Author Topic: Handling / storing nitric acid  (Read 1961 times)

zahc

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Handling / storing nitric acid
« on: January 21, 2020, 09:47:16 AM »
I need to buy some nitric acid because reasons. Besides being super expensive (about $80 for a 2l bottle), people keep telling me that it can decompose in stirage and spontaneously explode. I used to use truckloads of glass bottles of nitric industrially in glass bottles and I don't remember any specific storage requirement, any different than other mineral acids, but we never kept any for more than a few months. Is nitric really any worse than sulfuric, phosphoric or hydrochloric with regards to storage? I know it's more reactive, which is basically (acidically) the point.
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brimic

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2020, 10:05:13 AM »
Quote
Is nitric really any worse than sulfuric, phosphoric or hydrochloric with regards to storage? I know it's more reactive, which is basically (acidically) the point.

Not that I'm aware of... It should come in an amber glass bottle, which is adequate.
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Nick1911

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2020, 10:26:30 AM »
I've only ever stored it in amber glass, which is how it came from my chemical supplier.  I didn't store it long term though.

Be mindful that even in glass, some vapor will seep out and corrode things around it, which is not awesome, particularly around machine tools.

dogmush

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2020, 12:16:50 PM »
Not today ATF......not today.

AJ Dual

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2020, 12:20:14 PM »
You know what you have to do.
I promise not to duck.

dogmush

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2020, 12:32:51 PM »

Ben

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2020, 12:40:06 PM »
Doesn't seem that hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNhVK-2mh6w

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charby

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2020, 03:37:51 PM »
Not today ATF......not today.

Only if he asks about buying glycerin in bulk.
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Jim147

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2020, 07:35:39 PM »
Worry about a steal cap on a glass bottle.
Sometimes we carry more weight then we owe.
And sometimes goes on and on and on.

BAH-WEEP-GRAAAGHNAH WHEEP NI-NI BONG

AmbulanceDriver

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2020, 12:08:08 AM »
Doesn't seem that hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNhVK-2mh6w

Hokay. I can pretty much guarantee that whackadoodle did *not* successfully synthesize azidoazide azide in his backyard shed. Wanna know how I can say that??? He's not a rapidly expanding cloud of meat vapor....

See here for a chemist's opinion on C2N14

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/01/09/things_i_wont_work_with_azidoazide_azides_more_or_less
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sumpnz

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2020, 12:36:44 AM »
Let me ask swmbo.

Cold, dry, metal cabinet separate from other acids if possible, near the ground on its own shelf if not, no plastic.  Keep in original container if possible.

It will ship Hazmat in a glass container in foam encased in metal.  She says KEEP IT IN THE FOAM CONTAINER.  You WILL burn your house down or poison yourself if it spills in a near 2l quantity.  7-32C is your temp range, 3 years max storage (the plastic cap WILL disintegrate by then).  You can wrap the cap with parafin to help prevent moisture from infiltrating.

WEAR YOUR PPE.  Double layer gloves eye protection, and apron.  No bare/stocking feet - wear shoes.

Emphasis hers.

sumpnz

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2020, 12:45:39 AM »
Nitric is actually a weaker acid than the others mentioned, but it's danger comes from being a strong oxidizer. 

K Frame

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2020, 07:44:47 AM »
As far as I know, nitric acid does not decompose into an explosive compound. According to Brittanica online...

"The resulting acid-in-water solution (about 50–70 percent by weight acid) can be dehydrated by distillation with sulfuric acid. Nitric acid decomposes into water, nitrogen dioxide, and oxygen, forming a brownish yellow solution."

All bets are off if nitric acid comes into contact with any number of organic materials.

Here's a full chemical rundown on it. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Nitric-acid

There are numerous mentions of explode, however, so you may want to read it carefully.
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zxcvbob

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2020, 09:35:54 AM »
You might be better off w/o the gloves.  If you get concentrated nitric acid on your skin, it will stain it yellow.  If you get it on a nitrile glove, it bursts into flames.
"It's good, though..."

brimic

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2020, 03:49:55 PM »
You might be better off w/o the gloves.  If you get concentrated nitric acid on your skin, it will stain it yellow.  If you get it on a nitrile glove, it bursts into flames.

