NOx, put my mind at ease, smell PPM?

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

snoman701

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Messages
2,108
Location
SE MI
I've got a godawful cold.

I've been using nitric acid as of late.

Today the cold was ok in the morning, then got worse as the day progressed.

I worked in the shop today, where I store my acid and glassware.

You can see where I'm going.

I have not performed any active reactions in well over a week, and they were all performed outdoors, but the glassware came back inside. Everything is capped (and seems secure) except a beaker that I use to transfer nitric, and that has a watchglass over it. My silver is sitting out drying (following copper nitrate cementation)

Shop has pretty good ventilation, but I'm still paranoid. None of the iron around the chemical storage area has rusted. No signs of a chemical leak anywhere, etc.

I have exposed myself before on accident, so I know what nitrogen dioxide smells like....and I have not smelled it, but I can't figure out at what exposure you can smell it.
 
Most if not all the fumes from the reactions we create are best not inhaled at all but the truth is we all get some of them even when working with a fume hood. The point is to realise that you are in the danger area and to keep our exposure to a minimum, if your working in your shop open a window or the door and place a fan to blow the fumes out, it's a case of been careful and aware of the fumes that we are producing from any reactions we have going even ones we assume are over.
We are exposed daily to hazardous fumes from industry, cars, household products etc so just be aware of what exactly the fumes are likely to be and where from in your recoveries and refining and exercise caution and care as well as you can, if you get too paranoid about it you might as well give up this hobby/ pastime, study and read and learn what exactly is the likely fumes you are going to be around.
 
The paranoia comes from last week. Had to take Dad out to mayo...didn't get the answers we were hoping for, but got the answers we've all been expecting. It's been a rough go.

I've been around chemicals all my life. I've done some stupid things, which I'm sure we all have at one time. I understand what I'm working with. The phrase I was looking for was "odor threshold" and it's 5 ppm. But what I was staring at was "death at 100+ ppm for a period over 1 hr". At my last real job, I set up an ethylene oxide sterilizer. Odorless, and carcinogenic. I had to perform exposure monitoring, and send the results off to be analyzed. I'll have to look in to NOx monitoring.

The reality? I have a bad cold progressing in to bronchitis. It's worse because I flew last week and am under lots of emotionally draining stress. My lungs aren't eating themselves any more than normal.

Thank you for your response.
 
I tried to find the level at which is its "smellable" Sno and I couldn't find it either. One thing to note, you mentioned that your steel isn't rusting in your shop, but don't take that as a marker of whether nitric is fuming or nox is being produced because it's the HCl that rusts the steel not the Nitric.

I know where you are, I am paranoid about those fumes myself and aside from the fume cabinet extracting air at 1300 cubic meters per hour I also have exhaust fans (cheap ones) that cycle the air in all parts of the building more than once per hour.
 
Check your acid containers if they are sealed properly.

Hey, I sniff my scrubber exhaust fumes all the time just to check if the scrubber is working properly or not. I use my hand first to direct the fumes to my nose, if negative I put my nose closer to the exhaust port of my vacuum pump! Heh. So, I do not think that your illness is because of your exposure to nitric/hcl fumes. But also take note that I have only been refining for about 6 months.

You need a doctor, could be just a bacteria or a virus.
 
autumnwillow said:
Check your acid containers if they are sealed properly.

Hey, I sniff my scrubber exhaust fumes all the time just to check if the scrubber is working properly or not. I use my hand first to direct the fumes to my nose, if negative I put my nose closer to the exhaust port of my vacuum pump! Heh. So, I do not think that your illness is because of your exposure to nitric/hcl fumes. But also take note that I have only been refining for about 6 months.

You need a doctor, could be just a bacteria or a virus.

Please avoid the direct "wiff" like that. Your method of using your hand is absolutely correct, but moving closer to the exhaust will exponentially increase the dose you absorb if for some reason your sniff test was wrong.

I moved all of the chemicals outside today. After moving them all, I can almost positively tell you that I have not been exposed to anything recently....well, except a snot faced five year old.

Would the NOx gas be a strong enough oxidizer to rust steel or iron? It would seem so, but my brain is a little foggy.

Thank you again for all of your responses.
 
NOx will oxidize iron, some types of steel, but not all.

I had a similar illness and was as paranoid as you thinking it has something to do with refining. I was feeling okay in the morning, in the afternoon I felt very weak and in the evening I had shivers. This went on for two weeks. I got myself checked up and it turned out to be just a urinary tract infection.
 
Yes, NOx fumes will rust steel/iron, as Dave mentioned above.

You seem to be in the correct mindset though, any NOx in the air you're breathing, is too much.

