What would payday 2's "meth recipe" actually make irl ?

Just looking at the chemistry of the in-game "meth recipe" to see what would happen in real life.

The Payday 2 Recipe

So in payday the "meth recipe" is Hydrogen Chloride, Muriatic Acid, and Caustic Soda, the order doesn't really matter because in the end we add everything togheter.

Hydrogen Chloride

First off, Hyrdrogen Chloride,

It's a gas and a very nasty one, because it reacts with water (including water vapor in the air, or the human body) to form Hydrochloric acid, also know as Muriatic acid.

Now you might see two problem, the first one being that if you don't have proper equipment and ventilation, you will most likely die very painfully, with all the hydrogen chloride in the air reacting with the water in you eyes, lungs, and even your skin, to form acid that will attack and (chemically) burn you.

The second problem is how is this different than Muriatic acid (aka Hydrochloric acid) well (TL:DR;) the biggest difference is water:
Hydrogen Chloride (HCl), is a gas, made of an Hydrogen (H) atom bonded to a Chlorine (Cl) atom.
In contact with water, the Chlorine atom steals the electron from the Hydrogen (which is made of only a proton and an electron), leaving a Chloride anion (Cl-) (a Chlorine atom with a negative charge because it has an extra electron) and a Proton (H+) (which is our Hydrogen atom without an electron, so just a proton) which will protonate water, meaning the Oxygen atom in water (H2O) will accept the Proton and form an Hydronium Ion (H3O+), carrying a positive charge because inversely to the Chloride, it has an extra Proton, it's written as H3O+ since it's basically an oxygen bonded to 3 Hydrogen atom, it's just that one hydrogen has no electron.

So in general you would use Hydrogen Chloride gas, instead of Muriatic acid, if your reaction needs dry condition, some reaction won't happen if water is present.

Now adding both Hydrogen Chloride and Muriatic acid makes very little sense, first because if you need an anhydrous acid, dry sulfuric acid would be safer because it's a liquid not a gas, now some reaction do call for Hydrogen Chloride when it's not used as an acid, second, I don't know of any scenario where you absolutely need Hydrogen Chloride and then you need to acidify your reaction product with Hydrochloric acid.

Not to mention if you're using an extremely corrosive gas in the middle of a shooting assuming you have proper protection and manage to put the gas in an air-tight reaction apparatus which is most often made of glass, the bullets flying could break your glass releasing the gas and whatever else potentially toxic and deadly chemicals you need for the reaction.

Muriatic acid and Caustic Soda

Muriatic acid

AKA Hydrochloric acid, is a liquid, being a solution of Chloride anions (Cl-) (a Chloride atom with an extra electron) and Hydronium ions (H3O+) (a water molecule with an extra proton), with some unprotonated "normal" Water (H2O) too.

Caustic Soda

AKA Lye, or Sodium Hydroxyde (NaOH), opposite to Muriatic acid, is a very strong base, a white solid, being made of Sodium cations, Na+, carrying a positive charge that stabilize the negative charge of Hydroxide anions, HO- (basically the opposite of the Hydronium ion, a water molecule with a proton missing, could also be thought as an Oxygen bonded to only one Hydrogen, and with an extra electron), it is very soluble in water.

Acids and Bases in a nutshell

TL;DR: when an aquaeous solution (solution of water) has lots of Protons (often in the form protonated water) it is said to be acidic, when a water solution has very little Protons, it is said to be basic, Acids increase the concentration of Protons, while Base decrease it, if you want to know more lookup "pH scale" on wikipedia.
This is know as the Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory, there are other acid-base theories but unless specified this the one people refer to.

What happens if you mix them ?

Well it's a really bad idea, first because dissolving Lye in water (Muriactic acid is mostly water) is exothermic, second because the reaction between Lye and Muriatic acid is also exothermic, that means you're going to have corrosive vapors while that same corrosive liquid is going to splosh around swinging Lye pellets and acid at you

Now Hydrochloric acid and Lye do cancel out each other since one is an acid the other a base (in the correct proportion) but it take times to mix everything evenly, so corrosive vapors and splatters are inevitable, chemical burns aside the reaction being so exothermic there is a great danger of "regular" burns.

In terms of the product of the reaction, here's the equation HCl + NaOH => NaCl + H2O, in short you're making table salt and water.

Now you might say "Hold on didn't you say in Muriatic Acid, the HCl molecule dissociate to form Cl- and H3O+ ? Why did you write HCl ?"

Well that's just to simplify thing, if we go back to our water (H2O) solution of Cl- anions and H3O+ ions for Muriatic acid, and then add our Sodium Hydroxide which is some Na+ ions and HO- anions.

What happens is that Hydroxyde anion (HO-) from the Lye, is just one Proton short of being a normal water (H2O) molecule, it's just so happens that our Hydronium ion (H3O+) has an extra Proton ! React them together and we get two water molecules.

Now we also have the Cl- and Na+ to deal with, since opposite attracts our Chloride anions has a negative charge, it is attracted to positive charges, inversly our positive Sodium ion is attracted to negative charges and poof ! You get NaCl or table salt, or at least you will if you were to evaporate the solution.

