Nitric acid skin contact

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niks neims

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 7, 2017
Messages
367
Location
Latvia
Hello everybody, i got a little confused today :)

I am currently studying forum and Hoke`s book with romantic dreams of gold recovery from e-waste, in the same time i am gathering/dismantling scrap, setting up workspace and getting chemicals; recently i got myself some nitric acid (technical 50-60%).

Still a long long way to go but today i decided to give myself a break from reading forum and treat myself with some practical experiments with acid :)

my setup is as follows:

i have my work table in the middle of an open grass field, about ~150 m from my house, ~1 km to nearest neighbor; i use nitrile gloves, goggles, rubber boots, there was a nice breeze going so i wasn`t too worried about the fumes. air temperature about 15-20 c...

i put few pieces of ram, pci fingers and some other trinkets into a small glass jar (0.5 l) and covered them with my acid (~0.15 l), reaction was slow to begin but after vigorous stirring with glass rod (piece of mirror from laser printer) the infamous BRFC (or in my case little brown fumes) appeared and acid in the jar became green... fumes quickly dispersed in the wind so it seemed very safe, i eaven did a quick walk-by down-wind to test the smell, and i think i smelled a faint whiff of chemical odor. still i felt pretty safe doing all that...

But here comes the confusing part:

I decided to try some acid on my skin, to test potential burns... now MSDS says "SkinContact: Corrosive! Can cause redness, pain, and severe skin burns. Concentrated solutions cause deep ulcers and stain skin a yellow or yellow-brown color."
So i tought i knew what to expect... i took some acid with my glass rod and dripped on my exposed left pinky, felt nothing, no pain, no tingling, nothing, i waited about 20 sec, still nothing, then i put my hand in water with dissolved Sodium bicarbonate, it fizzled as acid neutralized, and then i rinsed of my finger with lots of clear water (i know that safety procedure is to rinse of first and neturalize after, but i wanted to see the reaction)...
so as i am writing this some 5 hours later, there is still absolutely no effect on my finger, no pain, no tingling, no discoloration, dryness or wierd feeling of any kind.... so i am confused - is this kind of (no)reaction is normal with acid of my concentration? have i some kind of mutant skin? did they sell me crap acid? please advise :)

p.s. i left my experiment in my "laboratory" overnight so i will see in the morning what kind of effect my acid (?) had on goldfingers and pins

edited:spelling
 
i have used *knives all my life, first time for acid

still, i am not trying to be funny, i am genuienly confused, either my understanding of MSDS is off or my acid is... :/
 
I never really felt any burning from nitric. The yellowing usually shows up later. It can range from just a little yellow color to some dead skin that's similar to a blister in that it gets hard as it dries out then peals off in a similar way. That's been the extent of my exposure and that was in high school chemistry in the 1970's.

Don't test chemicals by intentionally putting them on or in your body!

Dave
 
Stop putting acid on your skin. The warnings are given for very good reason...Believe it! Still some doubt? Google pictures of acid burns.
 
FrugalRefiner said:
I never really felt any burning from nitric. The yellowing usually shows up later.
Dave

Thank you, this is the answer i was looking for! Still 12 h later my finger is perfectly fine, without yellowing of any kind so i guess i lucked out :) (maybe my skin was oily or sweaty or it was too cold and acid didn`t have enough time to react with keratin in my skin)

Smack said:
Stop putting acid on your skin.


FrugalRefiner said:
Don't test chemicals by intentionally putting them on or in your body!

Dave

I am sorry, i thought i had my logical reasons, but i won`t post no more about this kind of thing, after all u are one of THE guys on this forum, thank you again for your replay :) also thanks for friendly warnings everyone :)

p.s. i would politely ask for mods to leave this thread up eaven if at first it seems a bit reckless on my part (man, harold IS scary :eek: ), because despite common sense and a lot of third party information on acid burns, i failed to find here any first hand accounts on acid on skin contact....
 
Nitric can take time to do damage, I used hand pumps to dispense my acids from 50 liter barrels and one day accidentally brushed against the nitric one with my shoulder without noticing, that is until about 10 minutes later when I felt a burning sensation, I changed my shirt and washed my skin but still have the burn scars on my shoulder to this day :evil:
 
nickvc said:
Nitric can take time to do damage, I used hand pumps to dispense my acids from 50 liter barrels and one day accidentally brushed against the nitric one with my shoulder without noticing, that is until about 10 minutes later when I felt a burning sensation, I changed my shirt and washed my skin but still have the burn scars on my shoulder to this day :evil:

oh, thank you very much, it is great to hear first-hand accounts like that!

seems that time is the key factor towards minimizing any damage done to tissue (not planning on testing that anymore :))
is there any guesses on time-frames involved (i know it depends on many random factors, but still...)... not for silly experiments but rather for better understanding of personal safety and risks involved... so far from this thread it seems that < 20 s is no damage and >600 s is severe damage ?

Also: Did a google search and found this reddit thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/e54bf/nitric_acid_burn/
there was a bit of discussion going on neutralizing vs rinsing and last post kind of peaked my interest:
"lots and lots of water is best. You never really know what was spilled on you unless you read the label before it happened, water will neutralize and dilute acids or bases and is completely harmless by itself"

so this is the main reason why water treatment is being included in standart safety precautions? it is universal remedy and can`t possibly make matters worse in any case? and trying to neutralise burn that is in fact alkaline not acidic with baking/drinking soda will make matters worse? just trying to understand :)
 
Acid and acid can be two different things. The safe way is to avoid exposure to acid as it will do damage over time.

