# Feasibility of body disposal with acid and plastic barrel a la 'Breaking Bad': NEED ANSWER FAST! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 2, 2012, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469 "2012-10-02T13:20:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/1 "2012-10-02T13:20:20Z")
In the show “Breaking Bad”, a frequent method of body disposal used is to drop it in a plastic barrel, and fill the barrel with hydrofluoric (IIRC) acid. In particular, I’m curious if any DNA would survive to allow identification of the body. (Just kidding about needing the answer fast, of course. Oh, and if you are thinking about responding with “You do know the show is fictional, right?” do the human race a favor and kill yourself before you reproduce. ) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/2 "2012-10-02T13:49:25Z")
I don’t know about DNA but acid bath disposal is not a foolproof method of body disposal, as [this guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_George_Haigh) found out. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/3 "2012-10-02T13:55:54Z")
Hydrofluoric acid is seriously nasty stuff. You can get some on you and not realize it, and it’ll penetrate your skin and eat away the bone, unless you can treat it rapidly with calcium gluconate. Scroll down to see the pictures at the bottom of the Wikipedia page: > **[Hydrofluoric acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid)** > > Hydrofluoric acid is a solution of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in water. Solutions of HF are colorless, acidic and highly corrosive. It is used to make most fluorine-containing compounds; examples include the commonly used pharmaceutical antidepressant medication fluoxetine (Prozac) and the material PTFE (Teflon). Elemental fluorine is produced from it. It is commonly used to etch glass and silicon wafers. > The principal use of hydrofluoric acid is in organofluorine chemistry. Many organofluorine co... This isn’t just some unlikely chemical accident. I knew someone who lost portions of a finger due to such undetected HF exposure. Sloshing around enough to dissolve a body will expose the person doing it to such exposure, not to mention the considerable risk of inhaling some. Concentrated nitric, hydrochloric, or sulfuric acid is pretty nasty, too, but I’d rather use those than hydrofluoric acid. The only real reason to use HF is if you want to be sure you get rid of silicates, like glass. Not much of that in a human body. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/4 "2012-10-02T13:56:30Z")
While hydrofluoric acid is very bad for living things, it isn’t a particularly strong acid in terms of dissolving bodies. It’s also pretty lethal to inhale or touch, so not exactly practical. ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/5 "2012-10-02T14:13:43Z")
This is a real world example of someone who tried it. > **[John Haigh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_George_Haigh)** > > John George Haigh (/heɪɡ/; 24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. Haigh battered to death or shot his victims and disposed of their bodies using sulphuric acid before forging their signatures so he could sell their possessions and collect large sums of money. His actions were the subject of the television film A Is for Acid. > John Haigh was born in St... It’s an old case and possibly now there would be DNA evidence retrievable but at the time the traces of the last victim found were human gall stones and dentures so that sounds fairly successful in getting rid of the body. Edit: beaten too it I see Gyrate ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/6 "2012-10-02T14:23:34Z")
I wish I could remember what it was: my co-worker was cleaning at an oil well, and the drilling mud had some acid or base in it. It was uncommonly used. He was unaware of of its presence, and got some under his glove. When I first met him weeks later, he had a terrible wound on the back of his hand, and he said that the injury was ongoing; the stuff was in his skin, and would continue to destroy tissue. He wasnt aware of the injury until it was too late. I think he either declined to have tissue surgically removed, or they couldnt get it all. He was a singularly stupid old man in a number of ways, very hidebound in his ways. It wasnt as bad as a brown recluse spider bite, but it was pretty messed up. Since he was around 70 years old, declining in health, it probably wasnt ever going to heal properly. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/7 "2012-10-02T14:24:01Z")
I think Breaking Bad just wanted to use an acid that sounded scary. hydrofluoric acid is extremely dangerous more so because of its toxicity than its ability to dissolve organics (used mostly for glass [silicates] and metals, and the fluoride is going to be particularly attracted to the calcium in your body). Also, I don’t think HF is particularly strong when it comes to destroying proteins or sugars, the DNA might have a much better chance of surviving than if they’d gone with something a bit more realistic like sulfuric acid, or even better—a really strong base, like lye. Lye would be much more readily available, destroy almost all the tissue, then, I could see Walter White using HF to dissolve any remaining remnants of the skeleton or metallic artifacts (especially oxides). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/8 "2012-10-02T14:39:07Z")
