What's caustic soda for?

BrokenBetty_2

Scary thread.

I didn't realise how dangerous caustic soda is. I have a tub under the kitchen sink - tempted to dispose of it now :eek:

Ben84

ContraryMiss wrote: »

Have to disagree. When i was a 9 month old baby i crawled across a squeasy bottle of caustic soda (what can i say it was the 70s) i suffered 3rd degree burns to my leg. Several skin grafts. The scar now goes from my knee to my ankle and is the width of the side of my leg. As for uses, in this case it had been used to clean up in my grandparents pub. Never underestimate the corrosive nature of this solution.

I do agree, it is harmful if misused. But you'd get just as bad burns from spilling your kettle on your skin while making coffee, in fact I worked with someone who did exactly that and she had skin grafts too. Meanwhile, spilling hot oil from a chip pan on your skin would be really bad. Lye isn't risk free, but it really isn't unusually hazardous compared to other common things around the house. If anything, people's fear of lye suggests we've just got a bit complacent about the other risks around us every day.

AWG

Tip: Always add crystals / powder to a bucket of water, slowly and never the other way round. High temperature can cause steam and caustic vapour if you just pour say a cup of water in a large dry voloume of dry caustic soda. If water is added to dry caustic soda the original heat used to dry the caustic in manufacture is given back out in the reaction. A bit of science; thermal stores have been tried using this reaction. It requires about a swimming pool size amount of caustic soda. Over the summer the heat from the sun is captured via solar collectors and is used to dry off the caustic soda. During the winter, water is added slowly which generates the same heat back. Pipes capture the heat and it's pumped into under floor heating.

Merlethe

They had this at my bar work and we had to use it for cleaning the bottle wash - thing with brush inside. We weren't told to wear gloves when using it and we all just stuck our hands in to swish the mixture about a bit, then rinsed off our hands. I took to wearing gloves. Since left that place.