We use butyl gloves for HCl, H2SO4, and HF where I work, should be good for nitric as well
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230RN

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #15 on: January 24, 2020, 03:54:19 AM »
My recollection was that of the "big three" (HCl, H2SO4, and HNO3), nitric was the least worrisome.

HCl would outgas from solution, creating a noxious cloud, even diluted H2SO4 would sneakily concentrate itself by evaporation to a certain point,  but except for the fuming variety, nitric would just make yellow stains and was washed off easily.  It was a joke that you could tell chem majors by their yellow fingers.

brimic

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #16 on: January 24, 2020, 08:12:07 AM »
My recollection was that of the "big three" (HCl, H2SO4, and HNO3), nitric was the least worrisome.

HCl would outgas from solution, creating a noxious cloud, even diluted H2SO4 would sneakily concentrate itself by evaporation to a certain point,  but except for the fuming variety, nitric would just make yellow stains and was washed off easily.  It was a joke that you could tell chem majors by their yellow fingers.

My organic professor jokingly referred to a nitro derivitization as ‘yellow fingers’- a day after I was trying to identify an unknown compound by making a nitro derivative of it.😀

It seems so odd that we didn’t have gloves for our chem labs back then.
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230RN

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #17 on: January 24, 2020, 08:33:16 AM »
Did you guys smoke in the fume hoods?  We had slate fume hoods on each bench.  I only started smoking because it felt so rebellious and, well, naughty, to smoke in the building (BTHS, circa 1950s).  Another student would play chicky and tell you if "teach" was coming so you could flip the cigarette down one of the intake holes, thereby destroying the evidence.  Ohhh, we were baaaaaad little men.

Terry

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brimic

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #18 on: January 24, 2020, 08:56:03 AM »
Did you guys smoke in the fume hoods?  We had slate fume hoods on each bench.  I only started smoking because it felt so rebellious and, well, naughty, to smoke in the building (BTHS, circa 1950s).  Another student would play chicky and tell you if "teach" was coming so you could flip the cigarette down one of the intake holes, thereby destroying the evidence.  Ohhh, we were baaaaaad little men.

Terry

REF (BTHS):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Technical_High_School

No, I'm not that old, but have worked with scientists who talked about how they used to have ash trays in the fume hoods.
The big thing when I started out was chewing, a lot of chemists chewed where I worked, there were always convenient sinks and floor drains for that.
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tokugawa

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #19 on: January 26, 2020, 01:09:43 PM »
 I worked in an etching plant. For one week. They made nameplates for machinery , etc. Print the resist on the plates, then stack them in rack, then dip the whole thing in a big wooden vat of acid for a bit. When it was pulled out, there was cloud of acid fumes in the air, evaporating off all those plates. A lot of surface area. No ventilation to speak of, low ceiling wood building. Then they dumped the used acid in the brook. Not a fish downstream. The worst job I ever had, except maybe picking tobacco.

kgbsquirrel

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #20 on: January 26, 2020, 01:45:13 PM »
I worked in an etching plant. For one week. They made nameplates for machinery , etc. Print the resist on the plates, then stack them in rack, then dip the whole thing in a big wooden vat of acid for a bit. When it was pulled out, there was cloud of acid fumes in the air, evaporating off all those plates. A lot of surface area. No ventilation to speak of, low ceiling wood building. Then they dumped the used acid in the brook. Not a fish downstream. The worst job I ever had, except maybe picking tobacco.

Where and what year?  :O

tokugawa

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #21 on: January 26, 2020, 04:12:07 PM »
Where and what year?  :O

 Connecticut, about 1970-  It was right about the time the clean water act got going- I remember the velvet plant used to dump their used dyes right in the water too. Much as I despise the eviro-communists today, back then there was a lot of low hanging pollution to pick- it it did not take too many years before the Connecticut river had salmon back, and those streams had trout again.

K Frame

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2020, 07:59:42 AM »
When I was a kid the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg was damned close to dead.

Now it's teeming with game fish.
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brimic

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Re: Handling / storing nitric acid
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2020, 08:55:37 AM »
They just finished dredging the PCBs out of the river in my town, left over from a Mercury Marine plant. The project took about 3 years.
"now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb" -Dark Helmet

"AK47's belong in the hands of soldiers mexican drug cartels"-
Barack Obama