Making Nitric Acid, oopsie

[Daniel0007a]

Has anyone used Nitric acid with Spark gaps and an Air pump? You could if you do a distillation a large amount of fuming Nitric acid. It is very complex I know but the advantage is that the procedure does not need Sulfuric acid or Potassium Nitrate which may be restricted.

 

[Daniel0007a]

I mean Made Nitric acid by High voltage? I may if I had a good transformer.

 

[olawlor]

I mean Made Nitric acid by High voltage? I may if I had a good transformer.

I've made a few grams of arc nitric with a neon sign transformer, but Quic's setup here is a lot nicer:
The Birkland Eyde process/reactot

An un-tuned arc mostly produces ozone, which makes it both inefficient at making acid and very hard on nearby elastomers. Both the NOx and ozone produced by the arc are insidiously deadly to human lungs, and need a careful ventilation strategy. Overall, if you need liters of nitric and have access to a nitrate salt, I'd recommend distillation.

The maker of the above video needs to wear gloves when handling both the acids (the metal salts are surprisingly toxic) and high voltage, and pay more respect to things that can kill him.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Yes I made a TEA Nitrogen laser in College and build a UV spectrometer. The transformer was 9000 volts 60 ma quite nasty if you mess up you could die. I tried building a flat Nitrogen laser but the power circuit was too high 15 ma DC required 5 ma DC, 8000 volts. I will stick to extracting gold from bars and cpus maybe with hot HCl 31 percent, 3 percent H202 or cold 31 percent HCl and 25% H202.

 

[Yggdrasil]

If you are going to dissolve any quantity of Gold, it need to have a large surface area.
But why do you want to dissolve bars?
It can be done with just nitrate salt and HCl too, so called poor mans AR.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Because it is better quality and it less money than buying a huge amount of CPUs or ICs. It 99.99 percent gold. A lot of stuff that gold is fake and too cheap to be used in any plating techniques.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Also, I need just small amounts of gold. Would something like Magnesium nitrate and HCl also convert tin and other salts into sludge that is not something I want I will just dissolve the bar in hot HCl 31 percent with 3 percent H202.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Also, I need just small amounts of gold. Would something like Magnesium nitrate and HCl also convert tin and other salts into sludge that is not something I want I will just dissolve the bar in hot HCl 31 percent with 3 percent H202.

So you are going to use it for plating?
How about buying plating solution?

The HCl H2O2 route especially with 3% will be very slow.
Even 30% is slow.
Might be better with pool tablets and HCl.
Bleach will neutralise the solution too fast to be if much use for solid Gold.

Anyway if you use a bar as feed stock you should either roll it thin and snip it up or melt it and pour shots that are then pounded or rolled thin.
You have to maximise surface area.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Yes I may buy 30 percent H202 to increase the process. I will need a lot of H202 for that and slowly add it to the HCl cold.

 

[Daniel0007a]

I have a question would 35% H202 (160 ml) in 500 ml of conc HCl 35% be powerful enough to dissolve tin and lead into a colliod like sludge?

 

[Daniel0007a]

Compared to Nitric acid in HCl that is the H202 question.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I have a question would 35% H202 (160 ml) in 500 ml of conc HCl 35% be powerful enough to dissolve tin and lead into a colliod like sludge?

HCl don't need help to dissolve Tin and Lead

 

[orvi]

HCl don't need help to dissolve Tin and Lead

If time isn´t a concern for you, then you will better left it alone only with hot HCL. True.

 

[nitrous]

Yes I made a TEA Nitrogen laser in College and build a UV spectrometer. The transformer was 9000 volts 60 ma quite nasty if you mess up you could die. I tried building a flat Nitrogen laser but the power circuit was too high 15 ma DC required 5 ma DC, 8000 volts. I will stick to extracting gold from bars and cpus maybe with hot HCl 31 percent, 3 percent H202 or cold 31 percent HCl and 25% H202.

gee, I made a TEM in highschool.... oh... I forgot, the question was about making nitric acid using the birkland Eyde method..... what has a TEA N2 laser got to do with your original question??
Ammonium Nitrate is pretty easy (and cheap) to get from cold packs here in Ontario. And it will be much more easily concentrated then from BE process.

 

[yellowfoil]

Could anybody make a proper list of all the glassware needed to make HNO3? Including all the adapters, connectors, thermometers and connecting clips which will survive this process. I would like to reclame HNO3 from copper nitrate as well. Thanks.

 

[yellowfoil]

gee, I made a TEM in highschool.... oh... I forgot, the question was about making nitric acid using the birkland Eyde method..... what has a TEA N2 laser got to do with your original question??
Ammonium Nitrate is pretty easy (and cheap) to get from cold packs here in Ontario. And it will be much more easily concentrated then from BE process.

Where do you buy cold packs with ammonium nitrate in Ontario. I tried everywhere and there is no ammonium nitrate any more. There is some kind of mixture, which looks like a mud. Home Hardware sells some kind of stump remover under the brand name "Fallen Leaf" which contains potassium nitrate and you have to produce ID for a pound of nitrate. And it is not cheep, like $17 + 12% tax. Times are changing.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Making Nitric acid by heating copper Nitrate only. Someone asked this on a blog here so I am answering here it would be useful if you had a lot of copper nitrate but it is very expensive.

 

[olawlor]

Could anybody make a proper list of all the glassware needed to make HNO3? Including all the adapters, connectors, thermometers and connecting clips which will survive this process. I would like to reclame HNO3 from copper nitrate as well. Thanks.

For distilling dilute nitric, I basically started with a 24/40 glass distillation apparatus:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262814098023(This was years ago, so I can't find exactly the same set now, but it came with 1000mL round bottom flasks. Make sure the first T has three ground glass joints, not two and an O-ring for a thermometer.)

You need to use a glass thermometer adapter for nitric, because the default rubber O-ring thermometer adapter above will catch fire with hot NOx fumes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262805544013
The first few Keck clips should be stainless so they hold up to the heat without deforming:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262809616433
A "powder funnel" makes it easier to pour materials in and out of beakers without smearing them all over the ground glass joint:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262810054160
You'll need to hold all the glassware securely. These two seemed to work nicely together:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262809690057https://www.ebay.com/itm/262809601668
All above links are the same store, deschem. I have no connection with them except buying glassware a few times several years ago--they packed the glass quite well in a foam box and each piece encased in bubble wrap.

I circulate the cooling water with a little fountain pump, and scrub the uncondensed NOx with an alkaline gas scrubber. You'll need something that won't oxidize to seal the glass joints: concentrated sulfuric acid is traditional, which should clue you in as to the level of hazard here! I tried a silicone & castor oil based vacuum grease the first time, which nitrated itself a vivid red. This should all be sitting inside a fume hood. Use ceramic secondary containment vessels for when the glassware breaks while full of hot acid.

For what it's worth, my standard operating procedure for distilling nitric is here: Nitric acid not condensing.

 

[Daniel0007a]

Yep, everything must be glass if you're going to make concentrated Nitric acid. Ideal for AR.

 

[Daniel0007a]

You may want to invest in an IR digital thermometer too.