Muratic Acid Mixing Ratio

[Winmon]

Getting ready to etch my floor and am wondering what ratio do I mix the muratic acid to water? Is it 50/50? I got some industial stuff from my father in law and all it says is to start with a 1 to 20 ratio. Seems like I read somewhere that it needs to be 50/50.

 

[bmwpower]

I believe I did 4 or 5:1 (acid:water). Don't go too strong for the entire floor. You can spot clean with concentrated stuff, but I wouldn't do the entire floor that way.

 

[Stump]

Read the instruction label on the jug of muratic. The jugs I got from Lowes said 1 part acid to 4 parts water for etching concrete. So that's what I did and it did a good job.

 

[Dave Carney]

I believe I did 4 or 5:1 (acid:water). Don't go too strong for the entire floor. You can spot clean with concentrated stuff, but I wouldn't do the entire floor that way.

you mean water:acid (not acid:water), yes?

 

[Winmon]

Thanks guys!

 

[bmwpower]

you mean water:acid (not acid:water), yes?

OOPS. You're right, 4 parts water, 1 part acid. Thanks for catching my big mistake.

And don't add water to acid, always add acid to water.

 

[VDubJoe]

Definetly dont overdue. I did one wash to much. Opened up a lot of small air pockets. Made it a real pain in the @#$ . Required me to use 2 coats of epoxy. And quite a bit more money.

 

[mike944]

You might want to do a little more research first, on the concentration of the acid you have (since you say it's an industrial product)

The consumer products that others are talking about are often diluted already (30-40% concentration), where as the industrial product you have is potentially a lot more concentrated (maybe up to 98%).

It should be on the label somewhere. I can't remember excatly how it's labeled, i think it might be "N" degrees or "P" or "L" or something like that.

Compare that concentration on your label to a concentration on a commercial product label, and adjust your mix ratio accordingly If you can't figure that out, i would reccomend following the label on the container you have as far as dilution ratio. Use the 20:1, if the concrete doesn't bubble and fizz moderately, then you can up the ratio a bit.

If the stuff you have is high-purity, watch out, it can be extremely dangerous. That's why consumer products are diluted. Just be very careful, and you should be ok.
________
volcano digital

 

[bmwpower]

The stuff I bought at Home Depot says to mix 20:1, but I used 4:1.

 

[W-Cummins]

You might want to do a little more research first, on the concentration of the acid you have (since you say it's an industrial product)

The consumer products that others are talking about are often diluted already (30-40% concentration), where as the industrial product you have is potentially a lot more concentrated (maybe up to 98%).

More research sounds like a good idea!

Muratic acid is just dilute hydrochloric acid (HCL) it's normally sold as 20% HCL (BTW HCL is a gas that is disolved in water) Concentrated Hydrochloric acid is about 38% and fumes slightly when you open the bottle (and is NEVER sold as muratic acid).
Any higher concentration of HCL in water is not stable and will fume out of solution.
So if you take the 20% (HCL) muratic and dilute if 20:1 your not going to have much HCL in it.

William...