Let's say that SWIM is distilling some Sulphuric from battery acid...He sees the steam coming off with some occasional white residue on the sides of flask.

Now hes not under a fume hood or wearing any protective clothing other than rubber gloves and goggles.

He now thinks he may have inhaled some vaporized acid, because his chest has slight burning...

He also is light headed.

Is this from the acid, or is SWIM just paranoid/imagining things?

Thanks

Your breathing SO2/SO3, sulfur dioxide/trioxide both toxic gases.  Maybee you should look at the MSDS and info on google.  You shouldn't bee doing this!!!

You can purchase 93% concentrated H2S04 at the hardware store under the name pro liquid drain opener

I know where to get the concentrated stuph.

I was just being a bored-as-hell guy yesterday and decided to try distilling battery acid, since I have like 5 old car batteries just laying around.

I gave up when my head started hurting and my body felt like it was not there anymore.

I'm fine now.

I had a set up with a hose running from the distilling jar to a jug of water, but I nixed that because I figured that the only thing coming off was water.

Oh well.

I need a hotter heat source anyways...might have to build a campfire later.

Thanks for the info,

The Ate-Up One

The used sulfuric acid from car batteries contains lead.

Don't use used acid--don't distill used acid.

Don't try and distill H2SO4, it won't work.  All that will happen is you getting some SO2 poisoning.  What happens is the water will boil off first, because it has a lower boiling point.  But when the H2SO4 gets concentrated enough, it will decompose into H2O and SO3, and the SO3 will partially decompose to SO2.  That's the problem with H2SO4, it doesn't distill, at least under normal pressure.  All you can do is drive off the water it contains, and then it will start to decompose.

And as for battery acid, it does contain PbSO4.  Don't use it.

as has been posted beefore, you can probably get H2SO4 "refills"
which are of good enough quality.

Referring to the refill fluid "US Standard Battery Acid". There is no mention of lead in the MSDS. I thought that would have to be in there?!

There shouldn't be any lead in virgin acid since it has never been in a battery.

What about Lead chamber acid....? its could be low grade lead chamber acid that is used for batteries.

is the cheaper method of manufacturing sulphuric acid and probably used for battery grade. This link indicates that lead contaminants are generally in the 1-5 ppm range, though none are specified for battery grade. Indicates that contaminants come from the ore feedstock rather than lead chamber.

http://members.rogers.com/acidmanual/properties_acid_quality.htm

Nice to see Yanks spelling 'sulphuric' properly.