# help with nitric acid



## sdixon (Jan 14, 2012)

Ive used the lazersteve recp. but it isnt coming out clear. It is still pee yellow. Any advice


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## jeneje (Jan 14, 2012)

What type of material are you processing?


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## sdixon (Jan 15, 2012)

silver plate and sterling.But the nitrate ive made twice cant get it clear per the info.Also copper still looks white . does that mean that that i havnt gotten all silver off. new at this


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## butcher (Jan 15, 2012)

Nitric acid is usually clear, it can also be yellow (dissolved NOx gas).

I did not understand what your statement about copper was.


Home made nitric acid is not the best to use for silver, as it can have sodium sulfate or potassium sulfate salts dissolved in it and silver sulfate is not very soluble.

If working on copper, your nitric could be too strong needing some water and heat.

Or the nitric could be weak; heating with the copper will help.

Since you mentioned yellow if this was unused nitric I think you’re Nitric may be strong (maybe too strong).

You could try experiments or measure specific gravity to figure out the problem.

Did you chill the nitric to remove most of the sulfate salts?


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## sdixon (Jan 15, 2012)

ive fiterd out all salts and the freeze as well. would it hurt to add water last night it seemed to attack the plated silver


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## sdixon (Jan 15, 2012)

to butcher . the copper that disolved last night has a white film over it and if you scratch it is silver in color and not copper color


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## butcher (Jan 15, 2012)

ive fiterd out all salts and the freeze as well. 

Good job.

Would it hurt to add water last night it seemed to attack the plated silver?

It will not hurt to add water (that may be needed). 
If it’s too dilute heating when dissolving metal will work better and concentrate acid while working.

Problem with plated silver is it will take a lot of nitric, what little silver will probably end up as insoluble silver sulfate (sulfate salts from home made nitric)

You may have a very hard time making this work with plated silver and home made nitric acid, unless you distill your nitric acid first and get rid of the entire sulfate salts dissolved in solution.

The white crust on silver may be silver sulfate, or if you had chloride's in your nitre, or in solution, it could be silver chloride, I do not know.

There is a way to tell if it is silver chloride, but it can be a bit dangerous if directions are not followed clearly, we seem to have a language problem and before explaining it, I would want to know you can translate it good.


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## Geo (Jan 15, 2012)

unless you are distilling your nitric, you will have salt in your solution which will make silver chloride as the silver dissolves.you cant get all the salt out (heaven knows I've tried many times).i have placed the nitric in the freezer and left it there until the entire contents were a slush and then filtered the liquid out and still had salt.nitric made by the "one pot method" is not recommended for silver recovery.


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## qst42know (Jan 15, 2012)

sdixon said:


> to butcher . the copper that disolved last night has a white film over it and if you scratch it is silver in color and not copper color



The problem with silver plate is you need to provide a large amount of nitric, enough to consume all the base metals before the silver will stay in solution. The white film is likely the silver cementing to the remaining base metals as the nitric is depleted.

It isn't cost effective to recover silver plate with nitric acid.


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## sdixon (Jan 15, 2012)

so i guess just leave silver plate alone is what im reading. Is there a way to distill the nitric ive already made or start over


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## butcher (Jan 15, 2012)

Yes you can distill the nitric solution you have now.


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