# Nitric Acid Online. Too good to be true?



## goldenchild (Aug 23, 2009)

I've been sifting through the wealth of information in this forum looking for the best way to make nitric acid with the sodium nitrate and liquid fire I have on hand and it all makes sense but im worried about the danger factor. So I decided to see if I could purchase nitric acid online for a decent price as there is nowhere in my area to buy it. This way I would only have to worry about handling and storage and not making it. I did a basic google search and stumbled upon the site ArtChemicals.com more specifically this link http://www.artchemicals.com/Product...834&CartID=0&gclid=CPbboo3PupwCFRBM5QodsBuyog. They claim to sell a liter of nitric 70% for $43.00. At first this seemed really high but then I thought about how people in this forum say that 50% down to 30% is usually sufficient for refining. So I did a little math and came up with this(hopefully its correct).

1 liter= 1000ml
so there are 700ml of nitric and 300ml of water in 70%

if I added 400ml of water to the liter i would have 1400ml of 50%

if i added 1333ml of water to the liter I would have about 2333ml of 30%

IF my math is correct that equates to 
1.4 liters of 50% for $43.00 
a little over 2.3 liters of 30% for $43.00(a little over 21.5 per liter of 30%)

Provided there are no horrendous shipping and handling fees, Is this a good price for say the 2.3 liters of 30%? Or does anyone know where I could get a better deal? Does anyone know where lazersteve go his bottle of 70% in the "Separating Silver from Gold" on his site?

p.s they have 2.5 of 70% for $65.00 also

Thanks everyone


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## jimdoc (Aug 23, 2009)

The problem is the shipping price, you will have to pay a hazmat
charge that will make it double or more. The price is high for 1 liter to start with. Best bet is to find a local source.


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## goldenchild (Aug 23, 2009)

I see. Where is a place that might sell it? I just dont see anywhere around here selling the stuff but maybe I am looking in the wrong place. If I happen to find it what is a fair price per say liter?


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## eeTHr (Aug 24, 2009)

goldenchild;

I haven't tried this source yet, but it's next on my list---

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=4876&p=41950&hilit=greenhouse#p41950


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## goldenchild (Aug 24, 2009)

Yep... I literally called about 50 places today ranging from greenhouses stoneyards and pharamacies and heres what I found. Most of the people I talked to never even heard of nitric acid. A greenhouse that never heard of nitric. Go figure. Then I got the people that seemed to know what it was and maybe where I could get some but didnt want to divulge the info. It seems when you ask for anything with the word acid in it you automatically are going to do something bad with it. One pharmasist asked me what I was going to do with it and when I told him I was using it for gold refining applications he opened up and gave me a few suggestions but unfortunatly they were all dead ends. I called about 15 agways and they either didnt know what it was or didnt carry it. Then finally I called one and the lady actually was very good in helping me. She said she actually knew what it was and she carried it. The problem was that she didnt have any in stock but assured me she would call me tomorrow after she looked on the invoice to see if they will be getting any in their shipment next week. She told me that nitric acid was a seasonal thing(which makes sense). Hopefully I luck out and they will be getting some. I would have to drive about 30 miles to get it but you better believe I will stock up! So my search continues. If anyone has any suggestions or has found an online source with decent prices please let me know. I live in the U.S.

thanks


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## leavemealone (Aug 25, 2009)

Here is the guy I have bought from for a couple of years now.He has an online store somewhere that is a little less expensive,but I can't seem to find it right now.I have never had any problems with the nitric or the shipping speed or the packaging.He is a top notch guy to buy from.
Johnny
EDIT- **HERE IS HIS ONLINE STORE**
http://www.dudadiesel.com/other_chemicals.php


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## Palladium (Aug 25, 2009)

$ 100.00 / Gal. :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: 

+ Shipping :shock: :shock: :shock: 

Thank god for farmers and Fertilizer in the south. I've got Farm supply stores everywhere.