There are a lot of different acids and they all react differently. Some acids are quite benign, as hydrochloric acid that we have in our stomachs, others really scary like sulfuric acid that can pull the water from almost any substance at the same time as the temperature rises almost to boiling.

Where you put the acid also makes a big difference, on our hands the skin is tough while a drop in your eye can blind you. If your skin is greasy or newly washed will also affect the speed of the reaction, just as temperature.

The easy rule to keep safe is "Avoid exposure!" It covers all bases and is easy to teach and remember. To start making rules on how many seconds you can keep your fingers in acid before it will make permanent damage is impossible. That is why we teach the simple rule and I would never recommend that anyone put their hand in acid just to test. What if something happened?

This is a good video on what could be expected from acid exposure. But remember every person reacts differently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeVZQoJ5FdE

The main lesson to take away from this thread is "Don't panic if you got acid (hydrochloric, nitric, sulfuric) on your hands, just wash it away and there probably are no permanent damages."

But please, don't put your hands in acid and don't tell others to do it either. :wink:

If there is dissolved metals in the acid it will make it easier for them to be absorbed through the skin and that could give more subtle effects over longer time.

Göran
 
Awesome post Göran, thank you. i think i am starting to understand this a bit more

g_axelsson said:
This is a good video on what could be expected from acid exposure. But remember every person reacts differently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeVZQoJ5FdE
Göran

damn, i feel kind of stupid for not thinking of youtube, esspecialy because i love NileRed`s videos and used to watch them for fun (him and Nurdrage)

g_axelsson said:
The main lesson to take away from this thread is "Don't panic if you got acid (hydrochloric, nitric, sulfuric) on your hands, just wash it away and there probably are no permanent damages."

But please, don't put your hands in acid and don't tell others to do it either. :wink:

Göran

i agree 100%
 
jimdoc said:
How do you test your knives to see if they are sharp?

This.

It's not the kind of trial I would do. As others have said glove up and be careful. Nick's experience is similar to mine in terms of how long the damage takes if you miss a spill. Nitric damage on skin "creeps" i.e. it's not an immediate pain but it's quite merrily causing problems all the while it's on there.
 
I am reading and reading and as a retired Paramedic who has treated many chemical burns, toxic gas inhalations etc. I find your experiment on your own skin to be Self harming. Dangerous and not something you would want to be doing.

You already stated you tried it outdoors and it dissolved. I hope that you still wore protective eye and breathing gear along with those gloves which well that's another subject.

What the heck were you thinking ?

:evil:
 
Here another forum... focus on the time line!



https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/e54bf/nitric_acid_burn/

I was going to pull some video footage or pictures but this is much better.
 
jonrms said:
protective breathing gear

What the heck were you thinking ?

:evil:

Dude, I already got my talking-to by senior forum members in this very thread :) also the reddit thread you linked is the same one that I already made reference to... Did you even read previous posts? What are you trying to do man? :) still jokes aside, I have nothing but respect for proffesion of paramedics and thank you for worrying about my safety and safety in general, so let me repay you this favor (bear in mind - I am a noob) : No protective breathing gear will protect you from nitric fumes! Except for supplied-air systems(like scuba-divers use). And I doubt that there is one member on this board that uses such a setup regularly. So someone should correct me if i am wrong but '' right '' way to protect yourself from nitric fumes is fume hood... I would even say that wearing some kind of respirator / cartridge filtre around nitric is dangerous because it can lull you in to a false sense of security... First step of any kind of safety is understanding the nature of potential dangers, risks involved...
 
First. I am a qualified diver with PADI. You can view ALL my certs.

At least a full respirator will assist with the Fume hood or outdoors. Eyes are a common and easy to absorb fluids. Your skin absorbs alot too.

I am a " noob " to quote you as well. I have seen once a or who died on route because his lungs turned into liquid. It was only when I had to attend the inquest did I fully understand the cause which was some highly concentrate of a gas.

I have seen skin fall off and with o2 and morphine as my only controls I was helpless. Both these were self induced.


Saying this I am retired . I have a broken spine due to a drunk driver.

I can still ride my motorcycle and I seen far more motorcycle deaths and accidents than chemical ones.

I was worried YES I don't know if your a spotty teenager trying to prove how invincible he is or not.
 
jonrms said:
could be :)
jonrms said:
sadly - not anymore, I am quite young in spirit though :)

jonrms said:
lungs turned into liquid [..] the cause which was some highly concentrate of a gas [..]skin fall off [..] self induced
impressive horror stories man, it must take guts of steel :) still if you would like for them to have any effect on me I really would like to hear some more scientific details to put behind those images - for example what (concentrated) gas can dissolve lungs?

also please explain how:

jonrms said:
At least a full respirator will assist with the Fume hood or outdoors

this would help to protect my lungs against NOx?
And please don`t give me the excuse "at least it will protect your eyes!"... There are safety goggles or face shield for that!
As I mentioned before - the key to safety is UNDERSTANDING....
 
Ammonia and Chlorine for instance. The rest see here


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_inhalation_injury
 
jonrms said:
Ammonia and Chlorine for instance. The rest see here


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_inhalation_injury


there you go again....

damnit man, no offense but either you don`t know anything or you are having trouble expressing yourself, if I ever need ER, I shure hope I get the guy that can tell the difference between lungs filling up with liquid from lungs turning into liquid...sadly if you can`t relay your expirience with enough relevant first-hand details and without needless exaggaration, I am done talking to you...
 
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