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don187

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hello , i am new to soap making , anyhow here in saudi arabia it was difficult for me to find sodium hydroxide , until couple of days ago i found a shop selling 98% lye , the manafacturer says that the other 2% is water.

anyhow i used it today for the first time trying to make my first patch, i noticed that the water is not steaming when mixing with lye and i kept on stirring yet it is so cloudy and wont become clear i dont know what i have done wrong, please help ? :mrgreen:
 
What specifically is the name of the chemical as printed on the packaging -- look at the label, please, not what the seller told you. Also, how much of the chemical and how much water did you mix together?
 
What specifically is the name of the chemical as printed on the packaging -- look at the label, please, not what the seller told you. Also, how much of the chemical and how much water did you mix together?


umm im embaressed to say this but there is nothing on the package of the chemical only seller talk , and i used 4.8 oz of supposedly lye and 13.2 oz of water , is that fine? i am copying a youtube tutorial one by one
 
If it IS NaOH and it wasn't stored properly and kept very dry, water in the air would react with the lye and make it much less pure.
 
You need to but better NaOH, but before that, you need to never trust any recipe you did not run through a lye calculator yourself. Typos happen, and people give bad recipes out. You will probably also want to run those recipes by us until you get more experience in what makes a good recipe
 
don, you say that is 98% lye, 2 % water? How can the other be 2 % water? You mean is already mixed? Ladies, is the inactive part of the lye water? I thought the rest of it was an anti caking agent?


Now I am confused!
 
Whoa! Time to slow down, Sunrise. ALL NaOH contains some impurities due to reacting with water and carbon dioxide in the air. It's the nature of the beast.

NaOH contains some amount of water and sodium carbonate (the result of reacting with CO2) as its main impurities -- usually around 5% to 10% for the commercial grades that most soapers use. If you don't believe me, look at the certificate of analysis for Essential Depot lye -- it's typical. At that percentage, the NaOH will be solid granules or flakes. It may be clumpy but it will definitely be solid, not liquid.

And keep in mind as you use the NaOH, the purity will drop every time you open the container and expose the NaOH to fresh air. There's no preventing it -- you can only minimize the problem.

The reason why I asked Don what was on the label is that sodium hydroxide (NaOH) has many names, including being called caustic soda. But there is soda (sodium carbonate) and caustic potash (KOH) and potash (potassium carbonate). It is very easy to confuse the soda and the caustic soda. Don would not be the first person to have purchased soda and thought it was caustic soda.

Soda (sodium carbonate) and potash will act pretty much like what Don has described -- cloudy mixture but little or no temperature rise. Properly stored sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide will initially make a cloudy mixture with a large temp rise and then the solution will turn clear fairly soon after mixing.

See this video for how fast NaOH absorbs water from the open air: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6m140WJ4Fw[/ame]

KChaystack suggested a "dry bucket" for storing NaOH and KOH. It works really well. Here's a video of what my dry bucket looks like: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zysA8Bnf2JM[/ame]

To summarize the video for the dry bucket -- smaller air-tight containers of NaOH and KOH are put inside a sturdy 5- or 7-gallon plastic bucket. A commercial desiccant (water absorbent chemical) is added to the large outer bucket to remove moisture from the air around the smaller alkali containers. The bucket is kept tightly covered with its original snap-on lid or a screw-on "gamma" lid.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT put desiccant in direct contact with NaOH or KOH! The desiccant must go in the larger dry bucket OUTSIDE the alkali containers. It will NOT function properly if put directly in with the lye.

Why won't the desiccant work this way? NaOH or KOH is a powerful desiccant in its own right -- MUCH more powerful than the safer chemicals commercially sold as desiccants, such as silica gel, calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, etc. If put together in the same space, the NaOH will absorb any water out of the commercial desiccant as well as any water vapor in the space. The "official" desiccant will never be functional as long as it is in direct contact with NaOH or KOH.

So what's the point of the desiccant? The smaller containers are the first and best defense to keep the alkali inside from absorbing moisture. No container is absolutely perfect, however. The desiccant dehumidifies the air in the larger bucket to add an extra layer of protection.

