Re: Argyrotype chemistry


Philippe Monnoyer (Philippe.Monnoyer@ulg.ac.be)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 10:25:27 +0100


At 19:28 10/03/99 +1300, you wrote:
>I have major difficulty getting silver nitrate because of bureacratic
>restrictions on general sales of chemicals. The cost too is way over the
>top.
>
>How do I make it easily ? I can get nitric, sulphuric, hydrochloric acids
>and sod hydroxide readily and I expect silver metal. My basic chemistry's a
>bit rusty but I still remember the basic of filtration & titration etc..

A simple way is to dissolve metallic silver into nitric acid. After
complete dissolution, evaporate the resulting solution (warning: acid
vapors, do it outside or under an old vacuum exhaust) until silver nitrate
remains as crystals at the bottom of your beaker.
Afterwards you can redissolve it in a bit of water and again re-evaporate
to remove acidity abit further.
Another final step would be, after the redissolution, to add a non-solvant
to the solution, so that very pure silver nitrate would precipitate. This
silver nitrate could then be filtered and stored. The point is that I don't
remember by heart which non-solvant to use :-)

Have fun,

Philippe

---------------------------------------------------------------
Philippe Monnoyer, Ph.D.
Centre Spatial de Liege
Avenue du Pre-Aily
Parc Scientifique du Sart-Tilman
B-4031 Angleur
Belgium

Voice: +32 4 367 66 68
Fax: +32 367 56 13
E-mail: Philippe.Monnoyer@ulg.ac.be
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