Long Hair, Drano & Green Chemistry

by Ziya Tong     Department: Correlations

I have long hair. Long hair that loves to bundle together and form a happy little party in the drain. At least that's what I try to imagine, since the alternative from The Ring is enough to keep me from showering altogether. But each time I get one of those scary Samara clogs, I also get Drano guilt. So today I decided to do some research and take a look - as my friend Chris does brilliantly every week - at what's inside that mystery product?

According to Wikipedia and the National Institutes of Health's Household Products Database:

"the crystal form [of Drano] is composed of sodium hydroxide, sodium nitrate, sodium chloride, and aluminum.

The power crystals are simply colored salt, and are the least powerful ingredient. The crystallized lye reacts with fats to form soap. The machined shards of aluminum react with the lye to generate near-boiling temperatures. The sharp shards in the hot churning lye physically cut hair and dislodge deposits. Several chemical reactions take place here:

   1. When Drano is added to water, the sodium hydroxide, sodium nitrate, and sodium chloride dissolve. The heat of solution liberated when sodium hydroxide is dissolved warms the mixture.
   2. In solution, sodium hydroxide reacts with aluminum to liberate nascent hydrogen, which is a powerful reducing agent. This reaction is exothermic and the heat can cause the mixture to boil. The formula is 6NaOH + 2Al → 3H2 + 2Na3AlO3.
   3. The nascent hydrogen reduces nitrate ion to ammonia, removing the fire and explosion hazard posed by free hydrogen gas. The reaction is: 2NO3− + 9H2 → 2NH3 + 6H2O. The water and sodium ions then regenerate sodium hydroxide and nascent hydrogen."

Apparently, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says the substances break down into relatively harmless component elements once they're released into moist soil or water, so technically they're not pollutants. But anything you can make a bomb out of, well, I can't imagine bodes too well for the fish in the sea. So that got me to thinking, who out there in the sciences is actually working to change this? With the thousands of household products that contain toxins and poisons, this is certainly an area of research that needs more public awareness & funding.

After a bit of Googling, I was happy to learn that there's actually a new movement called Green Chemistry; an entire field that aims to design products that don't generate hazardous chemical wastes. As The Washington Post writes: "The American Chemical Society, which certifies more than 600 college chemistry programs, lists only about a dozen that teach green chemistry. But that number is growing. Yale's center opened at the beginning of this year, while Cambridge College in Cambridge, Mass., is offering an introduction to green chemistry class this fall and has the nation's first bachelor's and master's degrees in green chemistry." At the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, they even offer a doctoral program in the field.

But since my clogged tub clearly can't hold out for me to do a dissertation, I've had to look for another solution. And what can I say? I love you internets and sweet tip-of-the-finger knowledge! According to this site: a mixture of baking soda, vinegar and hot water will do the trick quite nicely, and the by-product is only carbon dioxide! Since that's what I exhale and that's what trees breathe, I feel pretty confident that the fish will be okay. As for Samara? Well, I'm off now to go say sayonara. Wish me luck!

Ziya

Tags: chemistry, drano, environment, green, long hair, ring, Samara, what's inside

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