How To: Make nitric acid

Watch this science video tutorial from Nurd Rage on how to make nitric acid. They show three ways to make nitric acid based on two different chemical approaches, both of which can be done using easily accessible materials.

Warning: The procedures in this video produce large quantities of toxic gases and deal with highly corrosive acids. All work must be performed in a fume hood with proper safety equipment. And all apparatus must be glass to withstand the acids.

Chemically, nitric acid is made by bubbling nitrogen dioxide into water. So the objective in this approach is to generate nitrogen dioxide. This can be done by reacting hydrochloric acid, a nitrate salt and copper. Around 80-grams of sodium nitrate, over 30-grams of copper and 100-mL of hydrochloric acid are the quantities needed. The exact amount isn't critical. For useable concentrations, the amount of water being converted should be small, around 20-50-mL.

Any source of nitrate is usable including potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and even nitrate-based fertilizers.

The tricky part now is leading the gas into water. Two approaches are shown in the video. In the first approach three containers, such as jars are place inside each other to force the gas to go into the water. This is very inefficient but is very simple to do.

The better approach is to lead the gas out of the generator through a tube and into a chilled container of water.

The last way of making pure nitric acid is to react concentrated sulfuric acid and a pure nitrate salt (NOT fertilizer) and heat it in a glass distillation apparatus to distill over the pure nitric acid. Stochiometric quantities of both reagents are recommended for maximum yield.

Brought to you by one of WonderHowTo's favorite scientists NurdRage.