Any chemists here?

Richard · Mar 24, 2017

[FONT=&quot]Called UT (University of Tennessee) chemistry department.... the gal answering went to her boss to see who to transfer me to....boss lady said "tell him to call 911"[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Nice.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Called Vanderbilt chemistry department while I was at Vanderbilt today.... no answer all day....just machine.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Scenario:[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Had a one gallon jug of Muriatic acid. (20% strength if I recall) Came from my father in laws garage we cleaned things out from his passing.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Long story short, it was near full, developed a pinhole leak at the bottom. About 80% of it dripped out (very slowly) I have some wooden shelves in garage and this of course, was on top shelf....[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Now, for the stroke of luck... Wife had some form of "cookie tin" that had to be near 18" in diameter. MOST of the dripping, went into here (more on this shortly)[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]So the Muriatic acid has soaked into three boards as it dripped and worked its way across. At least one of those boards, if not all three are near black from where it soaked in. (darkest board being the top board and as you go down, they're not as bad)[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Of course, I have a stainless steel refrigerator in the garage....that now looks like it's got a dull something on it....hate to call it rust as it's not yet that bad.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Ok, so... a week ago, wife went into garage to get something, came out screaming that she can't breath and her hands are burning....run to bathroom & rinse eyes/face/hands. I go to garage and find a (highly rusted) can of battery acid CLEANER that I deduced must have rusted through and vented out... picked it up and a couple other (very rusted) cans next to it. Thought I got everything cleaned up when I then heard (in the silence of the room) what I'd describe as an Alka Selzer fizzing away in a glass of water. Knowing there was nothing like that around, I realized something was eating something.... kept looking and this is when a cloud of gas passed me by and grabbed at my breath too.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Seems this 18" cookie can had collected almost all of the fluid. There was maybe 2" of acid in it. Of course, everything we had in there (hinges, screws, odds/ends) were literally soaked... [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Carried the near empty bottle of acid outside, carried cookie tin outside. [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Sunday, bought a very large box (several) of baking soda. Created a water solution and poured the acid in there & kept adding until the frothing went away.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Poured fluid from cookie tin into there and repeated. Created some new solution & dumped into cookie tin to neutralize as much of that as i could.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]That's the back story.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]What I'm trying to find out is:[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]1. Will the fluid that was on the boards "dry up" and become a non-factor or should I get rid of them?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2. Can I BURN those boards or will that cause a nice caustic cloud of something nasty that will make my feet dissolve? (I have a very large pending burn pile)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]3. I wiped the refrigerator down... (soda/water) is that "enough"? Will it keep reacting?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]4. What about other things in the garage? Will the vapers blow away (doors are open) or will I need to empty garage out and do a much larger job of baking soda/water soaking?[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I noticed a couple weeks ago, my cordless Milwaukee drill had totally rusted the chuck. I was intriged on how that happened but, the battery died so it's not been used in 3-4 years...I presumed it was that. Now, I suspect it was the vapor cloud. (it was sitting on shelf under drips)[/FONT]

RNeumann · Mar 24, 2017

Great story- glad it's you and not me!

Short answer-
1) no
2) no
3) no
4) I would - see long answer

Acid doesn't dissipate. At can be neutralized. You are going to need a bunch of Ph sticks (pool supply) and they will also provide some products that are "stronger" than baking soda to neutralize things. Ditch the shelves and anything else with low value- cookie sheet, cans of sheet etc. The land fill has days and or locations that take household hazmat. Everything else will need to be neutralized and tested.

Wear the proper safety equipment including eye, splash and respiratory protection per the pool supply recommendations.

This isn't the end of the world but a lesson to many about the dangers of "household" chemicals.

kevinwak · Mar 24, 2017

First off, I would go online and search for an MSDS for muriatic acid. Simply type msds muriatic acid into Google and use one of the ones that comes up. It will have safe handling, disposal and personal protective equipment instructions. There should also be a section on firefighting instructions that might give you an idea of what to expect if the boards were burnt.

We use a few different types of acids at work, usually handling requires chemical goggles AND a face shield, rubber gloves, rubber suit etc. You want zero risk of getting it in your eyes. So for spills we have powdered soda ash that we spread on top and then we dilute,dilute, dilute. Typically we would just throw a water hose into the acid skid and let it flush the area to the sump for half an hour. When diluting make sure that you don't accidentally splash back on yourself. How bad the vapor cloud was will determine how much you need to clean. Acid vapors tend to leave a sticky film on everything they came in contact with. If anything in there is sticky, almost the same feel of the cabinets above your stove after you fried bacon, then flush it with water. Hot water will speed up the dilution.

