Why is peracetic acid not mentioned much by Youtubers, or others?

[CattMurry]

This acid eats all soft metals specifically copper, and everything above* it on the reactivity chart..... Why is this acid not mentioned for refining? This acid undergoes some exothermic reaction saving you from expending heating energy as well, but apparently it can explode, or ignite somewhere around 104F making it somewhat intimidating with that flashpoint. Other than controlling it's flash, it is extremely efficient it seems. Any tips on reactions, safety precautions, or basic understanding would be wonderful. Thanks everyone.

-side note: this acid does eat AL's oxide layer making it easy to even drop/displace Cu with AL which seems amazing.

 

[MicheleM]

" apparently it can explode, or ignite somewhere around 104F making it somewhat intimidating..." good answer to your question

 

[Jado]

Acetic Acid is on the harsh end for what most people (who understand anything about it) feel comfortable using at concentrations above 5%. Add in an extreme volatility and you need to do some research (read and watch until you have nightmares). The thermoregulation required rivals Nitroglycerin production.

If you have the ability and confidence to use it safely, by all means. If you have to ask, you don’t.

 

[Yggdrasil]

This acid eats all soft metals specifically copper, and everything above* it on the reactivity chart..... Why is this acid not mentioned for refining? This acid undergoes some exothermic reaction saving you from expending heating energy as well, but apparently it can explode, or ignite somewhere around 104F making it somewhat intimidating with that flashpoint. Other than controlling it's flash, it is extremely efficient it seems. Any tips on reactions, safety precautions, or basic understanding would be wonderful. Thanks everyone.

-side note: this acid does eat AL's oxide layer making it easy to even drop/displace Cu with AL which seems amazing.

Al will displace/cement copper in HCl too. And anything below.
Alu strips are used to cement from relative pure PGM solutions.
It will do what Zinc does, but cheaper.
The negative is, that it creates a fluffy hard to filter Chloride if you over add the Aluminum.
In Nitric it may be a different story, but then you are talking about another beast all together.
Regards Per-Ove

 

[Elemental]

Probably for the same reason things like piranha solution, chlorine gas, and cyanide techniques are avoided in discussion. They are dangerous even in a safety enforced setting. Your recommendation of an acid that will do pretty much the same as nitric or aqua regia (both of which can be diluted to make slightly safer) but has the possibility of making an acid bomb should be self explanatory. Hell instead of copper, let’s use sodium for cementing?!

Yes, I’m sure an experienced refiner/chemist could make a process to safely use peracetic acid in a closed system, but that we have safer, simpler ways to do refining.

Information about peracetic acid:
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/icsc/showcard.display?p_card_id=1031&p_version=2&p_lang=en

 

[Geo]

PAA can be very dangerous. It is used as an anti-microbial in food processing plants. Even though it is not considered industrial grade, the fumes will quite literally knock you out. First hand knowledge. My son worked at a poultry plant and his job was to wash down the equipment with PAA when ever the lines went down. One day there was a leak and he went in to turn off the pump. It was coincidental but very lucky for my son that maintenance had sent someone to shut it down and found my son unconscious by the door. It took months before he was fully recovered.

 

[orvi]

I used combination of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide a lot in organic syntheses (create weak peracetic acid in situ). Also, acetic acid is common solvent for reactions I do. But i will never advise to use this stuff for refining metals. Glacial acetic acid or concentrated (above 90%) acetic acid is lipophilic = very easily penetrates human flesh/skin, causing very bad chemical burns. Drop to your unprotected eye and you can end up blind.
Gloves are penetrated with ease, as expected with every common polar organic solvent. False sense of protection is the worst thing that could happen to you. Applying the acid to your hand, unnoticed for long time is very bad. Aqueous acids have hard time to eat through the gloves, organic acids just pass through.

And as it was stated here many times, peracetic acid (as every organic peroxide molecule) is explosive. And relatively sensitive one, if concentration of peracetic acid climbs higher than 20%. Trace impurities, various chemicals or metals could trigger degradation, which could lead to big bad things

Without proper knowledge, do not attempt random mixing of chemicals and substituing common ones for some other stuff. Chemistry is non forgiving. And always do what it is supposed to, regardless of what you want.
Good thing is, peracetic acid is relatively hard to obtain from obvious reasons listed above

 

[Elemental]

I would like to add that I do like when topics such as these come up. We have Hoke’s book to tell us one way to do things, but refining is a science, and science involves experimenting and research. Topics like this quickly and effectively point out a direction that research should not be taken. Thanks to everyone who puts in the time and effort to remark on topics like this one.

