Nitric Acid....

[Shalshaska]

Okay, I haven't bought HNO3 but once from sciencesomethingorother.com, and it was horribly expensive, and I'm getting pretty fed up with using xNO3's for my nitrations.
I've been thinking about making my own, but I'm not well experienced with stills and vacuums and these types of things.

So does anybody know a cheap and reliable source for nitric, because I gave up searching after about 20+ pages of google searches.

[TuRps_NZ]

try a hydroponics shop, they normally have it at 70% and its not too expensive, its used as a liquid fertiliser for giving plants nitrogen.

[pyromainiac420]

You could make it this way...http://www.geocities.com/brainfevert/hno3.html.

[Jago]

if you make it yourself and it IS red/fuming HNO3 then bubble some air through it.
And as turps mentioned, a hydroponics shop should also have some/be able to get you some.

[cooki]

I found a packet in my local store with nitric acid on it , it was in a powder form tho and its cheap 69p for 30g dont no if thats the stuf .

[john lee]

Do not mess with nitric acid unless you've got all the safty equipment needed and know what you are doing.I've added some pics on my pics page,i thought it would be ok to touch the outside of the test tube without gloves.I was wrong BIGTIME.

[X-ray Cat]

Originally Posted by cooki

I found a packet in my local store with nitric acid on it , it was in a powder form tho and its cheap 69p for 30g dont no if thats the stuf .

Nitric acid is a clear fuming liquid and definetly not a salt/powder/crystal at normal room temperature.

Distilling nitric is fairly easy if you've got sulfuric acid and nitrate salts. A destilation rig is adviseable but other then that a lot of methods will work fine. Just be aware that these fumes are highly corrosive and seriously dislike metals and rubber. You'll have to be carefull that the corrosion does not end up in your end product thereby contamintatin it and you'll probably have to replace any rubber or metal parts of your improvised setup after a couple of batches. If there are any question about improvised or normal procedures let me know! peace!

PS john lee, the typical yellow stains you've experienced are indd quite common when handling the acid and will somehow always turn up on your fingers (leaks, tiny drops, etc). However, don't shit yourself if they show up. You're just fucking up a tiny layer of your skin and it will come off after a week like a callus. If you see yellow stains, wash that part of your body with water and put some bicarbonate powder on it for some time, rub it in. Then wash again and you'll be fine.

What's scarier though is the effect of the nitrous oxides on your body. If you're exposed for a long time (had it a couple of times) you'll feel nauseous (spelled right??) and experience breathing problems (like you can barely inhale enough air to suport your needs). This happens fairly easy because you will be unable to smell the gasses after several minutes of exposure. Relax and stay calm is very important, also stay away from more fumes! Sit yourself down somewhere outside with someone close to you. The feeling might last 1 or 2 hours. If your condition gets worse go to a hospital. I've experienced this 2 times. One time i got very nauseous and went outside for a couple of hours.. Felt better after some minutes outside. Second time I experienced shortness of breath. I was inhaling very deep like but felt like the air didn't do anything. I stayed away from the gasses, sat myself down and felt better after 2 scary hours. If you're are experiencing any symptoms, be sure someone is nearby or call someone over to help you in case you pass out. If you are coughing a lot or if your sputum contains pus or brown coloured spit also go to a hospital. Pulmonary Edema will be the acute cause of death if the gas is inhaled, so you'll notice coughing a lot and sense the inability to breathe effectively/ feel like you're choking. Some weeks later, due to bronchiolic damaging, you might suffer infections (bronchiolitis), which can be fatal. However you'll once again notice this by feeling ill, having high temperature etc... Tell the physicians that you've been exposed to nitrous oxides if you get hospitalised.

Some articles:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...4&blobtype=pdf

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...0&blobtype=pdf

[john lee]

Originally Posted by X-ray Cat

Nitric acid is a clear fuming liquid and definetly not a salt/powder/crystal at normal room temperature.

Distilling nitric is fairly easy if you've got sulfuric acid and nitrate salts. A destilation rig is adviseable but other then that a lot of methods will work fine. Just be aware that these fumes are highly corrosive and seriously dislike metals and rubber. You'll have to be carefull that the corrosion does not end up in your end product thereby contamintatin it and you'll probably have to replace any rubber or metal parts of your improvised setup after a couple of batches. If there are any question about improvised or normal procedures let me know! peace!

