[tice]

Hello,
sorry if this is in wrong section.

I work in datacenter and our client wants us to destroy their hard drives. We disassembled around 200 of them and kept platters. I found that hydrochloric acid does pretty good job destroying them. Can you guys tell me, how much baking soda will be needed to neutralize about 15-20L of 30% hydrochlorid acid? Also, if you have some safety advices, they are very welcomed. Of course I will be doing that outside, using plastic box and wearing safety things.

Thank you,
tice

[jasongnome]

A lot!

20L of 30% HCl is about 200 moles. 1 mole of HCl reacts with one of baking soda so we need 200 moles. That'd be about 16.8 kg of baking soda.

I'm not even vaguely convinced that's the safest way of neutralising that much HCl though, you shouldn't be using HCl in that quantity unless you're actually qualified to and the fact that you need to ask this question means that you're not.

30% HCl releases hydrogen chloride gas which is very highly corrosive, and will cause permanent (and possibly fatal) damage to the lungs if you get it into the air.

My safety advice, in all honesty would be "find a totally different and safer way of doing this".

[tice]

Thank you for your answer.
You are absolutely right, I have no qualification for this and your post just made me rethink this "style of destruction". I will probably look for mechanical destruction rathen than chemical.

Have a nice day.

[jasongnome]

Very wise!

[Enthalpy]

You might consider FeCl₃ instead of HCl. It corrodes Al about as quickly, isn't a strong acid - but it's dirty for real.