Elemental

 

[orvi]

I would like to add that I do like when topics such as these come up. We have Hoke’s book to tell us one way to do things, but refining is a science, and science involves experimenting and research. Topics like this quickly and effectively point out a direction that research should not be taken. Thanks to everyone who puts in the time and effort to remark on topics like this one.

Elemental

I like experimenting a lot. Just not random, but focused, aimed on proving something, well prepared, best discussed with other experts, so ammount of time wasted if the concept fails is minimal.
I was bored back in the day when we used to have chemistry labs and teacher talks like 10 minutes about safety and what is forbidden to do in the lab. Everybody wanted just to mix things up, colours, fizzing, explosions, etc...

But when some time passed, i ended up on master´s in organic chemistry, and things changed. Now, you were doing unknown things which wasn´t done before by anybody else. Creating compounds which could be possibly very harmful for you and your co-workers. Very quickly, responsibility hits. And you start to realise that your perfectly planned synthesis could possibly lead to evolution of dangerous gasses, sudden exothermic runaways spilling caustic solutions all over the place etc.

You become more and more cautious. But it need time and experience. Good mentoring from the professors or older lab-mates, understanding the chemistry behind, realising possible side-reactions. This can´t be substitued by 15 minutes of internet search

I share the same opinion here. There will always be some a-holes, who create stuff like NCl3 in glass jars, regardless of dangers CLEARLY POINTED OUT, ending up with fingers amputations etc.
It is great that we could share knowledge together to stop somebody less experienced doing the worst mistake of his life

 

[CattMurry]

" apparently it can explode, or ignite somewhere around 104F making it somewhat intimidating..." good answer to your question

I mean... It ignites first unless gas concentrations are in a pressured room, or unaerated box. You'd have to be pretty derpy to do that, or maybe didn't research safety prior to experimentation.... It seems scary on an industrial sized scale, but in CDC safety it appears that any fires due to this acid can be fought with just water. I'd be a lot less intimidated by that outcome rather than nitrics, or sulfuric's affects on the body, but I will admit I didn't deep dive gas emissions with this, and emissions with reacting to metals just yet.

 

[CattMurry]

Acetic Acid is on the harsh end for what most people (who understand anything about it) feel comfortable using at concentrations above 5%. Add in an extreme volatility and you need to do some research (read and watch until you have nightmares). The thermoregulation required rivals Nitroglycerin production.

If you have the ability and confidence to use it safely, by all means. If you have to ask, you don’t.

Understood. Saftey is what I first research before jumping to do anything. Haven't done too much deep diving into this, but it'll be on the list to look into.

 

[CattMurry]

Al will displace/cement copper in HCl too. And anything below.
Alu strips are used to cement from relative pure PGM solutions.
It will do what Zinc does, but cheaper.
The negative is, that it creates a fluffy hard to filter Chloride if you over add the Aluminum.
In Nitric it may be a different story, but then you are talking about another beast all together.
Regards Per-Ove

Only issue with HCL and AL would be AL's protective oxide layer. Seems like it resists things pretty well, and would make things pretty irritating.

 

[CattMurry]

Probably for the same reason things like piranha solution, chlorine gas, and cyanide techniques are avoided in discussion. They are dangerous even in a safety enforced setting. Your recommendation of an acid that will do pretty much the same as nitric or aqua regia (both of which can be diluted to make slightly safer) but has the possibility of making an acid bomb should be self explanatory. Hell instead of copper, let’s use sodium for cementing?!

Yes, I’m sure an experienced refiner/chemist could make a process to safely use peracetic acid in a closed system, but that we have safer, simpler ways to do refining.

Information about peracetic acid:
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/icsc/showcard.display?p_card_id=1031&p_version=2&p_lang=en

I like chlorine. You can actually filter it unlike NOx's, and sulfuric may be the scariest acid I have witnessed haha. Nitric's fumes are more potent than anything I have seen on CDC's guidelines of safety.... Literally just says wear a firefighting suit to be even near nitric dioxide with air tanks. No recommended cartridges for respirator, and no nothing. Can't tell if they are referring to nitric fires, so the air/fumes would be superheated, or what. If they speak in those terms then it would make sense to need cooled refreshed air in a closed system, but it appears nitric, and it's fumes are quite hellish.

