Can hydrochloric acid eat through porcelain?

Question

As in, a bathtub. I'm thinkin' not, but I don't remember much from my high school chem class. Cheers!

PS: Need to know for story.

mmelasso - Refuse? Or ashamed to admit you don't know. A person intending to commit a real crime would have to be pretty stupid to post it here. Like I said, fictional story in the works.

See? Everyone else is cool. Thanks guys!

Answer 1

DEpending on the porcelain, HCL will slowly eat through it. Will start by taking the glaze off it and then over a period of time, start to eat it. The tub drain components would go much faster than the porcelain and drain the tub before the HCL would eat it. H2SO4 seems to be the acid of choice of eating bodies up. Also would eat porcelain but not as quick as drain components. Tough to eat a body up in a tub.Need to use a multiple acid procedure and follow up to make sure things like teeth and bones are disolved after the body. Tough being a mystery writer, isn't it?

Answer 2

Hmmm....I'm not sure. I remember the movie "La Femme Nikita" (or rather the American version "Point of No Return"), in which Harvey Keitel plays a cleaner. He uses HCl acid to dispose of bodies in a bathtub. The tub was white, not metal looking. In that story, the writers thought it appropriate, or at least able to be slipped through.

However, I always thought the drain pipes were made of metal or even PVC, which is destroyed by the acid. Just seemed like a plot device that is being stretched. Not entirely feasible.

Go Connecticut style - use a woodchipper.

Answer 3

I would suggest looking up the hazmat handling requirements for the stuff. It will typically say what NOT to use it on. And a bathtub is a common enough thing that theres got to be some idiot who has tried it.

Answer 4

I work with this stuff on a semi-regular basis...I really doubt it. I've used HCL on experiment plates that were made of something that was porcelain-like, I'm not sure if it really was porcelain...but it was heavy and would shatter if you dropped it...but the HCL didn't eat at it. Nor did H2SO4.

Answer 5

I think probably not. We have ceramic hotplates in the lab, and they get hydrochloric and nitric acid spilled on them and they survive ok. Hydroflouoric acid would eat though after a while though.

Answer 6

Well maybe yes
It can burn thro
-YOU
-anything inside of ....... YOU