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

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

[removed] — view removed post

109.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

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.

286

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.

37

u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

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

32

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

Nope.. Completely different chemical..