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Testing HCL

I want to check purity of hydrochloric acid, how can I test that. WE MANUFACTURE NICKEL CHLORIDE & USE HYDROCHLORIC ACID.WE WANT TO CHECK PURITY OF HYDROCHLORIC ACID BEFORE USING.

Munish Kapoor
Jiwan Group - Ludhiana, Punjab, India
2002

Hi Munish,

Surely, surely your SUPPLIER would be able to tell the purity of your HCl.

You 'say' HCl but often people use the word Muriatic acid. According to laboratory suppliers, there's no difference except that HCl is purer than muriatic. They both use the Baumé method of determining the acid strength.

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).
2002

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If purity is so important it's best to buy a laboratory grade HCL. It may come in more than one A.C.S ( American Chemical Society ) or ISI ( Indian Stanadards Institute ) grade.

After you have bought the acid a full fledged gas chromatographic analysis might be an expensive affairs. A chemical titration by any scendary school or college chemistry teacher or a lab assistant could provide an idea of the strength of the acid, as to how strong it is. Before enquiring the purity you must know what your requirements are and why ? Lab grade acids may contain various imurities that are much less than 1 % or may be of the order of a few ppm ( parts per million ). Higher the purity required, higher the cost. A commercial grade battery acid ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] may only talk about its strength.

Take note that acid strength and purity are two different things. Even good quality lab grade acids are typically only 36 - 38% HCl.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Randhir Birdi
- Montreal, Que., Canada
2003