$ 100.00 a gallon. Give me my coveralls baby. Were going to town.


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## oldtimmer (Aug 25, 2009)

Ouch... $100.00 a gallon. My wallet is shaking... I have given up on the poor mans Nitric and gone back to my local chemical supply house. I just purchased a 7lb bottle. Looks like it is almost a gallon. 

My price was $31.10 plus $2.72 tax. 

dave


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## leavemealone (Aug 25, 2009)

The idea was to give golden child an option that was cheaper than $43/liter.Thats what my plan was.He didnt seem to think it was that bad of a cost once you dilute it and look at the resultant volume,so this would give him a much better deal than what he had been considering buying.Funny though,no one made any comments about the $43 a liter price,but $24 a liter is much worse.....lol.
Well I tried to help,sorry.
Johnny


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## goldenchild (Aug 26, 2009)

leavemealone said:


> The idea was to give golden child an option that was cheaper than $43/liter.Thats what my plan was.He didnt seem to think it was that bad of a cost once you dilute it and look at the resultant volume,so this would give him a much better deal than what he had been considering buying.Funny though,no one made any comments about the $43 a liter price,but $24 a liter is much worse.....lol.
> Well I tried to help,sorry.
> Johnny



No leavemealone, this is definately better than $43 a liter. I had no reference to go by. Palladium and oldtimmer... you've got to realize that all of us dont have access to local distributors of nitric so we have to do the best we can with available resources. As I stated in an earlier post, I called about 50 places asking if they carried nitric and for the most part no one even knew what it was. Its tough around here. $24 a liter is still steap but remember we would dilute to 50%-30% so we get more than a gallon. Yes that means for oldtimmer you get a liter for $8.46 and even more for even less if diluted but like i said we gotta make due with what is available to us. I made a few batches of nitric but it was very weak. I followed lazersteves formula for the 50/50 but didnt come out quite right. Is there a better way of making this? Lets keep this thread going everyone.

On a side note I was wondering about something. As Im writing this there are over 8200 members to the forum. How many of you are female? To me this seems to be a male dominated hobby/business. My girlfriend says she would not even mess with the chemistry involved.


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## eeTHr (Aug 26, 2009)

I had trouble with the home made nitric also.

I used potassiom nitrate, compensated for the water in the pool grade muriatic [Edit: that should read "battery acid dilution sulfuric" instead of "muriatic"] I used, and put it in the freezer and filtered.

It seemed to be plenty strong. But when I tested it on a piece of a fingers strip, the gold dissapeared into solution. Then I noticed that it had a chlorine smell to it.

I have since read that both sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate can contain traces of chloride salt, which is responsible for the formation of the chlorine. Also that distilling the home made nitric is the only way to lose the chlorine (also the nitric will be almost the standard "concentrated" 70% then).

I'm wondering, though, doesn't chlorine evaporate about as easily as nitric acid does? So why doesn't it go through the condenser right along with the nitric?


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## Platdigger (Aug 26, 2009)

eeTHr, if you used "muratic", you made AR, not nitric.
This would acount for the chlorine smell, as well as it's ability to disolve gold.

For homemade nitric you need sulfuric acid, not HCL.


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## Palladium (Aug 26, 2009)

goldenchild said:


> As Im writing this there are over 8200 members to the forum. How many of you are female? To me this seems to be a male dominated hobby/business. My girlfriend says she would not even mess with the chemistry involved.



C.M. Hoke was a woman.


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## eeTHr (Aug 27, 2009)

Sorry, I did in fact use sulfuric, battery acid dilution. Brain error when writing.


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## lazersteve (Aug 27, 2009)

eeTHr said:


> Sorry, I did in fact use sulfuric, battery acid dilution. Brain error when writing.



My recipe calls for concentrated sulfuric acid although the recipe can be modified to use less water and weaker acid. Also you must use different masses of nitrate when using the potassium niter. 

