides of the drain. I'm just speculating, I don't know, maybe someone else could answer this
question.
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The_Davster
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Magpie: The molten NaOH was poured into xylene because it was a failed electrolysis attempt. I was attempting to separate the Na(which I only thougt
had formed) from the molten NaOH. I was then going to heat the NaOH/Na/xylene mix to melt the sodium which would then float on top of the xylene.
thunderfvck: It was molten not aqueous NaOH. I assume petroleum ether would work, I was using xylene because I had needed something that would not
react with any sodium that had formed and xylene was available. I believe that the pieces of Al are for when NaOH is actually used as drain cleaner
 it would react with the NaOH solution to make H2 which may help remove clogs.
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thunderfvck
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I thought that only acids would react with metals to form H2 gas. I was thinking along the same lines as this but NaOH is a base, not a strong acid.
Like I said, aqueous NaOH does not react with Al. I tried reacted the two to no avail. However, upon exposure to HCl, a gas is definitely given off.
So it was molten, how did you ac hieve this state? You said that you had boiled it but as I have mentioned boiling it will probably only increase the
solubility of the solid (which I'm quite certain of) in water anyway. Thanks for your time.
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Polverone
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Aqueous NaOH most certainly will react with Al; even hot Na2CO3 solution will. Al behaves amphoterically.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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hodges
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Drano Content
I seem to remember that drano (with the green coating) also has NaNO3. The nitrate gets reduced by the AL all the way to NH3. I believe this is done
so as to produce NH3 instead of H2 gas (thought to be safer for indoors?).
Try adding a small amount of water to a bit of drano in a small container, and cautiously smell the resulting gas. If you smell ammonia, the drano
likely has a significant amount of nitrate impurity. If you have red litmus paper, you can hold a wet piece of it in the gas instead of sniffing - if
there is ammonia present it will turn blue.
I guess if you are really brave you can try igniting the gas produced by the drano - if it explodes it is hydrogen, ammonia won't burn very
readily.
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thunderfvck
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Really. Well as I've said before I've added water to the NaOH pellets and there was a piece of aluminum in with it. I didn't see it do
anything. There were no bubbles. I had also, in my messiness, left some NaOH on my table, and I put a piece of aluminum on the pellet. THe pellet
absorbed some water from the air, and did not rwact with the aluminum. I had come back to check on it later on but nothing had happened, the chunk of
aluminum was still intact. I guess you could argue that there wasn't enough NaOH to react with it, but...ah. Whatever. I'll just put some
water in with the draino and leave it over night, if there's aluminum left over by morning I'll have to strip naked and feriously masturbate
over pictures of naked teenage boys or something.
So...
NaOH + Al ---> ?
I always dealt with acids reacting with metals, not bases. Enlighten me?
Or I could try.
NaOH + Al --> Al(OH)3 + Na
Na + H2O --> NaOH + H2
I don't see Al displacing Na though..anyway, it was worth a shot. HELP.
Hey, well we're at it...
6HCl + 2Al --> 2AlCl3 + 3H2
and
AlCl3 + 3H2O --> Al(OH)3 + 3HCl
So, let me get this straight and please tell me where I'm wrong. Keep in mind this is a reaction I carried out using 31% HCl. Aqueous HCl reacts
with Al to produce AlCl3, which then reacts with water (from the aqueous HCl) to produce those other two. So I can't obtain AlCl3 because
I'm using an aqueous solution of HCl. Going off topic but whatever...THanks.
[Edited on 13-2-2004 by thunderfvck]
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Theoretic
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Actually, aluminium chloride does exist in aqueous solution, it's just that it has to be concentrated to prevent hydrolysis. The hexahydrate can
actually be crystallised from aqueous solution.
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darkflame89
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Sodium hydroxide reacts with aluminium to form sodium aluminate and hydrogen. The process is exothermic. Conc, NaOH can burn a hole through Al foil
Ignis ubique latet, naturam amplectitur omnem.
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