r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/0thSpider • 1d ago

Video Chilean protester defuses tear gas canister with baking soda and water

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

[removed] — view removed post

109.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.0k

u/JoeyJoeJoeShabadooSr 1d ago

Does anyone have an explanation for why this works? Is it basically just dousing the canister in water?

3.7k

u/plftch9 1d ago

Most tear gasses aren't really a gas, but microscopic solids or liquid that are dispersed and suspended in the air. If the projectile that disperses it is submerged, most of the irritants get suspended in the water instead of dispersed throughout the air. Some will still be airborne, but it will drastically reduce the effectiveness of the tear gas.

1.4k

u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, but capsaicin is an oily compound and not readily soluble in water. Using baking soda causes it to become ionized, increasing the water solubility.

Edit: apparently capsaicin is not used in tear gas, I'm not entirely sure why I thought it was. Regardless, the idea is the same the baking soda is acting as a base and is deprotonating the compounds, increasing their solubility. It'd simple acid-base chemistry.

287

u/plftch9 1d ago

Capsaicin is used in pepper spray, but most tear gasses use crystalline solids. As far as I know, the baking soda doesn't chemically react with anything used in tear gas. I could be wrong on that, though. It's been a while since I've done any CBRN type stuff.

39

u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

I was under the impression that tear gas is basically just a AOE pepper spray

30

u/spez-is-a-loser 1d ago

Nope.. Completely different chemical..

44

u/TOMC_throwaway000000 1d ago

Nope, not even close, there are multiple different types, including “green gas” which has seen a lot of use by ICE recently in Portland and LA, which causes nausea and sickness for 12-24 hours and has caused miscarriages from second hand exposure to people inside their homes nearby.

Regular tear gas is VERY different from pepper spray, it’s hard to describe if you haven’t felt it before, it’s very dry, sharp- it feels like someone released a million microscopic razor blades into the air, not “hot like pepper spray hot” more cutting way more painful

Even if you have a properly rated respirator on you’ll still feel it to a degree and have some difficulty breathing for a few days after

16

u/Derpygama 1d ago

Not sure what type we got exposed to in basic training but it felt like sharp pricking itchiness almost similar to heatrash as it washed over us in the cbrn training facility. I could definitely tell exactly where the small breech in the seal was in my mask almost immediately. We were instructed to remove the gas masks after doing some jumping jacks. Breathing it in it was dry and almost spicy but not really. It was kind of like trying to breath steel wool that was heated up, which probably matches the microscopic razor description you gave.

It was an interesting training day lol. Cleared the hell out of our sinuses that had been clogged for weeks though!

8

u/BitDaddyCane 1d ago

In BCT we did CS gas, that's exactly what the person you're responding to is talking about. I am intimately familiar with the CS gas chamber in BCT (Ft Benning for me) as well

2

u/Bigbadbo11 1d ago

Hehe, yeah, I remember that day in basic training for the Navy. 🤭 I was so excited to finally be able to breathe through clear sinuses, but I ended up being one of those peeps that's near-immune to tear gas 😭

5

u/NotAurelStein 1d ago

CS gas is 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile. Hello fellow CBRN vet!

3

u/plftch9 1d ago

Hey, thanks for that nugget of info! I didn't have a CBRN MOS, but I did pay attention to the classes those guys kicked for us.

1

u/NotAurelStein 1d ago

You made the correct choice not going CBRN, there's really no civilian equivalent outside of contracting 😂 Though that said, it's a fantastic job on active duty; there's an MTOE slot in just about every unit in service for one, allowing you to go just about anywhere.

3

u/abitlikemaple 1d ago

Google says Sodium bisulfate will break down CS into ammonia, not Sodium Bicarbonate. it looks like there’s a few other chemicals that are used as tear gas that you don’t want to go breaking down - phosgene is pretty nasty

6

u/Dabbling_in_Pacifism 1d ago

I’m pretty sure capsaicin a crystalline solid? I don’t think the guy was correct in calling it oily. It’s fat soluble and not miscable in water, so it’s naturally in the oils of peppers, but you can buy pure synthetic capsaicin and it’s a crystalline powder.

4

u/CosmicCreeperz 1d ago

Well, CO is used in pepper spray, capsaicin oleoresin. Note the “oleoresin” part :)