# Nitric acid from air and water:



## HAuCl4 (Nov 26, 2012)

Are there any plans of small plants to make nitric acid in a very small scale, first making ammonia, and then oxidizing the ammonia?. I know I'll need some Pt black as catalyst. This is for a small 5 gallon per day use in the middle of a jungle.


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## butcher (Nov 26, 2012)

in the jungle it would probably be easier to make it from roasting sulfide ore, bubbling SO2 gas into H2O to make sulfuric acid, and leaching bat guano, but just packing in nitric in with mules would even be simpler. :lol:


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## Geo (Nov 26, 2012)

i believe it takes alot of energy to synthesize nitric acid that way. it would take a boiler and a stainless steel condensing tower. bringing in raw materials may be harder than just bringing in nitric acid.


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## HAuCl4 (Nov 27, 2012)

There's plenty of energy available. Nitric acid is a "controlled substance". You can fill in the blanks.

An even smaller production will suffice (lab size), if I can recycle it all. I think that's going to be the final solution. :idea:


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## goldenchild (Nov 27, 2012)

HAuCl4 said:


> An even smaller production will suffice (lab size), if I can recycle it all. I think that's going to be the final solution. :idea:



H2S04 and NaNO3.


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## goldaa (Nov 27, 2012)

I think you can make simple nitric boiling leaves in piss should work.


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## butcher (Nov 27, 2012)

Boiling leaves in urine would just make a stinky mess, with possible ammonia fumes.

The urine and leaves or dirt (compost) would have to break down into nitrates first, urine would break down to ammonia first then to nitrates with bacteria action of the dirt (can take a year of more), these nitrate soils can be leached, to get the nitrates, but you will still need acid like sulfuric to make nitric acid.

Nitrates made from compost have been an important product in our history for fertilizer and gunpowder.


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## Geo (Nov 27, 2012)

burning wood makes potash. leaching potash with boiling water and evaporating to crystals will give a crude form of potassium nitrate.

getting back to the op, if nitric acid is a no go, go with goldenchild's suggestion and and make your own acid on the spot. its no hard task to distill that amount per day if you have the right equipment.


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## butcher (Nov 28, 2012)

Leached dirt or compost (decomposed in bacterial action, manure, urine, blood, dirt) would be mainly calcium nitrate Ca(NO3)2

leached wood ash would be mostly potassium carbonate K2CO3 (potash)

to make potassium nitrate from these:

Ca(NO3)2 + K2CO3 --> 2KNO3 + CaCO3

calcium carbonate is more insoluble than the potassium nitrate in solution.

then we will need sulfuric acid to make nitric acid.

2KNO3 + H2SO4 --> 2HNO3 + K2SO4


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## HAuCl4 (Nov 28, 2012)

Yeah. Well fertilizers, nitrates and bulk sulfuric are controlled substances too...


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## qst42know (Nov 28, 2012)

What do you need to process?


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## goldenchild (Nov 28, 2012)

HAuCl4 said:


> Yeah. Well fertilizers, nitrates and bulk sulfuric are controlled substances too...



Looks like you'll have to resort to the common household chems from the kitchen.


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## butcher (Nov 29, 2012)

Hmm,
Process for distilling gunpowder in the jungle to make nitric acid to refine gold. :lol:


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## Geo (Nov 29, 2012)

butcher said:


> Hmm,
> Process for distilling gunpowder in the jungle to make nitric acid to refine gold. :lol:



honestly not a bad idea(at least for the nitrate). black powder can be up to 75% potassium nitrate.boil in water and filter. dry filtrate to a crystal and voila, potassium nitrate. blasting powder and smokeless gun powder is about 70%.

all you need is a source for sulfuric acid. is there a restriction on auto battery electrolyte?


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## HAuCl4 (Nov 29, 2012)

You can imagine that gunpowder is a more "controlled substance" than ammonia nitrate. No?


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## NoIdea (Nov 29, 2012)

An old true method is to use wee-wee, straw, potash, and time.

".........Into the 19th century, niter-beds were prepared by mixing manure with either mortar or wood ashes, common earth and organic materials such as straw to give porosity to a compost pile typically 1.5×2×5 meters in size. The heap was usually under a cover from the rain, kept moist with urine, turned often to accelerate the decomposition and leached with water after approximately one year. Dung-heaps were a particularly common source: ammonia from the decomposition of urea and other nitrogenous materials would undergo bacterial oxidation to produce various nitrates, primarily calcium nitrate, which could be converted to potassium nitrate by the addition of potash from wood ashes.

A variation on this process, using only urine, straw and wood ash, is described by LeConte: Stale urine is placed in a container of straw hay and is allowed to sour for many months, after which water is used to wash the resulting chemical salts from the straw. The process is completed by filtering the liquid through wood ashes and air-drying in the sun....."

Full article can be found here, http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Potassium_nitrate.html

Cheers

Deano


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## qst42know (Nov 29, 2012)

Perhaps with ozone? 

Not exactly a how to guide but if I find better I will put it here.

http://www.amazing1.com/download/OZONEWATERSYSTEMS.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7M_Ro1prKo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RRqIv4SoLg


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## MysticColby (Nov 29, 2012)

I'll suggest it with no experience of the process: http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=2868


lazersteve said:


> The inital step involes converting the copper nitrate into nitirc acid. This is accomplished with two graphite electrodes, or a graphite positive and a copper mesh negative.



It seems to me that copper nitrate goes in, copper and nitric acid come out. Maybe the same principle can be applied to a different nitrate? sodium and potassium would react with the water, so not those. I have been wondering why the nitric doesn't just dissolve the copper that's plated out - maybe sodium/potassium wouldn't react with water?
This would make nitric acid without the need of any other acids


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## garaber (Nov 30, 2012)

Creative Chemistry by Edwin E. Slosson circa 1920's describes a process where they make citric acid from air using high voltage though I believe this was only done where electricity was very cheap. The book is now in the public domain and I picked up a copy from ebay really cheap. There are a few videos out on youtube that show how it's done.


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## MysticColby (Nov 30, 2012)

my question about making acid from electricity through air: how do you pick which acid you're making?


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## qst42know (Nov 30, 2012)

The jungle with no nitric, no sulfuric, no nitrates, likely low on electricity as well, kinda hard to get anything done I would think. 

Will they allow pants or do you have to bring a gourd to wear or loin cloth? :mrgreen:


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## HAuCl4 (Dec 5, 2012)

Doing a little reading I found out that the main driver for the development for the Platinum group metals research by Gilchrist and many others was the need to generate nitric acid for the industrial manufacture of fertilizers in a large scale, after the first world war.

Reading more, I doubt that the processes can be adapted to small scale. It includes making ammonia first, and then oxidizing the ammonia. Both processes conducted at high pressure and with catalysts.


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## NoIdea (Dec 5, 2012)

Depends on what is in the air that you use, CO2 may produce carbon based compounds, N2 may produce nitrogen type compounds, and so on. Not just a straight forward air + spark = acid. Natural nitric acid is produced via. lighting and nitrogen.

Deano


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## butcher (Dec 5, 2012)

Air is mostly nitrogen so a spark or thousand of tiny sparks can make a tiny bit of NO2 and if mixed in moiture or bubbled in water will form nitric acid, but the volume of NO2 produced would be very small, it would take a very large unit maybe made with thousands and thousands of small needles all sparking with air flow through them, a low current high voltage spark generator to get just a little bit of nitric acid, not practical in my opinion, nitrates and acid for homemade are the easiest for smalll scale production.


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