That isn’t to say that enough HF (and they were using gallons of the stuff) wouldn’t do that to a body, the tub, and the floor. And if I remember correctly, there were plenty of, um… chunks. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/9 "2012-10-02T14:42:00Z")
Whatever you do, don’t use quicklime (Calcium Oxide) to try to destroy the corpse. As generations of forensic scientists have pointed out, quicklime _doesn’t_ destroy corpses – it preserves them. Always good to remember if you want to live to enjoy the fruits of your crime. Typical referrence:[Why NOT to use Quicklime to Dispose of a Corpse | INTO MURDER,KILLERS,FORENSICS? read on...](http://the7thwreck.wordpress.com/2005/12/25/why-not-to-use-quicklime-to-dispose-of-a-corpse/) > **[Talk:Calcium oxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Calcium_oxide)** > > I did notice that most people here seem to be more interested in the de-composition of bodies rather than the actual usage of "raw" lime. > Calcium oxide is also widely used an acid remover in the treatment of exaust fume in various industries such as producing metals. > Most alloys require fluxing and the main fluxing agents all contain fluorides, by injecting quick lime into the resulting exaust stream it neutralises the fluorides and makes the stream safe to expel to atmosphere. > Can this stuff bu... Dissolving in lye is called _Alkaline Hydrolysis_. If you do it with heating to 320 F it takes about three hours. (If you don’t heat it, I don’t know how long it takes). But apparently this method _does_ work, without undue risk to you. And Lye has to be a lot easier to get than large suspicious quantities of HF. > **[Alkaline hydrolysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis)** > > Alkaline hydrolysis, in organic chemistry, usually refers to types of nucleophilic substitution reactions in which the attacking nucleophile is a hydroxide ion. > In the alkaline hydrolysis of esters and amides the hydroxide ion nucleophile attacks the carbonyl carbon in a nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction. This mechanism is supported by isotope labeling experiments. For example, when ethyl propionate with an oxygen-18 labeled ethoxy group is treated with sodium hydroxide (NaOH), the oxygen-... Findimng a body-sized lye-proof container, a place to put it all, a heat source (f desired) and somewhere to pour out the liquified body is your own lookout. ---
**Author:** ![temp\_user](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@temp\_user](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/temp_user)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/10 "2012-10-02T15:02:39Z")
According to Burt in “Return of the Living Dead”, Aqua Regia is more powerful than sulfuric acid ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/11 "2012-10-02T15:38:49Z")
> [@temp\_user](#): > > According to Burt in “Return of the Living Dead”, Aqua Regia is more powerful than sulfuric acid Its only attribute is that it will also dissolve any gold fillings. There seems to be a persistent mneme about “strongest” something as a universal property. So something that attacks either glass or gold, must therefore be the most potent at attacking organic tissue, plastics, or whatever else. Even boiling in sodium hydroxide is going to leave a significant amount of waste product that will have a clear signature of “this was once an animal” to it. Explaining why you needed to render down the carcase of some random 100kg animal is going to be difficult at best. You could add salt and make some soap I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/12 "2012-10-02T16:09:05Z")
Okay chemists, if HF isn’t particularly good at doing away with a corpse, what works best? Sulfuric acid or lye have been suggested. Anything else? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/13 "2012-10-02T16:47:40Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Hydrofluoric acid is seriously nasty stuff. You can get some on you and not realize it, and it’ll penetrate your skin and eat away the bone, unless you can treat it rapidly with calcium gluconate. Scroll down to see the pictures at the bottom of the Wikipedia page: > > \ > > This isn’t just some unlikely chemical accident. I knew someone who lost portions of a finger due to such undetected HF exposure. Sloshing around enough to dissolve a body will expose the person doing it to such exposure, not to mention the considerable risk of inhaling some. How in the world is it possible for something like this to happen, without you knowing about it? Does it dissolve your nerve endings so fast that you don’t feel a thing? Even so, wouldn’t you feel some serious unpleasant sensations around the edges at least? ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/14 "2012-10-02T17:25:36Z")
