Best Prices for Chemicals

[qst42know]

If you want the MSDS for any chemical speak to the store manager. I'm fairly certain they must by law provide it.

Battery acid $5/gal. and Sodium Nitrate for $6.50/4pounds. Roughly translates to $24/gallon of nitric acid.

 

[Lou]

I can pick up KNO3 for about 65 cents a pound and sulfuric is probably 15 a gallon or so. I think it's about 18-20 bucks per gallon if I distill it myself. Granted this is a gallon of 95% nitric.

$35 for a gallon of ACS nitric is a steal!! It hasn't been that price in years.



Lou

 

[butcher]

sacks of nitrate fertilizers cheap, battery acid fairly cheap for me equals fvery cheap nitric acid.
there are many other ways to remove base metals besides making nitric, if you wanted to,if you are working with mainly copper and very little gold (your in the copper refining bussiness) and making nitric for that would be more costly.

 

[viacin]

I can pick up KNO3 for about 65 cents a pound

:!: I paid $17/lb. Now I see that I have been ripped off. It was bought on ebay from what I am 95% sure is a active member of this forum. It bothers me that someone is ripping people off that bad, and linking their auction back to the forum.

I assume you are talking about the 50lb bags. Some local hardware store must have some, but I have not seen it, and what about the grade? Surely the fertilizer you put on your lawn is not very pure.


edit: I checked my records. I was wrong, I actually did not buy it from that person, as he was about $1 more per lb!

 

[Lou]

It is probably about 90% pure or so, which is fine if you're distilling--I never bothered with an exact assay. I also used technical grade sulfuric which I can get at a very local chemical place. After all, it's being distilled so most of the impurities are removed. The only concern I ever had was NaCl or other salt contamination in the nitrate because heating would cause HCl to come over and contaminate nitric acid. I was never concerned enough with it to remove the halides so I think you ought to be fine.


Pity that your KNO3 cost that much money! That is about 30X more than what I got it for at Home Depot on a sale.

 

[Noxx]

I experience the problem you stated Lou.
My KNO3 either have Chlorides or it's my sulfuric.
There is always a lot of insoluble AgCl when I dissolver silver with my nitric acid... Is there a way to prevent this or buying reagent grade chemicals is the only way ?

Thanks

 

[butcher]

if distilling check the boiling points and azeotropes of the acids, which one boils off first at what temperature,can most likely seperate with that.
( I can't remember but believe hcl comes off first).
or might try silver in your boiling vessel this should leave salt of AgCl behind.
metals in boiling vessel seem to help (example copper taking the Hydrogen fuming off the NO2 gas from the HNO3 in boiling solution)

 

[Lou]

Silver would be a bad idea. It would merely dissolve away with the excess nitric, or it would precip immediately as silver sulfate.

 

[viacin]

metals in boiling vessel seem to help (example copper taking the Hydrogen fuming off the NO2 gas from the HNO3 in boiling solution)

So when you put copper in nitric acid, you are actually getting NO3 and NO2 fumes? Would this be any different from most other base metals you might be disolving?

 

[Lou]

Well that depends on the concentration of nitric. Sometimes you get NO produced. NO oxidizes immediately to give NO2.


Typically, hot, concentrated nitric will give NO2 gas.

If you wish to avoid this, dilute your nitric--any NO2 produced will dissolve in the excess water and form nitric acid again.


Lou

 

[viacin]

So, in essence, a lower percentage nitric acid, such as 35%, would give better results. Making less fumes, and actually creating more HNO2 when the base metal is added?

 

[butcher]

distilling a batch of gold plated pins, to recover the gold
and to make nitric acid (and copper sulfate as by product which can be used also)
if you don't have fancy lab equiptment
hot plate
alluminum pot, (1" sand in bottom) put gallon pickle jar in it(sand around outside of jar) sand bath
cut lid from 3/4" teflon to fit gallon jar hole !/4" drillid in center for 10'chemical resistant hose clear tubing, I use teflon plumbing tape, then electricians tape then cloth tape to seal lid
(do not use rubber nitric will dissolve it)
hose runs into bottom of a bottle (reciever) with small amount of water in bottom of it.
(to bubble NOx gases into reciever converting to HNO3)
reciever bottle sits in plastic bucket of ice water,
coil of this hose loops into this ice water as condenser

to prepare my sulfuric acid
My sulfuric battery acid is boiled form 12 cups down to 6 cups in pyrex coffee pot on hotplate, then let it cool off.

put a babyfood jar full of plated pins (bout 140g.) in gallon jar,
put 1 pound nitrate fertilyzer in gallon jar(about cupfull)
KNO3 or NaNO3
put cooled sulfuric acid in jar (taping on lid with hose ASAP)
raise temperature slowly

glass should always be changed in temperature slowly THERMAL SHOCK breaks glass which can be dangerous
boiling
you will see red brown NOx fumes from boiling container which bubbles into wter converting to clear nitric acid
the color of boiling jar will be green ,copper dissolving in nitric acid
(and sulfuric acid) from fertilyzer,
it will stay green as long as it is copper nitrate
when all nitric boiled off as NOx gasses
boiling solution will turn blue (copper sulfate)
the reciever will have 68% nitric acid (diluted with only the amount of water you originally had in reciever bottle)
gold will be left as flakes undisolved in the bottom of the copper sulfate solution
this will need diluteded so that it doesn't convert to salt
if diluted before it salts up it wont take as much water, as it would after it salts up
dilute this solution with warm water carefull not to thermally shock glass
then decant or filter off your gold
nitric if stored should be in bottle made for nitric acid and out of light as light destroys it.

now this is not done with concentrated sulfuric
if using concentrated acid it works better without the base metals