What is lye?
Many household products contain lye, the chemical sodium hydroxide. Lye is a caustic, alkaline chemical, which means it dissolves sticky substances like fat, and has a high degree of reactivity with other materials. Lye, in a flake, granular, or liquid form, is very dangerous and can cause damage to surfaces and people. Lye is created out of a chemical reaction between soda, known as sodium carbonate, and calcium hydroxide, or lime. In raw form, it’s made into solid flakes, chips, or grains. Chemical suppliers provide lye to manufacturers to make a wide variety of products, such as fabric, paper, personal soap, laundry detergent, pool-cleaning supplies, metal polishers, and drain de-cloggers. Since households utilize so many poisonous products, they must take care to keep cleaners out of the reach of children and only use them as directed. For instance, carefully follow the directions to clean a sterling silver gravy boat with lye-based polish, because even the fumes can be dangerous.
General applications Sodium hydroxide is the principal strong base used in the chemical industry. In bulk it is most often handled as an aqueous solution, since solutions are cheaper and easier to handle. It is used to drive for chemical reactions and also for the neutralization of acidic materials. It can be used also as a neutralizing agent in petroleum refining Experiment Sodium hydroxide has also been used in conjunction with zinc for creation of the famous “Gold pennies” experiment. A penny is boiled in a solution of NaOH together with some granular zinc metal, the color of the penny will turn silver in about 45 seconds. The penny is then held in the flame of a burner for a few seconds and it turns golden. The reason this happens is that granular zinc dissolves in NaOH to form Zn(OH)42-. This zincate ion becomes reduced to metallic zinc on the surface of a copper penny. Zinc and copper when heated in a flame form brass. Use in chemical analysis In analytical chemistry, sodium hydr
