• Question: how long would it take to dissolved your hand if you put in pot of high grade acid

    Asked by chunks to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      High Grade ACID?!

      I say. Well, high grade or very pure vinegar probably a couple of days Coca Cola, maybe a year…

      An acids ‘strength’ is determined by it’s pH or ‘how many free hydrogen ions are in the solution’ scale. For acids this runs from just above 0 to just below 7. (7 is neutral)

      Hydrofluoric Acid (HF) is pretty much the strongest acid on the planet. It is LETHAL. If you work with it, you have to have rip shower in the work place it’s so dangerous. My Dad used to work with it, and it always terrified him. Unlike other acids, it’s lipid soluble, meaning it wont just burn you – it’ll poison you after you’ve been exposed.

      There’s also this other stuff that I used to use to clean electrodes that was made from concentrated sulphuric acid mixed with hydrogen peroxide. Sulphuric acid would eat away flesh on its own, but we super charge it with the addition of the oxidising agent peroxide (just get rid of the stubborn bits)

      We call this solution ‘Piranha Solution’. Guess why 😉

      I reckon you could dissolve a human hand fully immersed in a concentrated 1 molar bath of either of these solutions in about 4 hours.
      It would proper stink though.

      Get Mythbusters on it.

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 29 Jun 2012:

      Oh gosh!!!!!! I’m not sure I want to find out!

      Although it is probably longer than you would think… a matter of hours to days vs. minutes or seconds.

    • Photo: Andrew Thomas

      Andrew Thomas answered on 1 Jul 2012:

      I agree with SJ and Paige. I remember when I was at school and in A-level Biology we had to dissect a rat. At one point we has to put the skull into concentrated hydrochloric acid and leave it overnight. The acid had removed the mineral part called hydroxyapatite (the bit that makes bones and teeth hard) but not the collagen that forms the structure onto which the apatite is deposited.

      So as Paige said, probably longer than you think.

      Hydrofluoric acid is extremely dangerous as SJ said. One reason is that if very quickly reacts with calcium. Obviously there is calcium in your bones so it will take that but possibly more importantly perhaps is the fact that our muscles use calcium to contract and HF can mop up these ions. We sometimes use HF to etch our samples and when we go we have to have a tube of calcium gluconate gel. We put on a pair of gloves cover them with gel then put on another pair of gloves. I hate the stuff so try to work on samples we can clean with piranha solution.

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