Nitric source? - Archive File

[megalomania]

ALENGOSVIG1
Moderator
Posts: 766
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: NOV 2000
posted 01-18-2001 02:41 PM
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is nitric acid used in developing photographs? if so, what conc. is it?
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Explosives Archive



Rhadon
Frequent Poster
Posts: 95
From: Germany
Registered: OCT 2000
posted 01-18-2001 03:20 PM
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I'm pretty sure that HNO3 isn't used as a developer, but probably you can get your nitric acid from a pharmacy like I did - I asked for it in a shop dealing with colors (don't know how shops of this kind are called, sorry), so they went to the parmacy and bought it for me. Later on I went into this drugstore myself and asked for sulfuric acid. They were somewhat suspicious but I could make them beliefe that I wouldn't do anything illegal with it, so they gave me 2 liters.


Mr Cool
Frequent Poster
Posts: 991
From: None of your bloody business!
Registered: DEC 2000
posted 01-18-2001 03:33 PM
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I think 70% HNO3 can be found at large, professional art suppliers for etching copper. Ferric chloride is more common though. I've also heard of either H2SO4 or HNO3 being sold at jewellry equipment suppliers for cleaning gold I think, but I can't remember which it was!


Agent Blak
Frequent Poster
Posts: 766
From: Sk. Canada
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 01-18-2001 05:22 PM
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How much did you pay for your Nitric Acid(HNO3)?

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Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2306
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 01-18-2001 06:24 PM
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My Father does a bit of photography so I had a rumage through his darkroom but I couldn't find anything interesting (lots of big names). I've never heard of HNO3 being used for developing, maybe it was once used for etching/burning an image in some early kind of photo's, I don't know. I'll have another look tommorrow and post a list of all the chemicals I can find and maybe someone will notice one useful for something.


Mmanwitgun
Frequent Poster
Posts: 170
From:
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 01-18-2001 10:28 PM
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If some art people ask you why you need nitric acid, tell them you need it for lithography. Your supposed to mix it with gum of arabic or something.
~Dave


mongo blongo
Frequent Poster
Posts: 160
From: I live in a Creosote Bush!
Registered: JUN 2001
posted 06-23-2001 01:41 PM
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i think you can also buy nitric acid from where carpenters get their varnish and stuff
i think ther sell nitric acid for pine firnishes or something. i also think they sell loads of usefull chemicals but i dont know if u have to be licenced to buy it or something.
one company in the uk is Fiddes & son ltd


John456
Frequent Poster
Posts: 105
From:
Registered: MAR 2001
posted 06-23-2001 01:46 PM
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At an auto detailing shop near me they sell 70% HNO3 for cleaning aluminum parts before anodizing them. Its sorta expensive ($14 a liter) and they got suspicious after i bought a couple liters so i prefer to make my own.


J
Moderator
Posts: 602
From: United Kingdom
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-23-2001 02:16 PM
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It's used in Intaglio, etching copper. I think the concentration is usually 70%.
It was used in photography, unfortunately this was about 100 years ago :-( I think some people still use it for this purpose (something to do with preparing a type of photographic plate involving Pt IIRC), but not enough to make it a common source.

J

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zaibatsu
Frequent Poster
Posts: 407
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-23-2001 06:38 PM
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Aqua fortis (strong waater) used to be used in photography, it is HNO3, but around 10% IIRC, so that is a possible source. I have seen it used for lowering the PH of soil though, so it is used in a wide variety of places.


Demolition
Frequent Poster
Posts: 158
From: Australia
Registered: FEB 2001
posted 06-23-2001 11:44 PM
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I get my Nitric Acid (70%) from a local chemist for about $25 Aus dollars.

[A43tg37]

Rochester Midland makes a 20% nitric acid stainless steel cleaner/passivating solution called Brite 'N Shine. I know 20% isn't much, but it can be concentrated; plus, someone mentioned a 10% HNO3 source in this thread, so I feel it is appropriate to mention one that has 20% HNO3. The good thing about this is that unlike most "passivating cleaners" it is (from the MSDS anyhow) only nitric acid and water; no phosphoric acid mixed in like almost all other passivasting cleaners. And it looks to be OTC. Check janitorial supply stores, institutional supply stores, and even farm supply stores, the latter is where I first saw a bottle of this stuff just sitting on the shelf.