It even says only uncontrolled vapors will explode if allowed to in essence.
-"Flammable. Above 40.5°C explosive vapour/air mixtures may be formed. Explosive. "
Now the reactions also being exothermic..... now that makes it exiting lmao. (dangerous)

 

[CattMurry]

PAA can be very dangerous. It is used as an anti-microbial in food processing plants. Even though it is not considered industrial grade, the fumes will quite literally knock you out. First hand knowledge. My son worked at a poultry plant and his job was to wash down the equipment with PAA when ever the lines went down. One day there was a leak and he went in to turn off the pump. It was coincidental but very lucky for my son that maintenance had sent someone to shut it down and found my son unconscious by the door. It took months before he was fully recovered.

That is quite the frightening story, and glad he turned around. Most dangerous thing to do is going alone when there is a leak. What fumes are emitted to do that exactly? It appears explosive due to H, and O, but didn't see much else. Reminder* I didn't do heavy research on peroxyacetic just yet, but seems to have some potential at first glance.

 

[CattMurry]

I used combination of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide a lot in organic syntheses (create weak peracetic acid in situ). Also, acetic acid is common solvent for reactions I do. But i will never advise to use this stuff for refining metals. Glacial acetic acid or concentrated (above 90%) acetic acid is lipophilic = very easily penetrates human flesh/skin, causing very bad chemical burns. Drop to your unprotected eye and you can end up blind.
Gloves are penetrated with ease, as expected with every common polar organic solvent. False sense of protection is the worst thing that could happen to you. Applying the acid to your hand, unnoticed for long time is very bad. Aqueous acids have hard time to eat through the gloves, organic acids just pass through.

And as it was stated here many times, peracetic acid (as every organic peroxide molecule) is explosive. And relatively sensitive one, if concentration of peracetic acid climbs higher than 20%. Trace impurities, various chemicals or metals could trigger degradation, which could lead to big bad things

Without proper knowledge, do not attempt random mixing of chemicals and substituing common ones for some other stuff. Chemistry is non forgiving. And always do what it is supposed to, regardless of what you want.
Good thing is, peracetic acid is relatively hard to obtain from obvious reasons listed above

Thank you for your time, and explanation. Especially with safety knowledge. I never want the glacial version haha. That stuff like you said is crazy. Heard, or read about people making around 100% acetic, then like 50% H2O2, and good god. Why would you ever? I didn't even enjoy my nitric at 70% which I had 10 liters of sitting in my house. That's when I did more research on Nitric dioxide, and the nitric then got donated to a waste facility immediately. lmao I have in essence refined vinegar to 15.5%, and also have 35% H2O2 (the 35% still spooks me) atm. I tried 5% (vinegar) and 35% H2O2 that appeared relatively stable other than foaming, but it does scare me. I did not know the penetrating effect of those types of acids as well, so thank you again for that piece. What concentrations does it pierce gloves at? Seen scary effects of nitric at 90% as well, and don't know if that effect is alike. All concentrations, or...? Curious on what, or how I should balance the 2. Should they be imbalanced in concentration, or balanced for the desired effect? Also note I am doing TINY experiments, and do not plan in any way doing large quantities unless all safety protocol measure are met, and are in place first. Just refer to that nitric story to see how cautious I really am haha.

 

[CattMurry]

I like experimenting a lot. Just not random, but focused, aimed on proving something, well prepared, best discussed with other experts, so ammount of time wasted if the concept fails is minimal.
I was bored back in the day when we used to have chemistry labs and teacher talks like 10 minutes about safety and what is forbidden to do in the lab. Everybody wanted just to mix things up, colours, fizzing, explosions, etc...

But when some time passed, i ended up on master´s in organic chemistry, and things changed. Now, you were doing unknown things which wasn´t done before by anybody else. Creating compounds which could be possibly very harmful for you and your co-workers. Very quickly, responsibility hits. And you start to realise that your perfectly planned synthesis could possibly lead to evolution of dangerous gasses, sudden exothermic runaways spilling caustic solutions all over the place etc.

You become more and more cautious. But it need time and experience. Good mentoring from the professors or older lab-mates, understanding the chemistry behind, realising possible side-reactions. This can´t be substitued by 15 minutes of internet search

I share the same opinion here. There will always be some a-holes, who create stuff like NCl3 in glass jars, regardless of dangers CLEARLY POINTED OUT, ending up with fingers amputations etc.
It is great that we could share knowledge together to stop somebody less experienced doing the worst mistake of his life

Idk about saving my life, but alright. The presumptions here.... I'm dumb but not that dumb

p.p

 

[CattMurry]

Probably for the same reason things like piranha solution, chlorine gas, and cyanide techniques are avoided in discussion. They are dangerous even in a safety enforced setting. Your recommendation of an acid that will do pretty much the same as nitric or aqua regia (both of which can be diluted to make slightly safer) but has the possibility of making an acid bomb should be self explanatory. Hell instead of copper, let’s use sodium for cementing?!

