Lye mishaps?

[Macavity224]

Has anybody ever had an unfortunate encounter with NaOH? Every tech I've read said to use extreme caution with the substance (I think we've all seen Fight Club at least once), gloves, goggles, the whole 9 yards.

Has anybody actually harmed themselves with lye while doing a tek before? Just interested in hearing some stories, maybe they'll scare me into being extra extra careful :shock:

 

[tony]

I haven't. I've gotten lye water on me before, but I just rinsed it off... no harm done. I think the main thing you need to watch out for is getting splashed in the eyes, that stuff can permanently blind you. So goggles are a good idea. Gloves certainly won't do any harm either.

That scene in fight club is grossly exaggerated. Lye isn't quite that bad, nasty stuff though nonetheless.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

That scene in fight club is grossly exaggerated. Lye isn't quite that bad, nasty stuff though nonetheless.

I don't believe it's an exaggeration. If someone poured a concentrated solution of lye onto your arm and prevented you from neutralizing it, a chemical burn would result. That's a drastically different situation than getting a small amount of lye-water on yourself and then immediately diluting it/rinsing it off.

Do not underestimate the caustic power of lye. This stuff has been used by drug cartels to dissolve human bodies (including bones).

 

[a1pha]

Just a reminder (cause I know you all know it already): ALWAYS keep a jug of VINEGAR close by when working with lye!

 

[SpaceSeek]

Just a reminder (cause I know you all know it already): ALWAYS keep a jug of VINEGAR close by when working with lye!

Or some good ol' Sodium Carbonate works great too.

I've had one lye mishap. One tiny granule of NAOH got past the glove on my right arm. Didn't notice till it started burning the skin. Sodium Carbonate + Water = Relief

Now it's long sleeves, socks, goggles, mask, and of course gloves.

Safety First. :thumb_up:

 

[tony]

That scene in fight club is grossly exaggerated. Lye isn't quite that bad, nasty stuff though nonetheless.

I don't believe it's an exaggeration. If someone poured a concentrated solution of lye onto your arm and prevented you from neutralizing it, a chemical burn would result.

And if that was what the scene in fight club was then it wouldn't have been an exaggeration, but that's not the scene. The scene in fight club was someone kissing someone on the hand, then dumping lye on the moisture from the kiss, which leaves the guy writhing in agony after a split second and has the skin bubbling and melting after a couple more. That's why I called it an exaggeration. There's video's of people trying to recreate the scene (good old internet, lol) and it just doesn't work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay lye. I've read probably the same stories as you about the mexican cartels dissolving people in it. I was just saying that for the purposes we use it it really isn't that big a deal since the most we are likely to do is get some lye water on us.

 

[Bezerker]

Pulled this from a different site.

I've been hospitalized for the last week with serious lye burns. I didn't add the lye correctly and it went all over me...

It will be 3 weeks [soon] and I can now just see out of my left eye. My right eye is 20/30... it was 20/70. Last week my left eye was 20/100 (legally blind)... shit blew up in my face. Just lye and water... maybe I added it too fast or something, I dunno. I'm pretty torn up emotionally.

I feel like such an idiot. I have mixed lye and water a bunch of times, I think this time I used hot water (last person [on the faucet] was using hot water, and I didn't think anything of it). I've never it seen it react like this, it hit the ceiling, destroyed my kitchen....had to bring in professional cleaners with the insurance company, everything got thrown out. I was blind (literally!) for over 10 days, I've never been so scared in my life. It royally sucked. My vision will come back. It's been almost 3 weeks, and I'm getting better everyday. I was bedridden up until 2 days ago. Plus all the burns on my back, neck, arms, face, as I was more worried about getting it out of my eyes. 1st and 2nd degree burns. I really thought I was going to lose my vision....I've never been more grateful in my life.

Anyway, it's hard for me to read the computer screen, so I'm off...

 

[Ancotar]

If you dink around with sodium hydroxide, it will eventually punish you for being careless.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the one who suffered a lye explosion.

A personal experience of mine, I was carelessly working with lye one day with my shirt off, and no sort of protection, some of the solution ended up splashing onto me, and let me tell you what, that was not fun! After dousing myself with vinegar to neutralize the solution, I was still left with a very red blotchy area where the chemical had burned me. I was fortunate in my experience that I did not spill too much onto myself or get any in my face. But it was still very unpleasant regardless.

Please exercise caution with this caustic substance. If one does not respect it, you will surely have a bad mishap that could result in the loss of more than just a few skin cells.

Please take care!

 

[Noman]

I wasn't extracting, I was at work cleaning a polymer off of a mix tank, and dumped a bucket of very concentrated lye solution on my foot.
By the time I got my shoe off, my sock was dissolved and as I pulled the tatters off, a couple layers of skin and my toenails came with it.
No permenant damage and my toenails grew back, but it was like having a very bad sunburn on my foot for a week or so.

 

[Psyren]

i wonder how concentrated it needs to be?
Ive mixed 100grams of micro bead lye into 600-900 ml of water and have gotten it on my hands with little to no effect.

 

[Maharanj]

gotten it on my hands with little to no effect.

Yeah had this happen aswell. Was not careful enough when doing pulls and some of the bark/lye/water mix was running down my wrist (into the glove). Quickly removed the glove & washed the hand with vinegar. To my surprise there was no dammage at all, not even a tiny skinburn.

Wouldnt want to get this stuff into my eyes though, so im allways wearing glasses when handling the jars.

 

[Macavity224]

Pulled this from a different site.

I've been hospitalized for the last week with serious lye burns. I didn't add the lye correctly and it went all over me...

It will be 3 weeks [soon] and I can now just see out of my left eye. My right eye is 20/30... it was 20/70. Last week my left eye was 20/100 (legally blind)... shit blew up in my face. Just lye and water... maybe I added it too fast or something, I dunno. I'm pretty torn up emotionally.

I feel like such an idiot. I have mixed lye and water a bunch of times, I think this time I used hot water (last person [on the faucet] was using hot water, and I didn't think anything of it). I've never it seen it react like this, it hit the ceiling, destroyed my kitchen....had to bring in professional cleaners with the insurance company, everything got thrown out. I was blind (literally!) for over 10 days, I've never been so scared in my life. It royally sucked. My vision will come back. It's been almost 3 weeks, and I'm getting better everyday. I was bedridden up until 2 days ago. Plus all the burns on my back, neck, arms, face, as I was more worried about getting it out of my eyes. 1st and 2nd degree burns. I really thought I was going to lose my vision....I've never been more grateful in my life.

Anyway, it's hard for me to read the computer screen, so I'm off...

Well, I just started my first stb tek tonight and the lye phase went smoothly, so that's a relief. But how does an explosion like that happen?

 

[civre4monkey]

I dont think that story applies to most of us.

For my first STB extraction, I very quickly added a kilogram of lye to a bowl of hot water. I added all the lye at once, and the glass bowl didn't even crack. Note that a kilo of MHRB yields at least ten grams of spice, perhaps less, but still too much for one person. He must have been trying to mix large amounts of lye and water very suddenly. I think the author of that passage was (very foolishly) attempting to make mass amounts of spice at once because he was (again, very foolishly) trying to make money off of a beautiful thing.

Not trying to downplay lye's potential harms-I always wear the strongest gloves (go to home depot-'solvent proof' gloves are the best) and lab grade goggles with indirect ventilation. I got those from Amazon. Whenever dealing with acids (HCl, sulfuric, phosphoric... vinegar is probably safe), I take all these same precautions. On the other hand, I have had lye water droplets on my hand for up to a minute before the burn became noticeable. I rinsed off and was fine.

 

[catfrog]

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