When my hand gets better I have plans to post a video on making nitric.

As for using poor man's nitric for silver, you can remove trace chlorides and sulfates prior to use with a few silver nitrate crystals via:

2 AgNO3(aq) + Na2SO4(aq) → Ag2SO4 (s)+ 2NaNO3(aq) 

AgNO3(aq) + NaCl(aq) → AgCl (s) + NaNO3(aq) 

Let the sediment settle and siphon off the acid. 

Steve


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## eeTHr (Aug 27, 2009)

Lazersteve;

_That's_ what I was looking for! Thanks!


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## goldenchild (Aug 27, 2009)

lazersteve said:


> My recipe calls for concentrated sulfuric acid although the recipe can be modified to use less water and weaker acid. Also you must use different masses of nitrate when using the potassium niter.
> 
> When my hand gets better I have plans to post a video on making nitric.
> 
> ...



Yup. I tried your recipe for making the 160 ml of 50/50 but it came out what I think to be weak. Had to heat it up alot just do anything at all. Maybe seeing it on video I will find what I'm doing wrong. Your videos are the bombdizzle.
Note: i was using standard sodium nitrate and liquid fire drain opener.


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## lazersteve (Aug 27, 2009)

Having a good supply of 68-70% nitric on hand, I do not need to make my own.

Catfish (Tom) here on the forum has made lots of nitric using my formula and others. He has contacted me to let me know that my formula produced a much stronger acid than several other formulas he had tried in the past. Another member makes it in 5 gallon batches using a method identical to mine. Five Gallon Nitric

Tom is a very exacting guy and stated he regularly made small batches of the nitric. He also exclusively used dehydrated battery acid to make his nitric. This gave him a very concentrated clear sulfuric acid that was important to the strength of the nitric.

I've been meaning to video the process in detail to give the forum members the means to make their own.

For the record, I seldom use 68% nitric acid unless I'm working with silver or the final dissolution of PGMs. Otherwise I find the dry nitrates to be the best form to get the job done. I use between 10 and 20 pounds of nitrate each month in my recycling efforts.

Steve


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## eeTHr (Aug 27, 2009)

lazersteve said:


> My recipe calls for concentrated sulfuric acid although the recipe can be modified to use less water and weaker acid. Also you must use different masses of nitrate when using the potassium niter.



I had found a post where someone had calculated the proper amounts of both sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate, and the potassium nitrate was 1.17 times the sodium nitrate.

I then calculated how much I could reduce the additional water, to end up with the same amount of water that would be in there if I had used concentrated (98%) sulfuric. The water almost exactly zeroed out. I wanted to end up with 50-50, water to concentrated (70%) nitric, and by just leaving out the added water it calculated out to 49-51. _If_ my calculations were correct.

Anyway, like I said above, it was plenty strong enough.

I used it for some aqua regia, adding just a little at a time to the muriatic, and it didn't take much at all, so it must have been OK. (except that by itself, it had enough chloride in it to eat a half dozen gold finger foils on a small piece of fingers strip, although slowly, in additon to the copper underneath.)


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## goldenchild (Aug 27, 2009)

eeTHr said:


> I had found a post where someone had calculated the proper amounts of both sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate, and the potassium nitrate was 1.17 times the sodium nitrate.
> 
> I then calculated how much I could reduce...



Can you explain how you make your nitric or post what you had found?


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## eeTHr (Aug 28, 2009)

goldenchild;

Here are some links to pages on this forum that cover it.

Starting about halfway down this page, _creading_ has a few posts on doing the "no water" method using battery strength (I've read that it is either 33% or 35%) sulfuric---
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=5209&p=45216&hilit=cold+nitric#p45216

More general information on making nitric---
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=4791&p=41342&hilit=cold+nitric#p41342

Etc.---
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2066&p=17542&hilit=cold+nitric#p17542

Lazersteve's links to his nitirc formula don't work on the last two, I think because they changed forum servers or software or something like that.

