
Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003) - selmat
https://joshmadison.com/will-coke-dissolve-a-nail-experiment/
======
teekert
"To illustrate that, the email points out that Coke can be used to clean a
toilet, help remove a rusty bolt, or remove blood from a highway accident."

Yeah well why would anybody believe that if a soda can be used in such ways
that it is also bad for you? I mean I flush the toilet with water! With WATER!
And it removes most traces of excrement... Arg, it must be bad for you!

~~~
pheonikai
Coke is used to clean a toilet and not flush it. To clean a toilet, generally
some acid or detergent is needed. Effectiveness of Coke being used for this
purpose shows its acidic nature and its ability to dissolve the material on
which it is applied.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It can also be used to clean battery terminals among other things.

But then again, vinegar is a fairly common cleaning agent: Baking soda and
salt are fairly effective as well. I've used salt and lemon juice to clean
tarnish off of copper: Toothpaste to clean the tarnish off of silver jewelry
or shine up gold. None of these are viewed as bad or unhealthy in the doses we
tend to consume them in. Vegetable oils and waxes are used in industrial
applications: Soy can be used as a base for ink and lipstick.

Stomach acid itself is about as strong as battery acid, actually. And this is
something your body produces and is necessary.

Basically: There are a great many chemicals that have multiple uses, and are
only dangerous when used in sufficient amounts or on specific surfaces.

~~~
lmm
> But then again, vinegar is a fairly common cleaning agent: Baking soda and
> salt are fairly effective as well. I've used salt and lemon juice to clean
> tarnish off of copper: Toothpaste to clean the tarnish off of silver jewelry
> or shine up gold. None of these are viewed as bad or unhealthy in the doses
> we tend to consume them in.

Absolutely, but I'd be worried about someone who chugged any of those things
in the same quantity peopole tend to drink coke.

~~~
coldtea
Coke is 89% water (from the other % most is sugar).

Not really comparable to consuming 2 cans of salt, baking soda, toothpaste,
etc.

And would you really be worried for people drinking several cans of lemon
juice per day?

~~~
lmm
> And would you really be worried for people drinking several cans of lemon
> juice per day?

Yes, absolutely. It's pretty damaging to teeth if consumed regularly, AIUI.

(Personal experience: I once started drinking a few glasses of orange juice
(weaker than lemon) daily, within a year I needed four fillings. Stopped
drinking it immediately afterwards, haven't needed fillings before or since).

~~~
eloff
That likely had more to do with the sugar than the acid in the juice.

~~~
lmm
I'd been drinking apple juice in similar quantities before and since for years
(when I say "started" I really mean I switched from apple to orange), which I
believe has similar sugar content.

~~~
gohrt
Don't know about your teeth, but that sugar is pushing for diabetes. Drinking
juice straight (not diluted with water) at 100+ kCal/cup rate, in quantity, is
a bad idea

~~~
lmm
Yeah, this is a few years back now; I spoke to a nutritionist last year for
the first time in my life and that was the first thing she told me to cut (and
I have).

------
titzer
While coke does contain some phosphoric acid, that's dwarfed by the total
amount of carbonic acid (H2CO3, commonly just called carbonation). Flat coke,
where most of the carbonic acid has broken down to water and CO2 gas, is
significantly less acidic.

------
brownbat
As discussed on Snopes:
[http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/acid.asp](http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/acid.asp)

------
MasterYoda
I remember when my mom wanted to teach me not to drink soda when I was young,
that it was bad. So to show it was bad for the tooth's she took one of my
tooth I lost and put it in coca cola. And after a couple of weeks (don't
remember the time exactly, but it was quite long time) it had dissolved to
just some goo at the bottom of the glass :)

~~~
stormbrew
This would happen with a great many things your mom was probably fine with you
drinking. This is why you have saliva and swallow things. It's also why you
augment that with brushing your teeth. If you're holding coke in your mouth
for more than a few seconds, you're doing it wrong.

------
wyldfire
> The steel nail and keratin nail were examined under the 8x loupe and notes
> were made about their appearances.

Gee, a simple metric might've been just to measure the mass of the nail before
and after.

