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but what kind of goop came off in it when it was used for stripping parts?

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Iron, and the stuff you were going to scrape off anyways. Once neutralized, no big deal.

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Maybe, although the neutralizing itself does little to remove potential heavy metal toxicity, and technically, its far from legal to dump or dispose of haphazardly of any of the waste product.

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Virtually everything you stated is incorrect.

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We are talking about the location being in the US, in 2014, correct?

Care to stick around and back up that blanket statement?


So do you care to explain to us less informed how a heavy metal is rendered non toxic by a "neutralization"?


Or explain how any involved regulatory agency will turn a blind eye to haphazard disposal of the remnants/byproducts of a unregistered personal metal acid cleaning operation?

And explain how anybody here can tell with certainty what materials, surface or base metal alloys they are removing from a dirty item without any testing?

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Sure.

First, you need to be clear what heavy metals are you talking about. Carbon steel and cast iron have very very little heavy metals of concern. Do you know what they are and common concentrations in acid baths? Do you know the valences? If you don't, saying things like it's toxic, or hazardous are meaningless statements.

Next, do you know the route of entry? For the very low concentrations of of these metals, in this form, ingestion is the only realistic route of entry. So, I would recommend not eating the stuff, and maybe washing your hands when you are done.

Finally, neutralization IS the treatment technology for the heavy metals that we are talking about. They precipitate and become insoluble hydroxides. To maximize the treatment, raising the pH to about 9.0 with your neutralizing agent will bring these heavey metals near the drinking water standards in the water phase.

If you are talking about acid cleaning long terne coated items (such as fuel tanks) or cadmium plated items, that would certainly be a different story. The concentration in the acid would be higher of a couple heavy metals, but the neutralization would still be effective.

I would not be an advocate of dumping the stuff on the ground, but bagging it up and disposing of it in your trash would be both legal and safe. If there are remaining neutralized liquids, the local POTW can easily manage that as well. If you are a business, you should probably conduct the appropriate leach test for liability reasons as your responsibilities are different than residential/homeowners.

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