Recently I started renovating a bicycle. The frame has been painted probably over 30 years ago, and despite holding well, big patches of rust are showing. So it's time to give the bike a new paint job. And before that, I need to sand the frame and remove the current paint.
Sadly it came to my attention that some bikes around that age have lead paint. Toxic, obviously.
I'm by no means a pro chemist. Far from that actually: if you show me a bunch of formulas, I might understand it, but I'm not skilled for manipulations neither properly equipped.
Provided that I can scratch a bit of that paint with sandpaper, what's the easiest way to test it for presence of lead? Apparently some lead test kits exist, but they're incredibly hard to find here.
Answer
Two chemicals are used in lead test kits: sodium sulfide or a rhodizonate salt. Sodium sulfide should be easy to obtain (or synthesize), and is useful for light-colored paint, as it produces a gray or black color change. Potassium rhodizonate can be synthesized from inositol, but you might be better off getting sodium rhodizonate, e.g. from Sigma-Aldrich for ~US$35 for 5 grams.
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