I’m looking it up on google and alot of websites say either lemon juice or oxalic acid. Is there any reason why acids are used to remove rust stains? And what, if anything can I do to prevent rust stains in the first place? The town I live in has a limestone mine in it so I fear that all the laundromats may have water that leaves rust stains on clothes.
Also, is there any risk of ruining clothes by using the lemon juice or oxalic acid method of removing the rust stains?
I’ve used HCl to remove rust but it always returns (of course not in the case of your shirt so you might try it), I also just bought some stuff called Navel Jelly from Home Depot that removes rust from metal objects in 5 minutes.
Adding some Borax to your wash loads should help with that problem. 20 mule team borax should be somewhere in the laundry aisle at your local supermarket.
Boric acid, or sodium borate bind to heavy metals in water, and will keep dissolved iron away from your clothes. If your water is hard, and it probably is if you live over limestone, the borax will help your detergent work better too.
If you already have iron stains, you can use a paste of vinegar and borax to remove them.
I’ve seen that stuff on the isles but didn’t know what it was for. Thanks for the tip. For some reason all the tips involve acids in one form or another. Boric acid, HCL, vinegar, lemon juice, etc. Does anyone know the chemistry of why that removes the rust stains?
There is a product called CLR that I’d suggest. You can probably find it at your local grocery store or K-mart. (It’s pretty common.) It’s packaged in a silver-colored jug.
It works really well on rust stains-- in fact it’s one of the few products which actually does what it claims. I’v used it for dozens of different purposes, and I’ve always been happy with the results.
It’s just that iron salts tend to be more soluble in acid than at neutral or basic pH. Some of the acids oxalic, citric and boric, have the additional property of binding tightly to multiply charged metal ions. That chelation makes them better choices for removing stains than simple HCl or vinegar.
Ever heard of oxidation/reduction?
Yeah. do you mean oxidation/reduction as it refers to electrons or as it refers to Oyxgen?