Chemical Forums

Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: Maverick on June 09, 2011, 03:12:38 PM

Title: Interesting reaction
Post by: Maverick on June 09, 2011, 03:12:38 PM
Today i did something stupid, i was going to make copper nitrate solution using HNO3 and Cu, so i put copper in HNO3. and then i grabbed an unlabeled(learned my lesson) wash bottle which i thought contained water but it contained acetone. so only after i mixed i realized it was acetone, but afterwards an interesting reaction insued it bubbled furiosly and NOx gases where evolved but the gases didnt have a smell of NOx gases kind of smelled like acetic acid i have no idea what this could be and haven't found a ton of references
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: Arkcon on June 09, 2011, 07:51:02 PM
I'd read in an old text book that you can get a variety of nitrogen oxides, from NO2, N2O4 and even the fun N2O from copper in nitric acid.  What it depended on was the concentration of the nitric acid.  You may be able to find a reference to this in Pauling's Chemistry (mine isn't handy, so I can't check).  I don't know what the acetone did, so I can't say what happened there.  The safe (um, safer) way to get copper nitrate is to start with copper oxide or carbonate, and use dilute nitric acid.
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: Borek on June 10, 2011, 04:34:42 AM
Nitric acid is a strong oxidizing agent, some amount of carboxylic acids (including acetic) between products of acetone oxidation doesn't sound completely off.
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: Maverick on June 10, 2011, 11:43:24 AM
Quote from: Borek on June 10, 2011, 04:34:42 AM
Nitric acid is a strong oxidizing agent, some amount of carboxylic acids (including acetic) between products of acetone oxidation doesn't sound completely off.

Hmmm... interesting i will look into this
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: billnotgatez on June 10, 2011, 01:06:02 PM
so an OH replaces one of the CH3 on the acetone?
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: Borek on June 10, 2011, 04:31:00 PM
That's my guess. But this reaction is probably a mess, with many different products possible at the same time, as how far oxidation goes depends on how fast they left the mixture (if they are still in the mixture and in the presence of acid, they can get oxidized further).
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: billnotgatez on June 11, 2011, 01:32:25 PM
I would think they should avoid do a smell test on it.
Title: Re: Interesting reaction
Post by: Maverick on June 11, 2011, 09:39:21 PM
I in know way performed a smell test willingly. I was about ten feet away and caught the the scent of acetic acid