Electronegativity, polarity and why Na+ and Cl- in water isn't technically "table salt" but more of a soup of ions

Since we're dealing with an aqueous solution (stuff dissolved in water) the story thickens a bit, to understand you need to know about something called electronegativity[wikipedia.org], which is how much an atom attracts electrons.

For instance Chlorine is very electronegative and really likes electrons, so much so that sometimes it will rip out an electron from less electronegative atoms ! And it will just selfishly hold on that electron to form an anion (negatively charged particle) like with the Hydrogen Chloride gas and Water reaction.

On the opposite end, Sodium has a very low electronegativity, it's electropositive, and really want to get rid of one electron, and when it meets a more electronegative atom it will takes the first opportunity to do so, since it lost an electron it will form a cation (positively charged particle).

The reason for that is because atoms towards the top of the periodic table and close to Noble gases[wikipedia.org] (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) tend to desire the same electron configuration[wikipedia.org] as them, Alkali Metals[wikipedia.org] (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs) will lose an electron, Halogens[wikipedia.org] (F, Cl, Br, I) will steal one or share them in a covalent bond, like Carbon, Nitrogen or Oxygen do too.

When two atoms are bonded together their difference in electronegativity will dictate what type of bond they have:

• A large difference mean the bond is ionic, where attraction is due to the opposite charge of the atoms, like magnets.
  
• A small difference mean the bond is covalent, where two atoms share electrons and thus need to be in close contact, like holding someone's hand.

Now bond type is a spectrum, meaning in between ionic and covalent bonding there is polar bonding, meaning two atoms share electrons like a covalent bond, but one atoms hold them closer giving rise to a charge imbalance, where one atom has a partially positive charge and the other a partially negative charge, opening the door for ionic bonding.

This is exactly what is happening with those Sodium cations and Chloride anions, our table salt, dissolved in Water, since Oxygen is electronegative, and Hydrogen less so, the Oxygen will hog the electrons and take a partially negative charge, while the Hydrogens, will have partially positive charges, this allows our Sodium cation to be attracted to the Oxygen and the Chloride anion to the Hydrogens of our water molecule.

So unlike dry table salt, where only ionic interaction between the Sodium cations and Cloride anions exist and hold the solid together, when in Water, Water-Salt ionic interactions play an important role and breaks apart the salt ions, dissolving them !
That's why it's not technically table salt since it is all broken up, but more of a soup of ions in water, I know, lots of words for a technicality lol.

Now you may wonder what happens if we used something non-polar, like cooking oil or gasoline where most of the molecule is made of Carbon-Hydrogen or Carbon-Carbon non-polar covalent bonds, and put table salt in that, well, the salt would fall right to the bottom (or the top depending on the density) !
Since ionic bonding is absent in oil or gasoline, the salt would only have itself to interact with, just like in your salt shaker and will stay solid.

Conclusion

If you were to do the payday 2 "meth recipe" in real life you would be probably dead, or until that breathing extremely corrosive gas, and get splatters of a boiling corrosive solution, all that just to make some water and table salt...

Further watching/reading

If you want to know a bit more, watch breaking bad, while it's obvious writers didn't know chemistry, for example Hydrofluoric acid is extremely toxic and not something you'd have in a highschool, not to mention it's not very good at dissolving bodies (Of course I didn't test that, there are videos on youtube, there's also a mythbusters breaking bad specials where they test it).

They were advised by people that did and most of the chemistry of the show is at the very least rooted in reality if not completely accurate.

You can also watch NileRed, Extraction&Ire (Explosions&Fire too!), NurdRage on youtube if you want to see cool chemistry videos, one of those three people made a video exploring the chemistry of you know what but understandably removed it (there's still reuploads though).

Also remember you can find almost anything on the internet, the synthesis of TNT is described on its wikipedia page, but I would advise heavily against learning something for purpose other than to explore and enjoy the science as even amongst "stuff", you know what, is probably one of the worst, being higly addictive, neurotoxic, giving disillusions and paranoia, etc...

Not to mention if you need to look up the chemistry of something, chances are you don't know enough to be doing it in a safe way, as such I would advise very heavily against recreating the payday 2 "meth recipe" in real life or anything explored in this guide, if you wanna see the reaction of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxyde go to youtube.

Keep also in mind I don't have a degree or even formal education in chemistry, I'm just curious, so they might be mistakes, if so, tell me and I'll correct them.

[gurt]

i hope they'll add real recipe so we can learn chemistry while playing (multi-tasking )

[KIm SoVI]

Wait… Then we just sell the "WET TABLE SALT" for A Million?

[everyth1ng]

I know shit about chemistry but man, you're just Walter White for real. Just try not to break bad like the Payday gang did.

[cameraman]

who are you, a beginning drug dealer

[Profile]

I added a section about electronegativity and polarity because I felt like the part about Na+ and Cl- making "table salt" when in water was slightly inaccurate, so if anyone is subscribed to the comment, now you know it's there .

[Rat in a tub]

salt water is basically meth... or at least that's what my dealer told me

[Profile]

[FailureLoops]

thanks now i can be uh uhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhh uhu h uh uh uh uh uh uh uhuhu uh uh hu u uhuh uhh u uhuh uh hu uh uh hu uhh uh uh u uh uhh uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhuhuuhuhuhuhyh

[HK]

If your gonna try this make sure you wait for bains instructions

[))]

Если бы так проводили уроки химии...