PS john lee, the typical yellow stains you've experienced are indd quite common when handling the acid and will somehow always turn up on your fingers (leaks, tiny drops, etc). However, don't shit yourself if they show up. You're just fucking up a tiny layer of your skin and it will come off after a week like a callus. If you see yellow stains, wash that part of your body with water and put some bicarbonate powder on it for some time, rub it in. Then wash again and you'll be fine.

What's scarier though is the effect of the nitrous oxides on your body. If you're exposed for a long time (had it a couple of times) you'll feel nauseous (spelled right??) and experience breathing problems (like you can barely inhale enough air to suport your needs). This happens fairly easy because you will be unable to smell the gasses after several minutes of exposure. Relax and stay calm is very important, also stay away from more fumes! Sit yourself down somewhere outside with someone close to you. The feeling might last 1 or 2 hours. If your condition gets worse go to a hospital. I've experienced this 2 times. One time i got very nauseous and went outside for a couple of hours.. Felt better after some minutes outside. Second time I experienced shortness of breath. I was inhaling very deep like but felt like the air didn't do anything. I stayed away from the gasses, sat myself down and felt better after 2 scary hours. If you're are experiencing any symptoms, be sure someone is nearby or call someone over to help you in case you pass out. If you are coughing a lot or if your sputum contains pus or brown coloured spit also go to a hospital. Pulmonary Edema will be the acute cause of death if the gas is inhaled, so you'll notice coughing a lot and sense the inability to breathe effectively/ feel like you're choking. Some weeks later, due to bronchiolic damaging, you might suffer infections (bronchiolitis), which can be fatal. However you'll once again notice this by feeling ill, having high temperature etc... Tell the physicians that you've been exposed to nitrous oxides if you get hospitalised.

Some articles:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...4&blobtype=pdf

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...0&blobtype=pdf

Nitric acid is not in anyway easy to make,i know as i've made it without lab equipment,it's not recommended that anyone even tries,unless you have a lab that has all the safty stuff.
Nitrogen dioxide (the red fumes) can kill you without you even knowing,untill it's to late,this can take 7 days and by then it's to late.
The fumes smell like bleach and after a while you become used to the smell(you can't smell it anymore) If you can no longer smell the fumes,then you're in DIG trouble as you've already passed the safty limit and are now heading for a slow death.
Nitric acid (fumming) MUST NOT be added/mixed with any metal that sticks to a magnet,it can become explosive.
I would recommend that nitric acid should not be used by people,unless they have full respect for it and all the safty infomation/equipment needed.

[xkdjs]

you should be able to make it from Potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid
this is a start when i can confirm it and fully balance the equation i will tell you

wikipedia
"In laboratory, nitric acid can be made from copper(II) nitrate or by reacting approximately equal masses of potassium nitrate (KNO3) with 96% sulfuric acid (H2SO4), and distilling this mixture at nitric acid's boiling point of 83 °C until only a white crystalline mass, potassium hydrogen sulfate (KHSO4), remains in the reaction vessel. The obtained red fuming nitric acid may be converted to the white nitric acid.

H2SO4 + KNO3 → KHSO4 + HNO3

The dissolved NOx are readily removed using reduced pressure at room temperature (10-30 min at 200 mmHg or 27 kPa) to give white fuming nitric acid. This procedure can also be performed under reduced pressure and temperature in one step in order to produce less nitrogen dioxide gas."

is this what you want and to turn it form gas to liquid you could sent the gas into a beaker in an ice bath, maby, do this in a well ventilated area or with a respirator.

[X-ray Cat]

Dude, it IS easy to make. Basicly mixing sulfuric acid and a nitrate salt and heating it is not a difficult procedure.. It's a pain in the butt and time consuming, sure, aggree with that, but it is surely not difficult. All you have to do is construct something that condenses the acid and caches it.

Brainfever has in incredibly easy setup:
Brainfever's Explosives

however, when i clicked it the pictures where gone but you don't need that to understand.

Just put a small beaker inside a big beaker and let the small beaker stand on something to level it a bit or to keep it from floating. Then add the acid - nitrate salt mix to the big beaker. Put a plastic foil loosly over the beaker and lock it with ruber band so that the mid of the foil is bending down a bit into the centre beaker and put ice on this layer.