A dry bucket has other important benefits. It will safely contain spills if an NaOH or KOH storage container leaks. It will discourage children and pets from getting into these chemicals. Caution: You will want to add a proven child-resistant closure for the best safety with children.
 
whoa. Thanks DeAnna. I learn something new everyday here.

Since I donor make lots of soap, I buy one or two containers of two pounds at a time, and keep them in tight in their original bottles, and in a [lastic bag behind the cabinet. Hopefully that is good enough.
 
You need to run every recipe through soap calc. Don't rely on you tube info.

If it was NaOH and you added it to water it would
Heat and go xloudy then go clear.

actually that confused me too , when i added the lye to the water , no bubbles nothing , i mean like nothing seemed to be heating up , i even touched my glass bowl from the bottom , no heat at all so i am thinking i was cheated :silent:
 
You need to but better NaOH, but before that, you need to never trust any recipe you did not run through a lye calculator yourself. Typos happen, and people give bad recipes out. You will probably also want to run those recipes by us until you get more experience in what makes a good recipe

thanks Alot . i will try doing that
 
Whoa! Time to slow down, Sunrise. ALL NaOH contains some impurities due to reacting with water and carbon dioxide in the air. It's the nature of the beast.

NaOH contains some amount of water and sodium carbonate (the result of reacting with CO2) as its main impurities -- usually around 5% to 10% for the commercial grades that most soapers use. If you don't believe me, look at the certificate of analysis for Essential Depot lye -- it's typical. At that percentage, the NaOH will be solid granules or flakes. It may be clumpy but it will definitely be solid, not liquid.

And keep in mind as you use the NaOH, the purity will drop every time you open the container and expose the NaOH to fresh air. There's no preventing it -- you can only minimize the problem.

The reason why I asked Don what was on the label is that sodium hydroxide (NaOH) has many names, including being called caustic soda. But there is soda (sodium carbonate) and caustic potash (KOH) and potash (potassium carbonate). It is very easy to confuse the soda and the caustic soda. Don would not be the first person to have purchased soda and thought it was caustic soda.

Soda (sodium carbonate) and potash will act pretty much like what Don has described -- cloudy mixture but little or no temperature rise. Properly stored sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide will initially make a cloudy mixture with a large temp rise and then the solution will turn clear fairly soon after mixing.

See this video for how fast NaOH absorbs water from the open air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6m140WJ4Fw

KChaystack suggested a "dry bucket" for storing NaOH and KOH. It works really well. Here's a video of what my dry bucket looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zysA8Bnf2JM

To summarize the video for the dry bucket -- smaller air-tight containers of NaOH and KOH are put inside a sturdy 5- or 7-gallon plastic bucket. A commercial desiccant (water absorbent chemical) is added to the large outer bucket to remove moisture from the air around the smaller alkali containers. The bucket is kept tightly covered with its original snap-on lid or a screw-on "gamma" lid.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT put desiccant in direct contact with NaOH or KOH! The desiccant must go in the larger dry bucket OUTSIDE the alkali containers. It will NOT function properly if put directly in with the lye.

Why won't the desiccant work this way? NaOH or KOH is a powerful desiccant in its own right -- MUCH more powerful than the safer chemicals commercially sold as desiccants, such as silica gel, calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, etc. If put together in the same space, the NaOH will absorb any water out of the commercial desiccant as well as any water vapor in the space. The "official" desiccant will never be functional as long as it is in direct contact with NaOH or KOH.

So what's the point of the desiccant? The smaller containers are the first and best defense to keep the alkali inside from absorbing moisture. No container is absolutely perfect, however. The desiccant dehumidifies the air in the larger bucket to add an extra layer of protection.

A dry bucket has other important benefits. It will safely contain spills if an NaOH or KOH storage container leaks. It will discourage children and pets from getting into these chemicals. Caution: You will want to add a proven child-resistant closure for the best safety with children.


You Are a star swear to god , you are so helpful ! thank you
 
You Are a star swear to god , you are so helpful ! thank you

She is indeed a star! We have several stars on this forum, and they are all wonderfully helpful. But DeeAnna can break down the science so even I can understand. She has a link in her signature that will prove invaluable to you over time.
 
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