Cleaning corrosion with lemon juice

As I mentioned in the post about cleaning corrosion from Xbox 360 battery holder: https://strangegamepads.blogspot.com/2019/06/cleaning-xbox-360-wireless-controller.html you should be able to use lemon acid to clean corrosion also. Well yesterday I realized that my lemon juice concentrate is over 6 months past best before date and the latest salsa I made using that tasted already a bit stale. So this would be nice opportunity to check if lemon juice can clean corrosion. I searched for the rustiest screws I could find. Found these parts from my old doorbell.

Rusty screws and a bonus spring

I put those into a container and added lemon juice until the screws were submerged.
Into the container

Add stale lemon juice

Yummy

The spring wasn't completely covered so I propped the container to an angle get everything covered.
Everything covered

I let the ingredients stew overnight. I shook the container couple of times to get the rust moving. When I opened the lid the smell was interesting. A mix of rust and bad lemon juice. But looked like the rust had been removed.
After around 24 hours

So then it was just a matter of rinsing everything. I used couple of magnets to hold everything in place when rinsing so nothing would get lost to the sewers.
Freaking magnets

And indeed after rinsing it looks like the rust is gone. Of course the screws and spring don't look like brand new, but at least the rust is gone. I guess you could treat the cleaned parts with some anti-corrosion paint or lubricant. As a conclusion I'd say that at least in this case lemon juice worked as good as white vinegar. Have to try this next time I encounter something with battery corrosion.
Not like new but a least rust is gone



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