Now gently heat the beaker till it starts dripping et voila. That is NOT difficult.

Plus READ the articles I posted before saying stuff like "it will kill you on the 7th day and it'll be too late". Doesn't work that way. Don't put down ghost stories here. Fooling around with this stuff is fun and exciting and as long as done safely (ALWAYS OUTSIDE OR PROFFESIONAL FUME HOOD) you will be fine. Wear old clothes and be carefull for leaks and drops. Little tip, don't be near the setup constantly. Just let it be a bit once you see it is stable. I've had accidents wherein i've had clouds of NOx up my face due to doing stuff inside. always do outside and as soon as you don't smell gasses anymore GO AWAY from the setup!

PS:
You can also produce white fuming nitric using nitrate salts and sulfuric acid, hower you probably will need a setup. Without the setup it'll still be possible but difficult. You can use wine bottle vacuum air extractors for making improvised setups aswel as normal lab setups vacuum. It's easier than buying a vacuum adapter, waterpump, gaswashbottle etc. Here is a picture of one: http://images.buzzillions.com/images...542474_raw.jpg

Can't tell the actual size now but it the vacuum stopper easily fits in: wine bottles ofcourse lol, and lab flask necks size NS 26 i guess.. will have to check.

Oh i re-checked your post john lee, that stuff you wrote about "as soon as you don't smell it you're heading for slow death" is straight out BULLSHIT. You'll actually kinda quickly stop smelling the fumes. This does not mean that you are dying, nor even close to it. However, you are indd exceeding normal dosis and you should go away from the setup for a while till you are ok again. Then go back and check if there's a way you can limit the gass leaking. If not, keep it running but stay away if not necessary.

[john lee]

Post re-checked and here's the BULLSHIT!
Nitrogen dioxide poisoning (lung edema) tends to appear several hours after one has inhaled a low but potentially fatal dose,also,low concentrations (4ppm) will anesthetize the nose,this creating a potential for overexposure.
Nitrogen dioxide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nitric acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you can't smell the gase,how do you know it's not there? Hence you are in danger.

Safety (MSDS) data for nitrogen dioxide
Safety (MSDS) data for nitric acid (concentrated)

Good luck with your "kinda quickly stop smelling the fumes" and running away from them! John.

[Hetfield]

I kinda have to agree with john here xray, The information shared here could seiriously injure an inexpeirinced person.

To greatly exadurate the danger (Even if it's not completley exadurated), Has to be better than saying making nitric acid is easy.

Not trying to play devils advocate here, I just think that anyone could use this information and really fuck themselves up.

[X-ray Cat]

Yea you guys are right, no-one should touch explosives. They can and will kill you. I'm wrong, i've only had several semi NOx poisenings in my life, have no idea what i'm talking about. *sighs*

[john lee]

Originally Posted by X-ray Cat

Yea you guys are right, no-one should touch explosives. They can and will kill you. I'm wrong, i've only had several semi NOx poisenings in my life, have no idea what i'm talking about. *sighs*

I'm not saying you do not know your stuff,but others may not know the risk involved when making Nitric acid,or using nitric acid to make other chemicals/nitrates.It would be best to know the dangers before the experiment and not after.
I've also had a lung full of Nitrogen dioxide and as you know is nasty stuff.
I checked the msds after,lets hope others check it before and know that the danger is still there,even if you can't smell it.Cheers John.
A handy tip is to have at hand a solution of bicarbonate of soda,if you do spill any nitric acid on your hands etc.Wash with the solution untill the yellow stains turn orange.

[X-ray Cat]

yea, that bicarbonate is not unadviseable indd.. However, the dangers of usage and producing nitric acid have been pointed out to the limits now and it actually is going a bit over board. If you have no experience with it, just try it but be carefull. It's not as bad as nerve- or chlorine gas but it's also not air-refreshment spray. You won't die from a wif. But constant wiffs will make you ill and continuing this will damage the lung. The death you where talking about that might occur 7 days or weeks later isn't acute and will be an infection caused by lungdamage. This will very probably be cure-able but should ofcourse be avoided, lol.