[YayItGoBoom!]

Not sure how much this will help you, but silver nitrate is used in photograpy. It can easily be mixed with other chemicals to cause a double replacement reaction and precipitate out the silver (arg I wish I had my insoluability chart) umm to take a guess I would say Sodium Hydroxide, giving you Silver Hydroxide (filter this out) and aquaous Sodium Nitrate (chilean nitrate, similar to saltpetre).

Also, a quick search for Silver Nitrate brings up a nice safety warning page.

Silver nitrate should never be mixed with ammonia compounds as it can form azides which are powerful explosives. Silver nitrate is an oxidizer and should be treated as such. Never mix with finely particulated metals such as aluminum or zinc. Also avoid contact with organics.
http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/silver.htm

And I'm sure you wouldn't want to form any azides now would we :D .

[Tuatara]

Now thats just plain silly. 25kg of KNO3 cost me $25. How much do you think 25kg of AgNO3 would cost?

Also it would make more sense to add HCl, precipitating AgCl, leaving HNO3!

Layoff the happy cabbage for a few days!

[Milamber]

The silver nitrate thing could, however, provide another reason to buy it - you see, as a photographer, one may find it very expensive to buy silver nitrate, but one can just buy some nitric acid and some silver bullion, which works out much cheaper in the long run ;)

Or, alternatively, you use it to recycle silver chloride formed in the various processes. Just something if you need an excuse to buy the stuff (you know, for those lucky enough to know of a supplier).

In addition, nitric acid is used (get this!) as a preservative for pyrogallol, which is a photographic developer. The reason they use nitric is that pyro is a damn good oxidant, so you need to store it in/with something that is stronger - you don't want to waste your pyrogallol, seeing how expensive it can be... so check around for a photography shop and see if they have it or can get it in for you. You might find other interesting stuff there, too, so have a browse.

[aikon]

to milamber:

pyrogallol is an outdated chemical in photography. therefore it's not a good excuse for buying nitric acid.

[Marvin]

Silver nitrate would indeed be extortionate, about 10k US for 25kg that amount. Though it should be recyclable, I havnt found a way of turning AgCl into anything useful without needing a blowtortch. Anyone have a good method? Is the carbonate less soluable?

Silver nitrate and ammonia do not form an azide. What can ppt is fulminating silver, which at best guess is a hydrated nitride/imide. This is also explosive, but impossible to handle.

Pyrogallol is a reducing agent. If you make it alkaline it will start absorbing oxygen from the air. An alkaline solution of its salts are a good way to quantativly determine the amount of oxygen in air from loss in volume. Based on this infomation, it would make sense that keeping it acid should help preserve it.

[Milamber]

aikon - I guess it depends on where you go. I've been to about 3 photography shops recently, and two of them had pyrogallol. Apparently it can be used to make some fairly cool prints, but because of the toxicity and instability, people try to dodge it. If you were a fanatic, though, I guess you'd try it!

Marvin - first, thanks for the correction about how pyro works... i was half asleep, and the oxygen absorption in alkali somehow twisted itself around to make pyro an oxidant... particularly when you realise I totally forgot about the base... anyway, you're right about why the acid is needed.

I have a method lying around here somewhere for reducing AgCl to Ag metal, using either zinc or glucose. The yeilds are fairly damned good - first try using zinc gave about 97% conversion, while glucose gave about 50%, but i was being fairly sloppy so you should be able to get better. Then you would boil the silver in concentrated HNO3. I can find it for you if you would like.

[kano420]

ya i'm just a beginner in this whole explosives thing but i've been getting wet behind the ears.

I had some expirence using nitric acid in a metallography class, so if your looking for an excuse to buy nitric acid

its used in metallurgy for ecthing surfaces on heat treated parts for viewing the crystaline structure of the metal

under a high powered micro scope.

