What to do with Lye after extraction

[psychotropia1]

If you follow the DMT for the masses tek...

Then what do you do after with the lye (caustic soda) and water mix? I mean after you have separated the naptha...

DO you dispose it? Do you destroy it somehow (eg with acid)?

 

[Baelor]

Use it as drain cleaner.

 

[psychotropia1]

Can i really throw it down the drain? Wont it eat away the metals of the drain?

 

[OrionFyre]

Can i really throw it down the drain? Wont it eat away the metals of the drain?

Drano drain cleaner is nothing but lye and other foaming and gel agents added in. Lye is THE drain cleaner and has been for centuries. Your pipes are either steel or PVC and possibly clay outside of the house in older areas. All of which are not susceptible to lye reactivity.

Now if your pipes were made out of aluminium on the other hand your county inspector didn't do their job

 

[mr.smiley]

If you dont wana dump it down the drain you can filter out any plant gunk untill clear, then add aluminum powder or even better aluminum chloride, and aluminum hydroxide should precipitate out of the water which you can collect and save. And if you added aluminum chloride you can evaporate the water off and be left with table salt(though i wouldnt use it for eating as itll be impure), but its a good slug repelent and a decent snow melter. Do this outdoors in a ventilated area.

 

[blue.magic]

Yes it's generally safe, but never dump large amounts of concentrated solution.

When it comes to acids and bases: "Dillution is the solution"

or you can neutralize the solution before discarding.

I usually also cook the solution first to evaporate the nonpolar solvent.

P.S. Be careful about splashes!

 

[nan0tEch]

Store all your extractions in a hdpe container, so after a while you can try to get the last bits out. And then toss it away. That's my practice at the moment.

 

[sauSage]

Use it as drain cleaner.

^^^

I keep a few extraction bottles around just for this reason.

 

[Du57mi73]

If you dont wana dump it down the drain you can filter out any plant gunk untill clear, then add aluminum powder or even better aluminum chloride, and aluminum hydroxide should precipitate out of the water which you can collect and save. And if you added aluminum chloride you can evaporate the water off and be left with table salt(though i wouldnt use it for eating as itll be impure), but its a good slug repelent and a decent snow melter. Do this outdoors in a ventilated area.

Do NOT add aluminum metal to a container full of lye. You are asking for trouble.

 

[Elrik]

I'm making humic acid with my current batch.
Humic acid [applied as a ammonium, potassium, or even sodium humate solution] is a plant growth stimulant. Its generally watered or foliar sprayed in the range of 0.002 to 0.01%. It makes tomatoes tastier, watermelons sweeter, marijuana higher yielding, etc. It has its strongest effects on plants growing in less than ideal soil.
It can be produced by hydrolyzing peat or worn out potting soil with aqueous alkalai hydroxide for a week or two, extracting into water, filtering, and acidifying to precipitate the insoluble humic acid. Once it finally settles out any convenient base will dissolve it for use.
I like to store mine as ammonium humate, a beautiful and relatively easily dissolved black crystalline solid.

 

[mr.smiley]

Do NOT add aluminum metal to a container full of lye. You are asking for trouble.

Your right aluminum powder should be avoided...but not that it cant be used. Because actually it would be completly fine if you did it outside or in a well ventilated area like i had originally stated. You would add it in small incremental doses until the reaction stops producing hydrogen gas(bubbling) at which point the lye should be expended.

If your worried about an exothermic reaction being too much then simply add aluminum chloride like i said.

Everyone needs to do their due diligence when working with chemicals. I just gave you the pathway, its still your job to figure out how to walk it.

 

[pitubo]

If you follow the DMT for the masses tek...

Then what do you do after with the lye (caustic soda) and water mix? I mean after you have separated the naptha...

DO you dispose it? Do you destroy it somehow (eg with acid)?

First you use the forum search engine.

These questions have been asked before, you know. Surfing to the search page and typing "dispose" or "discard" into the subject line and hitting "search" instantly gives many existing threads with useful answers and some with prior adhortations to use the search functions. Below I pasted some of the most useful answers:

From "How do you dispose of lye after extraction?":

pour it down the drain, because lye is great at hydrolyzing hair and soap scum which clog drains.
by the time it reaches the sewage system, it'll already be quite diluted.

