One thing I always wonder is what exactly does HCl dissolve in the stomach, and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food?
The nutritional value is things that don't react with HCl at low concentration, especially amino acids.
Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
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Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#22actual title == Acid Personalities
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/acid-personalities
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#23Many people have never seen stainless steel rust. I have. At a slightly leaky Swagelok compression fitting on the HCl-containing gas mixture bottle for a XeCl excimer laser. The leaking HCl combines with the room humidity to make an acid that will rust stainless. And it’s brown oxide rust, induced by the stripping of protective oxides by the HCl.
Remember, it’s stain LESS not stain FEEE. It merely stains less than regular steel. Not that it is unable to stain at all.
Haha I remember when I first realised that.
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#24Free text of the research paper: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/6353634...
I recommend to take a look at the research paper because it has a few drawing that show how the Cl- and H+ [1] are connected with the molecules of the solvent. I like Lowe's post very much, but this really need a few graphics. [1] Note that the H+ is never alone. It's too difficult to remove that electron from the Hydrogen, so H+ is a shorthand for something more complicated.
typically H+ in aq. is H3O+ [hydronium]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydronium
oxygen has greater electronegativity than hydrogen thus oxygen takes a greater share of the electronic orbital, becoming a net positive region
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#25One thing I always wonder is what exactly does HCl dissolve in the stomach, and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food?
No one has provided the actual answer yet. Here it is-
The gastroduodenal epithelium (stomach surface) is covered by a sticky mucus layer into which bicarbonate is secreted by surface epithelial cells. This bicarbonate-mucus layer creates a pH gradient with a near-neutral pH at the epithelial surfaces in stomach and duodenum, providing the first line of mucosal protection against luminal gastric acid.
We only learned this in the last 20 years so it’s relatively new science
Edit: either I misread the question or it was edited
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#26Many people have never seen stainless steel rust. I have. At a slightly leaky Swagelok compression fitting on the HCl-containing gas mixture bottle for a XeCl excimer laser. The leaking HCl combines with the room humidity to make an acid that will rust stainless. And it’s brown oxide rust, induced by the stripping of protective oxides by the HCl.
Remember, it’s stain LESS not stain FEEE. It merely stains less than regular steel. Not that it is unable to stain at all. Haha I remember when I first realised that.
Literally, the suffix -less means a complete absence of the thing. It is not a synonym for fewer.
“Stainless except for odd situations you wouldn’t normally find messing with the oxide protective layer” isn’t a very good marketing name.
Even though it is a lie, stainless does mean the absolute.
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#27Many people have never seen stainless steel rust. I have. At a slightly leaky Swagelok compression fitting on the HCl-containing gas mixture bottle for a XeCl excimer laser. The leaking HCl combines with the room humidity to make an acid that will rust stainless. And it’s brown oxide rust, induced by the stripping of protective oxides by the HCl.
Remember, it’s stain LESS not stain FEEE. It merely stains less than regular steel. Not that it is unable to stain at all. Haha I remember when I first realised that.
> Haha I remember when I first realised that.
It seemed like you were making a joke until you talked about "realizing" something. So on the off chance you weren't, you should know that "___less" and "___ free" have identical meaning. The -less suffix means "present in the quantity zero", not "present in a quantity which is smaller than some unspecified other quantity".
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#28One thing I always wonder is what exactly does HCl dissolve in the stomach, and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food?
Low pH is needed for pepsin to work. Also to kill some pathogens. Doesn’t affect nutritional components of ingestion eg amino acids, vitamins and lipids.
makes me wonder what makes pathogen survive our stomach acid bath
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#29One thing I always wonder is what exactly does HCl dissolve in the stomach, and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food?
> ...and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food? Acids destroying whatever they touch is mostly a "kiddie" version of reality. 99.9% of acids found outside of chemistry labs and industrial settings are no more dangerous or destructive ( as acids ) than soda pop, lime juice, or human vomit (all of which are acids). The reason is that some far stronger and/or more dangerous acids occasionally show up…
> 99.9% of acids found outside of chemistry labs and industrial settings are no more dangerous or destructive (as acids) than soda pop, lime juice, or human vomit (all of which are acids).
> The reason is that some far stronger and/or more dangerous acids occasionally show up in household settings. Example: "battery acid", splashed on the skin, can cause horrific & life-long damage in seconds.
I had to look up "battery acid"; turns out it's sulfuric acid, which is well known to be very dangerous.
Of course, so is hydrochloric acid, which is the acid in human vomit. The destructiveness of the solution is not determined by the acid -- we use HCl because it is extremely destructive! -- it is determined by the acid's concentration.
Note that vomiting more than a normal amount (say, because you're bulimic) will cause noticeable acid damage to your teeth.
Re: Hydrochloric acid is more complicated than you think
#30One thing I always wonder is what exactly does HCl dissolve in the stomach, and how does it not destroy the nutritional value of the food?
No one has provided the actual answer yet. Here it is- The gastroduodenal epithelium (stomach surface) is covered by a sticky mucus layer into which bicarbonate is secreted by surface epithelial cells. This bicarbonate-mucus layer creates a pH gradient with a near-neutral pH at the epithelial surfaces in stomach and duodenum, providing the first line of mucosal protection against luminal gastric acid. We only learned…
Got to learn about tooth development, and the fact that our cells secrete apatite to then accrete into enamel. Quite mind blowing the diversity of stuff our cells can emit.