Boiling DranO = Bad Idea? Answered

We did that in 9th grade, its really cool stuff. :D

OMG, dude... that creates carbon monoxide, which is a poisonous gas!

Which KIND of drano? What you describe is one of the "classic" demonstrations done with sulfuric acid. I've seen at least one "concentrated drain cleaner" whose fine print claims that it is sulfuric acid, and I know for a fact that it IS strong enough to do this demo with sugar (do it outside, cause it smells like burnt sugar.) I'd be surprised if it worked with either the lye (sodium hydroxide) or bleach (sodium hypochlorite) varieties of drain cleaner. (I'm constantly surprised at some of the nasty chemicals you can buy SO easily under the guise of cleaners/etc, considering the disappearance of even mildly noxious substances from what now passes for "chemistry sets." Sigh.)

I know what you mean by access to noxious chemicals, but what worries me is the advertisements that do not warn about reading labels. CLR shows someone "safely" cleaning their coffee maker with it....>ACK....Danger Will Robin ! Not reading the label and following the instructions WILL lead to poisoning.

Yep, figured that. I guess I'll have to find this fabled "chemical supply house" I keep getting referred to :P

Have you ever heard of the "golden penny" experiment? The idea is to strip some zinc off of a couple of "hot-dip" galvanised nails, let the zinc collect on a pre-1982 penny, and then heat it under a blow torch. (Zinc + Copper = Brass)

I did that experiment in chemistry last semester! Now I have some golden pennies. Doesn't have to be Pre 1982 though. Boiled pennies in water with zinc chunks on top, turning them silver. Then they were put on hot plates and turned all brassy! Very cool. Sold two for two dollars! :)

Are you sure about that? Pennies after 1982 have very little copper in them, (is it 1 or 5%?), while pre-1982's have about 95% copper and 5% zinc. Although I suppose only the surface of the penny is changed, so it would probably work.

New batteries! Penny on the right is golden! Both are 2006 pennies.

according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(United_States_coin) this penny link] Pennies are now (since 1982) copper plated.

It was pre-1962 when the penny had any significant amounts of copper.

i know that in some point during world war two i believe that zinc pennies were produced becuase the copper was needed for bullets. i have 2 of those pennies actually, and some others dating back to 1918.

I had a steel penny, but I think it got lost in one of my moves grrrr. Aren't many of them still around that I know of.

i also have some of the old mercury dimes too shall i post pictures?

Mercury dimes? Please post!

I have a few of those too. They are becoming a bit scarce now too.

I just wikitised it and those look weird in my opinion

sure, they changed to steel pennies because they needed the copper during the war. then they changed back to copper. then they changed to zinc with copper plating because if you were to go to a bank, get a million pennies (10,000 dollars) you could just go to a metal place, sell them as copper and it'd be worth more than 10,000 dollars and you could get a nice profit for doing nothing.

ahhh my dad found a old piggie bank thing filled with old coins while digging through his old stuff, im gonna try to find it i put alot of the pennies into one of those collection books

Hmm...so there isn't any water in Drano?

According to the MSDS - DrainO is not Lye ;)

Of course, check the label for active ingredients ;)

I love all the different ways that people have found to convey tone and mood over a text medium. And :P is definitely the best. Well, I'd have to say that's it's only second to squid: <:================

I was referring to "...which, when mixed with water (in your toilet/clogged drain) starts a chemical reaction..."

That's in reference to any drain cleaners that use lye ;) Perhaps there's more than one recipe for DrainO - I don't know.

Ah, but I wouldn't be adding water to it, would I? Or am I missing the point?

I was getting at the aluminum content.... I don't know what you're doing - but you probably don't want reactive aluminum in there ;)

The proposed idea was to literally boil some Drano in a pot (it only sounds stupid because it is :P), add nails and a penny, and make us up some brass pennies!

Care to clue me in on these "right stores?"

I don't live in the States, so I couldn't help you much further. I have found NaOH in a few UK shops, it comes under the 'serious drain cleaner' catergory. Otherwise, as previous comment, try Ebay? L

Solid Drano was mostly sodium hydroxide? I thought so: the "crystals" within fit the description I'd gotten of lye exactly.

Hehe: "Special Hazard Precautions: AVOID AMMONIA, ACIDS, TOILET BOWL/ HOUSEHOLD/ DRAIN CLEANERS." So don't allow Drano to mix with itself? ;)

hehe....sodium hydroxide does more than etch alluminum....completely dissolves the stuff....i work in an alluminum casting facility...we use sodium hydroxide to clean out our furnaces and "transport kettles"....other than the large tanks of the stuff that we have on site...absolutely NO drain cleaners are allowed in the facility...someone might get angry and ruin some inventory