Why hot sauce cleans pennies

Education Science
Why hot sauce cleans pennies
hotsaucepennies.jpg

I was thoroughly entertained by this bit of hobby chemical sleuthing from Michael August Pusateri, who observed years ago, while bored on-shift, that the hot sauce at the fast food joint where he was working would clean the oxide off a penny. My immediate assumption–that the effect is due to vinegar or some other acid in the sauce–turns out to be only half right. The right answer, and the process by which Michael arrived at and verified it, make for interesting reading. You might even find a use for it.

More:

10 thoughts on “Why hot sauce cleans pennies

  1. Ken says:

    One missing test from the article is salt water — the only mention of the salt-only test is “rubbing salt on pennies doesn’t do it either, I tried that…” but of course rubbing salt in crystallized form won’t do anything.

  2. Helvetica says:

    I do something similar before etching copper-clad boards that have been stored for a while and have gone brown: rub with ketchup and let stand for about 15 minutes, then wash off. Much easier than the Brillo pad route (and leaves a smoother surface).

  3. jason1729 says:

    Wow. I thought cleaning pennies with salt and vinegar was in every “chemistry for kids” book ever written. Not going to comment on how’s it’s possible the author never heard of it.

    Anyway, Salt + Vinegar = Sodium Acetate + Hydrochloric Acid. It’s the HCl that does the cleaning.

    1. Sean Michael Ragan says:

      The pKa of acetic acid is 4.76; the pKa of HCl is generally given as -7. That means, essentially, that HCl is 12 orders of magnitude stronger, as an acid, than vinegar. The position of equilibrium always favors formation of the weaker acid, meaning that, essentially, the reaction you’ve written is statistically unfavorable, literally by a factor of 1 trillion.

  4. jim says:

    When I make pasta with tomato sauce I sponge the remaining bit of sauce on the copper bottom of the pan and leave it until I’m done with the meal–leaves a nice shiney finish.

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK