[Stanna]

Hi, I have a question as I know nothing about chemistry, I have bought a stainless steel 45 gallon drum off a scrap dealer it says on the side that it used to contain Bn Cp nitrile for use in making Bn Cp amide, the inside of the drum still has some of this brown thick liquid here and there stuck to the sides, it is a fixed head drum with just two small holes on top so access is quit difficult, I have tried soaking for days with water but it does not seem to be moving it, does anyone know what I could use to remove this nitrile stuff and better still is it dangerous stuff, I wanted to use the drum as a beer fermenter.

[Hunter2]

Oh my god, don't use containers used for chemistry to produce food and drinks.

Nitril is a compound also can called cyanide. So it can be very Poisson.  To destroy you need some sodium hydroxide treatment and or later sulfuric acid. If you don't know chemistry and its behaviour let it be. better for every bodies health.

[Stanna]

Thanks for the reply, is the nitrile that bad the guy I bought it off was washing them out with a hose pipe it was all over him and his yard, I did google nitrile and I thought that because it was organic it was not a cyanide.

[Arkcon]

This sort of thread comes up from time to time, how to clean an industrial drum for household use.  And the answer is, that you can't.  There are specific laws against that.  The scrap dealer shouldn't have acquired an industrial drum, it should have been sent back to the shipper by the industrial user in a closed circuit.  They have simply violated their paper trail and face a penalty -- you, on the other hand, must never re-use industrial drums.  No one knows the official method to clean such a drum, because no one is officially allowed to do so.

[Arkcon]

Also:

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=74350.msg269672#msg269672

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=79600.msg289954#msg289954

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=22030.msg84242#msg84242

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=70169.msg252768#msg252768

[Stanna]

Thanks for the info, I'm taking them back today for a refund.