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[Gabriel]

I doubt that it is resistant enough to really prevent it from disolving with enough acid. ROOTless would be the one to answer this question, but I imagine the calcium is only so basic and once you get a stronger acid, it would do the trick.

Gabriel

[Ruski]

Calcium dissolves quite well in acid. So well in fact, that if you put calcium into acid, which the acid will actually dissolve enough of it to turn completely basic, and will eventually balance out at approximately 7.2 pH

The problem arrives when you want a little bit of acid to dissolve a whole lot of calcium. It just doesn’t work. The calcium neutralizes the acid, and then you are left with calcium, and water. (Or, gunk; as the case may be.)

Generally; if you take Citric Acid (Available at Home Depot) (At pH 4.0) and tried to dissolve 1 pound of calcium; you'd need about 10 gallons of the stuff; and all of it would be neutralized by the end of the process.

Anyone want to guess how much of the human body, by weight, is bone?

(About 7 - 18% (7 % if you just count the calcium content, 18% if you count the other stuff too) so your 200 lb human, will have about 14 to 36 lbs of bone matter, working out to 140 gallons of Citric Acid. (Just for the calcium in the bones))

And that's just for the skeleton. The muscle and other stuff will need to dissolve too; it just goes away a little easier.

Now, if you were to get some stronger acid it would go faster... but not by a meaningful margin.

Typically; when using acid to destroy a body; they just use it to destroy the easily identifiable face and hands; (Erasing finger prints and facial identification);
This of course is going back to the old additive: no body, no murder. If they can't prove that the body they found was the mysteriously missing Mr. Jones, they can't charge you with murder. (Easily, at least)

They can of course use DNA typing to figure out who it was, or Dental Records (if the face wasn't beat in with a sledgehammer), but those things take time, typically measured in the space of weeks (Less for high-profile cases).
While inversely; it takes time, measured in hours, to get the hell out of dodge.


-RuskiFace the Pirate

[kv]

Your muscles are filled with calcium, as well as bones. Your teeth are almost entirely calcium, and your skull is dense enough that it would take many hours to dissolve it.

But that's just what I think.

  -kv

[ROOTless]

I've heard the calcium of bones is resistant to acid- does anyone know if that's true?

  -kv

Calcium is, IIRC, a buffer. Meaning it has a lot of extra protons and electrons to 'sacrifice' when attacked by either alkali or acids. This does not by any stretch mean that it's somehow immune to acid (or alkali). If you want to test it, drop a tooth or a bit of bone in a glass of cola. Coca Cola has a pH value around 2.6 or so. atleast that's what I think we measured it to, back in high school. 2.something, anyway. Further more, because it doesn't just contain phosporic acid (a strong acid, giving it the very low pH value), but also carbondioxide (which is bound in the water as a weak acid), of which there is plenty, it can accept a lot of OH^- (or equivalent) before it burns out as an acid.

Still, dissolving an entire human skeleton would take a lot of the wretched stuff, and take a few days even of you had an unlimited supply. If you want something that'd probably take care of your problem a lot faster, but which would also be harder to get, and more dangerous to handle, get some flouric acid (HF), which is extremely aggresive and has a prove record of dissolving bone-matter (in technical personel, anyway).

Oh, and guess what I'm going to be using to remove the upper layers of silicon chips this next month or so.

[Ruski]

Getting access to that sort of thing raises a lot of flags though.

imagine walking through home depot, with a cart filled with 160 gallons of citric acid. think anyone would notice?

if you try to get large quanties for 'personal' use, they start to ask questions, and remember faces.

if you show up a week later on the news with 'My husband dissapeared' they are going to remember you.

of course, you could always steal it... but that's always a problem in and of it's self.

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Gabriel]

Ok, how about if you own an orange orchard and you decide to just squeeze a drek-load of oranges over the body for a few months, I bet you could get enough citric accid THAT way.

Gabriel, Problem Solver

[kv]

You could get a pig farm, a la 'Snatch' (or was it lock, stock, and two smoking barrels? I always get those two mixed up)

  -kv

[Gabriel]

I never saw either of those movies. Of course when you talk about pig farms,  that scene from Hanibal does come to mind.

Gabriel

[Ingo Monk]

SNATCH!!
Gabe: Watch that movie.

[Retread]

You could just quicken an invisibility spell and hope no one trips over it or follows the smell...

[Ruski]

wouldn't it light up on the astral if anyone was even looking in that dirrection?

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Retread]

Put a masking ward in his underpants?

[Ruski]

well, there are certan critters that would still be attracted to the 'smell' of such a treat, and I'm sure they'd be munching on warded underpants as much as anything else that was rotting with it.

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Gabriel]

Or just summon a fire elemental and say, "Hey chummer, go engulf that body until there's nothing but ash left. And after you do that, I'll give you this nice big piece of coal to snack on and release you from service."

Gabriel

[Retread]

Provided it isn't a force 1 elemental...

I always figured a small force elemental was akin to a lit torch or some such.

I mean, body rating of 1 and all.