Make Nitric Acid by Thermal Decomposition of Copper Nitrate

In this video we the thermal decomposition of copper to directly produce nitric acid without using any other acid.

Normally to make nitric acid you react a nitrate salt with a strong acid like sulfuric acid. But what if we wanted to make it without any acids at all? Copper nitrate has the interesting property that if it's heated it will decompose into nitrogen dioxide and oxygen, two components needed for nitric acid. Best of all copper nitrate itself can be made with domestically available that don't require acid either.

First calcium ammonium nitrate is boiled with calcium hydroxide to produce pure calcium nitrate. This is done only to remove ammonia and not necessary if calcium nitrate can be obtained directly. Calcium ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer. The resulting calcium nitrate is reacted with copper sulfate which is available as a root killer. The resulting copper nitrate solution and calcium sulfate are filtered and the copper nitrate is boiled to remove most of the water until it starts to change color to green/blue.

The copper nitrate is then hooked up a distillation apparatus and heated until it decomposes. The nitrogen dioxide gas produced is lead into water to dissolve. The nitric acid produced is then purified by distillation. Yield is between 60%-80%

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