Talk:Lye

Lutefisk

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Lutfisk is generally rob is cool

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Caustic lye as stain remove on porcelain?

Caustic lye . can it be used as a stain remove on porcelain ?

Cleanup

This page was marked for clean-up per MoS:DAB, and deleted the following (IMO non-disambig) information:

Lye is also an ingredient in the synthetic drug, methamphetamine. -- it's not an ingredient, just used as a base to manipulate pH. Or so I've heard. ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.69.139.16 (talk) 15:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, concentrated urine was used as a cleaning agent known as chamber lye. Because urine has some grease dissolving properties it was also used as a mordant in fulling, the preparation of woollen cloth for garment manufacture.

I also deleted the Category:Classical Names. – sgeureka ^t•c 21:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NaOH?

I'm no chemical expert, but if the article states that it's NaOH, shouldn't it be merged with NaOH instead? Opinion from a chemist please. Somecrowd (talk) 04:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Not a chemist), Wikipedia doesn't have seperate articles for Water and H₂O... Pokeman (talk) 09:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Merge: Not all Lye is NaOH

Yes a chemist. Comments: There are several different types of lye. Yes, chamber lye is urine. Potash lye is potassium hydroxide (KOH). Caustic soda lye is sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Therefore, there are several types of lye that are not NaOH and it would be incorrect to merge Lye with NaOH. The reasoning for this is that not all lyes are NaOH. Similarly, not all lyes are sodium hydroxide, so it would be incorrect to merge Lye with Sodium Hydroxide.

This would be as incorrect as merging Bases into Sea Water. Technically, sea water and urine are both alkaline and are considered bases but Bases would be the master category and Sea Water and Urine could be sub-categories. Likewise, if a merge were forced, Lye would be the master category and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) would be one of many sub-categories.

The example of Water and H₂O does not apply and is irrelevant because water is always H₂O and vice versa. However, lye is not always NaOH. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.214.60 (talk) 02:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From a materials scientist: if indeed lye is a master category and NaOH is just one type of lye, the article should be revised to incorporate the different types of lye (i.e. potash lye, caustic soda lye, etc). For now the article presumes that all lye is NaOH, which is apparently incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.153.252.230 (talk) 13:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Against - As a user I came looking for Lye and not NaOH and it met my needs. Had a look at NaOH and that article is more suited for a chemist or science lab. Byeboer (talk) 06:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I see. The problem is the first scentence "Lye is a corrosive alkaline substance, specifically, sodium hydroxide (NaOH)." Pokeman (talk) 17:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I feel the opening sentence is still ambiguous. Could it be rephrased "Lye is any corrosive alkaline substance"? Or "a lye is a member of a family of corrosive alkaline substances"? The concise Oxford says:

"a strongly alkaline solution, especially of potassium hydroxide, used for washing or cleansing".

And Merriam Webster says:

"1: a strong alkaline liquor rich in potassium carbonate leached from wood ashes and used especially in making soap and for washing; broadly : a strong alkaline solution (as of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide)

2: a solid caustic (as sodium hydroxide)"

So it seems clear that sodium hydroxide is at most only one possible meaning of the word. This is by no means clear from the article. Does the second sentence mean that lye was any of the alkalis leached from hardwood ashes? Rachel Pearce (talk) 08:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-merge OK but the whole page should be simplified

Lye is a generic word describing highly basic ("caustic" = pH around 14) solutions which are usually based on sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide in water (typical concentration 30 to 50%). "Solid" Lye is nonsense. I would recommend to keep this page pretty short and giving links (as it is now) to caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), potassium hydroxide (potash), where production processes should be described.Frade 14:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

UK/US usage

I believe that use of the word lye is now confined to the USA. In the UK, the word is regarded as archaic and the terms sodium hydroxide or caustic soda are used instead. Biscuittin (talk) 19:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite. In the UK, it is used in an archaic or traditional *context*, and as such therefore refers mainly to KOH rather than NaOH. If you went to a tannery in the UK, for example, and started talking about lye, they would all know what you are talking about. As frankly would any well-read person. This article is badly structured though: it needs to refer back to the articles on the specific chemicals themselves, and imo keep this article for those historical/traditional functions (which is something the single chemical articles tend to ignore) Tobermory (talk) 13:18, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Potash?

Under "See Also", shouldn't KOH be "Caustic Potash" rather than "Potash", which is K2C03? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.172.192 (talk) 02:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fight Club?

Is there a reason fight club is listed in the "See Also" section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Resisty (talk • contribs) 23:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Fight Club, the main charachter places Lye on his skin to give himself a burn Thejapanesegeek (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

in Fight Club soap making is a major theme.--Paul the less (talk) 01:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Hobbies"?

Any good reason why this is in Category:Hobbies? Sure, Lye can be used in one hobby, soap-making, but it's damn near everything can be hobby-related, by that criterion. It's not as though lye itself is a hobby. TJRC (talk) 22:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Silence, so I removed. TJRC (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problem removed

I removed a large section of text that was directly copied from this page, one of this page's references. This really damages the article, so it would be ideal if this text could be rewritten to avoid copyright violation. Alternately, someone could contact the copyright holder and ask for permission to use the text on this page. For more information, see wp:cv. Indeterminate (talk) 02:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update - it might have been added by the copyright holder. The content was added in this edit by User:CertifiedLye. I'll email the copyright holder to check that it was donated properly. Reverted in good faith. Indeterminate (talk) 02:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lye Water

Is it appropriate to mention lye water in this article ? There's currently no separate Wiki article on it. It's basically a simple solution of lye in water, used in some types of Asian and African cooking (but NOT meant for drinking). It's sold commerically in many stores, bottled and labelled very similar to drinking water, and there have been several cases of people getting severe throat burns from accidentally drinking it. Logicman1966 (talk) 08:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch page (Natronloog)

I tried to add the Dutch equivalentof the page, but I got an error: "Site link nlwiki:Natronloog already used by item Q5369270". I do not know what this error means, but I wondered if someone who does could link the Dutch page to this one (the Dutch page links to the English page perfectly).