Also there is more discussion and yet another formula in this download---
Gold Refining Forum Handbook vol 1 http://tinyurl.com/yshc4v
(This one shows the difference in the amounts used for sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate.)


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## Palladium (Aug 28, 2009)

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=315&hilit=concentrate+nitric+acid

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=3030


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## goldenchild (Aug 28, 2009)

lazersteve said:


> Having a good supply of 68-70% nitric on hand, I do not need to make my own...



Steve,

Maybe its the amount of sodium nitrate used. In your method, how much sodium nitrate are you to use?

Reaction:

-Bring 100 mL of Distilled Water in a 500 mL pyrex beaker to 100 C
-Add the Nitre of your choice (202 gm K / 170 gm Na)
-Stir until Nitre is completely dissolved, let cool below boiling
-SLOWLY add 56 mL conc (96%+) Sulfuric Acid to Hot Nitre solution while stirring, DON'T allow the solution to boil! 
-Allow solution to cool to room temp (DO NOT SKIP - VESSEL WILL SHATTER IF PUT ON ICE WHILE HOT!!!)
-When vessel reaches room temp (25 °C) put the vessel in the freezer or on a salt water ice bath
-Let stand until temperature of mixture reaches -5 °C
-Let stand at -5 °C until all percipitate settles
-Pour the COLD solution off into glass container with tightly sealed lid DO NOT POUR OFF ANY OF THE SALT IN THE BOTTOM!!!
-Makes ~160 mL ~50% HNO3

I tried 50 grams first because 170 just seemed like it wouldnt work. Seemed like there wouldnt be enough water to dissolve 170 grams. Then I actually tried 170 and when I poured the sulfuric in the mixture it turned into a cottage cheese like substance and when fully mixed it was like a milkshake(dont worry i didnt taste it). Is it possible the water wasnt hot enough to fully dissolve all the Na? It seemed to be totally dissolved. Or is that just way too much Na?

Thanks


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## lazersteve (Aug 28, 2009)

170 gm is correct, that's 2 moles of niter.

Sounds like your reaction was normal. You should put the 'cottage cheese' in the cold bath at -5 C or lower for several hours and pour off the liquid after the salt settles.

Steve


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## stihl88 (Aug 28, 2009)

goldenchild said:


> lazersteve said:
> 
> 
> > Having a good supply of 68-70% nitric on hand, I do not need to make my own...
> ...



Ive never had "Cottage Cheese" after dissolving my Nitrate... Mine dissolves to a liquid form and looks slightly yellow, once it starts to cool at room temperature the salts will start to form. I use Potassium N so maybe this is why mine doesn't look like Cottage Cheese.

Also, ive been bypassing the water method and just dissolving the Nitrate straight into the Sulfuric Acid (30% conc) or what ever it is. When i was dissolving with the water first i was getting a lot of the salts melting then reforming on the edge of my pyrex jug and it was a little messy for my liking until i saw a post here saying how to bypass the water method which turned out to be a lot easier and cleaner for me.


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## gold4mike (Sep 10, 2009)

We recently had a Hydroponics store open near me. Remembering a post on the forum about some "PH Down" being Nitric acid, I asked the proprietor if he had, or had access to, PH Down that contained Nitric acid. He took my number and told me he would do some research. He found that he can get Technaflora brand PH Down, which is indeed Nitric acid, but he wasn't sure of the strength. I found their website and downloaded the MSDS which shows a strength of 5-10% Nitric acid. 

Am I correct in assuming that this Nitric will work for dissolving my pile of header pins and floppy/ide connector pins from ribbon cable? I assume it will be somewhat slower than more concentrated Nitric.

Would it be faster than using the Muriatic acid I currently find at Lowe's for cleaning concrete?


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## qst42know (Sep 10, 2009)

Did you happen to ask the price of the PH down?


