How best to dilute gasoline to use in a kitchen sink?

I won't thank you for questioning my answers.

Also about safety.

Use the commercial label removing goo. At that rate, a small bottle will last years.

Since I don't know what chemicals you have at home, that information is useless. However, more interesting would be the type of labels that you're dealing with. You seem to be having far too much trouble for it to be one of the more common types of labels.

I have some permanent labels that have some solvent mixed in with the glue. When attached to plastic or paint, they will literally solvent weld themselves to the plastic or paint, as well as to the plastic backing in the label. When I scrape those off with a razor, I usually find some damage to the underlying paint or plastic.

It won't work very well. Pretend you put a 1 molecule layer of solvent against a glued surface. Each solvent molecule will break one hydrogen bond on one molecule of glue. No problem here. However, you're diluting the solvent 1:10 with perhaps water, which has no effect. So, only one in 11 molecules of glue is disassociated. Of course, other solvent molecules can displace the water, but that take agitation, which is not possible with a thinly glued surface. More simply, the diluted mixture will work 1/10th as well as full strength.

Gasoline is a VOC (volatile organic compound). The stench is produced by simple evaporation. Gasoline volatility is measured as the Reid (absolute) Vapor Pressure is somewhere between 8 and 10 psi. It varies with season, type of gasoline, temperature, and whims of the Environmental Protection Agency.

When you mix gasoline with something that has a much lower vapor pressure, such as water which is 0.95 psi at 100F, the vapor pressure remains that of the most volatile component, but with a reduced evaporation rate due a reduction in surface exposure. A bucket of

10:1 gasoline water mix, will have 10 times as many water molecules as gasoline molecules exposed on the surface of the bucket. Therefore, assuming perfect mixing, a really bad assumption as gasoline floats on water, the rate of gasoline evaporation will be 1/11th the rate of a bucket full of 100% gasoline. The room in which you store the bucket of gasoline will have the same amount of smelly gasoline molecules in both cases at equilibrium, but the 10:1 mix might take about 10 times as long to smell up the room.

Use the commercial label remover and be done with the chemistry lessons.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann
Loading thread data ...

Don't use gasoline. It still contains enough benzene to mess you up in the long term.

Use biodiesel. It works, and is non-toxic, and cheap. I am talking about trans-esterified cooking oil. There are a lot of websites about how to make it, from KOH, methanol and filthy frier oil, but you can also buy it, usually about the same price as regular diesel. If made (and washed) properly, there is no methanol left in it at the end of the process.

If you doubt its abilities to clean off gunk, here is one example: After a few months it stripped the paint off the inside of my jerry can (and I then had to filter all of the lumps and flakes out so I could use the fuel). It also took the greasy layer off my bathtub better than any household cleaner that I tried. I used it to remove many labels. You can then wash it off easily with ordinary detergent and hot water. It won't melt plastics in the short term (though it might soften epoxy and will swell rubber if you leave it on for weeks). It also smells nice (if you like fried food).

Reply to
Chris Jones

It would last forever, since I don't eat that shit.

If you knew how utterly stupid that your trolling is, you would quit.

I use a cotton ball that has a few drops of the solvent on it. I rub it on the label to apply it, then I let it sit for a few minutes. Quite often, the label peels off with no residue. If there is residue, I simply wipe it away with the same cotton ball.

I can even use it to remove price tags from paperback books, without staining the paper. I have removed thousands of inventory labels from SMD component reels, while leaving the OEM labels that they had covered, intact.

It is also good to remove ink from most plastics, without any damage.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Ok, but I still don't understand why you're adamant about doing the solvent phase indoors. Is it too cold out where you live?

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

Some vicious animal might get him if he is outside...only thing I can think of. =====

Reply to
Roy

or hope for : )

Reply to
ChairMan

Nope. Sheer convenience.

What most of you seem to forget is that *most* household chemicals are merely diluted forms of the concentrated stuff.

Reply to
Robert Bannon

What are most household chemicals? They're just *diluted* versions of chemicals. Right?

For example, what's household bleach? It's just diluted bleach.

What is nail polish remover? It's just pretty smelling diluted acetone or ethyl acetate.

What is rubbing alcohol? It's just vastly diluted isopropyl alcohol.

Why not just use the concentrate? Concentrated pool bleach is what I use in my washing machine. Concentrated muriatic acid is what I use in my toilet bowl. Pure acetone is what my kids use for removing nail polish.

So, currently, I use the "concentrated" goo remover outside, which works fine as gasoline melts virtually all food jar label goop, and what gasoline doesn't melt, the acetone generally does.

While I use most of my chemicals in the concentrated form, gasoline stinks and is flammable so I want to simply dilute the gasoline so that it (a) doesn't stink as much and so that it (b) isn't as flammable.

If that were easy to do, I never would have asked. BTW, I'm sure it's doable - simply because I can dilute with petroleum distiallates. I just don't happen to have cans of petroleum distillates lying around.

I suspect the gasoline works almost as well at 1/10th its original concentration, as gasoline is just petroleum distillates anyway, which is what most "spirits" are.

Reply to
Robert Bannon

Mineral oil works for me for many types of goop - adhesive.

Reply to
Wayne Chirnside

I don't forget it. I just can't fathom why you insist on doing this indoors. The convenience of standing in the kitchen seems already to have been outweighed by the bother of finding out how to dilute gasoline while still maintaining its effectiveness. Seems like the diluent would be doing the job rather than the gas.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

I like that idea, and will try it. Especially since a bunch of you use an "oil" to coat the paper labels ahead of time to "soak" through the paper.

I don't do that since I use water to soak paper labels off. But the "oil", if it works, would be a great solution.

Reply to
Robert Bannon

I'm glad you realize that household chemicals are, for the most part, merely diluted versions of the originals.

It's hard for me to respond because the problem set is extremely simple so if you can't fathom why it's more convenient to do something in the kitchen than it is to do the same thing outside, how can I possibly explain to you that it's simply more convenient inside than outside?

As I said a thousand times, I already do the task outside. I'm just trying to find a scientifically safe way to do it inside.

If there is no safe way to do it inside, then that's the scientific answer to the question.

It's hard for me to respond to your question that you can't fathom that quest.

There are *many* convenient solutions that took effort to find out. For example, I'm sure the cotton gin took effort, but once Ely Whitney figured it out, everyone benefited.

Same here, if we could come up with a common household solution that can dilute a petroleum distillate greatly such that the petroleum distillate can be used indoors.

It's really not such a far-fetched problem set, since we use petroleum distillates indoors all the time (albeit with good ventilation).

Reply to
Robert Bannon

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.