Ammonium Hydroxide - Applications

Applications

Household ammonia is dilute ammonium hydroxide, which is also an ingredient of numerous other cleaning agents, including many window cleaning formulas. In addition to use as an ingredient in cleansers with other cleansing ingredients, ammonium hydroxide in water is also sold as a cleaning agent by itself, usually labelled as simply "ammonia". It may be sold plain, lemon-scented (and typically colored yellow), or pine-scented (green). Commonly available ammonia that has had soap added to it is known as "Cloudy ammonia".

In industry, ammonium hydroxide is used as a precursor to some alkyl amines, although anhydrous ammonia is usually preferred. Hexamethylenetetramine forms readily from aqueous ammonia and formaldehyde. Ethylenediamine forms from 1,2-dichloroethane and aqueous ammonia.

In furniture-making, ammonium hydroxide was traditionally used to darken or stain wood containing tannic acid. After being sealed inside a container with the wood, fumes from the ammonium hydroxide react with the tannic acid and iron salts naturally found in wood, creating a rich, dark stained look to the wood. This was commonly used during the arts and crafts movement in furniture- a furniture style which was primarily constructed of oak and stained using these methods.

As a food additive, ammonium hydroxide is used as an antimicrobial. In the United States, ammonium hydroxide is classified by the Food and Drug Administration as generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Some fast-food restaurants use beef that has been treated with ammonium hydroxide to make it safe, but McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell restaurants have recently stopped this practice. Beef treated with ammonium hydroxide can still be found on grocery shelves.

It is also known to be used by aquarists for the purposes of fishless cycling, but this requires that there are no surfactants or scents, it should be colorless and shouldn't foam when shaken up.