Battery Acid leaked in my trunk, worried about gear

Recently I changed my battery, loaded the old one in my trunk, and drove it to be disposed of. At home I realized that the battery had leaked on the bed liner. I dumped about half of a box of baking soda on the small droplets, then ground baking soda into the whole of the bed liner. It currently sits in shame in the corner of my garage.

Is this enough? Can I be too careful? remove bed liner if going climbing?

Some also appears to have leaked onto the inside of a backpack I used to carry the battery that is, unfortunately, my back packing bag, I treated it similarly, with much baking soda and water, but I am worried that it may be done for in terms of damaging gear with acid.

NO GEAR WAS EXPOSED.

So the acid did not actually get on your gear?

I'd do pretty much as you did, scrup strong baking soda solution with a brush, let it sit on there for a good while, repeat and and rinse rinse rinse. Should be fine.

I want to clarify something. NO GEAR WAS EXPOSED.

I am more than willing to trash the backpack and the bed liner.

I realized after --statement retracted.

Don't keep your gear lose in the bed. Store it in a plastic tub if in there for extended time, and you'll be fine

WillamR wrote:I realized after --statement retracted. Don't keep your gear lose in the bed. Store it in a plastic tub if in there for extended time, and you'll be fine

Yeah, I'm gonna trash the backpack, or at least line it with a garbage bag and never use it for climbing gear.

I think I'll just remove the bed when it's time for a climbing trip.

If you hadn't already, wash the trunk liner a few times.

I wouldn't be surprised if that backpack disintegrated pretty soon....Perhaps you neutralized the acid before it had time to do significant damage, though.

You can also get a battery acid spray from a auto parts store. Will turn blue if battery acid is present. Also helps neutralize it.

I believe battery acid is water soluble (the acid is actually 70% water, 30% sulfuric acid), so it will go away with a good wash. I would wash the vehicle well with a pressure washer, throw the backpack, and then call it a day. You could keep your gear in the cab for awhile until the truck drives through the rain a few times for extra protection.

rockandice.com/gear-guide-t…

I'm also pretty sure the backpack won't hold much weight anymore. Probably strong enough to carry the toilet paper.

I'm confused. Is this a trunk, as in a carpeted trunk liner that covers the spare? Or a bed liner for a truck, IE hard plastic?

If carpeted, keep scrubbing like you're doing and it'll probably be fine. It'll get holes sooner than the rest of the trunk though. If a plastic bed liner, it's super easy to wash but more importantly, takes up valuable room in your bed and should be thrown away or sold anyway. I lost at least an inch on all sides when I had one. I hated that thing.

+1 on the suggestion of keeping the gear in a plastic tub. The piece of mind of knowing the gear never touched the inside of the trunk is nice. I bought my car used and don't trust that something like this didn't happen before I owned it.

The plastic tub is cheap and actually fairly convenient if I need to move the gear around.

Provided you thoroughly cleaned the truck liner and backpack with plenty of water then I see little need for concern. I would fully immerse the backpack a couple times to be safe. Sulfuric acid is going to completely dissociate in water and then be diluted to harmless levels. All of your shiny Al climbing gear was treated in acid, are you going to throw all of it out also? If the H2SO4 was spilled on a very porous structure that was difficult to clean then I might be worried.

I'm a firefighter and we see exploded car batts regularly... isolate battery followed by Copious amounts of water!

Update: gonna toss the pack while sobbing quietly. Hard plastic bed liner will be tested with acid indicator. Will proceed from there.

NicholasKoch wrote:Update: gonna toss the pack while sobbing quietly. Hard plastic bed liner will be tested with acid indicator. Will proceed from there.

Tossing the pack is pointless until you know it has actually been compromised. If you soaked thoroughly as soon as you discovered the spill, then see what happens. Totally soaked and washed would pose no problem for gear afterwards, so just load it up with some rocks and see if it blows out. If nothing else, don't use it for gear - but old packs are always useful somehow.

As an aside, I'm still perplexed why anyone would put a car battery in their climbing pack instead of an old box from the supermarket.

Marc801 wrote: I'm still perplexed why anyone would put a car battery in their climbing pack instead of an old box from the supermarket.

I thought about this too. I store mine in the river (to keep them clean) until I'm ready to turn them in.

My friend did the exact same thing and later we were going to use her rope at Shelf and we both noticed a fuzzy spot on it. You could pick matted pieces out of the sheath and core of the rope like it was dried up. I remembered when she had battery trouble and we figured it out. Needless to say, that rope was destroyed.

People, you need to be more serious about keeping dead batteries covered when you transport them. Get a plastic garbage bag and wrap it or something.

Brian, that spray to detect acid sounds very smart. I would use that.

Note that not all types of plastic will resist battery acid. The best option is to use polypropylene, which is what battery casings are made out of. Bags are made out of HDPE.

What you want is #5 - PP.

Good to know. Or just drop off the dead battery at the auto parts store when you get the new one.

I worked at a garage filling batteries, and never noticed what was leaked on my cloths until after it was washed, big holes. So if any of your gear got contaminated you will notice after you wash and let it dry. If all looks good after that then nothing got touched.