Can I use lye as a leavener instead of baking soda? I'm interested to try to make waffles using a concentrated lye water instead of baking soda as a leavening agent. I have three questions related to this subject:


Would this potentially make my waffles fluffier (due to increased CO2 producing reactions or otherwise)?
Would it impact the flavor of the waffles? 
Is it safe to ingest waffles that have had a lye water reaction occur in them? (Obviously I should let the lye reaction complete before ingesting).


How long should I let a lye reaction occur before cooking?



Notably, I often use sourdough starter in my waffles, which has an acid component - I've noticed that I get a strong reaction from the baking soda as a result, and it got me thinking that I would get an even stronger result from lye, but I'm worried about taste and ingestion safety.
I got a pretty thorough answer to my question on the Chemistry sister site to this one.

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/43896/can-i-use-lye-as-a-cooking-leavener-instead-of-baking-soda

In short, lye, while caustic, will not create a chemical reaction producing CO2, which is what baking soda does during leavening. So lye is at-best an inferior leavening approach, and in most cases, won't work as a leavening ingredient at all.