Can sulphuric acid corrode steel and granite?

[Mackay1011]

HI, if I put some sulphuric acid on a 1.5" sheet of reinforced steel how long would it take until I could just poke the corroded area and it would go through? Also if I had a 4" sheet of granit and poured it on that would it corrode? And how long would it take?

Pretty random question I know but I am curious, ty :)

 

[King Diamond]

Well that greatly depends on what kind of steel it is.
I am from europe so i don`t know much about astm norms for alloys, if by reinforced steel you mean steel for reinforment rods which i usually are pretty much unalloyed in austria it still depends on many parameters.
Concentration of the acid, how the area was treated before pouring it on it, is the acid protected from air, do you pour acid periodicly and so on...

if you just poured acid on it once and then put it in a dry room it will most likely never happen that you can just poke through it.
Given the right circumstances it can be accomplished within a few days or mabye even hours...
If you are trying to break out of the prision i would recommend to use chili sauce... they onced showed how to do it on mythbusters^^ quite a nice trick

 

[Mackay1011]

Well I aint in prison for a start lol I am just curious when I see things on T.V I like to find out if it would really work. Well the sulphuric acid would be 100% pure, the acid is kept in a glass bottle and would it work if I poured it on the same place a few times? When I say poke through it I mean with abit of force. And what about the granit? I would say granit is a hell of a lot harder then steel but with persistent use of the acid would that also corrode a hole?

 

[King Diamond]

Guess you don`t work much with steel since you said that granite is harder but that's not too bad.
Like in an other thread said there are thousands of different typ of steel and well most of them are a lot harder then granit.
First of all the processes differ quite much.
Granite would just become disolved in the acid while the steel will begin to corrode.
I am not too much into concrete and stone but i am quite positive that granite will be pretty unimpressed by H2SO4 since its an oxidation acid. You would have to use a reductive acid like HCl.

 

[Mackay1011]

I'm shocked that granite would just dissolve when mixed with sulphuric acid I thought it would just make it weak so if you dropped it from 50ft it would smash. So what types of steel are the strongest? I am not talking like 2ft block of steel just a 1.5" sheet. Which types of steel would it have trouble corroding?