Dissolve Glass with Drain Cleaner

Greetings fellow nerds. By special request, we're going to dissolve glass using sodium hydroxide, better known as solid drain cleaner. Since we can't do the experiment in a glass container, we're going to use this steel tin. Make sure it's steel using a magnet. If it's non-magnetic aluminum the sodium hydroxide will eat right through it. Alright here's the sodium hydroxide. The hydroxide is being heated by a butane torch just below frame of the camera. Now before anyone comments, I am aware that hydrofluoric acid also eats glass. But that stuff is so highly toxic that even I'm scared of it. So for this video we'll just use sodium hydroxide. Alright it's about ready. Here is the vial. What's happening is the sodium hydroxide is reacting with the silicon dioxide in the glass to form sodium silicate, which is soluble and dissolves away. Alright there we are. Look at that, the entire bottom of the vial was etched right off. Alright, let's try this again with another vial on it's side and with some sodium hydroxide on the inside to etch both sides and speed this up. There it goes... Molten sodium hydroxide also does wonders to human flesh so do not do this yourself unless you're an experienced chemist. OK it's done There you can see a hole etched right through the glass. And there you have it, the most chemically invulnerable substance of them all, glass, brought down... by drain cleaner. Thanks for watching, please subscribe, rate and comment.