Yes, to be sure I dont mean soak your tape player in it. Vinegar or lemon juice will react but so mildly to be unnoticeable with the potassium hydroxide and neutralize the alkaline leak residue. You’ll need some tools to remove the batteries first like needle nose pliers and safety glasses are best to use to prevent fliks into your eyes. Bag the batteries and when you collect enough old batteries and electronics take them to your local hazardous waste disposal. The alcohol is more to polish the contacts clean instead of water. Energizer know batteries and reccomends what tomasino says. These look like Costco Kirkland style which are the same chemisty. Though usually the corrosion is white. If these are instead sunbeam batteries or they say heavy duty instead of alkaline its zinc chloride residue and vinegar or alcohol are safe, just dont use ammonia cleaners which causes what you mentioned worrying about. You’ll need to scrub a bit either way. You’ll probably need to replace the belt on a tape drive that old if it doesnt play or plays too slow when you’re done, which is it’s own process to find the right one, disassemble the thing right and swap it out. Nice artifact of it’s time though, i had similar things like a clear plastic stapler with colorful plastic insides. very cool.
https://www.energizer.com/about-batteries/what-is-battery-acid
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