Cola and other carbonated drinks are gaining increasing popularity as a means for cleaning rust, limescale, detergent additives, and so on. Due to what drinks are able to clean teapots and toilets, and does it make sense to use soda as household chemicals?
Unusual ways to use soda
Soda has become the hero of many "folk recipes" that make life easier for the hostess. As a rule, it is recommended to use Coca-Cola as a cleaning agent, less often Fanta or Sprite, and very rarely Pepsi. And the range of domestic applications for these drinks is quite wide. Here are just a few of the many times tested and working options:
- descale the kettle;
- wash cups of tea plaque;
- clean the toilet;
- remove limescale from faucets and plumbing;
- remove stains from markers;
- clean the coin;
- remove rust;
- use when washing as an additive to the powder.
How to clean a cola kettle and much more
If a layer of scale has formed inside the kettle, in order to get rid of it, it is enough to pour cola into it to half and bring to a boil. After that, wait a few minutes and pour out the soda. After that, the softened layer of scale will easily move away from the walls of the kettle.
To wash cups from brown tea plaque, fill them with soda and let stand for several hours. The walls of the cup will brighten, there will be no trace of plaque.
In order to clean the toilet with a cola or other drink, it is necessary to pour a bottle of “cleaning agent” into it (preferably so that it falls under the rim) and leave without rinsing, at least for an hour. And better - at night. Then brush with a brush - and you will see that the yellow deposits have disappeared, and the plumbing shines with pristine whiteness.
To clean the limescale and rust from the taps in the bathroom and in the kitchen or other chrome-plated parts, you can wrap them with a cloth dampened with plenty of water in a magic drink, and after 10-15 minutes wash and rub to a shine.
You can also clean a coin with cola without difficulty: just put it in a drink at night, and wipe it with a soft cloth in the morning: the layer of dirt will be removed and the coin will brighten. In the same way, small objects can be cleaned of rust.
To remove stains from clothes, you need to pour dirt with cola (or just moisten a pile of clothes directly in the drum of the washing machine), and after a few minutes, pour the usual detergent and wash in the usual way. And the dirt is removed much better.
Why cola cleans limescale, rust and limescale
In fact, the cleaning properties are not a specific feature of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Sprite and do not indicate that these drinks contain any particularly harmful or especially powerful chemicals. Any lemonade has cleaning properties, and the effect of all these products is approximately the same. And cola is simply the most advertised - and, accordingly, more widespread and more mythologized.
The composition of almost all carbonated drinks includes acidity regulators - as a rule, this is citric acid (E-330), which is widespread in everyday life.
Another popular acidity regulator is orthophosphoric acid (E338), well known to motorists as an excellent anti-corrosion agent: it not only converts rust, but also prevents further corrosion of the metal, forming a thin protective film on its surface.
Do not forget about the "magic bubbles" of carbon dioxide, which also enters into a chemical reaction with water, eventually forming carbonic acid.
Thus, any non-alcoholic carbonated drink from a chemical point of view is a weak acidic solution. And, when the drink is poured into a kettle covered with a gray crust of plaque, it is the acids that react and dissolve the lime. This explains the "magic" cleaning properties of cola and other carbonated drinks.
