$1 tips for removing rust

Look­ing for a bet­ter way to bring your old tools back to life? Com­pare the ef­fec­tive­ness of these three rust re­movers!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Reagents and equip­ment

• rusty tools;
• glass­es;
• lemon juice;
• vine­gar (9% so­lu­tion);
• rust re­mover;
• brush.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Put the rusty tools in the glass­es. Fill the first glass with rust clean­er, the sec­ond with ta­ble vine­gar (9% so­lu­tion), and the third with lemon juice. Leave for 48 hours. Scrub the tools with the brush and rinse with wa­ter. All three tools are clean!

Process de­scrip­tion

Cor­ro­sion is the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-in­duced de­struc­tion of met­als and al­loys. Rust is a prod­uct of iron’s cor­ro­sion by oxy­gen and wa­ter. The pres­ence of salts, such as salty sea wa­ter, may ac­cel­er­ate the ap­pear­ance of rust. Dur­ing cor­ro­sion, iron turns into iron(III) oxy­hy­drox­ide:

Fe + 2H₂O - 3e⁻ = FeO(OH)↓ + 3H⁺

Rust forms a rough coat­ing with a flaky struc­ture. It has a dis­tinc­tive col­or range from or­ange to red-brown. Ob­jects cov­ered with rust may give out over time. All three of these so­lu­tions con­tain dif­fer­ent acids, which re­act with iron(III) oxy­hy­drox­ide to form iron salts and wa­ter. Pro­fes­sion­al rust re­movers are de­signed to ful­fill this func­tion and do so per­fect­ly well. But if they are not at hand, then lemon juice or ta­ble vine­gar (9% so­lu­tion) can cope with rust just as well! They are cheap­er and can be found in just about any kitchen. Af­ter clean­ing the rust off your tools, store them in a dry place to pre­vent fur­ther cor­ro­sion.