top of page

Coca Cola's Harmful Yet Useful Resource for Car Battery Corrosion.


(Flickr) The Olympia Building, located at 23 Peachtree Street, was built between 1935 and 1936 by Frank Hawkins to the modern design of architects Ivey & Crook. (Photo by: Wally Gobetz)

From Coca Cola’s common ingredient, cocaine, in the early 1900s to high doses of sugar can harm the health of indulgers. Although cocaine was removed altogether from the cola product in 1929, Coca Cola remains as a refreshing, but a harmful product that is useful in other ways than quenching ones’ thirst. One of the alarming yet beneficial practices that the public, car owners, and auto mechanics use cola products for is to clean car battery terminals.


(Flickr) Pouring Diet Coke over the corrosion on the battery terminals. (Photo by: Lisa Borodkin)

According to Augusta University’s Chemistry Professor, Rosalyn Holliday, the acid in the cola products can neutralize such things like a nail or battery corrosion because of phosphoric acid. The U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NIH) states that phosphoric acid is a clear colorless corrosive solid that can melt at 42.35 degree Celsius. Ingesting phosphoric acid will burn lips, tongues, throats, and stomachs, which is a demonstration of corrosive behavior of the acid, according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS).


(AUGUSTA, GA) a phosphoric acid tank located outside the main building of the local Coca Cola factory.

The reason why Coca Cola can corrode battery acid is that the phosphoric acid in the cola products contains three acidic hydrogens. Professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri from Science Is Fun organization informs that this phosphoric acid is used in the same way to clean and rust-proof the products of fertilizers, detergents, and pharmaceuticals.


For more information on the usefulness of the Coca Cola in other resourceful ways than eliminating battery corrosion, visit Lifehack.

11 views0 comments
bottom of page