NaOH Question

[Rusti]

So, I was recently gifted a bunch of things from a friend who decided she didn't want to soap anymore, and among those things was several 2lb buckets of NaOH from Camden Gray. I went to feel of them yesterday and seems the beads had clumped, but broke up fairly easily when I squeezed the tubs (and all but one of the tubs have not been opened).

I have no idea how old this NaOH is and figure I can do a test in some water to see how hot it gets, but what are y'all's thoughts? Give it a shot? Toss it? Clean some drains around the house?

 

[psfred]

NaOH absorbs water from the air and then converts to sodium carbonate, but any significant loss of hydroxide results in hard clumping.

It's very likely fine to use for soap.

 

[Susie]

DeeAnna has a test for the purity of NaOH over on her website.

https://classicbells.com/soap/lyePurity.html

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree w Psfred -- soft clumps are most likely no big deal. I keep 2 lb NaOH and KOH containers in tightly sealed 5 gallon buckets with a desiccant in the buckets to keep the air really dry around the containers. I'm confident my alkalis stay really dry. I opened a new container of NaOH a few days ago and noticed some of the NaOH was in soft clumps -- ones that broke apart quite easily with a brief shake. Even NaOH that's stored dry can clump a bit like this. I think you should be fine.