Chemical Forums
Specialty Chemistry Forums => Citizen Chemist => Topic started by: peterspm on May 24, 2018, 12:04:10 PM
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i have 4 l of spring water, 200 ml clear concentrated HCL (muriatic acid), and 20-100 ml clear concentrated sulfuric acid (H2S04). is there a way to turn the sulfuric acid to nitric acid so i have aqua regia?
total newbie
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No.
And in general playing with concentrated acids when you have no idea what you are doing is a poor concept.
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Not without performing true alchemy - sulfuric acid is composed of hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur atoms, whereas nitric acid contains hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. You'd have to turn sulfur intro nitrogen, which is nuclear physics not chemistry!
Serious point - if you are a total noob you should be extremely careful handling the acids you are talking about. Before you proceed you should try to speak to someone with more experience about what you are doing. Why do you want to form aqua regia? Strong acids like hydrochloric and sulfuric will eat through a lot of things (including skin, bone, lungs...) so you need to take real, well thought-out precautions.
I'm sure members of this forum will be happy to discuss health and safety matters with you to make sure you don't do any damage.
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Aside from the usual hazards of working with concentrated mineral acids, aqua regia releases poisonous gases like chlorine and nitrogen dioxide, and should really only be used in a fume food rated for that kind of work. Please don't play around with this kind of thing at home, especially if you don't know what you are doing.
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i definitely would get an experienced chemist to do it, i just wanted to know if it were possible.
but thank you all for the warnings, i will heed to this advice.
thank you all.
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@OP
I suggest you heed to the suggestions posted above about not messing around with strong acids until you get some experience. As someone with a nuclear engineering and physics degrees i am often tempted to say "yeah yeah i heard all of these warnings before and i am still alive after messing with very nasty s#*$ before" but truth being told even I wear a full face shield with a respirator and rubber gloves that go above my elbow when messing with some of the things in my garage. The problem with strong acids is not how nasty they are, but rather how quickly a reaction can get out of control and spill / spray nasty things all over the place.
There is nothing wrong with experimenting with strong acids or bases. Drain cleaners are often 90%+ sulphuric acid. Lye is a very strong base. Both are very easily accessible over the counter in any food store. BUT until you know exactly what you are doing, you should try to dilute the strong acids in water (carefully) and then use the dilute acids for actual experiment reactions.