How To Mix Phosphoric Acid Rust Converter For Good, Better, And Best Results. | YouTube Summarizer

Category: DIY Tutorial

Tags: chemistry cleaning DIY rust safety

Entities: ethyl alcohol iron oxide iron phosphate isopropyl alcohol methyl alcohol phosphoric acid

Summary

Introduction to Rust Conversion

Phosphoric acid converts iron oxide (rust) into iron phosphate, an inert substance that prevents further rusting.
Ideal concentration for rust conversion is between 25% and 30%.
Avoid higher concentrations to prevent residual acid and powdery residue.

Mixing Instructions

To dilute 85% phosphoric acid to 30%, mix 700 ml of acid with 1300 ml of water for a total of 2 liters.
Always add acid to water, not water to acid, to ensure safety.
Use personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves and face shields during the process.

Enhancing Effectiveness

Adding a wetting agent like ethyl or methyl alcohol (20:1 ratio) helps the solution spread and work more effectively.
Incorporate dish soap as a surfactant (4 ml per liter) to enhance cleaning and penetration.

Repeatability and Safety

Mark containers for easy repeatable mixing without recalculating measurements.
The chemical reaction generates warmth, emphasizing the need for PPE and slow mixing.

Actionable Takeaways

Use phosphoric acid at 25%-30% for effective rust conversion.
Dilute concentrated acid by adding it to water, not vice versa.
Incorporate alcohol as a wetting agent to improve solution effectiveness.
Add dish soap for better cleaning and penetration.
Always use PPE when handling chemicals.

Transcript

00:00

Hello YouTube. Welcome to the garage.

Today we're going to be mixing up some phosphoric acid rust converting solution. And the reason I use phosphoric acid is it interacts with the iron oxide which is rust and converts it

00:16

to an iron phosphate which is inert and it won't rust anymore. And the best concentration to use for that process is between 25 and 30%.

If you use anything higher than that, what'll happen is after all of the iron oxide is converted

00:32

to iron phosphate, there's going to be some residual acid left over, and that's how you end up with kind of a white powdery substance on on whatever it is you're trying to uh treat the rust on. So, 25 to 30%.

00:47

And you know, I wanted to show you quickly how I mix it up, but uh as far as you can buy phosphoric acid at pretty much any concentration you want, 25 30%. And then then this first step I'm going to show you, you won't have to do, but I

01:03

like to buy it at a more concentrated um you know, I've got the 85% here. It lasts a lot longer because I can dilute it.

And I'm going to show you how to dilute it. Like I said, if you want to buy it at 25 or 30%, by all means, uh, and skip this first step.

So, as far as

01:21

the formula for doing it, you know, I've my I want 30%. And but I have the 85%.

So, what you do is you take the 30% and you divide it by the percentage

01:37

of the acid that you have. Okay?

And then you multiply that by the volume, the amount of of solution you want to end up in the end. And this I'm going to make a 2,000 milliliters of

01:52

it or 2 L of it. Multiply that by 2,000 and you get about, you know, 705 milliliters.

About 700 milliliters. Okay, that's how much acid you at 85%

02:10

you need to mix with water up to 2,000 milliliters to end up with 30%. So, like I said, you need 700 mill about 700 milliliters of acid and then you'll need about 1,300 milliliters

02:26

of water to end up with 2,000 milliliters or 2 L of 30% solution. So, what I did to make it easy is uh I took my this is my dedicated jug that I use for mixing up

02:44

this solution. So, I have a line at 1300 ml and I already mixed it with water.

And if I put fill it up to this 2,00 about 700 milliliters of acid of the 85% I'm going to end up with 30% acid

03:01

here. Okay.

Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and do that.

But gloves and a face shield. And the reason that I uh have the 1300 ml of water in there first is

03:19

you always add acid. You do not add water to acid.

You add acid to water. So that's why this first one is how much water I'm going to need to end up with 30%.

So I said I'm going to add the acid

03:37

to this. Safety is up to you.

Make sure you have your PPE but also do it correctly. You add acid.