What you really need is some good ol’ [chlorine trifluoride](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride) and a good pair of running shoes… 😃 May, however, not be the best choice if you’re seeking to keep a low profile… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/15 "2012-10-02T17:40:38Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > How in the world is it possible for something like this to happen, without you knowing about it? Does it dissolve your nerve endings so fast that you don’t feel a thing? Even so, wouldn’t you feel some serious unpleasant sensations around the edges at least? Read the link I posted above on hydrofluoric acid. The relevant portion is this: > [@](#): > > Hydrofluoric acid is a highly corrosive liquid and is a contact poison. It should be handled with extreme care, beyond that accorded to other mineral acids. Owing to its low dissociation constant, HF as a neutral lipid-soluble molecule penetrates tissue more rapidly than typical mineral acids. Because of the ability of hydrofluoric acid to penetrate tissue, poisoning can occur readily through exposure of skin or eyes, or when inhaled or swallowed. Symptoms of exposure to hydrofluoric acid may not be immediately evident. HF interferes with nerve function, meaning that burns may not initially be painful. Accidental exposures can go unnoticed, delaying treatment and increasing the extent and seriousness of the injury.[8] > > Once absorbed into blood through the skin, it reacts with blood calcium and may cause cardiac arrest. Burns with areas larger than 25 square inches (160 cm2) have the potential to cause serious systemic toxicity from interference with blood and tissue calcium levels.[9] In the body, hydrofluoric acid reacts with the ubiquitous biologically important ions Ca2+ and Mg2+. Formation of insoluble calcium fluoride is proposed as the etiology for both precipitous fall in serum calcium and the severe pain associated with tissue toxicity.[10] In some cases, exposures can lead to hypocalcemia. Thus, hydrofluoric acid exposure is often treated with calcium gluconate, a source of Ca2+ that sequesters the fluoride ions. HF chemical burns can be treated with a water wash and 2.5% calcium gluconate gel.[11][12][13] or special rinsing solutions.[14][15] However, because it is absorbed, medical treatment is necessary;[9] rinsing off is not enough. Intra-arterial infusions of calcium chloride have also shown great effectiveness in treating burns.[16] ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/16 "2012-10-02T17:54:45Z")
Two questions: 1). If I’m going to use NaOH to dissolve a corpse, how much do I need? Let’s assume a 200-pound body. 2). As soon as I get my bathtub replaced after that nasty HF fiasco, can I use that instead of a plastic barrel? Then as soon as Vito is completely liquefied, I can just pull the stopper and send him on his merry way to the Pacific Ocean, right? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/17 "2012-10-02T19:02:42Z")
KOH may work better. You can get it in concentrated form as a wood stripper. It shouldn’t harm a glazed tub but it could dissolve the resins in fiberglass tubs. Soft tissue should just turn to goo that you can send down the drain. I don’t know what would happen to bone and sinew. You’ll also have fillings, implants, and the piece of Lego that Vito swallowed when he was a kid left over. ---
**Author:** ![ClintO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@ClintO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ClintO)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/18 "2012-10-02T20:04:55Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > I wish I could remember what it was: my co-worker was cleaning at an oil well, and the drilling mud had some acid or base in it. They used KCl (Potassium Chloride) in some drilling and well completion applications. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/19 "2012-10-02T20:09:38Z")
> [@ClintO](#): > > They used KCl (Potassium Chloride) in some drilling and well completion applications. KCl is a salt, neither acid nor base (In fact, you can make salts by reacting an acide with a base, such as KOH and HCl in this case). It’ll get your corpse all salty, and enough will actually preserve it. But it won’t dissolve the corpse. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469/20 "2012-10-02T20:23:39Z")
> [@ClintO](#): > > They used KCl (Potassium Chloride) in some drilling and well completion applications. I just assumed it was an acid or base. To him it would have seemed an acid anyway, and thats what he told me. Its been years since, and it was all of a 30 second conversation, so I am really rusty on details, sorry. It burned him, though he apparently wasnt immediately aware of it, so I’d guess that it might have affected the nerves in his skin. If he exhibited general symptoms of being poisoned, I wasnt privy to it. I never worked with him long. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feasibility-of-body-disposal-with-acid-and-plastic-barrel-a-la-breaking-bad-need-answer-fast/636469.md?page=2)