My Molasses rust experiment results.

grassy said
Mixing wasn't an issue for me. And the liquid never goes bad or weak...just cover and bring out for another day.

No fumes as well. I just stuck the bucket just outside the garage door...even in the rain. No smell. Especially not bad stuff like brake cleaner.

I had the bucket and battery charger. the jugs of caustic soda were cheap and the rebar 15 bucks, maybe.

I grow a lot with organics and use molasses. It goes bad very quickly and I am not sure how safe it is breathing that stuff or even handling it months later..does it go toxic ? i where latex gloves and a mold rated mask as precautions, but the mold is rather solid and not powdery so it does not become airborne during removal.

lastly, it takes far too long. We cleaned up a bunch of nasty parts very quickly...TRUE BUT MY POINT OF THE THREAD WAS I WAS IN NO RUSH FOR MY PARTS.

Ian.

Assuming that your using steel rebar and a sodium carbonnate solution, the only hazard that I know of is that the tiny bubbles that form in the solution is hydrogen gas. obviously common sense is to do this in a well ventilated area, but the larger the part the more hydrogen byproduct produced (a potential BOMB). i haven't heard of molasses blowing anyone's place recently. Another hazard to electrolysis is it can weaken the metal that is being rust removed on, you can not use this on stainless as i can to remove the surface rust, as electrolysis will produce (chromium) which can kill you.
I'm not here to argue what is right or wrong way to do rust removal, my thread was to show what my results were.

PICS BELOW ARE OF PARTS I PUT IN WHEN I STARTED THIS POST AND PULLED TODAY TO CHECK PROGRESS.
IF YOU ARE NOT PATIENT ENOUGH TO MOLASSES, THERE ARE MANY OPTIONS AVAILABLE ONLINE BLOGS. SEARCH OUT AND TRY SOMETHING AND POST YOUR RESULTS FOR ALL OF US TO SEE AND DETERMINE IF IT WILL WORK FOR US INDIVIDUALLY.