~~~
nosidam
Oh I thought of that, but only had access to a simple kitchen scale. The
weight of the nail before the experiment didn't even register on it.

~~~
wyldfire
Yeah, good call, I think you'd have needed ~1 gram resolution to get anything
interesting.

------
imgabe
Were the keratin nails in the same container as the steel nails? What if one
provided a prophylactic effect preventing the other from being dissolved?!
Rerun the experiment! 18 jars this time!

------
pionar
When I was a kid, I remember my dad once cleaning corrosion off car battery
terminals with Coke.

That + a wire brush. It did much better than just water + wire brush.

~~~
hiddenkrypt
I use baking soda. On old batteries there's sometimes a little bit of acid
leaking out around the terminals, and the base counteracts it. It's also a
great abrasive, and washes away with water.

------
DanBC
I'd be interested to see if raw phosphoric acid has much effect on nails.

I'd also be interested to see if it's at all possible to dissolve a nail in
coke - perhaps by heating the coke, agitating it, and using vast quantities
over a long time?

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I'm guessing you would need to have a few controls - one plain "still" water
and one carbonated water just to sort out the effects of those.

I imagine it is possible so long as the nail is made of something prone to
corrosion, but I'm not so sure it would be from the ingredients in the Coke as
much as the exposure to water.

~~~
VLM
"something prone to corrosion"

Prone to acidic corrosion. Freshly machined stainless steel will rust unless
its passivated in an acidic dip, you couldda chrome plated it but dissolving
off everything not chrome ends up in about the same place.

Another good one is aluminum as in aluminum nails, pre 1980s house siding was
aluminum for decades before it switched to short life vinyl siding, and
aluminum is mostly impervious to acids and reacts very strongly to alkali.
Technically pure aluminum will melt away in either, but the oxide coating is
stable in acids and dissolves in bases, so in practice aluminum is acid proof
and alkali melts right thru it.

------
buro9
Coke will help free a stuck seatpost in a bicycle if the frame is steel and
the seat post is aluminium.

Just turn the bike upside down, pour some coke down the seat tube, leave to
stand overnight, and hit the seat with a mallet the next day.

~~~
adrianN
Hitting stuck things with a mallet is probably a pretty effective way to get
them unstuck, independent of the presence of coke.

~~~
yitchelle
As they say, increase the size of the hammer if it initial does not work.

~~~
ygra
And if it breaks it would have had to be replaced anyway?

------
nxzero
The pH level of most drinks are not low enough to eat metal, roughly a level
of 2 depending on the metal and reactions:
[http://www.sheltondentistry.com/patient-information/ph-
value...](http://www.sheltondentistry.com/patient-information/ph-values-
common-drinks/)

Citric Acid will eat metal, which is why liquids like orange and lime juice
are not stored in metal containers.

------
jkot
Hmm, results would be different if iron (not steel) nails would be used.

~~~
varjag
What do you mean by "iron nails"? Nalis are always low-grade steel with low
carbon content, the rest is iron.

~~~
Elrac
Most nails are made of steel. Aluminum, copper, brass, bronze, stainless
steel, nickel silver, monel, zinc, and iron are also used. Galvanized nails
are coated with zinc to give them added corrosion resistance. Blued steel
nails are subjected to a flame to give them a bluish oxide finish that
provides a certain amount of corrosion resistance. So-called cement-coated
nails are actually coated with a plastic resin to improve their grip. Some
brads are given a colored enamel coating to blend in with the color of the
material they are fastening.

Source:
[http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Nail.html](http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Nail.html)

~~~
varjag
But no mention of keratin nails! What a woefully incomplete reference :)

Still unclear what is meant by "iron". I mean, low carbon steel _is_ iron with
some trace impurities. Cast iron? Nails aren't cast, besides it's brittle and
less prone to rust than low carbon steel.