-Kano

[googol]

Speaking of source of Nitric, here is one.
http://sargentwelch.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_WLC97052-06_EA_A_Nitric+Acid_E_

Can someone enlighten me to the terminology used in the description:
Reagent ACS (~15.8M, ~15.8N), specificly the M and N, what do they mean?
I think the M might be moles? How strong is this acid in Percent?

Is this a good price? 2.5L for 30$ us. 70% reagent
They also mention Formula Wt. 63.01 . what is this; how does it compare to specific gravity.

Al-chymist.com has it for 20/L (technical,70%) or 45/L for reagent 70%.
What are the low,mid,and high prices people are seeing?

[googol]

I would have edited my previous post, however, the edit button is no longer available.
is it possible to enable the edit until another post is made?

The formula weight is the sum of the atomic weights of all elements in the formula. I thought this was the case, but I confused myself by using the atomic numbers instead of weights.
I also found out the M does appear to be Molar solution in 1 Liter. still not sure what the N means. Also, looking a bit deeper I found the acid to be listed at around 70%. so about the same strenth as al-chymist but cheaper. The disadvantage is I think they (sargentWelch) only ships to schools.

[FUTI]

I never heard that someone use HNO3 in photography. Exept silver recycling I cannot find any normal use of it there.

BTW it looks little suspicious to me that nitric acid is preservative for pyrogalol since HNO3 is good oxydative agent and pyrogalol is reducing agent.

Best info in this thread so far was that cleaner based on 20% nitric acid:)

[mtdawg]

While browsing on Lab-X this AM I noticed a link to Taylor Scientific advertising an Internet special on chems-

[Link removed as potential advertising]

On a lark, I decided to try to order both H2SO4 and HNO3, a case [2.5Lx6] of each, mainly to see how outrageous the S&H would be and what sort of hoops would have to be jumped through. Lo and behold, the order went through without a hitch, and I'm now $308.49 poorer, including both the shipping [$26.++] and the HazMat [$20] fee...but I should be receiving 30 liters of ACS acids [95-98% and 68-70%]. The pricing was about 4% higher than the link showed, but I figured it was best not to quibble for less than $10.

I DO happen to have a DBA business name which I registered with Dun & Bradstreet several years back and I included it, so possibly that is the magic word, but other than that, I used my real name and address and a debit card-kinda wish now I'd gotten one of the disposable cards...

[Charles Owlen Picket]

I knew a fellow that had a business that used HNO3 consistently (stainless steel related). He told me quite recently that technical grade 68% and lower had often been substituted for reagent grade 70% by a major firm doing bulk sales to middle-men type companies.

It was this fellow's insistence that several materials are regularly mis-represented by firms whose reputations are generally quite good. Realistically this would be a one-time fraud as it should be apparent to the end user.

[mtdawg]

While browsing on Lab-X this AM I noticed a link to Taylor Scientific advertising an Internet special on chems-

Received email day following order asking for copy of business license-following day phone call from company owner received, advising that the shipping quote was in error and that the ACTUAL UPS shipping [truck] would be $111.xx, plus the Hazmat. I politely declined to pay the additional charge and cancelled the order, but she said the price is good thru the end of the year.

If anyone else has a desire to order, it sounded as if the freight would be essentially the same even if the quantity were doubled, but as I was already mentally kicking myself for dropping that much $$$ on an amount I'd never be able to use up, I was content to have an opportunity to exit gracefully. Guess I'd better get out the still and the KNO3...:o

[alancj]

Well, for what it's worth, here is another place that fellow experimenters may find useful: http://www.hvchemical.com/

They have a lot of different chemicals including nitric for a pretty reasonable price, the hazmat is only $20. I haven’t ordered from them myself but if I ever get tired of making my own acid, then they’d be the first try.

One might also try www.kyantec.com; though some here don’t trust them (I don’t really buy their arguments). The quote I was given for nitric acid was $24 per liter for 70% reagent grade. You then have to add the $32 hazmat and regular shipping costs.

It’s hard to find companies that will sell chemicals to individuals, especially “hazardous” chemicals, but these guys do.