[john lee]

Originally Posted by X-ray Cat

yea, that bicarbonate is not unadviseable indd.. However, the dangers of usage and producing nitric acid have been pointed out to the limits now and it actually is going a bit over board. If you have no experience with it, just try it but be carefull. It's not as bad as nerve- or chlorine gas but it's also not air-refreshment spray. You won't die from a wif. But constant wiffs will make you ill and continuing this will damage the lung. The death you where talking about that might occur 7 days or weeks later isn't acute and will be an infection caused by lungdamage. This will very probably be cure-able but should ofcourse be avoided, lol.

You've not seen my picture album then,i got burnt making silver nitrate.It was not one of my good days and i was left with blue/green silver nitrate.I tryed the copper bar in battery topup water to make silver sponge,this was dryed and re nitrated and i still have blue/green crystals,i was well pissed off.I gave up in the end.

SIDE NOTE.Back in the 80's drug dealers used the English 2p 1p and 1/2p as weights,these were shrunk in nitric acid so buyers received there drugs under weight.A nice bit of usless infomation,unless they still use the old type scales!

[Vortex]

I know of some distillation processes, not for chemicals though.
most of the stuff I want to make like- Styphnates-(Magnesium Styphnate, Manganous styphnate) and RDX. all require concentrated Nitric Acid in the synth.
as pure as possible calling for 98-100%. you cant buy this high of a grade.
I was wondering if anyone knows a good distilling process or weblink
that tells how to concentrate Nitric Acid from the usual ACS grade (70%) to
make it 98-100%.

[X-ray Cat]

Isn't this talked about over a million times on this forum?? Distill your nitric!! mix 2/3 sulfuric with 1/3 nitric and distill it. Vacuum will give you better product plus an easier distilling process. You can probably get your nitric up somewhere in the 90% without vacuum though, but to get creme de la creme you'd have to lower the pressure so the boiling point drops and less nitric will break down.. Using spikecolums with vacuum is said to get even better product.

However for RDX you could, if i remember right from my own experience, use the red fuming crappy nitric acid as long as you've done a good job at distilling it (high concentration). Shitty yields though.

Question do you have a distilling rig or can you obtain one?

Next time SEARCH

[Vortex]

If it is talked about here, I did'nt see in the stickys, but I dont have
a distillation rig. I was trying to look online how to make one or see about buying one.
do you know a weblink where there is illustrations of distill rigs?

about the Red fuming nitric acid, were you saying that would be good enough to
use for RDX, or that should be distilled more pure also.

[X-ray Cat]

If i remember right i did use it once but it wasn't a blazing succes.. Red fuming can be pretty well concentrated but just contaminated because nitric acid breaks down on heating on high temperatures. If you're distilling it, try heating it as least as possible. So keep the gastemperature as close to 83 as possible (think that is the boiling point of nitric under normal atmospheric pressure). If you're distilling under vacuum, you'd have a boiling point of around 60 degrees..

setup:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...stillation.PNG



NOTE to all:
I went to a lab shop today and my eyes started flickering on a bottle that said "concentrated nitric acid". I already have a whole jerican in my garden with nitric but that's just 53% (25 litre, 30 euros). So i grabbed the bottle and bought the whole damn litre for 17.50. As excited as i was, i went to check at home (should have thought of this earlier) how heavy it was so i put the whole bottle on the scale.

THE GODDAMN BOTTLE (whole thing including container) having 1 litre of nitric weighed 1410 grams. This comes down to a specific weight of 1.40 or even less. This is about 50-60 % nitric acid. And faaaaar away from the "CONCENTRATED" YIPPEEAAYAAAY as i'd expected. How on earth do these freaks even dare to call this bottle of crap that could aswell have been in my urine concentrated!? Rrrrrrrraaaaagh... This concludes my advice for today. If a bottle says "concentrated" it might as well be 50%.

[numerator]

i had the same thing happen with a bottle of sulfuric acid. it said "concentrated" and when i checked it all out at home it came in at just under 60%

[Vortex]

X-Ray,,thanks for that link, you're also the one who helped me out to detonate ANFO
I did what you said, made the AP blasting cap bigger, pressed it. and really digged the charge in. the 500 grams detonated big and sweet. blowing just enough stones out of the
stone wall for me to use, for landscaping. thanks for that advice too.
out of curiousity,,whats the biggest blast you ever did, and with what H E?