~~~
hiddenkrypt
Usually wrought iron, not cast iron. I have a blacksmith friend who made a
large amount of iron nails when he was starting the trade, since it was good
practice. He still makes them in demonstrations at Ren Faires. They're still
used occasionally for horseshoes apparently, though that market from what I
know has been using more and more mass-produced steel instead.

------
djrogers
The quote the post attempts to test is this:

    
    
       The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days.
    

However, the test does not line up with my reading of the quote:

    
    
       Phospohric acid, which has a PH of 2.8 can dissolve a nail in about 4 days.
    

Let's see what a nail does in phosphoric acid!

\-- _edited for readability_

------
huhtenberg
Another variation is

    
    
      Can Fanta dissolve a piece of liver?
    

In Russia it's commonly believed that it does. Have no idea if it's true,
probably not.

Yet another gem is

    
    
      Can Pepsi be used to de-calcify and clean toilets?
    

This is actually more believable, but still quite a bit out there.

~~~
coldpie
Woah what are you doing to your livers where they're exposed directly to
Fanta?

~~~
LanceH
Livers in Russia? hah.

------
mark-r
But is 1/4 ounce enough to show the effect? I would have used at least 8
ounces. Quantity matters!

Also there was the slight possibility that the keratin nail provided buffering
that prevents the steel nail from dissolving. It would have been prudent to
test them separately.

------
S_A_P
There are acidic things considered healthy that people eat all the time. The
problem with Coke and any other soda is the massive quantities of sugar, which
has been proven bad for you.

------
ctdonath
On a related note, Taco Bell Fire Sauce will polish a penny nicely.

------
coldcode
If you wait long enough, water will dissolve a nail.

------
danra
The research was obviously funded by Coca-Cola.

------
ad_a
Worthy of an igNobel

~~~
js8
Definitely worthy of The Simpsons episode:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VII](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VII)

------
mtmail
Conclusion "As I suspected, no nail of any kind was dissolved by any of the
sodas."

~~~
Noseshine
Relevant?

"Predicting if a Metal Will Dissolve in Acid" [0]

as well as

"Is Soda Acidic? – How Cola Impacts Digestion" [1] and "Why is phosphoric acid
used in some Coca‑Cola drinks?" [2]

    
    
        > Short of drinking undiluted vinegar, cola is about the most acidic thing you can buy to
        > drink. The pH level of soda is approximately 2.5 (testing seems to come up with results
        > ranging from 2.3 to 3.5 but a pH of 2.5 is commonly cited...
    

the acid usually is phosphoric acid and occasionally citric acid it seems.

[0] [https://www.boundless.com/chemistry/textbooks/boundless-
chem...](https://www.boundless.com/chemistry/textbooks/boundless-chemistry-
textbook/electrochemistry-18/standard-reduction-potentials-129/predicting-if-
a-metal-will-dissolve-in-acid-516-7066/)

[1] [http://flatulencecures.com/is-soda-acidic](http://flatulencecures.com/is-
soda-acidic)

[2] [http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/why-is-phosphoric-acid-
used-i...](http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/why-is-phosphoric-acid-used-in-coca-
cola-drinks-diet-coke-coke-zero)

------
BrentOzar
I am convinced that this whole post is a troll designed to get me to look at a
glass vial of the author's toenails.

------
gt2
TLDR No

------
croon
Once again proving that headlines in the form of a question are answered
simply "No".

------
apatters
In accordance with Betteridge's law,

TL;DR: No.

------
muzster
The sugar lobby is hard as nails.

------
secult
This article reminded me of a Bill Gates joke: Bill, when I said "Please, buy
china in the evening", I meant food.

------
omk
Passes Betteridge's law.

~~~
tome
Validates tome's law:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549)

~~~
StavrosK
StavrosK's law: Nobody will take a law you invoke seriously if you're the one
who coined that law.

~~~
rusanu
I take you seriously, so the law must be true.

