I purchased 2 gallons muriatic acid the other day for salting out mescaline, but I'm unsure of whether it's safe to use.

It's Kemtek Swimming Pool Muriatic Acid, 14.5% Hydrogen Chloride. It's also 85.5% "constituents ineffective as a spray adjuvant"

What is this? Is it just water? Or is it something like rust-inhibitors, or something else to condition the pool water?

Should I try evaporating a dish of my muriatic acid to see if it evaporates clean, or what else can I do to be sure my acid is safe to use?

Search for the product's MSDS. It should give a bit more info.

An evaporation test is always worth a try - if you can do it in a safe place.

The liquid should be clear and colorless. IME HCl for cleaning is sometimes green from metal contamination but this should not apply to your swimming pool acid.

It is somewhat greenish to be honest, though only somewhat. Unfortunately, the MSDS contains no additional information about what may else may be there, just a reiteration of what's on the bottle.

The proper way to buy stuff:

1. get information (e.g. read MSDS)
2. buy product

http://www.homedepot.com...c-Acid-2118-HD/100119310
http://www.homedepot.com...2e-8472-f54c80cb45c8.pdf

Why not simply use vinegar as an acid? It's obviously food safe, and it does the trick.

You can always clean it...

Get a large tupperwre container with lid. In it put two smaller tupperware containers without lids...Label and fill each one 1/2 the way up. One with the muriatic acid and one with distilled water.Put lid on large container and let sit for two weeks. Then use the container labeled distilled water...It will contain cleaned reagent grade approx 7.5% HCL (Hydrochloric Acid)..throw away the contents of the other container as it will contain all the impurities...

One thing I find strange is that most pool Muriatic acid is around 34-35%(yet you say yours is 14.5%) ...I use 34% Muriatic to start so Ill usually put a cup acid in one container and 1/3 cup water which gets me approx 11% HCL after two weeks...I find 10-11%% is the easiest to work with...but the 7.5% youll get from the 14% you start with should be fine...especialy if you titrate and not just blind salt...

Titrating is adding acid slowly to get your salting to about 6.8 to 7.0 PH which is ideal for pulling just Mesc HCL and leavingg all the junk(non-mesc) alks behind.

Also check out my post here...its about 69rons dry tek and my adjustments to it...and its the way to go IMHO

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=173120#post173120


Hope this helps!!

I would say just from the word "constituents" suggests that there is likely more chems in there. I would not recommend using it. Find something more reliable at your local hardware store.

Like Global said, vinegar will work perfectly fine, but may gunk up your final product a little. Not the prettiest, but safe, effective, and readily available.

That's how I felt. I had been planning on buying the normal 34% hydrochloric acid, and had looked up the MSDS and been content with it, but they either didn't have it, or I managed to buy a lower percentage, shaddier acid.

So far as salting out with vinegar, should I used undiluted vinegar, or should I be diluting it? I don't see any indications anywhere that I should be, but might that help with the gunkiness of the final product (although I can clean that with methyl ethyl ketone, right?)

I am planning on moving forward with vinegar though; got several gallons of pureed, frozen cactus to work on next weekend

Yep, undiluted vinegar is only 5% acetic acid, so its already pretty dilute. MEK works wonders for cleaning up the product, better than acetone in SWIM's opinion.