I hate acid leaks. I hate how it takes your breath away and burns your lungs.

1. Why take the risk of having the boards around, just get rid of them.

This does remind me that I have a jug of hydroflouric acid that I got from my dad that he used to clean the aluminum rims and tanks on his semi truck in the 80's. That needs to go to the toxic roundup.

bigdeano · Mar 25, 2017

The fumes from muriatic acid will go thru the plastic jugs it comes in and corrode whatever is close by. Steel will rust, copper will have a green coating. Don't keep the stuff around for very long. I found out the hard way.

Richard · Mar 25, 2017

This reminds me (thank you bigdeano).... copper...

Being in the garage, I have my water heater there and a number of copper runs going to various places in the house.

Will this be a danger to the copper?

(all the liquid is now gone so the "big" danger is over... I'm now dealing with the little details like deposits as mentioned)

WM75Guy · Mar 25, 2017

I am not a chemist but we did get lots of calls for situations like yours when I was on the fire department haz mat team. Muriatic acid is another name for hydrochloric acid (HCL). People won't swim in a swimming pool that has hydrochloric acid poured in but don't think twice if it is called muriatic acid. The good thing about it is it one of the easiest to neutralize but causes lots of damage. HCL combined with sodium bicarb (NaHCO3) makes NaCl (salt) + CO2 (gas) + H20 (water). It can look impressive as the CO2 gas is generated as you observed.

It will generate a lot of heat as part of the reaction. That is why you never neutralize anything on human skin, acid or base. The heat from the neutralization can cause more damage than the original contact injury. Flushing the affected body part with copious amounts of water is what is recommended.

Muriatic acid and its vapor are very corrosive to everything, especially human tissue. If something comes in contact with it you can consider it is pretty much done. Most anything exposed to it will continue to corrode as any protective coating is gone, even after it is neutralized. Turning black is the most obvious sign that you had contact with HCL. Keep an eye on any wiring you have in the garage for signs of corrosion.

Do not breathe any vapors from the liquid or smoke from the burning wood. It is not good for the lungs. Try not to stand in HCL and your feet should be OK.

Raised on a Deere · Mar 25, 2017

This thread just awoke a curiosity. I have seen the term "Muriatic acid" used, in various threads, one I believe was to use it to clean up copper wire ends to make it solderable, also I seem to recall the suggestion to use it to clean up grease soaked concrete floor. Thought maybe I have been missing out on a good trick. It was spoken of as though it was something common.

Just wondering what are it uses around the house, barn or shop.

Raised on a Deere · Mar 25, 2017

OOPS kind of embarrassed. I googled muriatic acid and made the connection with hydrochloric acid. Knew all about that from submarine days. Saw the many uses and plenty of info about it. The reason the term caught my eye, is that I saw a RV thread where the poster suggested cleaning dirty corroded copper connections with muriatic acid. I probably used something like that in the past labeled as all purpose conductor cleaner or some other marketing thing which I carelessly didn't bother to read about, just used it to get a job done and moved on. I will cease exposing more ignorance for now and stop saying anything else.

This post did remind me to stay motivated in organizing my garage and getting rid of stuff that my children don't need to be dealing with. One of my vivid boyhood experiences was watching my father clean out his dads shop after he died so the place could be sold.

orezok · Mar 25, 2017

I built a high school locker room one time that had tile floors. The tile was laid on a friday afternoon and the layers decided to go home before they completely removed the grout haze. The next day it had hardened making it almost impossible to remove.

The foreman decided to acid wash it with muriatic acid. The tile company subsequently paid to replace all the aluminum framed white boards, some of the hardware and most of the pot metal hardware on the lockers. All pitted from the fumes.

BIG mistake!

Richard · Mar 25, 2017

Nasty stuff indeed!

Taking a break right now. all doors open again, air blowing through. took everything off the shelves & doused, dipped or wiped with a baking soda / water mixture and setting in driveway.

Pulling shelves out to dispose of. Bought some new 1x12x10's to replace them (about $150)

All tools have some corrosion marks... had some PVC next to it, some dripped on the PVC. (extra pipe I had laying around)

Pipe itself looks to be fine but I don't know that I'll ever feel comfortable should I end up needing to use it... I'm eyeballing the trash pile for it.