ammonium hydroxide

A pretty poweful basic solution. My boss dumped about 20 ml of 29$ NH₄OH into our 2000-gallon waste water tank, and it raised the pH by over a point. She also nearly knocked herself out, because the fumes are so bad that they cause your body to shut down the intake to your lungs. It smells like ultra-concentrated cat piss mixed with paint, and feels like a kick in the face, even if you're standing six feet away.

Particularly nasty because it dissociates into ammonia and water. The ammonia is a very lightweight molecule (about 1/2 the molecular weight of oxygen) and diffuses very quickly through the air. This is especially problematic because the dissociation reaction is reversible, so the ammonia forms ammonium hydroxide when it reaches more water, which there happens to be plenty of in your eyes, sinuses, and lungs.

A few years back when I was an intern my supervisor broke a bottle and spilled about a gallon of concentrated ammonium hydroxide on the floor. Needless to say, the ammonia instantly filled the room and proceded to diffuse into the room next door. I was in the lab at the time, and the ammonia caused a most painful experience which it why I never wear contact lenses in the lab.

As a chemical known for its industrial use in producing rayon, rubber, fertilizer, and plastic, and its use as a household cleaner, this chemical is really useful.

In 2012, McDonald's, the fast food company, announced that it would no longer be using ammonium hydroxide in its hamburger patties.

The question raised by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and others at the time was this: what was it doing in ground meat in the first place?

Killing pathogens, that's what. In order to keep e. Coli out of the meat supply, suppliers to McDonald's, such as Beef Products, Inc., added ammonia to their lean finely textured beef trimmings. Untreated beef naturally contains some ammonia (the pH of beef is about 6). Beef Product's treatment raised the pH to 10. Later, in response to customer concerns (and complaints about taste and smell), they used a little less and lowered the pH to 8.5. Ammonium hydroxide was declared safe by the Food and Drug Administration in 1974.

By 2012, critics of the food industry were calling the lean finely textured beef "pink slime," as the addition of ammonia to the meat trimmings created a soft and malleable texture.

M. Alex Johnson, "McDonald's drops use of gooey ammonia-based 'pink slime' in hamburger meat." MSNBC.com. Jan. 31, 2012.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mcdonalds-drops-use-gooey-ammonia-based-pink-slime-hamburger-meat-flna1c6435956 (accessed October 25, 2022)

Tamika Sims, "What’s the Beef with “Pink Slime?”" Food Insight. June 5, 2017. https://foodinsight.org/whats-the-beef-with-pink-slime/ (accessed October 25, 2022)

CosmeticsInfo.org. "Ammomium Hydroxide."
http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient_details.php?ingredient_id=631 (accessed February 6, 2012)

Michael Moss. "Safety of Beef Processing Method is Questioned." New York Times. December 30, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html (accessed February 6, 2012)