From "how do i dispose of my leftover soup":

Let's not forget that lye is sold as drain cleaner. So if you flush it down the toilet, not only have you disposed of your base liquid, you've also cleaned out your pipes! :lol:

I usually let mine sit out in the sun, uncovered for a few hours first just to evaporate off any leftover naphtha. I'm not certain that this is 100% necessary, but I don't want to run the risk of degrading the plumbing in my house or harming the environment (I don't know where my plumbing takes waste, but I would assume it gets dumped into a river eventually... )

and further down the same thread:

First, evaporate off any remaining solvent somewhere safe. Flammable solvents should not go down the drain. The solvent goes down one drain, but the fumes can come back up any connected pipes, and ignited by your neighbour dropping a cigarette down their kitchen sink, for instance. Naptha isn't madly explosive like some solvents, it's just something to keep in mind when pouring stuff down the sink.

Then if you want to be extra environmentally-conscious, you can neutralise the base CAREFULLY with an acid. As you may have learnt in an earlier step, this will generate heat, so do it slowly. Whether you neutralise it or not, it is best to flush it through the pipes with plenty of water afterwards. This stops the lye from pooling in one place and possibly reacting with the pipe (or the crap in it) and also dilutes it so that if there are reactions, at least they will be weaker. When lye is used as a drain-cleaner they recommend flushing with water afterwards.

Don't listen to mr.smiley, who is giving bad advice:

.. add aluminum powder or even better aluminum chloride, and aluminum hydroxide should precipitate out of the water which you can collect and save.

It's a bad idea and it's wrong. Aluminium hydroxide will form a gel-like precipitate. Good luck filtering that, even from an otherwise clear solution (which spent tea is not.)

Everyone needs to do their due diligence when working with chemicals. I just gave you the pathway, its still your job to figure out how to walk it.

IMHO you are leading people into very murky roads by giving mostly bogus and even potentially dangerous advice. Bogus, because there is no need at all to neutralize the lye before flushing it down the drain. It might make sense to let the traces of naphtha evaporate somewhere outdoors. Dissolving aluminium is a silly method for neutralizing lye, and the potentially hazardous side effects are completely unnecessary. Using muriatic acid (concentrated HCl) or pH down powder (NaHSO4) from the pool store are much more sensible options. The NaHSO4 has the advantage that it does not spatter and does not fume.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

even better aluminum chloride

And who in the heck would be getting their hands on aluminium chloride anyhow?

 

[pitubo]

even better aluminum chloride

And who in the heck would be getting their hands on aluminium chloride anyhow?

Realistically, people might confuse basic aluminium chloride and aluminium chloride hexahydrate. Practically, I don't think (and hope) that anhydrous aluminium chloride will be part of that confusion.

 

[mr.smiley]

IMHO you are leading people into very murky roads by giving mostly bogus and even potentially dangerous advice. Bogus, because there is no need at all to neutralize the lye before flushing it down the drain. It might make sense to let the traces of naphtha evaporate somewhere outdoors. Dissolving aluminium is a silly method for neutralizing lye, and the potentially hazardous side effects are completely unnecessary. Using muriatic acid (concentrated HCl) or pH down powder (NaHSO4) from the pool store are much more sensible options. The NaHSO4 has the advantage that it does not spatter and does not fume.

Dangerous yes because everything with kitchen chemistry is dangerous, but with the stated safety precautions it would be fine. Working with lye in general is just as dangerous, it will literally blind and burn you. I wouldn't say bogus considering that is saying I'm flat out lying. I never said it was a more efficient method nor did I state it was mandatory to do for disposal or that it must be done to neutralize the pH of the lye. Its merely another method that can be done to expand our experience, and also because chemistry is fun.:thumb_up:

Potentially hazardous...this feels like chastising really it does...:!: because:
an exothermic reaction, something everyone here already deals with in an extraction.
formation of a flammable gas, well ventilated area. which we should all be using when working with naptha.

And who in the heck would be getting their hands on aluminium chloride anyhow?

Its not scheduled anywhere so I guess buy it if you can where your at. I'm guessing it would be easier to make than to buy though, a lot easier.

Look I'm not trying to get anyone hurt or anything, safety is paramount. I wasn't advocating anyone have to do this. It was a route that looked interesting to me and I thought id share. I know I'm definitely going to be doing it just to do it when I'm a little more flush with cash and can buy some HCl and a few other things.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Using aluminium chloride to neutralise base soup strikes me as being a pointless waste of resources. There are much more interesting things to do with aluminium chloride, which are beyond the scope of this thread.

If you really feel compelled to neutralise your base sludge, what, honestly, is wrong with using vinegar?


I will concede that using aluminium metal to neutralise base sludge would be instructive in why we don't use aluminium equipment with strong alkali. Chemistry is fun, when you live to tell the tale.