If you;re in the US, that would be 'lye' - drain cleaner- the Red Devil
brand specifically. It has to be pure 100% lye- (and Red Devil says so on
the label in TINY little letters if you squint hard enough). The other odd
varieties of drain cleaner (crystal,foaming,newformula,liquid whatever)
have other ingredients and wo'n't do the job (and are probably not safe
combinations of chemicals to try playing with). Red Devil is still
economical enough to make cheap fuel, even though it's 4 or more tiimes as
expensive as buying bulk lye- but you won't have to deal with storage if
you just buy it a couple cans at a time.
Keep it closed- it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and it can react
with carbon dioxide, so measure it quickly...
otherwise when you're ready to make large amounts of biodiesel you can get
25 lb or 50 lb bags of 100% (or 99% probably) lye from industrial chemical
supply houses. When I buy a big bag like that I divide it quickly into
sandwich bags and keep them in a sealed bucket.
Try KOH sometime, too- much easier to work with (ie dissolves faster,
doesn't absorb moisture as fast and comes in bigger chunks that probably
are the cause of that), though it's more expensive and you'd use more...
Try and get it in 90% or better purity...
good luck,
Mark
At 08:39 PM 1/20/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Is there a typical non-commercial source of sodium hydroxide? I was
reading on the journey to forever page that it is something you can get at
a hardware store - what would it be called??
Could I just walk in and ask for a bottle/tub of NaOH or is there a
layman's term for the stuff?
Thanks
Robin
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