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Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: wotaen on January 08, 2015, 05:16:28 PM

Title: Stained water tap with HCl
Post by: wotaen on January 08, 2015, 05:16:28 PM

Hi All,

I'm stupid. We have especially hard tap water and I absolutely hate limescale. Brand new water taps (that sort http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodovodn%C3%AD_baterie#mediaviewer/File:Robinet_mitigeur.jpg) were covered with it after a few weeks. The off-the shelf cleaners were either too weak to take too long.
So I mixed about 50ml 35% HCl with 300ml water and put that in the sprayer. Works like a charm on tiles, bathroom glass...but I have not realized that the water taps may not be entirely stainless steel. So whatever mixture of metals is there, diluted HCl made a mess
So is there any way how to polish them up again? 

Title: Re: Stained water tap with HCl
Post by: Arkcon on January 08, 2015, 05:27:52 PM

Very likely you have attacked the metal of the plated finish.  I doubt you can hand polish them back to the level of the manufacturer.  You should use gentler acids to remove light water spots, next time.