Another source for Nitric acid

[ilikePM]

Hi folks,

I am new here and wanted to share this info with you. I have been home brewing beer for years and I realized that I had some Nitric acid already. Five Star chemicals sells an "Acid Line Cleaner" for cleaning keg lines that has Nitrc acid and Phosphoric acid mixed together. It is fairly inexpensive, a liter bottle cost me roughly $12.00. I tested it with some small pcb's that had a silver plating over the contacts. I put the pieces in the solution and nothing happened until I heated it up to a boil, and then it took off and produced the classic copper brown fumes. It finished pretty quick. I don't know what the concentration of the Nitric acid is (can anyone guess?), but I would like to know how the Phosphoric acid would impact the refining process? Also the solution is blue which I don't know if that will have a negative impact. Will Phosphoric acid cause any problems? Check out the pic I am attaching. Here is a gallon for $30.00!

http://www.store.homebrew4less.com/Acid-6-Cold-Cleaning-Acid_Detergent-Gal/productinfo/BC6728-A-1/

pete

 

[mjgraham]

According to the MSDS sheet it claims 20%.
MSDS

 

[butcher]

I would not want to use the phosphoric acid, also the blue color makes me think something else is in the mix.

 

[ilikePM]

Well since it actually worked in dissolving copper and silver, I will continue to test it on a small scale and try to see if the other ingredients have some kind of impact on the reactions. It seems like 20% nitric acid is pretty low. What do you guys think? I tried forcing a reaction using a dilute solution by adding RO filtered water and direct heat and nothing happened on the same pcbs with silver on them. So you cant dilute it further since you will not get a reaction.

 

[butcher]

Be careful when melting silver you could have other metal phosphates included in the melt.

 

[ilikePM]

Ok I will. I am doing very small batches in a flask. 100 - 200 ml at a time and maybe an ounce of pcb's. I will post my results.