But, like Nick said, we get horrible things in our lungs from our modern world too.. Car exhaust is a nasty one.
 
anachronism said:
FrugalRefiner said:
anachronism said:
it's the HCl that rusts the steel not the Nitric.
Both will cause steel to rust.

Dave

Nitric acid fumes or Nox Dave?

Both.

Nitric acid fumes = strong oxidizer, so it's oxidizing the iron.

NOx fumes, I think, following same mechanism it does when it's in your lungs. Reacting with moisture to form nitric acid, thus oxidizing the iron. At least that's what my brain decided when I was driving home from the grocery store.
 
If i was a betting man, Id say its probably the oxygen in the NOx fumes thats rusting the iron/steel.
Or, if were talking NOx fumes from AR, it could be the O or the Cl from the NOCl.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
If i was a betting man, Id say its probably the oxygen in the NOx fumes thats rusting the iron/steel.
Or, if were talking NOx fumes from AR, it could be the O or the Cl from the NOCl.

I'm with you Toph on this one. My understanding which could be wrong is that NOx and water makes Nitric and Nitric with iron forms a layer of Iron Nitrate.

The rusting is caused by the HCl.
 
If the oxygen dissasociates from the NOx and recombines with the iron, it in turn would be creating iron oxide, which as we all know is rust.

If chlorine attacks iron, it would be creating rust too, but (this is a guess at best) I think it would be creating ferrous chloride, which would then oxidize via atmosphere into iron oxide.

One of our chemistry guru's will certainly set us straight soon.
 
anachronism said:
Topher_osAUrus said:
If i was a betting man, Id say its probably the oxygen in the NOx fumes thats rusting the iron/steel.
Or, if were talking NOx fumes from AR, it could be the O or the Cl from the NOCl.

I'm with you Toph on this one. My understanding which could be wrong is that NOx and water makes Nitric and Nitric with iron forms a layer of Iron Nitrate.

The rusting is caused by the HCl.

Iron oxide does not form in the presence of just dry iron and oxygen. You need water.

Iron alone will form a passivation oxidation layer, that will largely be unaffected by further oxygen exposure. You have to have a motivator. The nitric acid, HNO3, reacts to form HO and NO2...the hydroxide is what speeds the reaction along.

Drop a piece of steel in to dilute or concentrated nitric...it will react....quite violently I might add (excluding a specific percentage). I made that mistake!
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
If the oxygen dissasociates from the NOx and recombines with the iron, it in turn would be creating iron oxide, which as we all know is rust.

If chlorine attacks iron, it would be creating rust too, but (this is a guess at best) I think it would be creating ferrous chloride, which would then oxidize via atmosphere into iron oxide.

One of our chemistry guru's will certainly set us straight soon.

Chlorine as a gas does attack iron, very violently. Pretty cool...look it up on youtube!

However, I think you speak of hypochlorous acid, not chlorine gas. If chloride + iron = iron chloride, all the cars in Michigan would be rusting to iron chloride, not iron oxide. (due to our use of salt on roads)
 
snoman701 said:
Drop a piece of steel in to dilute or concentrated nitric...it will react....quite violently I might add (excluding a specific percentage). I made that mistake!

I'm not entirely sure what you dropped into the Nitric but I don't think it was steel. I've stripped loads of gold from steel using Nitric. The steel is fine and dandy.
 
anachronism said:
snoman701 said:
Drop a piece of steel in to dilute or concentrated nitric...it will react....quite violently I might add (excluding a specific percentage). I made that mistake!

I'm not entirely sure what you dropped into the Nitric but I don't think it was steel. I've stripped loads of gold from steel using Nitric. The steel is fine and dandy.
Do you mean steel, or stainless steel?

Dave
 
snoman701 said:
Topher_osAUrus said:
If the oxygen dissasociates from the NOx and recombines with the iron, it in turn would be creating iron oxide, which as we all know is rust.

If chlorine attacks iron, it would be creating rust too, but (this is a guess at best) I think it would be creating ferrous chloride, which would then oxidize via atmosphere into iron oxide.

One of our chemistry guru's will certainly set us straight soon.

Chlorine as a gas does attack iron, very violently. Pretty cool...look it up on youtube!

However, I think you speak of hypochlorous acid, not chlorine gas. If chloride + iron = iron chloride, all the cars in Michigan would be rusting to iron chloride, not iron oxide. (due to our use of salt on roads)

Well, there *is* a reason why vehicles get (more) rust damage when they are closer to the oceans, or in colder climates (that's why -salt).

I think you overlooked one line of my post. (underlined)
Where the ferrous chloride (ferric?) would then disassociate with the chlorine and combine with the oxygen in the air to become iron oxide.
 
Back
Top