[X-ray Cat]

i've had 5 kilo fuckups but to my opinion those do not count. Therefor i'd say my biggest is or the 1.5 kg tovex + 1.5 kg anfo, or just 2 kg ANFO. Can't go up much there. I live in one of the most dense populated countries of the world so hard to find good blastingspots.

Remember, that setup is for a vacuum. It will work without it though but in every case there most be the possibility of air flowing out of the setup on the receiver flask. Plus a nice tip in the liebig cooler you see in the pictures. U usually connect that to a water tap and spoil water like hell. However, i usually connected it to an aquariumpump in a bucket with ice-water. Is damn handy . And i use winebottle stoppers to add vacuum:
http://www.nonplusultra.nl/productaf...wine-saver.jpg

There are some risks involved with vacuumdistilling though. You can have bumps in the distilling flask and the glass might collapse if you suck out too much pressure while having little star-cracks in your glass

[headcase]

Merged. Less posty more searchy.

[X-ray Cat]

I wanted to add some general information about azeotropes.
On heating sulfuric acid which you'll use for concentrating nitric you'll get a maximum concentration of 93,3% sulfuric when heating it to 338 degrees celsius. This DOES mean that you'll until you've reached the azeotrope level, be evaporating large amounts of sulfuric acid aside from water (thats why the fumes will get thick and white), which is poisenous, bad for the environment and will serve our needs . 93,3% Is not that much but itll be tiptop for distilling nitric though. The sulfuric acid binds way stronger to the water in the mixes than the nitric so you'll be able to distill concentrations nitric up to 98%.
Concentration of Sulfuric Acid


The azeotrope level for nitric acid will be 68% at 120 degrees celsius. Same goes for sulfuric, if you'll heat it to this level you'll puff out heaps of nitric acid vapours which is not "nice".. However, it IS a good way for concentrating your nitric before you run a distilling setup to drive off water whenever you're starting out with a lower concentration.. in my case 53%

Concentration of Nitric Acid

peace

[AgentApoc]

A pretty cheap, simple, and effective setup would be to buy a retort. They run for 38$ at united nuclear. Also to remove NOx gasses from your nitric you simply need to add urea, I believe it's around 1 part urea for 100 parts nitric.
Also, here's a link to the retorts: United Nuclear - Laboratory Glassware
Scroll down and you'll see them.

[X-ray Cat]

Can anyone also tell me in what percentages i should mix my nitric and sulfuric acid when vacuum distilling? I usually do 1 nitric to 2 sulfuric in volumes but when i just googled i found some mails talking about 1 nitric per 1 sulfuric. I work with about 68% nitric and 93% sulfuric btw, so i someone knows whats best, please enlighten me!

I also once saw some text saying that you won't even need very concentrated sulfuric acid for the job as sulfuric acid is VERY dehydrating. Anyone able to tell me the minimum concentration? I think it was somewhere around 80% or so..

[AgentApoc]

Originally Posted by X-ray Cat

Can anyone also tell me in what percentages i should mix my nitric and sulfuric acid when vacuum distilling? I usually do 1 nitric to 2 sulfuric in volumes but when i just googled i found some mails talking about 1 nitric per 1 sulfuric. I work with about 68% nitric and 93% sulfuric btw, so i someone knows whats best, please enlighten me!

I also once saw some text saying that you won't even need very concentrated sulfuric acid for the job as sulfuric acid is VERY dehydrating. Anyone able to tell me the minimum concentration? I think it was somewhere around 80% or so..

You need to use 1 part nitric to 2 parts sulfuric. As for the conc. of the acid, I think it's around 80% too, but I would use 98% just to be sure.

[X-ray Cat]

I always use the 93% from boiling down. Whenever I buy sulfuric acid it's 96% but i use that for the synths .

But over here everyone is mixing 1 part sulfuric with 1 part nitric and getting the same results!: Nitric acid (Arno Hahma; Barry Ornitz; Norman L. Reitzel; Steven R Faber)

[AgentApoc]

This guy tried it with 1:1 and his nitric wasn't concentrated after distillation: Concentrating nitric acid report [Archive] - The Explosives and Weapons Forum