Yes, I’m sure an experienced refiner/chemist could make a process to safely use peracetic acid in a closed system, but that we have safer, simpler ways to do refining.

Information about peracetic acid:
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/icsc/showcard.display?p_card_id=1031&p_version=2&p_lang=en

Also... chlorine gas? Idk how you use HCL, or anything else to refine then my friend. The chlorine is what does the work! Piranha solution? Check my glass cleaning thread.... Many users said they USE IT TO WASH THEIR GLASS! I have no clue what:
"Probably for the same reason things like piranha solution, chlorine gas, and cyanide techniques are avoided in discussion."
This even means....
Now... for refining yeah. You obviously don't wanna mess with piranha solution lol. I don't wanna play with sulfur anything at all really. Cyanide again, yeah. You again don't wanna mess with it for fairly obvious reasons. That's why I do the digging/watching/ and questions.

 

[CattMurry]

I would like to add that I do like when topics such as these come up. We have Hoke’s book to tell us one way to do things, but refining is a science, and science involves experimenting and research. Topics like this quickly and effectively point out a direction that research should not be taken. Thanks to everyone who puts in the time and effort to remark on topics like this one.

Elemental

Research shouldn't be taken in certain directions? Have no clue how everything industrial was ever made then. The attitude, and pride here with being saviors is HEAVY. Have fun with NOX's, and the nitric I guess. That hasn't hurt a fly though lmao.

 

[orvi]

Thank you for your time, and explanation. Especially with safety knowledge. I never want the glacial version haha. That stuff like you said is crazy. Heard, or read about people making around 100% acetic, then like 50% H2O2, and good god. Why would you ever? I didn't even enjoy my nitric at 70% which I had 10 liters of sitting in my house. That's when I did more research on Nitric dioxide, and the nitric then got donated to a waste facility immediately. lmao I have in essence refined vinegar to 15.5%, and also have 35% H2O2 (the 35% still spooks me) atm. I tried 5% (vinegar) and 35% H2O2 that appeared relatively stable other than foaming, but it does scare me. I did not know the penetrating effect of those types of acids as well, so thank you again for that piece. What concentrations does it pierce gloves at? Seen scary effects of nitric at 90% as well, and don't know if that effect is alike. All concentrations, or...? Curious on what, or how I should balance the 2. Should they be imbalanced in concentration, or balanced for the desired effect? Also note I am doing TINY experiments, and do not plan in any way doing large quantities unless all safety protocol measure are met, and are in place first. Just refer to that nitric story to see how cautious I really am haha.

It is completely OK to work with acetic acid, but you need to be careful. I have done so much of my work with acetic acid, and it is sometimes irreplacable. But for organic chemistry. 100% stuff, we just dont want it wet.
You donated nitric to waste facility... You could offer it here, so many people will gladly buy from you

Most of the times, we don´t pre-mix acids with oxidizing agents. Like AR, you don´t pre-mix the HCl with HNO3, but instead add oxidizer (nitric) in doses to use a proper ammount of it to do its job.
Hypothetically, same apply here. If it was of any benefit using acetic acid or peracetic acid. I dont know of any benefit over nitric about this stuff. Both are dangerous when used improperly. NO2 is more toxic, that´s for sure. But in the refining, you will have hard time to eliminating nitric from the procedures.

 

[orvi]

Research shouldn't be taken in certain directions? Have no clue how everything industrial was ever made then. The attitude, and pride here with being saviors is HEAVY. Have fun with NOX's, and the nitric I guess. That hasn't hurt a fly though lmao.

Yes, it shouldn´t be taken in certain directions. We gain a lot from experience of older researchers, who many times died because of the chemistry they were doing. Take for example the discovery of fluorine. Many people attempted it, and they had their health impaired for the rest of their lives. Don´t knowing the effects of fluorine to human body.

Now, we know a lot more, and because of this, we could be more cautious about stuff we plan to do.
Whole point here is you could do any kind of chemistry for research purposes, but the following question is: is it of any worth ?
What will be the point of using say peracetic acid for dissolution of metals ? We could assume that it will work great, get everything dissolved, but... What is the output ? Does it outweigh the risks and safety hazards involved ? No. And you can end up your research right here.
Or you can pursue the ideas further, conducting and carefully documenting the procedures, doing proper analyses with instrumental and gravimetric methods. Professional research is different of our "clandestine" way of doing things. But aside of all of this, you know the most important answer right now: no, it wont help us with improving the procedures, because we already know the PAA is too hazardous to work with on regular basis, when we have more reliable and convenient alternatives.