chemical storage

does cold or hot effect chemical storage? The reason I ask is my father has about 1 1/2 gallons of HCL in his garage and living here in michigan the winters get cold (unheated garage unless you run a heater) and summers are hot and humid.

The freezing point for HCl is dependent on it's strength. I assume he has muriatic acid. According to the internet, it's freezing point is about -50 deg F.

Since liquid HCl is actually HCl gas dissolved in water, it will tend to release the gas in hot weather. This will tend to swell the plastic jugs a slight bit. However, I've worked in 105 deg F. weather and have never seen them swell enough to burst or cause any other problems.

High humidity shouldn't cause any problems.

My concern would be the damage caused by the release of gas from the bottle---even when tightly capped (speaking from personal experience in this case). Storing the material in a garage where items of value may also be kept can lead to surface damage of these items. Use good judgment.

Harold

you are right the bottle does actually say muriatic acid. so it should be fine. good deal!! I appreciate it. thanks.

how about sulfuric acid or nitrate of soda or any of the other chemicals etc used for PM's? just courious as I see some guys don't process PM's during the cold winters and wonder why that is? lucky for me so fat it's only been down into the high teens at night but during the day mid 20's and above. all temp measurements are in F. for anyone not in the states.

also you mentioned there are different purities of muriatic acid? so does that mean I would be better off getting the stuff for almost $10 a gallon from a commercial chemical supply place (mostly cleaning supplies), or should the $3.99 gallon from the swimming pool supply place be fine?

The generic stuff you get from a hardware store is 31.45% and is more than sufficient. It is the same grade Steve uses in his videos.