So I'm going to take got my little funnel here.

03:55

I'm going to take my added my acid here and I'm going to add it real slowly until I get to my mark

04:12

there. It's nice and slow cuz it'll have a chemical reaction.

You don't want it to get too hot. Nice and

04:44

slow. There we go.

All right. put the cap on back on this.

All right. Okay.

Now, I've got my 30% phosphoric acid solution, and

05:03

that'll work just fine in and of itself if you want to use it as a rust converter, but there's other things that you can add to it that make it better, which would be surfactants and wett agents. Okay.

A good wedding agent is ethyl alcohol.

05:20

Either ethyl or methyl alcohol. And you can use isopropyl alcohol if you don't have ethyl or methyl alcohol.

But the vapor pressure of ethyl and methyl alcohol is higher. So this will evaporate faster and you know as opposed to the isopropyl

05:36

alcohol. Although like I said it'll work but uh just this works faster.

And the reason you want to use alcohol it's a wett agent. It helps spread the phosphoric acid through whatever it is you're spraying.

It helps

05:51

it permeate and work better. So, and you can use it with just the alcohol as a wett agent, but the um ratio of alcohol to wedding agent, excuse me, alcohol to the solution is 20

06:09

parts of the solution to one part alcohol. 20 to1.

All right. So, we got 2,000 milliliters.

So the 20 to1 ratio would be 100 ml of the alcohol to the 2 L. So

06:30

I've got my little measuring cup here. I'm going to measure out 100 milliliters of the alcohol.

06:52

There we go. Thereabouts.

I'm going to go ahead and have my face shield down. I'm going to add that

07:25

Okay. All right.

Now, you can use this just like this. I said you can use it just the phosphoric acid by at 30% by itself.

But if you add a wedding agent

07:40

to it, it helps it, like I said, permeate whatever it is you're you're working on and helps the solution work better. But in addition to that, you can also add a little bit of dish soap to it

07:56

as a as a surfactant wi-i which again just helps the acid permeate the uh the rust and also it's a has a cleaning effect. If there's any oils or stuff stuff on it, it'll cut through

08:12

that all to enhance the effectiveness of the acid. Now, as far as the amount of dish soap, it's about a tablespoon per gallon, which works out to about 4 milliliters per um liter

08:32

of solution here. And what I did is I have a So, since I have 2 liters, that means you you'd want 8 milliliters of dish soap.

And I just have a little six millimeter syringe and I've

08:50

got as much, you know, so it's got maybe seven milliters in there and but that, you know, that's close enough. So I'm just going to mix that in there.

Again, I got my face shield down.

09:21

Okay, put the lid on that. Get the old mixerino.

And the reason I put these markings on here is I make this repeatable. That way it's easy for me to

09:38

make another batch of this. I I don't have to do any calculation.

I just 1,300 ml of water, 700 ml of the 85% phosphoric acid. Then add my one part

09:54

of ethyl alcohol, the 100 milliliters, and then just a syringe bowl. You know, since I just this is dedicated to this process.

So, I just have this and this is what I use it for. I don't use it for anything else.

So, that way it's repeatable. I can make, you know, new

10:11

batches of this stuff over and over. And this is actually warm.

You can the chemical reaction between the water and the phosphoric acid that actually makes it warm. It's not hot, but it's it's warm.

So, that's why you have to use your PPE and also um add slowly. And I

10:29

can't stress enough, add acid. Do not add water to acid.

So that in a nutshell is how you mix it up. Um you want however you end up with the 30% whether

10:46

you buy it at 30% or you mix it 30%. Then it's 20 parts solution to one part of the alcohol.

I said methyl and ethyl alcohol are better than isopropyl, but you can use isopropyl. So, and then

11:04

uh as far as soap, 1 tspoon per gallon or 4 milliliters per liter. And I'm going to make a video where I demonstrate using this as a rust converter, but this also works great as

11:20

a cleaning agent. I've got some um alloy rims that I've used this on and it works well as a cleaning agent, but I'm not going to waste your time here.