| Author | Message | ||
     Travis Unregistered guest |
I found out that lye can be made by running an electrical current through salt water. Does anyone have any ideas on how to seperate the lye from the HCL and water? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 353 Registered: 12-2004 |
The hydrogen and chlorine have already bubbled out of the solution. What's left is sodium hydroxide and water. Just dry it out. | ||
| Tristan (tristan) Member Username: tristan Post Number: 11 Registered: 4-2005 |
I wanna make lye too!. How long do you run electricity through it and how much voltage amd amperage? Thanks! (By the way. Where does the lye come from?) Thanks again! | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 354 Registered: 12-2004 |
The lye comes from the reaction of sodium with water. The sodium comes from the salt. It takes one electron to convert NaCl into Na+ and Cl-. The rest of the reaction happens without needing any extra electricity. A pound of lye costs 59 cents in a grocery store. The molecular weight of NaOH (lye) is 40. Therefore, there are 6.02214199 times 10 to the 23rd molecules (called one mole) in 40 grams of NaOH. There are 453.59237 grams in a pound. Thus there are 11.3398093 moles of NaOH in a pound of lye, or 6.82899414 times 10 to the 24th molecules, each requiring one electron to make. There are 6.2415 times 10 to the 18th electrons in a coulomb. Dividing the number of electrons we need by the number of electrons in a coulomb, we get 1,094,127.08 coulombs of electricity to make a pound of lye from saltwater. A coulomb per second is an ampere. If we use 10 amperes of current, it will take 109,412.708 seconds to make a pound of lye. That's 12.6635079 days. If the voltage is 10 volts, we will need 30.392419 kilowatt hours of electricity. At 20 cents per kilowatt hour, our pound of lye will cost $6.0784838. You might want to consider a trip to the grocery store. | ||
| Evan Holdstock (evan) New member Username: evan Post Number: 2 Registered: 5-2005 |
What is lye? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 357 Registered: 12-2004 |
Lye is the common name for sodium hydroxide, NaOH. It is used for making soap and cleaning drains, among other things. | ||
| Travis Unregistered guest |
Thanks Simon! | ||
| Travis Unregistered guest |
OK, I have another problem. When I leave it out to dry, salt is also left behind and I haven't figured out how to seperate these two. Any ideas? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 373 Registered: 12-2004 |
Two ideas come to mind right away. First, just run the reaction to completion. When no more chlorine is coming from the electrode, there is no more salt in the solution. Second, you could try fractional crystallization. Don't dry it completely out, but pour off the liquid after a bunch of crystals have formed. Dissolve the crystals in pure water and repeat. Also repeat with the liquid you pour off. Eventually, you get pure crystals of one of the substances, and a liquid containing the other. But I still think you should just buy the lye at the grocery store. | ||
| Travis Unregistered guest |
Well, if I bought the lye then it wouldn't be any fun.  Also, how would I know if all the chlorine has been liberated? Thanks again. | ||
| MadScientist (madscientist) Intermediate Member Username: madscientist Post Number: 45 Registered: 4-2005 |
LOL, one thing is for certain, its safe to say that the stuff bought at a store is made by a method somewhat different than by electrolysis. As for detecting when the chlorine is gone, you'll know its clean when your nose doesnt feel like its on fire when you take a big whiff of the flask.. ***JUST KIDDING*** DONT SNIFF IT! Chlorine is VERY poisonous! The simple method is to look at it. It wont tell you if its completely gone, but will get you close. When chlorine is present, the solution will have a greenish-yellowish tint to it. This is of course assuming that you are using inert electrodes to do the electrolysis, that are not contributing things like copper compounds and the like that would throw off your results. | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 377 Registered: 12-2004 |
You can detect chlorine using ammonia. Chlorine in water creates hydrochloric and hypochlorous acids. The HCl vapor will react with the ammonia vapor to form particles of Ammonium Chloride in the air, forming what looks like smoke. A fun thing to do with this reaction is to take some dilute hydrochloric acid (sold for adjusting the pH in swimming pools under the name "muriatic acid") and put it on a cotton ball, and put ammonia on another cotton ball. Bring the two together, and smoke appears. Take them apart and the smoke stops. With very dilute solutions, you can dab one solution on each palm. Then you can pretend to press your fingers together to strongly that they start smoking. | ||
| Travis Unregistered guest |
Sweet. Thanks everyone for your help. I'm currectly designing an apparatus to make lye. I'll put up some pics when I'm done. | ||
| Travis Babcock (Travis) Junior Member Username: Travis Post Number: 4 Registered: 5-2005 |
I'm almost done with the new and improved lye maker. I've been lazy over the last month and have kind of ignored it but i plan to post finished pics by the end of next week | ||
| Chireen Bradshaw Unregistered guest |
Ok, this question is specifically for Simon Quellen Field, but anyone is free to answer. I'd love to know where you get lye for 59 cents per pound. I just bought some lye tonight at the grocery store, and it wasn't easy to find. I went to 3 stores total, and the last one had some "Red Devil" lye (drain cleaner). It was $3.75 per 18 ounces (1 lb plus 2 oz.) which puts it over $3 per pound without tax. I also contacted a lye company today, and they would sell it to me for $1.65 per pound if I purchased 24 pounds, not including shipping costs. So please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I live in a rural area, but have access to Dallas, TX and go there often. So if there is a specific grocery store where I can buy it for 59 cents per pound, or any price under $2 per pound, please let me know. I'd love to buy some at that price! I'm about to attempt my first batch of soup & am ready to get going! Thanks, Chireen Bradshaw Chireen@usermail.com | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) Senior Member Username: Sfield Post Number: 492 Registered: 12-2004 |
The can under my sink says 59 cents. But its an old can that has been there for a while... | ||
| Travis Babcock (Travis) Junior Member Username: Travis Post Number: 6 Registered: 5-2005 |
Finally! I have the pictures i promised a while ago, so here they are. Hopefully someone will find these useful. (I think i did this right). \image This is the storage container I used. Here you can see the rust caused by the salt water. I used two graphit sticks as electrodes. \image Here is the half ohm resister i made. Radios arn't the only thing you can make out of pennies . \image I used an old computer power supply to power it. (Message edited by Travis on June 23, 2005) | ||
| eb (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted From: 138.88.94.218 |
To Travis: I can not see the photos of the lyemaker. I would love to see them. Do I have to be a member to see the photos? Also, you can make lye b (potassium hydroxide not sodium hydroxide) by running water through ashes. It makes a softer soap. There are lots of websites with instructions. Red Devil lye is not made anymore in crystal form, only in liquid. You may have to start buying it wholesale. I have to buy a minimum of 50 lb bags. Send those photos. Thanks. | ||
| NikolahG (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted From: 89.101.229.129 |
i'm new at this and i'm trying to figure out a hypothesis for archaeological sites which always comprise features filled with charcoal and firecracked stones. the general take on this is that the stones were heated in fire and added to a trough to heat water. i'm wondering were they used to make lye for soap and bleaching textiles? I read somewhere else that lye can be added to grain to soften it before pounding but I thought that lye was toxic? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) Senior Member Username: Sfield Post Number: 1711 Registered: 12-2004 |
Google for "Nixtamalization". |
