Rust remover. Fun chemistry experience at home

ENTERTAINING EXPERIENCES AT HOME
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Rust remover. Chemical experiments

Entertaining experiments in chemistry

Entertaining experiences at home / Chemistry experiments for children

From the stems, bark, fruits and leaves, not only dyes are obtained, but also dozens of other useful substances. Surprisingly, plants also contain organic compounds that can protect the metal from corrosion.

Imagine that a bulky steel part needs to be cleaned of rust. Don't rub it with sandpaper. This means that a chemical method is needed, for example, acid etching. But if you lower the part into a solution of some kind of acid that removes rust, then part of the metal will inevitably dissolve - how can you protect it from contact with acid?

The answer is clear: you need a solution that would remove rust, but not touch the metal itself. Such pickling solutions have long been used in practice. In addition to acid, they include another important additive - a corrosion inhibitor. This is a substance that sharply slows down the dissolution of the metal, but almost does not interfere with the dissolution of its oxides and hydroxides, i.e. corrosion products.

Those inhibitors that are used in factories are obtained mainly synthetically. Among them is hexamethylenetetramine, in pharmacies it is also sold under the name "urotropin". If we set up a parallel experiment - put two identical iron objects in two test tubes with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid, and add a little crushed urotropin to one in advance, then the difference can soon be noticed with the naked eye: in a test tube with an inhibitor, the dissolution of the metal will go much slower.

But we were going to extract corrosion inhibitors from plants. This is what we will do now.

Of the wild plants for our experiments, celandine, Corydalis and fumes from the poppy family, marshmallow from the mallow family and yarrow from the Compositae family are suitable for our experiments; we need their leaves and stems. Note that many of these plants are in dry form in pharmacies. For experiments, several specimens of plants are needed. The environmental warnings remain in effect, as does the suggestion to consult a biology teacher or stock up on a plant guide.

To extract inhibitors, you can also take some cultivated plants - this is perhaps easier. Leaves and stems of potatoes and tomatoes are suitable for experiments. It makes sense to wait until the harvest ripens and take the remains of plants that are already unnecessary for experiments.

Chop the leaves and stems of wild or domestic plants with a knife and pour in a weak, concentration of not more than 5%, hydrochloric acid solution. If you use pharmacy hydrochloric acid, then dilute it with water by about half. Leave the mass filled with the solution for several days in a sealed container so that the extraction is as complete as possible; a week should be enough anyway. When the extract is ready, make up an etching solution for rusted parts. If there is a lot of rust, then the composition of the solution (for convenience, by volume) will be as follows: for 5 parts of the extract, 40 parts of concentrated hydrochloric acid and 75 parts of water. If there is not a lot of rust, then you need to take 10 parts of the extract and about 20 parts of the acid; the amount of water can also be slightly increased.

You can immerse rusted parts in such solutions. They will soon become shiny, as if brand new, and the metal from them will hardly pass into the pickling solution.

But what are the substances in plants that have been found to protect metals so well from corrosion? This is a complex of compounds - alkaloids, polysaccharides, proteins, mucous and tannins. All of them, although to varying degrees, have the ability to be adsorbed on the metal surface and to be fixed on it, and therefore, they prevent direct contact of the metal with the acid. They do not want to combine with rust, so it dissolves in acid without interference.

Author: Olgin O.M.

We recommend interesting experiments in physics:

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We recommend interesting experiments in chemistry:

▪ Indicators - phenolphthalein

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