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## gold4mike (Sep 10, 2009)

Not yet - I was wanting to find out if it would be acceptable, price it online, then price it from my local guy to see if he gets it with other items (maybe via truck freight) and can save me money over the UPS HazMat upcharge. When all data is assembled I'll share with the forum so anyone else haveing a hard time finding inexpensive Nitric can benefit as well. You can find the manufacturer's website by Googling "Technaflora". I'll try to remember to call him and get pricing (my local guy) tomorrow from work.


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## hfywc (Sep 30, 2010)

gold4mike said:


> Not yet - I was wanting to find out if it would be acceptable, price it online, then price it from my local guy to see if he gets it with other items (maybe via truck freight) and can save me money over the UPS HazMat upcharge. When all data is assembled I'll share with the forum so anyone else haveing a hard time finding inexpensive Nitric can benefit as well. You can find the manufacturer's website by Googling "Technaflora". I'll try to remember to call him and get pricing (my local guy) tomorrow from work.



so....has anyone been using this brand lately with great success both as a digester and in AR?


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## gold4mike (Sep 30, 2010)

I haven't pursued that angle. I found GFS Chemical in Columbus, OH and they will express ship me up to 250 pounds for $65 so I bought 70% Nitric from them.


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## Anonymous (Sep 30, 2010)

gold4mike said:


> I found GFS Chemical in Columbus, OH and they will express ship me up to 250 pounds for $65 so I bought 70% Nitric from them.


Yes but its,$144 for 3.75 gallons,plus shipping,over $60 per gallon after shipping.


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## Kalf999 (Oct 8, 2010)

For users in the E.U. , specially in the Netherlands :

http://www.bodyvitaal.nl/vitaminen/158247/TENDO-SALPETERZUUR-53-TENDO/

Nitric 53% , 12 Euro / Liter, shipping free from 50 Euro or more. 10 % Discount when buying 3 or more Liter

Today came in 6 Liters of Nitric , total costs 63 Euro


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## Anonymous (Oct 8, 2010)

Kalf999 said:


> Today came in 6 Liters of Nitric , total costs 63 Euro


That is still $58 US per gallon.


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## kadriver (Oct 27, 2010)

Take a look at www.dudadiesel.com - they have 8 liter bottle of 67% Nitric acid for $185 (plus hazmat & shipping charges)

I ordered 2.5 liter Nitric acid from ArtChemicals.com - total charges were $114 inclusive.

Hope this is helpful


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## goldenchild (Oct 27, 2010)

kadriver said:


> Take a look at http://www.dudadiesel.com - they have 8 liter bottle of 67% Nitric acid for $185 (plus hazmat & shipping charges)
> 
> I ordered 2.5 liter Nitric acid from ArtChemicals.com - total charges were $114 inclusive.
> 
> Hope this is helpful



http://www.abprospecting.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/pg18.jpg


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## Richard NL (Aug 11, 2012)

For the users in the E.U. specially in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, i want to advise this shop for the Nitric Acid and hydrochloric acid and other chemicals:

http://www.polycolor.be/nl/drogisterij/vloeistoffen/?searchbrand=81&cid=79

Nitric Acid 60%(40°BE) 5,00 Liter € 21,43, (Salpeterzuur)
Hydrochloric Acid 30,00 L ( 30%) € 51,30 (Zoutzuur)
Sulfuric acid 5,00 L (96%) € 26,38 (Zwavelzuur)

They have 2 companies, the one that has the chemicals, is the one in Helchteren.
They have only a limited supply on stock (order in advance cut be helpful), no questions asked, almost anyone can buy (no kids allowed to buy this for example), no ID required.

And hydrogen peroxide 35 % 25 liters € 27,82

http://www.melkveehouderijproducten.nl/melkstalbenodigdheden/melkmachine/waterstofperoxide-35-250.html
Maybe a bit too much hydrogen peroxide for me, but maybe it can help someone else.

Best Regards, Richard.


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